> And I say write to your natural length. Each tale will dictate how long it must be, and it musn't be a single word longer (or shorter) than that. Too many people have fallen into the "write short stories first" trap only to realize that they are natural born novelists and have intense difficulty writing short stories. Short stories and novels are two entirely different beasts. Skill in one does not always predict or even translate to skill in the other.

That sounds like good advice, but I have to wonder how applicable it is. If someone's a naturally gifted novelist and can snap one out without writing anything before, it's a very rare exception. Writing isn't so much a gift as it is hard work, and short stories is a good (note the "a" rather than a "the") way of developing the craft. However...

> Don't try to cram a novel idea into ten pages, and don't try to pad a ten page idea into a novel.

This is obviously good advice. Absolutely do NOT try to make a story have an unnatural length. But a writer can pick his or her projects, and to a new writer, especially a young writer, I would strongly suggest picking naturally short projects before jumping to huge epics which, let's face it, require an *incredible* amount of persistence and discipline and maturity in the medium. Maybe one time out of twenty this is bad advice.