The Long and Short of It

 

I started out publishing short stories a few years ago, but this year I published a novel and a novella! The novel is basically a ghost thriller with some family secrets and nineteenth-century romance, and the novella is a contemporary rom-com. 

You may be saying, "Wait, hold up! Why two such different books? Don't you always write one genre?"

No. I write short stories, and I like to play around with genres. And yes, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel.

The result was "The Bellwood Legacy." It's not terribly long - it's around 220 pages. But there's a lot packed into those pages as I was writing about different people and time periods within the same family. Not surprisingly, the book was originally supposed to be four short stories, but I ended up combining them into one long story with characters from the past now being ghosts in the present.

It was a daunting task finishing and editing the novel. There were several little last minute changes just trying to get a sentence right here and there. For my first attempt at a novel, I wanted to take my time, so it took over a year to complete.

The rom-com novella, "Getting Austin" was a short story idea that came to me, and rather than try to fit it into a new short story collection, I decided to do it as a stand-alone book. At first I wasn't sure I had enough there for a novella, but as it turned out, I did. The main character is a woman who has MS, as I do, so I was able to pull from my own experience with the condition (I hate the word disease) in writing the story.

I included a picture above of my most recent (and I think my most well written) book of short stories. "Shadow Stories" is both contemporary and period fiction, the common theme being they're all dark stories, some with supernatural, fantasy, or Gothic vibes.

My next project will likely be another book of short stories. I've been wanting to write a book of just mysteries, so that's what I'll be focusing on. I also want to write more about the Radcliffe family from "The Bellwood Legacy" because I feel they have more secrets to tell.

So, there you have it. Short stories, longer stories - supernatural thriller, contemporary fiction, suspense, romantic comedy. Who knows what's next? That's a mystery.