When is a story a novel?

The other day the Sarcasm Girl and I were riffing on some silly notion--I don't even remember what it was, just one of those she-says-something-I-say-something-and-it-goes-from-there things, and as the riffing petered out she said "You should turn that into a book." My kids are always trying to get me to write things--children's books, in particular (YG is emphatic that I should be writing for children, and very disappointed that two of my stories, "Sleepyboy" and "The Princess with a Rock in Her Pocket" have not already been published, lavishly illustrated) so I don't take this too seriously. "It's really not a book's worth of idea," I said. "Short story, maybe." And of course SG, being a smart cookie, asked, "How do you know?"

The truth is that, like so much of my writing, it's a seat-of-my-pants thing. Not always--some ideas are clearly limited in scope. I wrote a story I'll be reading at BayCon, "Abelard's Kiss," about a genetically engineered sex toy. That was a get-in-and-get-out sort of story; once it was done I had no impulse to expand it. On the other hand, I know a good deal about the world (as it turned out, it took place about fifteen years after The Stone War) in which it's set. I could write a book set there--I have an idea for one--but "Abelard" wasn't the germ of it. On the other hand, Point of Honour was born from a phrase uttered to me some years ago: "the hardboiled Regency." Which was more a matter of world, I suppose, than plot. I'm currently working on a short story--relatively near future SF--about a world into which a new power source is being introduced. I could probably write a novel set in that world, but the story itself is clearly a short story to me. Like love, I think some of this works on the you-know-when-you-see-it principle. But I'd be interested in hearing from other writers and thoughtful people wandering through: how do you know when an idea is a novel idea and when it's a short story idea?

Wandering in the Fields of Research

I'm in the middle of Big Research, and it makes me feel guilty. I know, I honestly do know, that research is part of the writing process. Furthermore, I'm finding all sorts of fascinating bits and pieces (though I wish I could justify spending $75 for a book I just discovered on medicine in medieval Italy, but I just can't...). Research feels like play: I follow various threads of information down various rabbit holes, make notes, many with exclamation marks which mean "this is good stuff! Remember this!" or side notes about specific inspirations this has for the Planned Work. But I'm not writing anything other than notes, and if I'm not producing something it makes me feel cranky and unworthy. No one needs to jump in and tell me I'm a good dog and everything is okay--I really know that. I just wish that gnawing "what have you done for me lately" thing, a gift (I suspect) of my father's ferociously accomplishment-oriented family--would go gnaw on someone else for a change.