How Many Works in Progress at Once?

I've tried to do this before, but I wind up unable to concentrate well enough on any one of them to make progress. I've learned that for me to finish a book, I have to immerse myself in the world of that book. so I am currently sticking to one at a time.

I can only do one at a time. I can stop in the middle of one and go write something else and come back to the previous WIP a year or two later, but I, too, am the "must be immersed completely in the project" sort.

*looks down at signature*

Too damn many.

I try not to work on more than one book at a time, but I'm good at sabotaging my best intentions. And then there are times when I'm in the middle of a project and edits for a previous project come in from my publisher, so I have to drop everything and switch gears.

The biggest challenge I have is keeping character voice and style consistent when I switch back and forth between projects. Reading back through the last couple of chapters usually gets me back into the flow.

I don't have commitment issues, though. Once I start a project, it's just a matter of prioritization. One story might get more attention than another at times, but it's more a matter of which characters are screaming at me the loudest.

I'm the same way. I can't start something new until I finish what I start. All kinds of ickiness ensues if I attempt more than one novel at a time.

That doesn't stop ideas from popping up left and right as I write. And of course, everything sounds better than what I'm working on!

When ideas surface, I write them down in a safe place so that I have them later when I'm done with my current WIP and am ready to move on.

I'm very monogamous, or maybe obsessive is a good word. I have a goal--finish this draft, edit this manuscript, etc., and I tend to not want to do anything else. Not a great trait, as I think one thing that increases a writer's chances of success are to have lots of irons in the fire. But I'm afraid that if I put a project down for too long, I'll lose that spark and not want to come back to it.

I only write one book at a time. But while I do so, I storyboard about 30 others (that's actually an underestimate). I have ADD, so that may have something to do with it. But I also find that working on many novels at once helps to prevent writer's block.

I switch off between projects. So I'll work on Draft 2 of Project B, then Draft 2 of Project C, then Draft 1 of Project D, then Draft 3 of Project A, etc. As a result I have loooong breaks between drafts for a given project. Don't know how many WIPs I have right now. Six or seven? (mostly novellas)

I alternate between several mms at once, but each time I shift over the new project becomes The Most Important Thing while I'm working on it. The moment I shift focus again, the previous project loses some urgency. This helps me combat burnout on projects. When I take a mini vacation from one, I can usually tackle it better when I come back to it.

I'm trying to do a thing where I work on one MS at a time, but after I've finished a big draft, I'll put it aside for a month so I can come back fresh, and during that month I work on something else.

I tend to switch between revisions/edits. Write one story. Go edit another story while giving it distance. Come back to first story. Make edits. Switch to another story while waiting...

It might help that most of my stories take place in the same world. I did switch to a completely different storyline for my most recent first draft, and I plan to edit it once I've gone through and polished the current draft of the original story.

I have three, but really only one. I sketch out my idea, and save it until I'm ready to write it out.

SunshineonMe said:

I have three, but really only one. I sketch out my idea, and save it until I'm ready to write it out.

Click to expand...

I do this too! I write down all my ideas for all my stories and then write the one I feel most passionate about atm.

I say I work on two, but that actually boils down to Phoenix 3 (I'll probably think of a better name at some point) as my priority project and then switching to my fantasy project when I don't know where to go next/burn out my enthusiasm for science fiction.

i'm all over the place. It was easy to work on two books at the same time before I got my first offer of publication. Then…it all went haywire, with me working on edits for one book, then another, then the third while I was writing another two books in completely different genres. But wait, that other novella I only have three chapters to finish could be slotted in between edits, and what about that first draft I wrote which needs a polish before I send it out…So now I have five full-length novels on the go, and a deadline for another book in December which I haven't finished. What I've been doing since last week is tackling my unfinished mms systematically-- finishing the drafts that need the least work and then focusing on the others. Dunno if this method will work, but I do like writing in different 'worlds'. Morning: contemporary or historical; afternoon: space opera or fantasy. My brain requires the switch else it might fry!

I'm working on two things right now. Technically I've got four WIPs, but inspiration's rather dried up for the other two.

I don't usually have much trouble switching between them; I choose which one to work on based on which one I "feeling" more, I guess. The more I think about a story, the more ideas I'll come up for it. And when I've stopped with that, I'll move onto the other one, or just play some Solitaire.

As long as the books are in different genres, the number doesn't seem to matter.

I typically work on one at a time, except for when it comes to revisions. I can write one and edit another, but for me, writing two first drafts at the same time isn't going to work.

I definitely multi-task, mostly because it takes me so long to develop and work on any individual work. If I'm blocked on one, multi-tasking allows me to work on another. It's just a huge time saver for me.

As for how many I'm currently working on (as in I've written more than a page or two)...let's see...

1) A pirate novel (complete but still fine-tuning and revising)
2) A Robin Hood novel
3) A King Arthur novel
4) A murder mystery set in New York, 1905
5) A murder mystery set in Hong Kong, 1979 (specifically the martial arts film industry)
6) The first entry of a fantasy "series" (more similar to Astro City or Discworld than one long continuous story)
7) A Ruritanian mystery/swashbuckler hybrid intended for self publishing
8) A comic book mini-series

Yeah, eight at once.

It helps that they're all distinct genres from each other. Whatever genre I'm in the mood to work on, that's the genre I write for. I've never had trouble keeping them separate from each other in my head.

I definitely prefer to work on more than one story at a time. That being said, there are days when I will only work on one story. Some days I try to get about 2,000 words in each project. It really depends on how much the creativity is flowing and what other things demand my time.

For instance, today I've mowed the grass and made cupcakes. I'm about to head off to a day job shortly. On the writing front I wrote 2 short children's pieces for magazines and edited another short story for my publisher. I'll be too tired after work to do any work on the novellas/novels, but there's always tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've got a million storylines I'm slowly planning out so that once I get to them I can whip out the first draft in no time.

I really never stop writing. Thankfully work doesn't mind and my boss is happy to let me jot a few things down as long as my work still gets done.

I have... *pauses to count* 6 WIPs and am in the research phase for 4 (some overlap on subject matter) and I've been hopping around. I do each book for NaNo and then set it aside and go back to something else. I'll get them all done. Someday. Maybe.

One is in the beta stage, and two first drafts in the works. One is fantasy and one is urban fantasy/fairytale. At first I thought I had to work on one project at a time, but I have found that once I finished my first book, I was able to work on more than one WIP at a time. I had to get past some sort of mental block. Now that I got past it, all bets are off. I am enjoying multiple projects. I am never bored.

I limit myself to three and I schedule them to make sure I'm not playing the 'MS avoidance shuffle.' Books being actively written get the bulk of my time. I write them during the day when the kids are out and i have big blocks of work time. Editing and plotting happen in the evenings when I'm more likely to be interrupted because i can get back to those tasks faster. Weekends are playtime. I work on short stories and stuff that's more for fun than profit. In a deadline crunch, the evenings and weekends can be used for the priority project.

I also always have about 30 stories waiting to move up to one of those active slots. That file is a hydra. Finish one story and three more show up in its place.

I'm working on four novels right now, but I generally only switch between ones that are in vastly different stages, like between one that's about ready for querying, and one that's still in the first daft. That makes it easier to switch between them. If they're in the same stage, it's much hard to keep my "voice" separate and distinct, along with characterization and dialogue.

I also have many magazine articles and non-fiction works in progress. It's a lot easier to swap between a novel and a book on sewing, for example, because the two require vastly different writing techniques. You don't have to worry about messing up the narrative voice, because YOU are the narrator, rather than the MC. There's no dialogue or characterization to screw up, either. It's a lot more straightforward. Harder in some ways, easier in others.

I am terrible at multi-tasking so I'm generally only focused on a small number of projects at a time. I'm not sure if this is a blessing or a curse. On one hand, I produce much less; on the other...