For a long time, I’ve been a monogamous writer. I started a project, worked on it faithfully until it was done, and I didn’t start anything new until it was. I might start to develop and prewrite one project while finishing another, but I was very firm — I didn’t start Chapter One until I’d written The End.
Lately, though, that’s been changing, and it’s come to a crisis point the past few weeks. I’ve got too many projects to finish, and now that I’m working full-time, not enough time to devote to all of them. I’m torn!
There’s the finished novella that needs to be revised and resubmitted to my editor. I love this story, and I really want to do right by it and find it a good home. But it needs a lot of restructuring that’s going to require my complete attention.
Then there’s the sequel to All that Glitters. This one needs some more scenes, a slight restructuring of the ending, and a final polish before I submit it. And there are a couple ideas for more sequels bouncing around in my head that depend on it, so I need to get that one sold before I can do anything with the others.
And then there’s the new kid on the block, the idea brimming with NRE that keeps popping up and distracting me any time I let my mind wander. It is shiny and new and terribly, terribly exciting, and I’m very anxious to work on it. So far, I’ve been able to restrain myself and keep to plotting and prewriting, but my resolve is weakening. It keeps calling to me with its siren-song promise of exciting characters, awesome worldbuilding, and a city I can’t wait to lose myself in.
So, I’m stuck. I’ve got too many projects to work on (and a dozen more clamoring to be taken off the back burner) and not enough time to devote to all of them. So far I’ve been managing, doing as much as I can as often as I can, and trying to focus my energy onto finishing the sequel to All that Glitters, but I’m not really happy with the division of labor.
Has anyone else found themselves in this sort of pickle? Got any tips on how to manage your time when there’s not enough of it to go around?
I find the best way to handle a logjam of projects is to ask myself, which of these projects SHOULD be done first? Which of them a) has a deadline or the SOONEST deadline, and b) would be most beneficial to my career to finish first.
Good luck!
I really have a hard time with discipline. Sometimes, if a new idea strikes, I’ll let myself write one page. That is usually enough to satisfy me for a time.
You know me, Ais–ten things on the go at any given time. But like Gwen, I usually find that if I write a bit (for me, first 15k or so, rather than one page) then I can set it aside for a while.
Good thing for me the first 15k flies by most of the time. After that point, the bright shiny newness starts to fade and I’m less obsessed–or I’ve reached a point where I don’t know where to take it (I’m a pantser) and it needs to percolate in my subconscious for a month or two.
Course, if these sequels are what I think they are *ahem, ahem*, I really feel you ought to finish the shorter ones first. And that’s not my own pushy self-interest talking, either. Well, not very much…
LOL Kirsten! Really? You want me to finish the short stuff before I get to CK and that sequel you keep drooling over? I’d have figured the opposite.