What Writing is Most Important?

[Philip Overby]

Just to know how people prioritize their writing, I'd like to do pose this question: what kind of writing is most important to you?

I'll put mine in order:

1. Novel writing
2. Story writing
3. Blog/article writing

Other questions:

1. Do you find that certain kinds of your writing give you more joy or satisfaction than others?

2. What kind of writing do you think you're best at?

3. Do you ever shift priorities? Like maybe you've been doing mostly novel writing, and then you suddenly shift to writing lots of stories?

I'm just curious about some answers because I get the sense most people on the forums are novel writers or are in the process of writing a novel.

 

[The Unseemly]

I'm just curious about some answers because I get the sense most people on the forums are novel writers or are in the process of writing a novel.

You more or less got that right, myself included.

Well, onto my preferences list:

1. Fantasy Writing
2. Work writing...

As always, the truth when it comes to the actual writing itself:

1. Work writing
2. Fantasy Writing

Curse you, real world.

So to answer Other Question 1, fantasy writing obviously gives me more satisfaction. Writing fantasy can be considered my equivalent of crack. Utterly intoxicating.

I'm uncertain about what types of writing I'm better at, as I've never really had an opportunity to make a comparison. I'd like to think that I'm better at writing creatively, and indeed, I find writing bland, black & white, "because bureaucracy says so," sentences to be a nuisance, and continue to hate them.

And do I shift priorities? Not really. When I've got work writing to do, I've got work writing to do, and I just have to live with that. But I always prefer to write my fantasy. Always.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I tend to write short stories first, since I can quickly knock them out. I now have one or two short story ideas I haven't tried, and a gazillion novel ideas, so I'm trying to get more done in terms of novels. I actually have the most fun writing nonfiction essays, but I don't have an audience for them, so I don't do them very often.

BTW, if a spot on the article writing team ever happens to open up . . . :bounce:

Anyways, for me it's down to practice. I'm probably weakest at long works, since I so rarely complete one. I'm more confident in my short stories, though, since I've written tons of them. Essays are somewhere in between.

 

[Mythopoet]

Before the digital revolution, I would have said that I focus exclusively on novels.

Now I just think of my fiction as "stories" and the length of each story is entirely dependent on how long it takes me to tell it. I don't have any length goals. There are stories I think will probably turn out to be shorts and stories I think will turn out to be novels and stories I suspect will be somewhere in between. But which ones I focus on depends entirely on which story I want to tell right now, not on its length.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I only work on novel length works now.

However, I do have a growing interest in serial storytelling. The type that could be compiled into novel length works if the smaller excerpts grew in popularity.

 

[Weaver]

I have written both novels and short stories. Although I consider myself a novel writer first, to date I've actually written (and had published) more short stories and novellas. Novels always get priority now, since I'm working on a few interconnected ones with my clone-sibling. I do not consider myself a blogger, even though I do have a blog; I write something there when/if I have something to say.

As for what kinds of writing give more joy/satisfaction, I'd have to say fiction. Length of the story doesn't matter all that much when it comes to how much I like writing it. Some stories demand a lot of space (pun intended) to be developed fully, and some can be contained in a few thousand words.

I have no idea what kind of writing I'm best at. My clone-sibling says I'm quite good at writing short stories, although I often feel that the limited word count prevents me from working in a lot of intricacies of plot. Could be a good thing, though, as it also keeps me from being too verbose, y'know? I can say with certainty that I'm not good at blogging; I have no skill when it comes to talking about everyday-life stuff. (Nor should I be required to do so -- I have a doctor's excuse. *g*)

My priorities do shift occasionally, and I expect they will do so again. If, for example, my clone-sibling were to tell me that he thinks posting a new Alandra Kade short story on our website would be good for publicity, I'd set aside whatever else I was working on and finish one. (I've got three of 'em sitting here in fragments, waiting for me to be in a short-fiction mood again.)

 

[Weaver]

[...] I do have a growing interest in serial storytelling. The type that could be compiled into novel length works if the smaller excerpts grew in popularity.

My own short stories, at least the ones about Alandra Kade, are intended to be collected into a pseudo-novel eventually. I think that sometimes a writer wants to do a novel but doesn't have a plot that will carry through a novel-length work. Linked short stories solve that problem: shorter, individual story arcs unified by having the same protagonist or setting.

 

[Xaysai]

Short stories are more fun for me to write but I'm not that good at them.

I don't have the attention span to write a novel.

I feel like I am a better blog writer, but I don't have anything to blog about that anyone gives a crap about.

 

[Ophiucha]

Aside from the closely related act of editing, I don't do a lot of non-novel writing these days. I love editing, and it's done either for friends, writing buddies, or money, so it definitely is a priority in my life, but as it is my only 'job' at this point, it also means that spending 6 hours on it doesn't really cut into my legitimate writing time. I write short stories and poetry, but mostly just to sort of get the juices flowing for novel writing, so they are done first to benefit my novel time. Even when I did write short stories for the sake of short stories, they were usually my 'project', so I just didn't write any novels for a while as I worked on those.

So I guess:

1. Writing my main project.
2. Writing my side project.

With editing of old projects and other people's stuff mixed in. Incidentally, from a writing perspective, I think I'm actually better at editing than actually writing - but being able to overcome my initial inability to edit my own work basically made up for that gap, since I could always just shrug off some bad writing and say 'I'll fix it in post' and then actually do that. Sometimes, if I have a bill coming in, I'll 'edit' essays for college kids, but I can't say I find any love in that and, generally speaking, the topic's not something I have any passion for. I would take a job as an article writer if the opportunity came around, but it's definitely not a passion of mine. I don't even like blogging (hence why I have a tumblr instead of a wordpress).

 

[Addison]

My list of most important writing:

1. WRITING!!

For me it doesn't matter whether it's long or short, fiction or not (true I need a bigger kick to get started on non-fic) But I just like writing!

 

[A. E. Lowan]

For us, novel writing. I have writing short stories and have gotten lovely rejection letters that always read, "This feels like a piece of a larger world." So, we said screw it and dedicated ourselves to the long form.

I used to write essay is high school, mostly at gunpoint. My teacher got tired of me winning all their first place award over her "chosen" darling, so I dropped out and dedicated myself to fiction. And I have lived in a fantasy world ever since.