I finally got around to writing a new story today, the first of the new year and the first new story I’ve written in many months. It’s a science fiction story with a working title of “If By Reason of Strength…”. I tried starting this story several months ago, but didn’t have a good grasp on it. Now I’ve worked it out in more detail, enough to where I can get it started. I wrote nearly 900 words this evening and I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got so far.

This story is a little tough in two respects:

1. I am trying to make a murderer into a sympathetic character, which is not easy to do.
2. Normally, I work out the ending of the story in my head before I ever get started, but in this case, I don’t yet know how the story is going to end. That usually doesn’t work for me; the story wanders too much if I don’t have a target at which to aim.

The important thing, however, is to write, even if what you write sucks. And I’m pretty happy with what I wrote tonight. It doesn’t suck.