I have been bouncing stories that I wrote to a friend of mine.
The takeaway from the “exercise” is that I need to accept that 2000 words is not long enough, and that I have great ideas that act like an explosion: really cool, but end far to quickly.
I have this tendency to write vignettes: short tales that have a very defined beginning, middle and end that can all be explored in the aforementioned 2000 words. It is not an intentional thing. I never start writing and think “I’m just going to do a short thing today.” I go into a project with the full intention of writing something substantial, but I also refuse to pad things out with bullshit. Nothing kills the pace of a book I am reading more than twenty pages of bullshit bookended by three or four pages of amazing.
I know: I am shooting myself in the foot. If I even wish to be published, I need to flush out the worlds and accept that bullshit is necessary.
In sending my friend parts and pieces of my collection, I came across Elane, which is published in my book.
plain text. 