I'm taking a break from Sterlings, mostly because the Emma & Jacie story is already begging for the re-write even though I haven't gotten to the major crisis, and that's always a danger point for me in writing. The story has to be finished before I allow myself to re-write or I'm not going to be happy with the progress ever, so I've stopped myself from re-writing, but I don't want to proceed quite yet. I had a brilliant inspiration into what's wrong with the opening chapters of Sterlings: Polly & Zia which comes down to one sentence in my notebook: "Dammit, Polly's just not angry enough in chapter two!"
But, having put all that aside, the Muse came up to me in the guise of a bald-headed young woman with a serious attitude and a complexifyingly rare situation for the Journal Entries. Our heroine, despite being over two centuries old, was turned into an artificial life form at age fourteen and her algorithms have never matured the way they would have in biology. And then her real-world estate, such as it is, inherits the estate of her recently deceased mother-- and her mother's starship.
"But how will I get back to my sarcocity?"
"You can hire a guide if you need one. They're much cheaper than lawyers, I assure you. Good day." With that, a bowl-shaped hat of red felt materialized in his hand. He placed it on his head and walked down the empty passageway, disappearing around the corner, leaving Jess alone in the airlock cylinder.
"Stick your linear navigator on an analog scope and suck it!" she shouted at the empty space he had left behind. "Glider spaz! R-Pento! Barberpole! Brick!" She angrily turned to face the airlock. "Fine," she said, taking a deep breath. "Let's see what mother left for me."
The whole story'll be about 5000 words, take a week to write, and another to clean up. I might just drop it out immediately for fun, rather than giving it the usual year-long fermentation period.
It's definitely comfort writing: the conflict is simple, the outcome involves sex, and there's little promise of there being more to the story than just getting Jessinica laid.