Short Story or Novel?

I've been writing fiction for about a year and a half. The fist six months were golden -- I was writing almost every day, working on a novel. I knew it was just a practise novel and would never get published, but I was having fun and I spent quite a lot of time working out the plot and the characters and building a world. In other words, I felt it had enough merit to kep me moving. I was about a third of the way through it by last January (at about 100 pages).

Then I started reading the odd author's website and checkd out a few writing forums (not these ones) and decided to follow the seemingly practical advice to start writing short stories because it's the best way to break into publishing.

The trouble is, I don't think I'm very good at writing short stories. For some reason I can't seem to get a handle on them -- I have lots of ideas and I spend ages working out plotlines and characters, but for some reason the wordcount limitations seem to cramp my style. I think that's because I love to get into my character's heads a lot, and in short fiction that's not really possible. I've managed to finish a small number of shorts, and one in particular is reasonably good, I think, but my writing has become very slow and sporadic and I am not writing with the eagerness I felt when I was working on the novel. I just can't seem to distill a story into a readable short, I have a lot of unfinished stories, and I'm getting frustrated with myself.

Does it make sense to spend a year writing a novel, or would it be better to keep on trying to master short stories? And -- are there publlished writers who write good novels but can't write shorts? Does anyone here feel that they are more suited to novel writing than short story writing? I guess what I'm asking is whether my inability to pump out short stories is an indication that I can't write any story of any length, period. I think I have some small talent, but perhaps I don't have the skill.

Thanks! That's reassuring. And if nothing else I was getting a hell of a lot more practice with the novel than I am now, so I'm going to wrap up this short I'm working on and get back to those people I left hanging a year ago.

I re-read my novel draft earlier today and while I was preparing a curry for dinner I found myself mentally writing the chapter I always felt was missing from the opening. I needed an outsider to tell part of this story, and now I know who he is (he was always there, just not doing his job). I can see that I'll be busy tonight and all weekend.

Now that I've re-read it, parts of the novel are quite acceptable, even to my internal editor, but others are just plain dreadful. The latter comprises the bits I wrote right at the start. Obviously some progress was made over that six months of writing -- which is somewhat encouraging.

PeeDee said:

Um....if you'll be busy writing this new arrival into your novel...then you won't be needing the curry, will you? Only, I'd hate for good curry to go to waste.

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It's a damn fine curry (actually it's two curries -- cant really just have one). And it won't go to waste around here.

I find cooking to be a soothing and meditative activity. Making caramelized onions is worth about half an hour of pure, uninterrupted thought. Pounding whole spices with a mortar and pestle is worth another fifteen. Chopping veggies, another fifteen. Throw on some Gilmore-era Pink Floyd for background music, and you're golden for over an hour. I do some of my best thinking while I'm cooking.

I do feel that the year I've spent doing short story critiques has been valuable, but that time has also taken away from my writing time, and it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling that critique time qualifies as writing time -- which is, of course, utter hogwash. I like doing critiques, but I've probably spent as much time (or even more time) on critiques as I have on writing, and that just doesn't get the job done.

So today I return to the novel, with the chapter already almost written in my head. The goal is to write this one chapter from start to finish, today, before I go to bed, no excuses; the curry dinner I made last night entitles me to a cooking-free evening and my partner is out in a frozen marsh somewhere photographing birds.

I feel that I should not, for the moment, edit the chapters I wrote last year, because that will drop me straight down the compulsive editing mineshaft (and there is a lot of dross down there). I know exactly where I left all my characters, so after this chapter is finished I'm going to move foward.

What an interesting process this is.

I did write my chapter yesterday, and in the process found several threads worth pursuing -- in fact, they are central concepts that only this particular character could be thinking about, because he is an outsider. Pushing him into the limelight was definitely a good idea.

The basic premise of the story still stands up suprisingly well, but I've obviously learned a lot in the last year. I'll be keeping two of the five chapters I had written, but I can see where some of the weaknesses are now. The re-write is going to be fun, since I know where I'm going. I'm even fairly certain I know what's going to happen smackdab in the middle of the story.

I now remember that when I started, this was supposed to be an action-adventure fantasy. As I wrote, it turned much darker and moodier, which is the mental terrain in which I am the most comfortable as a writer. But while the story became darker, I had stubbornly clung to my original action-adventure character, and by about page 50 she had developed into a glow-in-the-dark, shameless, spike-heeled streetwalker of a Mary-Sue. She would have been wonderful in a cheeky action-adventure fantasy, but she doesn't belong in the story I was actually writing.