These questions don’t really need hard and fast answers. No one likes being pigeonholed, after all. But that doesn’t mean a little guidance isn’t helpful.

I found this page that gives some good averages for different manuscripts. I wouldn’t buy into the idea that they are as set in stone as the author says, but they do give you a good rule of thumb.

Some take aways that come from it are that a short story is something that you can read in one setting. A novella might take a little more, but will still be too short to cover a lot of characters, and should instead be a really in depth view of a narrow topic.

Then there is writing for the internet. In that case, shorter is probably better, unless you can really hold the reader’s attention.

Since I’m not sure this post is doing that, I think I’ll leave it there.

A notebook is a writer's best friend

I have a poet friend who was told me once that ideas are ours only for so long. If we don’t use them, our muse takes them to someone else. Then we forget about them until we read them in another writer’s words.

Fortunately, we don’t need to lose our ideas to the aether. We just need to write them down, and preserve their freshness until we are ready to dash them onto the page.

Any aspiring writer should keep an idea file. Most can use a small notebook kept on hand at all times. For those moments of random beauty, irony or curiosity, you need to be able to jot them down for later exploration.

Keeping a long record of good ideas, interesting sightings or sayings that were overhead not only gives you material for when you can’t seem to come up with anything, but it builds your understanding of the world around you. The more nuanced your view, the more layered and original you’re writing will be.

Here are notes that I find in my notebook:

• Premises: I have ideas that seem like they would make great short stories all the time. Whether or not they can, that’s debatable. Doesn’t matter though, they’re lost if they don’t get written down so anything that seems interesting goes in here.

• What ifs? Sometimes conversations can raise interesting questions that are worth exploring in prose. Those “What Ifs?” make a lot of great stories. You probably have these conversations all the time (what if Aliens invaded earth just for our Boston creme pie? What if we elected a president that was nine feet tall and mostly made of steel?) so why not get some writing fodder out of it.

• Observations: Funny/interesting/ironic things creep up on us whether we’re eating or sitting at home watching the animals chase things that don’t need to be chased. Mundane, everyday observations get life through exploration. Writing is about giving life to a point of view, so seeing something worth infusing with meaning is always good for the notebook.

• Strange speaking conventions:People have unique ways of speaking -rhythms and cadences that sound so particular they resonate in your ear and brain. When you notice this, it’s great to note them for when you are writing dialog for your characters. Creating a unique voice for them is hard, but borrowing it from a real person isn’t!

• Imagery: You’ll know it when you’ll see it, and it will be incredible. Those glimmers of images will help you through tough sines or lack of inspiration.

Even if these notes don’t amount to work in and of themselves, they might fit nicely into another piece I’ve been working on, so it helps to review the notebook pretty often. In fact, an interesting idea file can be the greatest cure for a case of writer’s block.

I like using Moleskine notebooks because they are the right size and they look the part. Using such a stylized and traditional writer’s notebook makes me look the part so it’s sort of validating of my choices.

Of course it doesn’t need to be that fancy or historically pertinent. Any easily-carted notebook will do.

And of course the pen. You can never forget the pen.