I always have multiple novels at a time (four currently), which I know isn’t good for my writing in any of them. Somehow they’ve sprouted up over the years and I have to admit it’s hard, juggling all of them. Most days I don’t even go anywhere with them because I’m too overwhelmed or disinterested. It’s a problem that I have to fix, and one I don’t recommend getting involved in unless you know you can get out safely. I’m not very productive—I have spurts of intense writing for full days, then I fall into legarthy for weeks. This has to do more with my personality than what I’m writing, but having four stories at once makes it slightly disorienting. If you believe you can handle two stories, and you have the drive and self-management to do so, then by all means, go ahead. I wish you the best of luck!
I have only done it once since I started writing, and it was an epic disaster that stressed me out to the max. It took longer to complete them simultaneously than it would have if I'd tackled them separately, and a handful of times I almost gave up on one or the other. Some writers can do it successfully but I am not among their number.
I think it depends but I find that if i'm a bit fatigue working on my WIP, working on one of my short stories seems to help.
My rule for now is that I work on one and only one, but if I'm stuck with actual productive writing, I'm allowed to write scenes with the characters and in the timeline, even if those scenes are totally useless for the novel. That keeps that specific story marinating in my brain. I also don't write in order, so that alone gives me a lot of options for fleeing those "stuck" points and letting them soak.
For novels, I'm bound to one book at a time. I can't be the Casanova I dream of and toy with other stories. I need to be loyal and keep my word or else our marriage will die. For short stories, I usually write a few at a time but since my last few short stories have not yet found a home, I'll just focus on fixing them up as much as possible.
OP I get ideas all the bloody time on other potential stories. There is no way round that, we remember and have ideas by association, so it's more of a fact of life i am afraid. What i do is make sure i write those ideas down for the other books. I never write a chapter, just the idea - usually bullet pointed. Takes seconds. Then go back to the main book i am concentrating on. That way I stay on track and keep writing. (saying that, in between books when i am deciding which to write i quote often write a couple of chapters of an idea. So i now have 10-20k works written of around 6 ideas lol) Rgds
I got very focused on my novel while I was writing it, and didn't want to work on any other story. I didn't get writer's block at all. In fact, it was the opposite. I wanted to write all the time. I regarded my (then) work schedule and obligatory holidays as obstacles. I would rather have been writing. Afterwards, however, once I finished the first draft and the first few edits, I put it aside. I discovered I was just tinkering with words, etc. I was changing what I'd written the day before, then the next day changing it back, or changing it to something else. It was as if my impetus to get the story done was gone, once I'd finished the first draft and done some major edits. Now I had all the time in the world to putter around with other things. The finished novel sat, untouched, for nearly 5 years. When I picked it up again, with the help of a few more betas I was able to pare it down even more. I'm quite happy with it now. One or two minor niggles to solve—mostly involving some very minor changes that are the result of more recent research—and one more giant pass-through, to make sure the formatting is flawless, and I'm done. Just get the cover design in place, figure out the ePublishing schtick, write the blurb and I'm away. So why am I dragging anchor at this stage? I have started writing my second novel, but I really need to get the first one out there. By out there, I mean published. I'm getting frustrated with my lack of motivation for making that final leap. Possibly it's because I find the physical process of publishing extremely daunting—and now CreateSpace has changed and I'm not sure what to try next. I would love to just wave my magic wand and have Brothers appear on Amazon for sale, today. Erm ...now where did I put that wand....
I don't think so, unless both stories are very similar. I have one main project, and a short story I'm working on. They are both fantasy, but their tones are wildly different. My main project is high fantasy, with lots of cheese (dragons, magic, etc), wile my short story is really dark and gritty, almost like a war fiction. The only thing they share is sub themes of romance and forbidden love because I like writing about that.
Drifting back to this thread: I think it may depend in part on how much of your writing is processed in your subconscious. For me, that seems to be a LOT. And I feel like having two stories growing in there would hamper that process. But I could be wrong. They might cross-pollinate and help each other out.
I try to have another story for practice, so that I won't ruin it all from chapter six, but I cannot write on anything else, after being too familiar with the fantasy world. I keep feeling that the main book is the real world, so another book feels like an insult to my main character, who's waiting for me to finish the chapter the way it happened to him. They are already angry at me for adding a new blasphemous deity to their religion.
I've never managed to write two things at once unless it's a novel & short story. Two novels and one always gets sacrificed for time. I was in the middle of writing a novel when I came up with my idea for my WIP and I jumped onto the new project and left half a first draft behind. Plus I always have to watch that two novels don't start to plagiarize each other. Did I write this scene for that story? The dominating character for this novel sounds an awful lot like the character in my other novel. Even with my old novel put on hold I noticed similarities creeping into my current WIP -- I'm not totally shocked as the same theme had crept into an early put aside novel so maybe it's just my subconscious trying to get this story out no matter what form it takes.
*Stares at the pile of seven unfinished projects*... Now, in all seriousness, I would advice you that if you have an idea not-related to your current project and it just won't leave you alone, don't ignore it. Sit down and write it out; that will be the only way to get it out of your head. And who knows, maybe you end up with a small work finished in between the making of a larger one. I think Stephen King wrote many of his short stories while working on his bigger novels.
I am writing two stories right now. Short stories. I don't get lost. I feel comfortable with writing multiple stories, and could see myself writing more than two if I had the ideas. I am feeling, right now, this could be of the reasons I don't write novels. I don't know if I could write multiple novels at the same time, but then I don't care to find out. One more thing, though. I am writing these two stories with a liberal amount of time between them. Because I like to take my time.
WW, I would definitely give my current story a rest and start drafting the one I'm constantly getting inspiration to write, if only to see if I might really have something there. You might lose it in the end if you leave it alone altogether. I'd never considered writing more than one story at a time, and to be honest the idea alone is enough to disturb me. But I got stuck with my short story, so decided to put it down for a bit, and then got this other idea I started working on which somehow triggered new inspiration for the first (the one I made the definite decision to finish). I think the similarities in the main characters of both stories account for a lot of that; I'm finding one sort of feeds off the other. But I also think it was essential for me to move away, for a while, from something that had become forced, draining and unrewarding. Now I'm inspired again for my main story I've put the other one down, because as I said I just won't be working on two things at the same time. It would be nice to hear what you've decided to do, and what worked for you.
In my opinion, i would finish one before going to the other as I do not want to mix up all the ideas and could cause duplication in both stories. Focusing on one story would let you have some time to think about the ways to enhance it rather than you having the needs to think about 2 stories at the same time. If you're bored of doing one story, try to do something else, like sports, reading
I guess I’m writing two stories at once. I finished the first draft of evergreen book 1. About a fifth of the way through book 2, so I can let the first book still in the back of my brain wile I write book 2. They are long enough that they could be considered stand alone works if not for their characters and settings. It’s fine to have multiple stories in the mill as long as they all are at different stages of progress. I won’t edit book 1 till I finish writing part 2. Just write your ideas down so you can come back to them later.
I've tried doing this in the past - writing two stories at once - but I usually wind up abandoning one of them and focusing on whichever one I can do the most with. My problem is starting on a story, then deciding I want to do something different with it.
I've got one novel in progress and I don't think I would want to write another novel simultaneously. But I have written several short stories while my novel is still in the works. And I can work on more than one short story at a time. There is always room for putting those aside and revisiting them and improving them so I've got like a dozen of those in the works. I could call them done. Sometimes I do. But I always come back to them with the exception being the ones I've had published. But I also like to have a new short story in the works. I don't know. I feel like if I really made my novel a priority, I could finish it fairly quickly. I was thinking I would start it over. I do think I will do that and maybe then shift my focus back on the novel. I plan on using my novel to apply for grants. The work doesn't have to be complete. The grants will be to help me financially while working on it, though, I need enough down to be able to fill out the applications and provide a writing sample. I am afraid of failure. I'm not afraid of rejection. As many of you know I get rejected a lot. But sometimes I don't. I feel like a fraud of sorts trying to write a novel. It's like I can taste the failure. I think working on other things is a form of procrastination. I think if you're a short story writer, you can have a few things going at the same time in various stages. But a novel calls for your full attention. And I've just been keeping myself too busy to answer that call.
Some authors can write multiple projects at once, others can't. I've been known to flit between several projects at once, but my friend can only focus on one at a time. If you're itching to both finish your current WIP and start a new one, then focus on your primary project but add some extra time in for your secondary WIP. My method of choice is to dedicate a good chunk of time to my primary WIP before I even look at my second one, and I like to keep the session target counter open in Scrivener to keep track of how much work I've done on each If you find it's too hard to have two on the go at once, then write up your ideas and then, when your current WIP is finished, go onto your second project so you don't have any downtime between working.
Somewhere I read that Ray Bradbury's cure for writer's block was to write something else. I think he usually kept multiple projects in flight.
I’m kind of debating this right now myself. Right now I have two main WIPs, but I feel as if I’m moving at a sluggish pace with both. It almost feels like I will never finish either, because I’m constantly moving between the two. At the same time, when I focus on only one I tend to think about the other.
I have one first draft sleeping. I don't write it. It needs to hibernate and I let it do it. I don't disturb it's hibernating by writing it. I am writing another first draft. First I wrote about 115 pages background material. After that I started writing first draft. I have many ideas that are silently developing themselves in background. (See "Aspies Pipeline" in Progress Journals if you want to.) I don't write them. I make notes when necessary but I don't write them. So... Many projects are more or less developing, but only one project gets my full attention. When I make notes to other projects I free my mind to concentrate to the work in progress. It's best to write only one project and free your mind from others. And if making notes is your primary way to free your mind, then everything goes forward.
I am doing two non-fictions, actually one is complete, awaiting DoD security review for publication, another a rather interesting one, mathematical and geometric, on the theory of relativity. I find taking a break from my novel in progress has been a delightful change of pace, though I want to get back to the Long Road Back to Rome pretty soon. Hey@Jerseyrunner, want be a beta reader when Riding on a Light Beam is finished? less professorial that the old draft I sent you a few months ago
Lately I've been spreading my drafts out even though I have a single main project that's the pivotal focus. Whenever I want a break from it however, I do something else. I'm just kind of curious as to what your usual routine is when writing books and short stories and other such creative writing endeavors. Usually when I'm feeling stumped with my higher priority projects, I'll move on to something else.
Pretty much the same for me. It helps keep a rotation of finished projects because apparently now the one thing that hurts a writing career worse than being a bad author is to be an author with a couple of years between releases.
