No Torches and Pitchforks, Please...

Today, my minions, we're going to discuss running.

I know what you're thinking, "Running?? Has Auntie Heather finally lost it? This is a blog about writing! And Diet Pepsi! And...vampires!" But don't run off to gather the torches and pitchforks just yet. I'm about to make an analogy that, I believe, makes a lot of sense.

A friend of mine recently told me that he's had over twelve short stories published. Now, this same friend has been working on his novel for something like six years and says that he'll "get around" to finishing it someday, which I believe he will. But for him, the short story's the thing. He loves that quick gratification. He loves that pile of writing credits. My friend is a sprinter.

I've never liked writing short stories. I have a difficult time saying what I want to say in only a few thousand words, so I stick, for the most part, with novels (though I have had a few shorts published here and there). To my credit, the first draft of the first book I ever finished writing was completed in four weeks. I foolishly assumed it was finished two months after that and queried the entire planet. It still needs work, but I'd have to say it was one of the most emotional things I've ever written (and no, this one wasn't about vampires--it was about a man dealing with addiction and searching for acceptance, a powerful piece that I now call A Whisper of Need: appropriate, as the man, Seth, hears voices--one named Need and one named Reason, the personifications of his conscience and his habit). The second book I finished writing took much longer, say ten years. The Roses of Carrion, of course, still needs a lot of work, but the concept is unique and solid...I think. (a dark fantasy about a sorceress who discovers a world between worlds, ruled by a vampyre king)

I love both books.

Then I wrote and polished Eighth Grade Bites. Vlad was with me for about four months of actual work, five if you count the break I took to clear my head. The first draft was like pulling teeth, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Vlad was taking me through some scary stuff. All of a sudden I was in junior high again...and, as if that wasn't bad enough, I was hanging out with an outcast vampire kid. But we got through it. Ninth Grade Sucks is proving fairly easy to write.

But when I look at the short stories I've written--there are only five that stand out in my mind--I don't get the tingle that I get when I think of my books. To be frank, I only started writing short stories for the publication credits. I don't enjoy them. For me, they're just a newspaper clipping to what might have been.

I'm a long distance runner.

The whole point of this, which I'm sure you're thankful I'm finally reaching (put that torch back down, we're almost there), is that it doesn't matter how you run--you can sprint several hundred times or you can go on three long runs--just that you run.

Because, in the end, it's not about distance or speed...it's about getting there.

And if you're a writer, I don't have to tell you where 'there' is. You already know. 'There' is different for all of us...but none of us can get there if we don't run.