In the last 18 months or so, I have had the chance to write three Blaze short forms, novellas. I’ve found, as a person, I like both long and short projects for different reasons. For instance, when it comes to sewing, I make large quilts than can take me a year to finish (or more), and those are really wonderful to see come together, but I also love to make bags and small projects I can finish in a day, because I get the immediate gratification, and I learn a different set of skills. It works the same with writing.

I have an online read (which I believe starts on Aug 17 on eHarlequin — the title is Caught by Surprise and it’s a linked story to my October “Dressed to Thrill” Blaze, Caught in the Act), and my other two novellas are anthology books, my story “No Reservations” which came out last July in the What I Did On My Summer Vacation collection, and my upcoming 2010 Bedtime Stories two-fer. All of these novellas were different lengths, different formats, and from them I get that same short-term, immediate gratification blast that I get from any other short project — it’s a brief, intense experience that teaches you a lot about focus and pacing in a whole different way than writing a full novel. I also learn to be flexible in my story telling, to break out of the well-worn lessons we learn in writing long contemporary.

I love writing the short form, though I know some people find it more difficult. But I also love subplots, and I suppose those are a kind of short format, as well. I think I’ve brought some of that focus and speed that a short-form teaches you back to my regular book writing. I hope so, anyway. I find the expansiveness of the longer book a much bigger challenge. In a long book I need to dig deep and pull out a lot of layers, an experience that I find satisfying in a different way, like mining for gold. But it can be stressful, and stressful over a longer period of time. Still, I think writing shorter format has taught me how to get into stories faster and how to hit a level of intensity in a more focused way, and I think that will make writing longer books more interesting as well.

As a reader, I tend to like full-length books over anthologies or serials. I don’t even like short chapters — I never understood how people enjoyed The DaVinci Code because it was so chopped up for me, all those one or two page chapters, it drove me batty. I didn’t feel like I could get into it, like having commercial breaks every 3 pages. I like the feeling, as a reader, of really soaking up a story and staying in there for a while, and shorts never let me do that. However, though now that I’ve discovered how much fun they are to write, I think I will go get some anthologies and read some novellas b/c I have a feeling I would read them differently now, too.

How about you? Reader or writer, long or short, or both? What are the benefits and downsides for each? Share, and for those of you following me long in my blog tour, this post counts to qualify you in my contest to win a handmade bag and signed books (details at ). Even if you missed my initial post, it’s not too late to join the tour starting with this blog, so I hope you’ll hop on and follow me through June blogging.