This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Another week in which secret writer Emily Tootsweet tells us about life as a writer in hope of publication. Find out more about Emily by visiting her blog!
‘Shorties’ 
I want my writing CV (or resume) to be as full as possible. Writing novels is good, and my main objective, but I need to bulk my CV up if agents are going to take me seriously. And the best way to bulk it up is to start writing short stories. I’ve tried many times to write short stories and I just can’t do it. I’ve got many writer friends who write, submit and successfully sell short stories to many women’s magazines, websites and competitions and if I’m really really honest I’m so jealous because they have a talent I want.
Every time I’ve tried to write a ‘shortie’ it ends up a mini-novel. I just can’t seem to get it right. I’ve bought the short story magazines to do some research and it makes me even more determined to write them. I’ve also read some help books on writing shorts but I still can’t do it. There seems to be a special knack you have to have and I don’t appear to have it.
Writing shorts is something I would definitely like to do and I know it would look good on the writing CV so I’m determined to persevere with the short story writing. I’ve tried taking part in ‘prompts’ so that I’m writing some sort of short piece of writing, be it a scene or a full short story and I still seem to fail. Of course I haven’t let anyone read my attempts but in my own mind I know they aren’t up to much so they either get deleted or saved in a file never to see the light again. So I’m asking you, Novelicious readers, anyone got any tips on how to write short stories?
In other news, for the next two Fridays over on the Novel Racers blog I’ll be posting the weekly Coffee Break posts. I’ve in the process of trying to think of topics that haven’t been talked about before and since the blog has been around for a few years now, finding new topics is becoming harder and harder. I’m quiet nervous about posting on the blog as I feel like a newbie and there’s many new ‘Novel Racers’ that I don’t know. I’m hoping my posts will be my way of introducing myself to them.
I’m off work in May for a week and I plan to do a lot of writing as I haven’t done nearly enough this year so hopefully I’ll have good news on my progress for my current Works in Progress in my column for that week.
That’s all from me for now.
Yours,
Emily Tootsweet :o)