re: Anyone here ever written or thought about writing a book?

I sold a small business in 2006 and was supposed to be retired to Europe where I planned to finish a novel I have been working on for about 40 years now LOL. I spent about 6 months in coffee shops and beer gardens and was bored out of my mind while completing maybe 3 chapters. I can write the shite out of short stories, maybe even a novella but a full novel has thus far escaped me...and probably always will.

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. I can write the shite out of short stories, maybe even a novella but a full novel has thus far escaped me.

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Why dont you write a full novel content in short story format? Just an idea, break up the novel into 20 or so short stories. Might be easier to complete since you are used to short story format.

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Why dont you write a full novel content in short story format? Just an idea, break up the novel into 20 or so short stories. Might be easier to complete since you are used to short story format.

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I have actually been thinking the same thing lately. I have about 75-100 short stories (2000 - 5000 words each) that I wrote years ago for a regional outdoor magazine which is no longer being published. About 20 of these were actually published in that magazine (unpaid - I was friends with the editor and he needed content LOL). Published or not those stories are mine, I was never offered nor paid anything for any of them. Almost all of these are stories as told from the POV of an old Lab I used to spend an inordinate amount of time with. Not exactly the makings of the great American novel but it wouldn't take a lot of effort to use those stories as the through line for a novel. Again, not a great work of literature but something I would not be ashamed for my kids to read.

I also have about 50 short stories I have written over the years about my grandfather and uncle and their misdemeanoring ways in the 60s and 70s when they were wannabe gangsters in Atlanta. I have allowed a small number of people to read some of these stories and they have always been very interested in them and found them funny. Several of these were English professors at Southern Tech and Kennesaw State and one of them was the personal assistant and editor for Eudora Welty. One of these stories was the basis for the novel I have been working on since I was 18 years old LOL but that story is a not really in the same vein as the rest of them.

Again, if nothing else, I will probably self publish these as a collection of short stories on Amazon for my kids and grandkids. My son is aware of the short stories about his great grandfather and great uncle and is interested in them. My daughter has never expressed any interest in any of it but she is only 14 so hope springs eternal that someday she finds daddy fascinating....

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Print on Demand technology makes this very easy. These companies will take anything you write and do the artwork for the cover, create an ISBN, print, and distribute the book. They don’t charge much, and even offer marketing services. They keep most of the proceeds from the book. Say it retails for $14.95 on Amazon, you will see about $1.50 per book sold. They send you a check quarterly and a 1099 at the end of the year. Say you wanted 10-20 copies of the book, they will send them to you at a discount, but you will pay closer to full price for each copy. They typically don’t turn any book down, and it’s a very simple process.

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I have fancied myself a writer for about 45 years LOL. I have had some stuff published over the years, mostly in a defunct regional outdoor magazine but also a couple of regional literary magazines. I have a step sibling who managed to accumulate about $150K in student loan debt getting a psychology degree online from Florida State University. She has whatever the frick the disorder that prevents folks from leaving the house and attending classes at FSU back when it wasn't common to do so remotely. Interestingly enough she is fully capable of leaving the house to go to nightclubs and bars but not a job....but I digress. Knowing that I thought of myself as a writer, after a fashion, she called me excitedly one afternoon to tell me about her thesis on her psychological disorder (the one that prevents her leaving the house except to go to bars) being published. I was, in all honesty, shocked by this news because she had never been what one might call scholarly....writing seemed like it might be a bit taxing for her but, knowing she had been at FSU several years I figured she must have some ability. I was wrong. I asked her if it was possible to read her book and she excitedly told me where to find it....Amazon, of course, which I did, and I read it. To my credit from start to finish. May be the only person alive who ever did so....I am pretty certain she never read it because it was not edited AT all....full of typos and grammatical errors and almost unreadable....anyone who wrote it AND read it would have corrected some of that stuff. I don't know if they have improved their services or not but Amazon did her "book" a severe disservice....

I would like to write a history book some day.