Tag: short stories

Why I’m Finally Contemplating Writing Short Stories

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s June 1st — rabbit, rabbit — and I’ve decided to buckle down and get some work done. There was a moment there after wrapping up A Version of my novel where I kind of locked up and…grieved. For a few days there, I had a from of creative post-partum depression.

But I’ve recovered at last and now I’m forging ahead.

I have a few things to address.

One is, I have to wrap up the “color correction” draft of the novel. This is going a lot faster than I expected — so far. And after this draft is done, I probably will sit down and actually read the thing all the way through and just edit a name or two and THEN get ready for the main event: beta readers and querying.

Another thing I want to do is start to work on a few short stories. I have a really good one that I’m working on that is flying by. Now, this is the point where the issue of why, all of a sudden, I’m willing to “lower” myself to writing short stories comes up.

Well, there are a few issues.

One issue is AI is really helping me with development. So, I can zoom through what might otherwise take months to do in a few days. Second, I finally have managed to squeeze out a novel of some sort that I’m proud of, so I have that out of my system for the time being.

I have another novel or two I’m thinking about working on soon, but probably that won’t happen until I officially start querying. Maybe. I still struggle with doing more than on thing creatively, but AI has helped a lot to facilitate just that.

At Long Last, I May Actually Be Writing A Short Story Or Two

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something that haters have frequently suggested to me is I should write a short story instead of a novel. I have always said “fuck that” until now for a number of reasons.

One reason is the rise of AI has made development of a short story far easier and quicker. Also, I’ve actually finished a reasonably good novel — or at least one I’m happy enough to query — so I have that under my belt at last.

Anyway, the short story idea I have is pretty good. Once I finish it, I will have to balance submitting it for publication in the context of querying the novel. So, only time will tell how things work out.

Back To Creative Writing Soon

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have been in creative neutral for too long. I have a growing number of promising short stories that I’m dwelling on, over and above the novel ideas I have.

The short stories would be good screenplay ideas but for the fact I’m just too old to address the sharp learning curve of learning how to write a screenplay. If I was only about 30 years younger, then maybe. But, lulz, by the time I both figured out how to properly do a screenplay and had a few to pitch — and figured out how to live in LA — I would be retirement age.

So, short stories it is.

Most of them are scifi, but at least one of them is a comedy. I’m using AI to develop them so that element of the creative process will go faster.