Every writer has their own writing process. For me, I tend to fly through the first half of the book I’m working on, then I basically stop and let the story sit for a month or two. During that time of trying to figure out the second half of the book, I am not idle. I’m editing, I’m forcing out scenes/or chunks of the story that happen in the latter half of the book, sometimes I’ll move on to something else as I wait for the book to completely gel in my head, etc. This has been my process since I started writing. As you can see, I’m not much of a plotter 🙂

Every so often I try my hand at a short story while I wait for lightning to strike on my *big* story. I started a short story last year, and boy did I have a lot of fun with it! It’s not done yet since I had to put it aside to work on a project with an actual deadline. I haven’t written a short story since I sold my first series to St. Martin’s, and can I tell you how refreshing it was? I felt rejuvenated. The one thing I love about writing short stories (and I had forgotten this since I wrote my last one) I don’t have any hangups when I get to the middle because you don’t generally have to hit the same plot crisis points or black moments in a short story as you do in a full length novel.

For those wondering about my short story, I will have more information in the next month or two on availability to my readers before my next release (November 2011) of the first book in my Mayfair Chronicles series. And remember, information will always be available to my newsletter subscribers first, so if you haven’t already done so you can join my newsletter HERE!

Are you a fan of short stories? What do you like in a short story?