I am a short story guy and had been writing short stories for many years. Unfortunately a lot of what I have written has gone missing over the years but putting that aside, I had wanted to write a lengthy story for a long time.

Being so used to short stories I found it difficult to motivate myself to write something quite long. In 2011 I took on the NaNoWriMo challenge to achieve the one thing I really wanted to do. NaNoWriMo  challenges writers to write 50,000 words in just one month. That one month takes place each and every November. There is a huge Nano community so taking this on I hoped would provide me with the motivation to sit down and write that lengthy story. 

October 30th 2011 and I had three story ideas to choose from. I would take one of these ideas and hopefully write those 50,000 words in just thirty days. Right away I thought I had a problem. The idea I liked the least is the one I went with only because out of those three ideas I had in mind on October 30th 2011, the one I liked least was the one I thought would be most likely to reach a minimum of 50,000 words.

I went with that least liked idea and on October 31st 2011 I brainstormed as much as I could to prepare for that month ahead. I was and still am a pantzer. I do plan stories sometimes but mostly I start with something, a basic idea and take it form there though if I were to succeed in reaching the magic 50,000 in thirty days then I needed to prepare something.

I won't go through what I came up with, or what from my prep I actually used or what I did not use, safe to say by the end of November 2011 I had my 50,000 words. Just about at that too. I reached my target plus fifty five words more and had a complete story, start to finish.

Over the years that followed I went through that story and attempted to improve it and by July 2017 the word count had grown to approximately 74,500 words. I had my lengthy story. As I write this I have a number of lengthy stories though this one is the first of such.

That idea I didn't really like became a story that I now seriously love. Now with a re-posting starting date of September first, 2021, I have a new and what I consider to be a tenth anniversary edition of the tale which now exceeds 110,000 words and I am ever so glad that this is an adventure in which I entered myself into.

So if you have a look at this story I hope you enjoy it. This story is ... THE PATHFINDER MISSION.