Does anyone work on many projects at once?

I think one at a time is good practice. Helps you learn to finish.

 

* head explodes *

I really need to choose one and commit. Time to see if I can't conjur a shred of discipline from somewhere within me.

 

I'd say it counts as 1, only because it's consecutive parts to a single story.

 

Right now I have 3 WIPs that I am actively working on. One short story, one novel, and one non-fiction.

How many WIPs do you generally work on at a time, and what are they?

 

I usually only have one project in the writing stage at any given time... right now I've got...

one novel in the writing stage;
two novels with the publisher that will be returned to me for edits at some point;
one novel that I'm self-publishing that is just back from the editor and needs to be polished up before going to the formatter;
four or five novels that have had their rights returned that I'm giving a once-over before self-publishing them as second editions;
one novel that's perpetually back-burnered that I come back to when I have the energy.

I think that's about it. Lots of novels in various stages of publication, but only one that I'm actively writing.

 

I have a couple going at any given time mainly because I write under a few different names, but also because novels take me forever. I like to have something to switch to when I get mentally congested on one or the other.

 

I bounce between about 4.

Right now, my main WiP is actually one I have for someone wanting me to help them with their writing needs. It's sort of interesting to work with someone elses idea and receive co-authorship on as well as payment.

The other three are my own projects. Two short stories, one Science Fiction, the other Fantasy, and a Novel that I've been working on for a while now.

 

Just the one novel. I have a one track mind and everything tends to bleed together for me.

Props to anyone that does more than one, though.

 

At the moment, I have a novel that I am half-way into, a sequel that I have a good percentage outlined, and a novella that I have a finished draft for and that I am in the middle of revising.

I never only have one project on my plate, but I can't think of the last time I've tried doing more than four at once.

 

I typically do one project at a time. The exception would be if I'm working on a novel and decide to crank out a short story or two, but even then, I'll typically work on that short story until it's done before returning to the novel.

Right now, though, I have to say I have 0 WIPs. Active ones, anyway. I have two novels that are on the backburner and one that I kind of want to give a go but haven't really gotten around to starting yet.

 

1 I'm actively working on, I have 2 I'm brainstorming for, and 2 I'm thinking about.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who works on more than one at once! I occasionally get new ideas but I tell myself that I'm essentially hitting myself in the head every time I begin a new one.

I currently have one fantasy/mystery novel that's going to be about seventy chapters - although that's open to change - and one school story, for which I have planned twenty-six chapters. Both are still in the first draft stage.

I also have a fanfic. I know that's not quite the same, but as it's very long, it takes up a lot of my time.

 

I usually only work on one at a time for fear that others will be left unwritten so long that I'll lose my interest in them but since my novel is such a difficult birth, I'm working on a short story, submitting a finished short story and waiting for my copy of my first/only published short story. I do all of this while singing to myself that familiar tune; someday we will all be free...

 

Define "Working On"?

I have my main WIP which is in final editing, last year's NaNo project which is currently "stuck", and two other side projects I'm tinkering with as "the next thing" once the main WIP is dusted. Plus a few other things floating around.

I like to only have one or two things formally on the plate at one time - right now the editing on the main WIP is taking all of my writing time - but there are a lot of other loose ends hanging around.

 

Depends what you mean working. Always working on many ideas. Always working on notes for those ideas. Always researching a couple or more projects that are WIP using the ideas and notes. Always working on finishing 2-3 that have been researched, but usually try to concentrate on just one at a time.

 

One novel I'm pitching.
One novel I'm researching.
One novel on which I've just finished a first draft.

 

I'm in the middle of a story, but I constantly see things that make me want to write another story. My problem is I actually want to finish it, and I'm not sure if I'll just keep creating stories and never finishing them.



Any experience on this?

 

I think it’s down to personal choice. Like many things the best answer is “it depends”.

Some people lose focus if they try and write two or three things at once and others get tired of sticking to one thing all the time. Personally I like to have different things on the go at once that way when one is done another is already on the go.

Finding the right balance is not easy though. If I stick to one thing I find myself trying to put everything I think of into one project when I could make things easier for myself by creating three or four projects out of one.

Just start the other story and then if something else springs to mind start another one too ... if you keep starting projects and then find you’ve got more than four or five I would suggest briefly writing outlines for any new ideas and not picking one of those ideas up properly until you’ve completed one of the four/five - that way you get a welcome reward to open up into new creative ground get stuff done AND constantly have projects well on their way to completion.

The added bonus of doing this is that you can put a project aside and take up another then return to the first with fresher eyes and see what needs ironing out more clearly.

I think we’ve all written things we thought were great one day and crappy the next, or crappy one day and fantastic the next. The more you can distance yourself fro your writing (forget about what you’ve written word for word) the better you’ll be able to edit and tidy it up.

Example: something I wrote here a long while ago I thought it was pretty good and received a lot fo negative comments about it (although some was helpful), and now I’ve looked again I still think it’s good, but lacking polish for sure. Another piece had much more positive feedback and I reread it and found many, many basic errors in it - it is not that I have become a better writer it is simply that at the time I couldn’t see the errors I’d made being to wrapped up in the story I had in my head to see the words on the page in the cold light of day.

To sum up. Try it out. If it causes you more and more problems then note down the outline of your new ideas and then focus on the project at hand. Work to your strengths, which you’ll only find by continually failing in this or that area.

Note: I should take my own advice more seriously too

 

It's all down to self-discipline and focus. If you find it refreshing to work on multiple stories at one time, go ahead. However, if you want to finish them, you must finish them.

What you want to avoid is getting so distracted by multiple ideas that none of them ever get finished. Or, conversely, get so bogged down by one story (either in the excessive planning stage or the actual writing stage)that you can't go on.

Finishing is the key. Whether you multitask or just stick to one thing at a time is up to you.

I very much like what @badgerjelly said about the 'fresh eyes' thing. That doesn't have any effect on how quickly you write or how many stories you work on at any one time. It has to do with the editing phase. And that, I'm sorry to say, DOES require distance ...as badger has discovered.

It has to do with bridging the gap between what you thought you were saying as you wrote it, and what a reader is going to pick up. You have to make the transition between writer and reader in order to figure this out.

You are not going to be able to become a dispassionate reader when you still have the writing of it fresh in your mind. You'll end up word tinkering, or—worse yet—thinking it's perfect. It won't be perfect. So give yourself plenty of distance on your first draft work.

It's probably easier to achieve distance IF you are working on multiple stories at once, because you can still keep writing on one story while waiting for the distance on another one.

 

My rule is: finish one at a time.

Of course I'll still think of scraps of dialogue, scenes, plot arcs and so forth for subsequent stories, but I just jot them down for later and leave them in the associated book's folder. Then I go back to working on the one I'm working on.

 

I started out with two, not intentionally. The first was something I couldn't shut up about, so I made a few notes. The second just haunted me for a few years, til I just had to try to write something to get it off my mind - It's around 450 pages, mostly dialog. So the story I wanted to write has gone about 150 pages of infodump, and the 450 page one has come alive! I'm having trouble organizing the one I wanted to write.
I use them both to detach me from my tunnel writing, it seems to work, but I'm ADHD...

 

Depends on you. I think some professional authors actually say having 2-3 projects on the go can be a good thing, because every time you get stuck on one, you work on the other, and you switch back and forth this way. But the principle of it is: back and forth and back and forth, which means, eventually, they're both finished. If you find yourself always starting new projects and never finishing, then perhaps doing multiple projects on the go isn't a way that'd work for you. Alternatively, limit yourself to how many projects you're allowed on the go. Pick 2-3 of your favourite ideas and stick to those, and if new ideas come, jolt them down and save them for later until at least one project is done.

Any time you finish one out of three that you have on the go, you can pick a new one to fill up your quota Maybe that'd be motivation to finish, because it means you get to work on that other one you're now excited about.

Another limit to think about putting on yourself: discipline yourself to work on your project every day. If you have 3 projects, then limit yourself to working on all 3 projects every week. It doesn't matter if you work on Project #1 for 5 days and then Project #2 and #3 one day each, so long as you work on all of them.

For me, I find having loose boundaries help. So you have some choice, but choices within a reasonable boundary that you've set for yourself. The boundary is not up for negotiation, but the choices within that is. That helps keep you going while still giving you freedom and making you feel like you can still be creative and relax etc.

Exceptions are given to when you're worked steadily for a very long time and just genuinely need a break. Taking up to one week for a different creative outlet is healthy. Every couple of months or so, I think it's a good thing, be it reading, singing, horse-riding, some other hobby you've always also loved. Walk away from actually writing and do something else entirely. Then come back and keep going. Up to a week, no more.

 

I think having multiple but few projects going at hand is really refreshing- there isn't a consequence for writing more, of course!

I always have other stories either in mind to being or already in progress that I can resort to if I come to a block at the main project at hand. Giving up or even taking a break for a while because I can't get just one story done stresses me, so I make sure I have other things to do.

 

I'm kind of opposite. I don't really want to start another long project until my first book is finished. I feel like I'll get more into the next one if I wait until the first one is finished. I do, however, come up with ideas for my next project.
I guess it comes down to if you can handle multiple projects or not. If you're the kind of person who is really obsessive over one story you're working on, (like me) it will probably be harder to work on multiple projects. If you aren't really all that obsessive and can distance yourself just enough from the other projects when you're not working on them (but not enough that you lose interest in them) then you'll probably fare better with multiple projects. If you do distance yourself too much, you're probably better with just one project.