Assuming you are blessed with a new idea that seem unrelated to a current work in progress, and you write the plot outline or scene immediately, do you then stop at that point or do you continue while you've got the flow? I wonder how many times this has happened to others, and if they try to force the idea or scene into their original work, or whether they end up with concurrent works in progress. How does this then affect the creative process? Does it throw up unintended ideas that you realise could work really well in the other piece, causing interesting twists, or does it just interfere and cause confusion?
Happens to me all the time. I write whatever I feel like, and sometimes go back to an old story and continue writing it with new ideas and fresh energy.
I write down the idea, maybe write a short story if it has legs then I work out when I am going to write it. Then go back to my work in progress. I tried having several on the go at once but personally I prefer working on one project until it is completed.
Depends. If I get an idea for a short story, I jot it down and work on it some more if I feel like it. When it comes to novels, I like to concentrate on one at a time.
I agree with the majority on this one. I have been known to write a short story, as much to take a break from novel writing as anything else. But when it comes to novels, strictly one at a time. If I had multiple projects, I'd probably never get anything done.
I have so many ideas that I would never get anything down if I wrote them all at once, so if I have an idea, I write down a short plot outline and leave it for later. I have one word document with about 30 plot outlines on it now.... But I do work on several projects at once. I usually open all the documents, then switch between them as I get ideas. I work pretty slowly, but I have no plans of getting anything published until I'm 30 (in 10 years), so I have plenty of time.
Being riddled with A.D.D. I find that I have to force myself to only work on one project at a time, because if I work on two then the second spawns ideas for a third and so on...it gets crowded in my brain. I have 7 projects in line in my head I want to work on, but I'm only working on one right now, that's my personal suggestion. FOCUS!
What I'd do is write down all the story ideas I have, then pick the ones that look the most intriguing and start on them.
I write down the idea and maybe spend some time developing it, but I wait until I finish what I'm working on to start something new. I'm sure there are plenty of people that can work on two things at once, but, when I allow myself to do that, there's no stopping me from working on three things, and then four, and then five, and then...
I'm working on two novels and three kind of long fanfictions now. I'm almost surprised I don't get confused. I guess it works out because they are all very different. It helps doing this when I don't really have inspiration to write any of them. I'll write a few minutes on one, then a few on another. That way I don't get too sick of them.
I only write one novel at a time, though I'll occasionally take a break and do a short story. Any ideas for other books that occur to me get noted in separate files and saved for later. It takes me a year and a half at least to finish a project as is...I think if I worked on multiple projects at once, they would go on endlessly!
i've always worked on multiple projects concurrently, though when in the middle of a major one will usually give that top priority... fleeting ideas are jotted down and saved for later...
Pretty much exactly the sort of responses I expected to see - some are capable of juggling multiple projects and have the discipline to do it, whilst most find themselves jumping back and forth and never actually getting anything finished. Unfortunately I'm in the latter camp, whether it's writing, music, video or other web projects, I really struggle to maintain my focus on any one thing until it's complete - a hurdle I'm trying to overcome on this first writing project!
