Short Stories and Essays

I’ve been trying to write more short stores. It hasn’t really gone anywhere, I mean I’ve been reading more short stories, but it seems like the effort between reading and writing them is a too much. You have to remember stories from the more ridiculous times in your life, or I guess just make it up, jot it down, and actually make it interesting for other people. That last part is really the trick, the reason people like David Sedaris and Sloane Crosley are so successful is because they can take personal moments and actually mold them into universal ones. It’s beautiful when it works, but as I’ve learned from personal experience, short stories can be some of the worst pieces of “literature” one can attempt. Sometimes people take an uninteresting moment and make it engaging, take a vibrant event and make it sobering, but more often than not people take a situation with limitless potential for paper and make it into boring shit. Myself included.

I think, I mean I’ve never attempted to actually write anything longer than 25 pages, that novel writing doesn’t include this kind of grace. You can include really boring moments, but when it’s a good book most people say “eh, it’ll be better in a few pages” and keep reading. Short stories hit a lull, and people start fires, take hostages, and worst of all, demand their money back.

So are short story writers and essayists better than novel writers? In my current state of mind, yes. They’re the type I can relate to, the procrastinators, usually drug users and drunks, and the people who love to talk about themselves. Where else do you get to tell stories about yourself and people pay you? Memoir writing? I’ll leave that to the guys who want Pulitzers.

So short story writing; is it the new frontier? Probably not. People will keep reading crappy novels that are starting to cost as much as DVDs and bookstore clerks will be replaced by those “Staff Suggestion” sections. Or Oprah, which is the case for most people anyways. Regardless, I’m going to try my hand at authoring these little goldmines and see if I can’t get myself into those social circles devoted to the stoned, inebriated artists. You know. Writers.