Obvious, right? Day one of short story writing and the practicalities of their differences are just sinking in. I had a word count goal for the last two months of novel writing of 2k words per day. I met the same word count goal today, but my brain has yet to absorb the proportionality of that goal. 2k is a drop in the bucket for a 85k novel (particularly when you actually write 97k for your first draft). 2k is a third of a 6k short story. And I’m actually trying to write a 5k story. Great news, I’m already 40% done!

That’s not true.

I knew I was going to need some time to transition from long form to short form, but I didn’t realize I was going to be surprised by something so fundamental.

My plan is to edit my way out of the overwriting. I get to crank out as many words as I want, with the caveat that many of my darlings will be slashed and burned. I’ve decided it’s better to have too much than not enough. I don’t know if that’s going to get me where I want to go, but I’m ready to experiment.

Learning and growing.