A Moment of Reflection

Why do we choose the paths we take? I plan so much of my life, I border on OCD, but when it comes to writing, story ideas, it slips away from that. Not entirely, as I plan and outline seriously before a story is drafted, but in the sense that even I know better than to plan what I’m going to write. I would say this is healthy.

But having just finished reading a thriller and picking up another one, I suddenly am questioning why I’m writing in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. I love them, I do, and it’s not that I don’t want to write them, but I should be working on the thriller ideas I’ve jotted down on paper and stashed away.

I’ve immersed myself in fantasy and science fiction short stories. Writing them, revising them, revising them again. It IS good, but that’s ALL I’ve been doing. I feel the sudden need to expand my writing horizons. Working on children’s stories is a good start and I enjoy working on those. Why aren’t I working on the thrillers?

Could I be afraid?

My last several attempts to work on the current novel in progress have failed. I need to just write it and be done with it. Throw it in the closet for a year and ignore its existance. It needs to be c0mpleted first. And working on all these short stories is distracting me. I suddenly feel like short story writing and revising (which has been my practice ground) is more like my playground. My natural tendency in writing has always been novels. Novel length complications and plots, novel length problems that can’t be dealt with sufficienctly in a short story.

I should be writing more novels.

But I love my short stories.

Can’t I do both? Maybe. But the novel in progress needs my full attention because of the issues I’ve had in dealing with it. So, new plan, sort of.

June: finish the damn novel.

June/July/August – use the Clarion Write A Thon to revise the 4 – 6 short stories at the top of my list.

August – December: One short story revision per month + novel work. (August to plan/outline the next novel, September – December to write it).

It’ll screw with my write1sub1 a  bit, quite a  bit actually, but am I really going to make a career selling short stories that really want to be novels?

I’m calling this Plan B for the moment. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel more focused and go back to plan A.  This planning thing I do, it kills me sometimes. Why can’t I just take it week to week and not fret about what to write next?

Because I’ll never get anywhere.

I’ve written two stories for May SAD. I’ve got two more on the verge of completion. Four would be a nice total for the month. I could be happy with that, especially considering the insane month I just went through.

And now that I’ve tied my muse up in arguing with me, it’s time to work on the family finances for the month. Nothing like money to take the mind off writing. 😛

So how’s your night going?