Ryan Leeds

Almost 15, Elena Rodriguez lives on a resort planet with exotic animals from every era. She roams with the velociraptor packs during the day to escape from her abusive, drug addict parents, while her brother remains at home to take care of them. Her biggest problem is that at 15, the planet requires you to report to the Catering District in order to keep your citizenship. Not fit to work with humans anymore, she breaks loose and tries to live with the animals completely, only to find out that even there, she's not alone.

Finished draft two of the story I wrote for my challenge. I'm going to try and get up the motivation to work on draft three, which involves much more serious editing. And by get up the motivation, I more mean stop staring at the internet and get writing. I think a scene or two is missing to connect to the end. I am slightly worried that this is a story where "things happen" rather than an actual plot, but I won't be able to tell that until I get some real critique on it.

It is definitely optimistic, linear, and full of healthy relationships, though!

I also need a better title.

I've been working on a shorter story that was originally going to be a flash fiction piece, but I'm not sure it's going to work out as a flash fiction piece. Which is fine. I need more character development to make the plot work, and I simply cannot do that in another 500 words. It'll likely still be a shorter story -- around 2,500 - 3,000 words, I'm pretty sure. I just have to figure out how said character development happens.

But basically, it boils down to the question:

What would you do if someone offered you the chance to give up everything going on it your life so that you can go on a spaceship and sail the stars? You have to go back eventually, but you can take from it what you can. A chance to fully be yourself, not confined by societal rules and what other people expect of you.

No, seriously. What would you do?