Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Allure of a Short Story

As I've been cruising around a bunch of author's websites recently, it's come to my attention that a lot of authors got the idea for their now successful novel series from a short story they wrote. Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake is one, Carrie Vaughn's Kitty series is another. Even Jamie Ford (interviewed on NON) mentions that he originally wrote the characters from Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet in a short story, but he wanted to tell more of their story, so he wrote the novel (though this one is not turning into a series).

I've got story ideas brewing. Cute short stories. Weird short stories. Cody and I got to talking one night and came up with several sci-fi short stories. I've got a great time-traveller short story bouncing around my skull. They all beg to be written--then of course to be entered in contests, win me money, get published in anthologies, and rocket my career off to a great success, only later to be used as filler for my website.

Dreams of grandeur, I tell you.

Or is this yet another form of procrastination--spinning my wheels in too many directions to make progress in any particular one?

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