Why Do My Ideas Want To be Novels?

I had a slight problem the other day. A character that is going to be in my entry for the annual Mail on Sunday Novel Competition intruded into a piece of flash fiction I was writing. Suddenly Jennifer became Miranda- who on earth was Miranda? The character I was writing about at the time was most definitely a Jennifer...
Later that night as I was settling down to sleep Miranda explained who she was and that she was in my competition entry.

Now the competition mentioned above only requires 50-150 words of an opening to a novel with the word ROW used- fortunately the novel doesn't also have to be written, because if it did it would have to go on the waiting list...

This is where my problem starts- and this happens a lot now- what I think is going to be a short story will, by the time I've jotted down the ideas, have become part of a much larger and longer story. And I know from past experience that a story that goes that way just doesn't work by itself...

I know I should be glad that I have all these stories and characters buzzing around in my sub-conscious and I can fill my notebooks up with details to return to later, but I'm beginning to worry whether I can ever manage to come up with an idea that stays as a short story and doesn't want to be anything longer.

When I started seriously writing again- after many years of nothing-it was as much as I could do to write a 1,000 word short story, but as the years have gone by the natural length of my stories has increased: 1200-1300; 1,500 then 1,900 and now I'm having difficulty trying to get a story I've been working on to a 2,000 word length, when it actually needs to have another couple of hundred words, but it will then become an in-between length- not liked by some magazines...

Perhaps this is just a phase my writing is going through and in a few months I'll be coming up with nothing but short story ideas.

But at least I've got the ideas, so now I need to get on with some of them.

If you are interested in the start of a novel competition, Womag published the details on her blog last month, so go there. Good luck if you enter.

Does Super Thursday Make You Buy Books?

Super Thursday (29th September) was the day when publishers released over 225 hardback books. The aim: to get high sales in the run-up to Christmas, so a number of 'celebrity' books are guaranteed to feature just as they have in earlier years with varying degrees of success.

I know publishers need to make money from these high profile books, but imagine how much help a similar publicity campaign would be for the ordinary writers out there...

In the days surrounding Super Thursday there have been mentions on the television news channels, in newspapers and online making buyers aware of some of the books coming out.

But will it work this year?

Book sales have recorded month-on-month falls of a few percent and it's not unreasonable to expect it to continue.
Money is tight for a lot of people in 2011 and I wouldn't  be surprised if a lot of promotional discounts are needed to boost sales nearer Christmas. In 2010 there were a number of celeb bios that had been expected to do well, but didn't. I'm sure there were more than a few advances not recouped in sales.

Every year more people leave their Christmas shopping as late as possible to pick up bargains when stores start getting worried that their stock isn't moving and they start making 20-30% reductions or specific weekends with similar reductions.

Plus the last few Christmas's have seen a surge in the purchase of Kindles and the resulting rise in e-book sales has followed. Hardbacks seem to have suffered the most with the e-book effect.

Of course fans of a particular author will probably buy the latest novel in hardback rather than waiting until it appears in paperback; and a buyer perhaps looking for a Christmas gift for a family member might purchase a celebrity biography because they know that person likes that celebrity (and if it is on offer then even better).

So will you be buying any of the Super Thursday books in your local bookshop, or will you go online for the best price? Perhaps you'll opt for the e-book version. Maybe you won't be buying any hardbacks...

I'd be interested to read your comments and you can post as an anonymous user if you prefer.