by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I was talking to a relative recently and, they, obviously fed up with my talking about a novel without any discernable product said, “why not just write a short story.”
No more discouraging words can be said to me in the English language, I fear.
I would rather fail writing a novel in a monumentally spectacular manner than waste my time on a piddly short story. I probably would spend six months to a year on a short story anyway and that’s six months to a year I could spend working on a novel.
But I get it, if you just hear me talking about writing a novel for years and year and nothing comes of it, it makes a lot of sense to just get frustrated and tell me to write a short story.
Fuck that. I have said from the beginning that I just want to see how far I can get with this process. And if I don’t succeed with this novel (which would mean first writing something good enough to query then being a published author) then I try again with something else.
