Hello, my name is Aaron and I'm addicted to short stories.
I finished writing my last short story on Saturday, but I've worked on two more since then. I need help.
Seriously...if I want to do this writing thing, I should invest some time writing longer work, novels. I started writing with a novel, a 80K word dark urban fantasy (The Last Days of the Springdale Saints), currently out there in submission land. But there are a lot of rejections in submission land, especially for an unpublished novelist. Agents click 'delete' faster than you can say "Jack Sprat".
So, I tried my first few short stories. Type type type, send send send. I woke up one Saturday to an acceptance email. And they even paid me (only twenty bucks, but hey, thats enough to write more short stories, right?). I've been hooked since. Short stories are like those little mini candy bars. One more won't hurt, right?
The danger of this addiction: I'm afraid to dive back into novel land. I've been kicking around some ideas, letting them age a bit, adding to them here or there. But I don't feel ready for the time/emotional commitment that writing a novel takes.
There's always November.
6 comments:
great post. I know how you feel. Like there is no respect for the short story writer, only the novelist is worthy of praise buy the public in general. Bah! Keep writing the short. Love it, live it, embrace it as your own. some of the best writers of the 20th century never wrote anything of any length, but they excelled in what they did write.
It's always good to let ideas for novels ferment - and when you're ready to write it you'll know.
However, short stories make life more interesting - at least something happens in that world. :)
I hear you. I was supposed to go back to my novel months ago!
The silver lining is that writing all those shorts made be a better writer. This in turn pointed out many many flaws in my novel. So don't worry, when the time is right your brain will start straining at the bit to go into novel mode.
The rest of the group says,
"HELLO, AARON."
I'm the opposite. I had waaay too many novels going and decided to try short stories for a while. All this has really done is cause me to sub more material while working on novels.
When November begins, that will make 4 novels I have going...sheesh.
I'm looking at November. Thinking...sure, I could do that...maybe...I hope.
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