After some reflection of where my writing career is going, I’ve made some decisions that involve a difficult choice. I just went through my spreadsheet of short stories that are currently in the market and I culled sub-par material.
That was a difficult process because some of these stories have been with me for a decade. Some were written during a very stressful period in my life. Some still have cool ideas. Some are related to novels still in my head and don’t make sense without the novel.
I immediately pulled 12 stories from circulation, and I marked another 12 to pull if they don’t sell at the market they are currently visiting. That makes 24 stories that I basically threw into a trunk, leaving only 10 stories in the marketplace.
I did this because I don’t think these stories accurately represent my ability anymore. I did it because the stories will probably never sell to an acceptable market. I did it because I need a kick in the pants.
Now that I’ve finished my non-fiction title eBooks for the 21st-Century Author, I need to get hopping on my short fiction again. I haven’t reached my objectives with short fiction, largely because of that stressful period in my life.
So, I intend to finish up the same outstanding short fiction projects I would have worked on anyway. After that, I will be pounding out more short stories and will continue to do so until I crack the big three. Only then will I return to long fiction and finish up more novels.
I’m basing this action entirely on intuition, but it’s a sense that has served me quite well whenever I listen to it.
