I find that your life’s options depend on where you are in life. And as far as I can tell. The only way to have access to more options is to change your life first.
Writing short stories, and going as far as to consider writing longer works of fiction was not really an option for me up until recently.
I only managed to free some of my time to create freely a few months ago. It’s very recent but I realize that this is not a luxury I was able to enjoy at any point in my life before that.
I really didn’t have the luxury to allow myself to fail on something new.
I could not spend a month or two of my time to try something new until I freed enough of my time to make that possible. The mental drain from my day-to-day job was too overpowering to allow me to use my mind creatively. Coming home from work day in and day out does not leave much of a bandwidth to do more work. Even if it is something fun or if it is something you want to do.