Contest result--Writers of the Future

[Demesnedenoir]

I think which is "harder" depends on the mindset of the author, predilections, or whatever. There isn't a universal truth here, LOL.

re: Short stories/novels: in my experience the reverse has been true. I've done somewhere above 20 shorts in the last decade or so (including a 35K novella), with maybe close to half of them turning out more or less 'good' do varying degrees. I think I've attempted novels 10 times, only completed a single one, which turned out quite awful and un-fixable (it had one or two OK things about it, I suppose). My current attempt is looking good so far, but I'm often plagued with doubts about it.

re: 'go signal': When I got the first HM about 3 years ago, after a few days or so, this is precisely how I chose to look at it. I had a project I'd been developing that started back in 2011 that I eventually realized I was not yet good enough to tackle. The project deserved the best I could do for it, so I set it aside. After that little victory of sorts with the WotF, it suddenly hit me: Perhaps I had finally gotten good enough at this stuff to tackle the 'big' project. With some luck, and some great, timely help from by best writer friend, it is working so far.

I'm contemplating dusting off one of my other shorts and sending that in to the contest to see if it fares as well.