I feel like I am back on track with my debut novel after taking a week off to write a short story for publication. As I have matured as a writer, I feel I have gained skills, techniques, etc. that have changed who I am as a writer and how I approach writing. Sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. I think overall, I am a better writer than I was ten years ago but sometimes I think back to a specific scene or character I wrote years ago, and I feel like what I am writing right now just does not compare. I think this may be fondness bias or my brain attempting to find ways to procrastinate what I am currently working on, but it is always there at the back of my mind.
However, one area that I know I am better at now than I ever was before is finishing! For as long as I can remember, I have had ideas enough to last me twenty lifetimes. I have an entire bookshelf by my desk at home that is full of notebooks. Every single one of those notebooks has at least 2-3 stories that I have started. Some of those stories were even decent and interesting, albeit written by an angsty teenager. All of them are ideas that I would still want to approach later in my writing career. All of them still excite me when I read the first few pages.
And not a single one of them is finished.
When I attended the SAGA writing convention last year, I knew that I needed to learn how to finish a story. I knew I wanted (and still want) to write epic fantasy - the kind of books so long that only a handful of people walking into a bookstore would even approach. Worldbuilding galore, beautifully handcrafted maps, and enough characters with crazy, outlandish names that you need a glossary. I knew that I fell somewhere between a plotter and pantser. But, I did not know how to finish.
The wonderful authors at that convention corrected me - I did know how to finish, I just had not finished anything... yet! They recommended something to me that I had never considered. Write a short story. My response was, "I don't want to write a short story. I want to write epic fantasy." Their response was kind, and thoughtful.
Summarized in a few sentences, they wanted me to write a short story so that I could finish something. They said it did not need to be good, it just needed to be done. In theory, once I had finished writing something - anything really - I would always be able to fall back on the fact that I had finished something. It gave me way more momentum than I ever thought it could. I submitted my first two short stories within a month of that convention and the first one got selected for publication. I have just recently submitted a third for publication and I am awaiting feedback from that open call.
I have a plan to submit at least half a dozen more short stories to various open calls this year alone. It gives me a nice little break from my novel without slowing down my progress entirely and it keeps me writing consistently. It has allowed me to flesh out some of the characters in my novel by giving them origin stories that have been fun to write.
All-in-all, the best advice I was given was to "write" because you cannot edit what is not on the page. Taking that a step farther, finishing something can be gratifying in such a way that it propels you to finish more and more projects, and momentum is a big deal.
As always, thank you and don't forget to KEEP WRITING!