And thus my first-ever novella is completed. (Making it my thirteenth story)
I'm very pleased with actually getting a story to stay under the 40,000 word limit considering my first "short story" hit 497,000 words. My second attempt at a short story was in response to a prompt, which hit 127,000 words (which, ironically, happens to be A Starship called Starsong, which this novella is based on).
I've been wanting to write this idea for some time, and the Open Novella Contest seemed like a perfect occasion since the story idea was too small for an entire novel.
A huge thank you to everyone who helped me catch errors and polish this story into something that flows better (there were quite a few of you who helped as I posted the new chapters - thank you as well!)
A big thank you to all the readers who spotted typos and flagged them for me! (There are too many to name, but I appreciated each one of you!)
Please give a round of applause to my main editors: FireAlwaysReturns, Kittychan89, decadentduck, Heartfire_Ace, BookWyrm11, Repeat932, Misain, JacksonRop2442, and Hippopatacampus - who helped me sort out my persistent typos and questionable grammar as we polished it up for posting.
Also a huge thank you to wingedalpha for helping me with my cover background, and SayWatt74 for the cover font and some alterations!
Some statistics on the story:
This was my thirteenth story (and first novella!)
Writing time: 8 days (Lots of free time. Very rough draft)
First chapter posted on: February 27th, 2024 (updated Tuesdays and Thursdays)
Completed: March 28th, 2024.
~26,400 words (54 pages in a Word document – single-spaced)