Multitasking

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

How many of you are comfortable working on more than one story at a time? I have ideas for three short stories at present and I've started writing one of them. However, I'm wary of starting too many things at a time. I realise discipline is the key here, but I also have time constraints since I have a variety of freelance assignments to juggle as well as responsibilities around the home. Is it best in such cases to try and jot down the extra ideas and file them away for later development?

 

[The Judge]

I think it very much depends on how comfortable you feel and the way you work.

For myself, while I can multi-task easily in other areas -- cooking, say -- when it came to major items of work, I had to deal with one file at a time to the exclusion of other matters, so I disliked taking phone calls or being interrupted. My writing is the same. Although I have ideas for other stories, I can't allow myself to write them while I am trying to finish the current big project. On occasions when I have tried to do two things -- making amendments to novel one while trying to finish novel 2 -- I have been like a donkey with two mangers, continually torn between which I should approach and getting nowhere with either.

So in my case, I file those other ideas away, sometimes with actual scenes, sometimes with just bare outlines, while I concentrate on finishing the matter in hand. But I know other people like to have two or more things on the go and ricochet between them -- as inspiration for one dries up, they go to the other.

Good luck with them all anyway.

J

 

[Nik]

Hard enough to escape RealLife(TM) long enough to concentrate on current project --'Long Weekend' is up to story-day #21, approx 50 k-words-- but there's enough time elapsed that I'm almost afraid I'll 'Wake, Grabbing For Notebook' with a new idea.

'LW' is well into the mid-game. I've a rough draft of the finale. I've a really, really important bunch of scenes coming up, and I'm not doing too well telling the first of them...

If my dreaded 'WGFN' is a 'short', I'll probably write it to get it out of my system, give myself a break from LW. If it is longer, I'd hope that scribbling a few pages will preserve the magic until later. Sometimes, a 'new' idea is my subconscious telling me to give current tale a rest before it becomes turgid...

That said, I almost picked up my stalled 'Hard SF' tale for another try at the next chapter. Now that's lain fallow for over a year, my exasperation has ebbed....

 

[Sephiroth]

I agree with The Judge. It depends on you.

I long resisted working on anything but my overarching (overreaching?) project (a series of novels, the plot of which has become rather complicated, the setting of which I have spent years creating).

Changes in my life recently have caused me to reassess what I'm doing. I've put the ol' project on the back burner for a while I indulge my desire simply to write. (Before this, I had stopped all writing-related activity for almost a year, and I wasn't sure when I'd be able to 'pick up the pen', again.)


Right now, I'm doing both. That is to say, I'm writing both a short story and a novella, and considering trying to find a market for my previous short. I'm focusing more on the new short right now, because there's a submissions deadline, but the longer piece is always open, and I can add to it whenever I feel like it. If I don't feel like it, it doesn't bother me, it just sits in the background.

I also have several other ideas which are 'filed away' (they're not, actually, they're in an open file, but it's the same thing) for later development. These vary from a mere sentence (or a few sentence fragments) to a couple of pars, and at least one of them will hopefully grow into my next project when I finish what I'm currently working on.

Of course, I might have thought of something altogether new, by then.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Yes I agree one project at a time.

Although I suspect that this may be because most of us don't have the luxury of being full time writers. We have our real lives to act as 'distractions'.

If all we had to do was drag ourselves out of bed in the late maorning to see what the servants had made us for brunch and then settle into an afternoon of relaxed digestion and writing for a few hours I dare say we could knock out a few short stories or even a second book or two between afternoon tea and diner.

 

[Culhwch]

If all we had to do was drag ourselves out of bed in the late maorning to see what the servants had made us for brunch and then settle into an afternoon of relaxed digestion and writing for a few hours I dare say we could knock out a few short stories or even a second book or two between afternoon tea and diner.

Wait, you mean everyone else's lives aren't like this? Wow, I feel guilty about wasting the opportunity now.

I have numerous projects on the boil at any given time. Projects completed: zero. So I'd suggest it might not work too well. But I do think it's a personal thing.

 

[chopper]

like Cul, i have lots on the go at any given time. for several months i focused on a bunch of short stories, but now they've been finished, i'm veering between the Epic Tragic Fantasy and the Epic Space Opera Series. you can see how slowly they are progressing over in the wordcount thread.....

 

[The Judge]

If all we had to do was drag ourselves out of bed in the late maorning to see what the servants had made us for brunch and then settle into an afternoon of relaxed digestion and writing for a few hours...

How did you know? Have you been spying on me TEIN???

J

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

How did you know? Have you been spying on me TEIN???

J

No more than usual

 

[J-WO]

If all we had to do was drag ourselves out of bed in the late maorning to see what the servants had made us for brunch and then settle into an afternoon of relaxed digestion and writing for a few hours I dare say we could knock out a few short stories or even a second book or two between afternoon tea and diner.

I can dictate to my servants and throw breakfast in their faces if they dare to misquote me, so I guess that makes me a multitasker.

 

[Prototype]

I dabble in the odd short story now and then, but more for writing pleasure and for a break away from the novel. I tend to try and stick to one project at a time and man is it proving a loooooong project...

I envy those writers who can juggle multiple projects at once. I think I'll leave the multitasking to them.

 

[Cedanhart]

I find that generally I need to work on more than one thing at a time. I'm not very good at containing the ideas flitting through my head, and as a result feel an urgent compulsion to juggle between stories and novels all the time. It isn't good or helpful for me.

For one thing I find that they start feeding into each other. The character traits of someone in a short story starts to trickle out towards the novel. Ideas and plotlines take on excess baggage as I think 'Oh, hey, this would be good for X' while writing Y.

I desperately want to focus on one thing but it's sometimes difficult when the floodgates open and you fear they might dry up if everything isn't written and completed as quickly as possible. So to answer the first question, no, I'm really quite bad at multitasking, but can't seem to do anything but.

I think if you're able, sticking to the one thing is best, in my opinion.

 

[chrispenycate]

There's no real risk of my characters migrating across storylines; a dragon in a space station just doesn't fit (well, she'd enjoy it if it were a really big space station) and I find having a story in reserve means I've got something waiting for me when a flow dries up.

More worrying is the fact that I don't write in Chronological order, and am frequently writing three or four segments of a single story in parallel, rather than series. I suspect this is largely due to the bottleneck in my creation not being in the writing – longhand in notebooks – but in the typing into the computer, so inconsistencies in the action can be edited out there.

But for the time being I don't think I've got a publishable idea, so I'm concentrating on learning to write. Nothing is lost, after all, and I'm sure that a publisher would prefer a more conventional structure from a new writer; experimentation can await being established.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I think you've already learned how to write, Chris.

 

[Boneman]

I have two projects on the go ; one is my major opus, a trilogy, book one 'finished' but re-writing, editing, improving. When I get writer's block I go to my other piece which is a fun bit of writing that enables me to write without parameters, if you like. I wonder if I'll be annoyed if the second one sold before the first...

I find that the mental relaxation of the second book invariably enables my brain to refresh itself, so I can go back to the first. And I can walk down the road and chew gum!

 

[Sapheron]

I shift between writing different stories all the time. I've never finished any of them, but they're all slowly moving towards completion together at various rates.

As to physically multitasking, I can do that reasonably well too. Patting my head and rubbing my stomach provides little challenge.

 

[Glitch]

I find working on several stories at once can sometimes be a good thing. I added a common element into three separate stories to make them all part of the same universe; which helped with the world building as I had already imagined it.

But I do find working on so many stories means that I end up spending ages trying to decide which one to work on, ultimately doing nothing.

 

[thatollie]

Balance is essential, I'm working on some projects because I really need to get back into the habit but I'm also working on an outline for a new novel that I hope has publishing potential.

 

[MistingWolf]

I personally can only really work on one story at a time, though I don't mind entertaining thoughts on others. But when it comes down to it, I need to focus on just one.

 

[reiver33]

Although men in general are more prone to monomania (a polite term for obsession), it really depends on the individual. I'm terribly prone to 'new ideas' but have managed to limit myself to picking away at two (apart from a prequel to one which I needed to set some things straight in my own mind). Oh, plus the edit of an earlier piece which I really should get back to after the recommended 'cooling off' period (sorry Boneman).

Like some others here I find the mental leap/wrench/change of focus between projects can be useful, if only because it forces me to re-read the previous section as opposed to 'knowing' what it contains. Sometimes I have detail in my head which I fail to write down and this can seriously warp the (new) reader's persepctive of the narrative.