I’ve been dividing my time lately between editing all the chapters of Robot Awareness that I’ve written, and writing new material. Most of that new material is coming in the form of short stories.

So I’m happy to say that I’m nearly finished with my 10,000-word story, The Sand Runner. I couldn’t have told you how long it would be before today; but now I can, because I only have the ending to finish.

What’s The Sand Runner about? It’s basically the story of a woman training to be a military ultra-runner scout, on a desert planet where earth’s forces are fighting an alien named the Veraqui. The caveat is that a dampening field surrounding the planet nullifies any technology, so the fighting is fairly primitive. But our main character, Gina, discovers the Veraqui may have a weapon that operates in the field. The war may depend on her getting the information to her superiors without her enemy killing her, or worse: capturing her.

Gina is one of my favorite characters I’ve created, because I think she’s very real. She’s driven but full of self-doubt. She’s not the best of the best; in fact, she’s one of the worst in her training class. But she has the heart to keep going, no matter how tough things get. It’s not a story about how she keeps training to become the best; it’s that she trains to become her best, and has to hope that’s good enough.

So, the story should be finished soon. Look for this in early 2015!