The Long and the Short of It

Good morning :-)

I've been reading a lot of blogs since I started mine and I keep coming across the same message time and time again - NEW WRITERS SHOULD START WITH WRITING SHORT STORIES BEFORE THEY ATTEMPT A FULL NOVEL. Message received...lol

When I started writing my book I hadn't heard this before. All I knew was I had an idea for a book bouncing around in my head for awhile and that I had always wanted to attempt writing a book. When a good friend of mine read some of my poetry, she encouraged me to use my writing skills to do just that and I thought...why not.

Once I began writing, I wasn't thinking of the "long or the short" of the book. I just began to plan scene's and plot lines. I am now at 367 pages and over 40 chapters and still counting. There is still quite a bit of story to tell and I'm now worried that maybe I'm going about this all wrong. Now I'm wondering if I would be better off in the long run to turn the story from one big fat novel into a series of short stories or perhaps I should shelve the story I've been working on for awhile and write a few short stories first. I guess the latter option would get my writing out sooner and maybe I could build a bit of a readership prior to releasing the big story, which would be a good thing.

What did you do to start your writing career? What tips would you share with new writer? Do you think they should start small or just "go for the gusto" right out of the gate?

Have a great day all!

Becky