Returning to my novel

I'm pleased to announce that after a two-and-half-year hiatus, I'm back to working on my science-fiction novel. To help me get back into the right mindset, I've posted two short stories in the world of novel: Mentors and Seven Flights.

Both stories are prequels written for a Wattpad contest, and I was pleased to use the contest prompts to jump back into the novel. 

"Mentors" is about the people who want to mentor main character Zach, versus the people who can actually help him.

"Seven Flights" is about Zach's father, and how his perspective changed as he traveled between his home world of Prime and the planet Arden. 

The last couple of years have been filled with a lot of non-writing activities, including two deaths in the family, a worrisome medical diagnosis, simplifying my life by decluttering and downsizing, and changing jobs. The job change -- which happened about three months ago -- had a drastic impact on my writing. I hadn't realized how much the stress and unpleasantness of the old job was affecting me, but as soon as I left that job, the words started flowing again.

Over the last couple of years I've gathered several ideas for updates to the novel, including rethinking what the role of the police would evolve into over the next few centuries. I'm looking forward to making edits over the next few months!

Wish me luck!