M.J. Vaughn asked Byrd Nash:

So, what made you write a series of short stories and combine them into one book as opposed to a bunch of full novels? What was the motivation?

Byrd Nash Hi M.J. When I started writing the first of these stories (Milking Time) it was simply as an exercise to break a writer's block I was having with a sequel on another book. At about the same time I joined a writer's critique group where members were asked to bring something of theirs to read in a 10 minute time block for critiquing.

Things rather quickly snowballed from there after MT received some good feedback. I set myself a personal goal to write a fairytale story once per week (and the longer tales didn't meet this goal - more like 3 weeks) as a writing exercise.

There were other elements in play. I knew from writing a full length epic fantasy that took a lot of time - more like 6 months of writing, editing, editing and prepping for publication. I wanted something I could pull together more quickly and short stories allowed me to do that - gave me the ability to play with creating characters, scenes, and plotting - and also with completing a story.

So all in all it was a great training exercise as a writer in many ways.

flag