Shifting Gears

I've been writing a long time. A very long time, if you count all through high school and college. I've seen publishers' "mid-lists" disappear, along with the typewriter and the word processor. I read recently that Michael Connelly's newest Harry Bosch novel (the 18th or 19th!) is coming out soon - and it's been twenty years since the first one debuted.

I look back over those same twenty years and wonder...while Connelly was writing all those Bosch novels, what was I doing? Was I working hard enough, smart enough? Where was my energy, my effort, going? Was it misplaced, misguided? I don't know. 

What I do know is that I need to make some changes. While novels will always be my first love, I am shifting gears - at least for the beginning of the year - to stories - micro, flash, novellas. The short form has always pulled at me but I tended to push it in the background, let the novel writing bask in the spotlight. 

One of the problems with that was while the novel manuscript received the glory - the hours, the work, the majority of my creativity - it also received almost all of the pressure. Novels were going to launch my career, to find me an agent, an editor, a fan base. Hmm, not so much. What happened after awhile was that novels started to feel like work - crushing rocks, hard labor kind of work - and I missed the joy I used to feel long, long ago when I wrote them. 

So, to that end, my current Horror/YA Horror novel ms is relegated to the wings. It now moves around backstage, lurks in the shadows (which is actually appropriate for the horror genre.) And you know what? As soon as I made that decision, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief - and I felt the novel exhale, too, felt it relax and shake loose the bindings I wrapped around it so tightly it couldn't breathe. The novel and I have a new relationship now - one we're both happy and excited about. I can't wait to get back to it. And the stories will now step out, take their turn in the limelight, get a chance to shine.  

How about you all? Anyone else shifting gears? Trying something new or going back to an old way of doing things?