change in direction

After talking to J some, I am thinking about changing directions as far as my writing endeavors go. I am thinking I will leave the novel on the back burner for a little while and try my hand at writing some short stories. The main thing I struggle with when I am working on the novel is keeping everything straight in my head as far as the personalities of the characters and the main points of the story line go. I tend to go off on tangents and fill stuff in as best I can when I don't remember for sure. So now I am thinking it might work better to build my strength up a bit before I try to attempt something as massive as a novel. I am going to try writing some short stories and while I do so, I am going to practice my prewriting skills. J and I have been talking about some techniques specifically - things for me to try in order to get ideas down and sure before I start taking a pen to the rough draft. I have been resistant to this for quite a while - I always jumped into a rough draft head first before my memory got messed up. I could get it all down and not worry about getting things confused, even if I had to get up and do something else mid-draft. Now I am recognizing that I need more structure to keep me going the right way. I need a street with signs rather than a dirt path through the woods. I am going to try the brainstorming and prewriting techniques J and I talked about and see what works for me and what I need to try differently. If I can get things to work on a small scale - writing short stories - then maybe after some practice and honing, I can get those techniques to work for me when I return to writing the novel. We'll see what I can figure out. (And yes, honey, this is the part where you get to say, "I told you so." You are cute enough that I will let you get away with saying it!)