HOL

HolWriMo has just been announced for May (Pssst, go check it out!!) but that got me wondering. How long are your writing projects usually?

Are you a novelist, a novella person, a short story writer or a flash fictioneer? Do you write poetry? If so, what’s your ideal length in terms of lines or stanzas? For non-fiction writers, do you prefer short articles or longer features? Is there a reason for this or do you just keep to what you know?

I started out as a novelist because of NaNoWriMo and it’s still the length I feel comfortable with. My ideas just tend to be novel scale. I probably also prefer it because I have longer to work out where I’m going. Shorter pieces intimidate me because I have to be surer about what I’m doing and have a solid concept before I start. But I do write short fiction. I have to for my university course but I also write it to get out of my comfort zone. I doubt I’ll ever be a master of any of these forms, let alone all of them.

Writing this post put me in mind of one of my favourite Tolkien quotes:

My cuts short or long don’t go wrong

To which I can only say: I wish!

My writing projects tend to be on the edge of 'too long'. the one i'm working on now is already bordering 100K (two Nano's in a row this one) and the one before that was bordering 150K (i never finished it because i refuse to write THAT cliche of an ending!) so my stories tend to be a great deal very much long (haha much English, Good Very) even my Fanfictions tend to be overly long, i have a few that i haven't finished yet that are a good 50K or more but i love to do one shots too. i guess they'd be about novella sized? i'm not too sure to be honest about that. writing anything 'short' seams to be truly beyond me unless i specifically force myself for such things as Hol projects those are a lot of fun in a new, challenging sort of way. i'm also hoping to challenge myself to work on a few shorter fanfictions as well. just for something short to work on in between my big projects during writers block and such.