Forty thousand words and we’re maybe halfway there

Back in early 2015, I was thinking of writing a new book. Somewhere I heard some writing advice that a very workable concept for a story was to follow a fish out of water - have the main character experience an unfamiliar setting and the reader will get to experience the setting along with the main character. Brilliant!

Me being me, I thought to my self, "Self, what would be a greater fish out of water story than an Amish person in a sci-fi story?"

I liked the ridiculousness of that idea. I mentioned it to some friends and got some positive feedback - my old High School buddy even drew this AMAZING image:

With inspo like that, how could I not want to write the story? (Thank you Brian!)

Unfortunately, life got in the way for a few years, as it has a habit of doing... I set down my creative writing pen for quite a while...

Flash forward to March of 2021 and my beautiful baby daughter was born! She's adorable, wonderful, and also… really demanding! (As little babies are.) She loooooved to be held in those early months.

Over those many months, I started to read fiction again for fun. A Kindle is easy to read one-handed day or night - an absolute game changer for a new parent having to hold and comfort their child at all hours of the day.

So I was reading in late summer and early fall of 2021, and it inspired me to start writing again. What better place to pick back up then with this same story idea from years ago?

Things have evolved a little bit over time. Over the years my ideas for this story have changed a bit - for one thing my main character is no longer explicitly Amish. He's now a member of "The Congregation," a fictional religious community on Deimos. For another thing, I actually have an idea for an ending to the story which is something that was missing all those years ago. But overall, the general concept is largely the same. Here’s my pitch/summary as it stands now:

Jed has spent all his life living in the secluded community known as The Congregation on Mars' moon; a community that believes in living as simply as possible. Jed, however, has always dreamed of exploring the solar system and seeing all the incredible things people living out there do...
When his best friend, Betsy the cow, is mercilessly killed, Jed decides now is his time to get out and explore. As Jed finds his way around the solar system and navigating life in the unforgiving modern world, he tries his best to make friends and not enemies, to have fun and enjoy unique experiences, and, generally, to do it all without causing any trouble.

Jed does not succeed.

How to Pee in Zero G is the latest work by Nicholas W Fuller and will be released just as soon as he gets it all out of his head and onto paper.

What do you think? Would you read this story? :) Let me know in a message or on social media! :)