Like anything, the skills we share with one another here take time to develop. Don't be so hard on yourself so quickly. Give yourself time to practice and improve these skills.

If these skills came naturally, you'd already be a famous published author. Take courage that you're in the same boat as the rest of us - it rarely comes naturally to anyone.

EDIT to add: If it helps, my first entries in F&F stunk. What I learned from those was teeny, but what I learned from reviewing other fragments was huge. The advice given so many times around here is true: you will learn a great deal more by critiquing other people's work than by posting your own.

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How can I tell?

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There is a lot of truth in the old adage: "Follow Your Bliss."
Ask yourself: Does it give me joy?

I believe it was David Gerrold (could have been OSC) who said a writer's first million words are "wasted" (meaning that's how much work it takes to get skilled at the craft). It took four tries before Stephen King sold a novel, etc.

I quit writing for almost a half year because I got really frustrated over getting relatively little encouraging feedback, which convinced me that whatever aptitude I have lies elsewhere. To make a long story short, I now wish I had that 6 months back.

(1) After thirty-one years and minimal success, I have a deep-set wonder in my mind, wondering if it was the right choice.

(2) For years now I haven't read a hundredth the amount of science fiction I used to back then, so why should I be writing it?

why don't you let your subconscious tell you what you want to write? come join us at LH for a flash or two. when you're faced with a trigger and a deadline, the words just pour out and they're not necessarily the genre you thought you'd write. Many people are surprised with what comes out in a challenge like that; it seems to tap something deep inside. we don't restrict ourselves to any one genre.

What do you have to lose?

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I believe it was David Gerrold (could have been OSC) who said a writer's first million words are "wasted" (meaning that's how much work it takes to get skilled at the craft).

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I'm pretty sure it was not OSC, or if it was he must have been counting all his schoolwork since he was a little boy, since he has never written a novel before selling it.

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At the rate I'm going, it will take me ten years to write a million words. I figure, if after ten years I still haven't improved, then I'll decide it's not for me, throw in the towel, give up. (Um, yeah, about that...my happiness is directly dependant upon how well my writing is going. I don't think I'll be giving it up any time soon.)

But still and all, I can say that all stories I've written so far were crappy, but were worth doing because I learned from them. Maybe the next one will also be more practice, but that's okay. As long as there are more stories I want to read, I will write them, and grow as a writer.

And never be afraid to try new things. Summer Glau thought she'd be a dancer all her life, until she got injured and turned to acting. Good thing she did, because I loved her as River Tam!

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I think it was Ray Bradbury. He is also supposed to have claimed to have burned his first million words because they were worthless.

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Ah, but he also waited until he had published quite a bit before torching his early work. I don't think I could do that. However much I acknowledge that all I wrote before 1990 is bad, I couldn't bring myself to free up my file space and dump it all. (I wouldn't say no to a natural disaster wiping it all out.)

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On flash challengers: I'm not saying no to that...but right now, my (probably SF) novel is just flowing along. Maybe it's just a late-blooming case of literary elephantitis, but I want to concentrate on it exclusively until I hit a rough patch and grind to a halt, or until I reach the finish line. I'll reconsider visiting LH then: it sounds like a blast.

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On the notion of taking one's early work and selling it after one "connects": I'm mostly against it. A bunch of writers have done it. Probably the most egregious example is Piers Anthony, who, I gather, got a lot of his previously-written but rejected-and-unpuglished novels into print after he connected big-time with the Xanth series. I heard Stephen King, after fame (and Carrie) brought a market like F & SF to ask him for something, he'd hand them a much-rejected MS written before-he-was-famous and watch them ooh-and-aah over it.

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In On Writing, Stephen King admits that he re-submitted a story to F&SF after it had been rejected. However, he still believed the story was good, it hadn't been shopped around ad nauseum, and the editor had changed in the interim. Do all of those things mean he DIDN'T sell it on the strength of his name? I don't know. But I think it's a little bit of a different situation to what you were implying, Robert.

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I'd like to hope he didn't---but the first story he sold them didn't strike me as anything special, though I recall few details (something about a circus, I think, but I wouldn't swear to that for sure---it's not in front of me right now). I don't think it's in any of his collections, either. (It may very well be the first thing of his I ever read, come to think of it.)

The "Dark Tower" series seems to have had its origins in something perhaps-previously-rejected. Seems the tone (and perhaps the auctorial skill in handling things) changed sharply after Volume One, whose segments were first published in F & SF.

I know if I had something I liked I'd likely send it out again if it had a chance of being published. But there are over a hundred stories (and several novels) that I wouldn't send out again, except maybe for their curio value ("Hey! Look here at the first things I wrote!")