WIP Update - Space Fire and Rescue

I decided to add a new series of posts to the blog this year.  These posts will detail my works in progress, or WIPs.  I’m not going into details on plot or characters, but I will offer insight into how the story came about, where it may be going, and how close I feel it is to completion. 


Tentative title: Rescue and Fire Station 5 (Short story series)

Original concept: The local solar system has received colonizing efforts, with space stations and domes on other planets.  Now, the same way that cities need fire and rescue facilities, so do the space stations, colonies, and intrasystem ships.  We follow one character from recruit to office work.

Draft version: First
Present word count: “The First Mission” - 7421 words (in editing sessions)
                                  “ Lost among the Freight” - 2976 words (incomplete)
                                  “Fire control” - 2351 words (incomplete)
                                  “Summoned” - 988 words (incomplete)

Writing process:
The concept for this series comes from my childhood.  I can’t believe it really does come from that far back, but it does.  Way back when I was five, my life’s goal was to become a firefighter.  We lived within a mile of the local fire station.  As a teen, I could tell you what equipment rolled based just on their siren.  Now that I’m older, I have more sense than wanting to run into a burning building, but I still find comfort living within walking distance of the local fire company. 

The actual concept probably started in the back of my head in 2001 after the attacks in New York and Washington, but I didn’t actually put it on paper until 2009.  Originally it was one story, but I decided to expand it to a series when the ideas kept flowing.  In the story, “Fire Control,” they face an issue that could overwhelm even the strongest firefighter, and one I imagine may mirror the issues those in the Pentagon felt as they fought the destruction there.

The work has never gone through a major “must write” session like the previous WIP I listed.  This one flowed each time I opened the file, however, so I can’t complain.  Because this is a short story, I don’t have as extensive of a writer’s book on the concept, though with it expanding to a series of stories, I expect that will change. 

I could jokingly state that the sound track is the fire engines when they roll through our neighborhood or each time I hear them leave the station.  In reality, any music playing tends toward this series’s soundtrack.  I’ve not searched out songs about fire trucks or fire fighters.  Any suggestions would be welcome.


Future expectations:
My first step through all this is to get it within the pages of a publication as a short story.  If things work as I’d like them to, I will publish the first couple, then combine them into a novel I can sell to publishers with the readership established with the magazine stories.  It’s the old fashioned way to write, but it is how I want to try it.