#JakSterzand
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Submitted my #RevPit form for 'Jak Sterzand' just now. What a great opportunity for writers and editors alike! 😁

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ink drawing of Jak Sterzand, a teenage boy, crawling towards the viewer in a ventilation or maintenance shaft type tunnel. His name and title of the book JAK STERZAND above him, and underneath in smaller letters, the subtitle: ESCAPE FROM FREEPORT All in black and white
March 14, 2025 at 10:32 AM
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Eris looked around. The Orange Zone expanded all around them, except toward Freeport, where large open space separated them from home. She swallowed. Freeport seemed close enough, but circumstances made it so far away. The debris field that made up this Orange Zone was fairly evenly spread out, dotted with dense pockets and large chunks of derelict spaceship wreckage. The shape of the Shatterbelt was a torus, swirling around Freeport Station at its own speed: a steady and slow 10 meters per second or so. She turned back to Jak, who had flipped himself to match her perspective. "Do you know where to go at all, Jak?" Worry tinged her voice.
February 27, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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Suddenly, a sickly sweet smell assaulted his nose. He coughed. Behind him, Eris could be heard softly cursing, no doubt smelling the same penetrating scent of sweetness. In front of them, a woman in an exquisite captain’s outfit that clung tightly to her well-shaped body stepped into their path. Leaning on one leg, she gripped her hip with her slender fingers, her other hand playing with a long, blonde braid that hung over her shoulder. She had bright red lips pursed as she studied them on their approach. A diamond-studded necklace sparkled in the corridor’s white lights.
February 14, 2025 at 4:26 PM
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Jak dialed his pocket-torch down this time and aimed at the feet of the dubious men. They lowered their hands and dared a look at the two teenagers in front of them. The two men were of average height and both looked scrawny and hunched over. Their long hair was tied back with a dirty rag, complementing the other dirty rags they were dressed in. Both wore makeshift boots, fashioned out of cloth strips tied with other cloth strips. Their eyes widened at seeing Jak and Eris. “You... You’re not from here!” one of them stammered.
February 12, 2025 at 10:45 AM
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He waited for the two to join him and from a short distance they viewed their target. Nero looked from the wreck to them and back. This was their goal? A dated, long-lost cargo drone made them come out here to a Red Zone? They had told him to look for the wreckage of a cargo drone, but he expected something more modern. Maybe even military. Faster Than Love wasn’t known for their valuable transport. If he recalled, they were mostly known for a spotty success rate of delivered shipments. Seeing one of their drones here wasn’t a big surprise in that sense.
January 25, 2025 at 10:23 AM
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From Jak Sterzand: Escape from Freeport
They arrived on Main from one of its bottom deck connections. The wide bridges looked as packed as ever, some slightly buckling under the weight of their users—or perhaps that was just wishful thinking on Jak's part. They needed to climb a few levels to reach Saul's Salvage.
January 24, 2025 at 8:52 AM
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But that was before the Three-Day Siege, long before Verstraete's birth. Three pirate captains, tired of picking off individual transports, had united their fleets and seized the station in a devastating assault that still featured in Freeport's drinking songs. Their descendants—always known simply as the Three—had ruled ever since, each generation seeming more interested in their own pleasures than maintaining the station's vital systems.
January 20, 2025 at 3:07 PM
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Saul nodded toward the Hullhound's open cargo bay. Jak's excitement bubbled as he entered. He'd been inside before, but it still felt magical—even if his older eyes saw the ship's wear. Patchwork hull plating covered projectile holes, paint chipped and faded, the grabber arm missing protective plates.
January 19, 2025 at 9:02 AM
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With the new route memorized, Jak took the lead. He guided them from cover to cover, sticking to shadow. The silence of space weighed heavy on his nerves. His tongue ran along his chapped lips, dried out by his suit's stale, recycled air. He wondered how Eris's spacesuit air tasted. Did newer models taste better? He paused at another questionable outcrop and took a deep breath. Focus. Keep your head in the game.
January 12, 2025 at 8:38 AM
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When you come across a horrible place and the last horrible place seems not so bad.
They had arrived at the widest corridor they had encountered in Old Freeport so far. There were no stable lights and the ones that worked flickered non-stop. Along both walls, slumped over, were the shadowy shapes of dozens of people. Some writhed on the floor, some heaved irregularly, spasms dictating their poses. Others didn’t move at all. The stench was at its foulest here. Rotting meat, old blood, vomit. It made Jak wish they were back in the waste disposal rooms. Eris grabbed his sleeve. When he looked at her she was shaking her head, pleading. He put a hand on hers and softly squeezed, then nodded and motioned with his head towards the end of the corridor. They had to cross.
January 11, 2025 at 9:17 AM
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"Oofsh." Jak uttered, pocket-torch complicating his speech. He looked over his shoulder at Eris, shining his light back down the tunnel. He could see her nodding off. "Eris!" He spat out the pocket-torch, and it started floating toward her, its light bouncing off walls, ceiling, and floor as it rotated and spun out of control. Eris roused and looked toward Jak, blinking at the light sporadically shining in her eyes.
January 10, 2025 at 11:56 PM
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That last query letter took up all my free time of today. But it's the best yet. Learning a lot from all of this.

Condensing your whole book in single sentence pitch is an art form by itself... 😅

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January 7, 2025 at 8:31 PM
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A small crowd had gathered around the platform’s main gate, where it stopped. They were no doubt curious what kind of person—or persons—would descend from the Three’s quarters. When the metal wire mesh gate rattled open and they were revealed, most of the people who had flocked there let out disappointed sounds and left. Some stayed and inspected Jak and Eris as they left the platform, hoping to find something interesting still. Behind them, Freeport citizens gathered on the elevator to be taken to Main’s different floors, having dismissed the two teenagers as an anomaly.
January 7, 2025 at 8:59 AM
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He shuddered. The whole ordeal was made worse by the medical bio-nanites in someone’s bloodstream. They would fight a losing battle but keep the host alive and conscious longer than anyone could wish for with that condition. Outside of Old Freeport, any infections were quickly dealt with. The person simply disappeared, never to be heard from again—either kissing the void or banished here.
January 6, 2025 at 10:54 AM
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Jak's knowledge about the Shatterbelt—a floating torus of debris, trash and spaceship wreckages around Freeport Station—stems from a crushed childhood dream of joining a scavenger team.

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He jabbed his finger back onto the poster, into the orange sector. “So some teams prefer to avoid yellows altogether. These are the more experienced teams. Saul’s team always goes to an Orange Zone, and that’s why Saul often has gems in his collection. Now, a Red Zone...” He paused, looking at the poster. “I can guess,” Eris sighed. “Dangerous, deadly, stuff like that?” Jak and Radul nodded in tandem. For a moment Eris thought they were related. “Dangerous, deadly, and more. Salvage teams avoid it altogether. It has discarded weapons systems, radioactive waste, malfunctioning drones, military or otherwise…” “Cannibals?” Eris asked sarcastically. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jak chuckled. Radul giggled.
January 5, 2025 at 12:19 PM
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A segment from the sequel I'm drafting.
There hadn’t been enough time to learn as much as she’d like—being old-tech, much of its workings were beyond modern comprehension—but she managed to memorize a few key details. Her eyes followed the curves of the shiny, silvery pipes, each thick enough to fit an adult. They met in a large, bulbous chamber, shaped like some sort of amorphous sack. A semi-transparent window—built into its side—had a soft green glow emanating from behind it. The whole thing made her think she was looking at the intestinal tract of a strange, mechanical beast. Swallowing, she took a step closer. The fine hairs on her body seemed to want to rip themselves from the sacs with every meter.
January 4, 2025 at 9:25 AM
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Captain Verstraete relies on an old-tech exoskeleton—fused to bones, muscles and nerves—to stay mobile.

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Wiping the blood from his chin with the palm of his hand, he only managed to remove the worst of it. After rubbing his hand on his sleeveless black top, he grabbed the backrest of his chair and swung it around to sit. Custom-built, the chair allowed his exoskeleton to sink into it, semi-comfortably. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept in a bed, nor did he care to. He had long accepted his reliance on the technology keeping him mobile after breaking his back in multiple places. Now that was a memory harder to forget.
January 3, 2025 at 11:56 AM
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END OF BOOK ONE

Goosebumps when I got to write that down.

It's official. Final edits are done (until I get a million rejections and am forced to rewrite the whole thing).

On to the next phase.

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January 2, 2025 at 11:24 PM
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The opening paragraphs! Rewritten and edited so many times that I'm *almost* tired of reading them 😅

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CHAPTER 1 "I'm sure he went this way!” Jak held his breath, heart hammering against his ribs. Heavy magboots thundered around the nearby corner, followed by the soft beeping of a drone scanner. He pressed himself tighter against the vent's cold metal walls. The scent of stale oil filled his nostrils, while the distant hum of station machinery overlapped his pulse. His perpetually tousled brown hair, now slick with sweat, clung to his forehead and stung his widened, green eyes. "That's what you said last time, and we wound up in a dead end," came an annoyed reply. "Shut up," a third voice cut in—deep, authoritative, and almost pleasant, if it hadn't belonged to someone who wanted to flog him.
January 2, 2025 at 1:14 PM
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Only 5 chapters to go before #amquerying! Polished 21 of 26 as best I could.

At this rate, I'll be sending out the first letters to #litagents on the 31st, my birthday 😄

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January 1, 2025 at 1:48 PM
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Vibe.

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But that was before the Three-Day Siege, long before Verstraete's birth. Three pirate captains, tired of picking off individual transports, had united their fleets and seized the station in a devastating assault that still featured in Freeport's drinking songs. Their descendants—always known simply as the Three—had ruled ever since, each generation seeming more interested in their own pleasures than maintaining the station's vital systems.
January 1, 2025 at 11:46 AM
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Managed to edit 3 chapters this morning, nullifying the lost time of past days 🥳 I can celebrate NYE without feeling stressed I was getting behind on my self-imposed schedule!

7 chapters to go before I finish the final version of my manuscript.

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December 31, 2024 at 12:31 PM
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Janett let out a regretful sigh. “And the smoothest pirate I was lucky to call a friend? Charming Clay Sterzand. What a man he was… He-... Jak? Are you okay?” He was most definitely not okay. While Eris was staring wide-eyed at her mom, he had inhaled a full spork of bean stew in a surprised gasp when Janett mentioned his father by name. At the moment, he was trying his best to dislodge a ridiculously chunky bean from his throat. When he finally managed and the record-breaking sized bean flew across the kitchen, he stared at Janett with watery eyes. “You knew my father?!” His voice was a bit hoarse from the attempted murder-by-bean.
December 31, 2024 at 9:33 AM
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The antagonist in my novel might be cooler than the protagonist. 😅 Loved writing the chapters from his POV and now loving to read and edit them.

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This guy needs art.
December 31, 2024 at 9:28 AM
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Yes, the underbelly of the space station has outcast pirate cannibals. Or are they cannibal pirates? Hm...
December 30, 2024 at 4:55 PM