It feels appropriate for the New Year that Chapter 7 of Longshot, posted today, includes a conception. While its voting score continues to fluctuate towards and away from my goal/hope of 7.5 for the story, I was very pleased to see it enter the top five of SOL's weekly downloads for ongoing serials.
I'm hoping that might continue as I continue to add the dozen chapters remaining in Part I ("Flight") before I turn to the middle section of the novel ("Coast"), where most of my writing work remains.
It's also significant that with the next posted chapter of Longshot I should pass over the magical number 500, moving into SOL's premier service. While it's not the reason I've been writing, I have been curious as to what that might look like for over a decade.
Catching up with what I've posted so far, my authors notes for Chapters 6 & 7:
their fractal surfaces designed to absorb Gaia's air
Longshot's air is at half atmospheric pressure compared to Earth's surface and is composed of 20% oxygen and 30% nitrogen. In addition to saving on gas during construction, the atmosphere happens to replicate that of Gaia.
"We're amortal, not eternal."
A term coined by the author or journalist Catherine Mayer, amortality is the inability to die from illness or age.
Shortly after entering puberty I'd found an engram in Ship's archives to alter my MSTN gene.
Myostatin is the protein encoded by the MSTN gene to limit muscle growth; without it, humans and other animals grow up extremely muscular, even without exercise.