by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have been way too vocal about working on what is now four novels. I need to just shut up and do the work. The more I talk about all of this, the more people roll their eyes and tell me to just “write a short story.”
Fuck that.
But while I’ve gotten a huge amount of work done over the last few years, it’s been more of a drift than any organized, disciplined thing. That’s why it’s been difficult for me to write short stories to shut the naysayers up. I would rather fail in an outrageous, spectacular fashion than write short stories that obviously would never get published.
What people really mean when they say “write a short story” is they’re tired of hearing about a novel that seems to be taking forever to finish. But, in all honesty, if they think that way, if they lack the ability to support my long-term dream of writing a novel they’re not my friend and I don’t want them in my life.
I’d rather be alone and a failure than have friends and have them think I’m a failure because I could not pass their “test” of getting a short story published. If that did happen, it’s not like I would shut up about the very thing they find so annoying — writing.
If they don’t like me talking about writing, then they don’t really like me and they can fuck off.
Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest.
