Well, my careful plan for a biweekly ranty blog has fallen apart. As plans always do. Best we can do is move on and try to get things back on track. And by we, I mean me. I’m not expecting you to do any of this for me…

Anyway…

Three or four weeks back I got a newsletter reply (you’re subscribed to the newsletter, yes?) asking about working on multiple projects. Did I tend to do one thing at a time or juggle a few things at once? And if I was a crusty juggler… how did I keep things straight?

This was kind of timely because when I got this question, I’d been working on this draft of TOS but just gotten an email from a magazine editor with suggested edits for a story I wrote back in… May? And I also got an email from Blackstone about some work we need to do on God’s Junk Drawer. Plus there’s this ranty blog and the newsletter. So this past month has had me working on a few different things.

So, yeah, I’m juggling stuff right now. But I think a key thing to remember, for this little discussion, is that I have to. No options. Writing is my full time job, and that means I’ve usually got two or three things at different stages

Now, left to my own devices, I usually just focus on one thing. I’m not against scribbling a few notes or thoughts for potential projects, but I rarely go that far with it. That’s just kind of my process. Also, mental note, haven’t really discussed my process here in a while. Let’s put that on the calendar.

That said… the magazine story was a dream project I’ve wanted to do for many, many years (for a few different reasons) so I couldn’t really pass it up. And I’m under contract with Blackstone, so no putting off those edits. And my agent’s waiting for TOS because… well, it’s the next thing. That’s how the job goes. I write stuff, he finds someone who wants to buy it.

So how do I juggle multiple projects?

Honestly, I’m not really sure.

I think, on a very real level, it’s a lot like any other job. Yeah, right now I’m trying to do payroll but somebody just walked in with a petty cash problem. I’m framing walls but right now we need all hands to unload a truck. I’ve been trying to get the warehouse organized but tomorrow’s the big spring cleaning day out in the store. We all do this, all the time. We’re working on one thing. We need to switch gears for a while. And then we go back to what we were doing before.

Granted, it can be a little tougher in the arts. For me, personally, going from one project to something completely different just means I need to get my head into the story, probably like how an actor (I’m guessing) sometimes needs to get into a role. I don’t need to call on my inner muse or anything, but I usually re-read some of my manuscript and maybe go over my notes. Bigger projects will probably take a little more reading and have more notes (novels vs short stories, for example) but doing that’s usually enough for me to remember what I was thinking and where/how I wanted things to go.

Of course, there are some writers who can flip back and forth with no problem at all. And some who may need a lot more work and effort to get back into something they’d set down. And some who are very much working on one project only and that’s it, from first word to publication. It’s very much an individual thing, and I can’t tell you what kind of writer you are. It’s one of those aspects of writing you’ll just have to play around with and figure out what works best for you.

I think my best tip would be, when I stop working on Thing One, I should be sure to use any of the tricks I’d normally use to make starting the next day easier. Get at least two or three sentences onto the next page. Make an all-caps note to myself right there in the manuscript. Don’t assume I’ll remember anything later—jot it down so it’s definitely there when I come back to it. Plot point, line of dialogue, song in my head, whatever. And if I’m only going to work for a while on Thing Two before going back to Thing One… well, do the same for it.

That’s kind all I’ve got for you there.

Not a super-satisfying answer, I know. Sorry.

But let me spin this another way.

If I wasn’t doing this full time—let’s say it’s the career I’m trying to jumpstart or maybe just something I’m having fun with on the side—I guess a better question might be why am I working on multiple projects at once?

I used to have a lot of different things I was working on. For all sorts of reasons. Shiny new ideas. Trends I’d try to follow. Different formats I was writing in. Fear I was working on the wrong thing and I should spend more time on something like that.

But eventually I realized I was jumping around so much I wasn’t actually finishing anything. Sometimes this was deliberate, yeah. A story idea was going nowhere, so I just moved on to something new.

Other times, though, it was just lack of focus. The minute something needed some actual effort—some serious thought about structure or tension or character motivations—well, that’s when I’d decide to slide over to something else. Keep lots of projects going, right? If this one stalls just move on to that one. Or that one. And then that one. And this one. And oh, y’know what I just thought of…

Y’see, Timmy, while I’m not against working on multiple projects, I know for me, at that point in my career, it became more of a way to sort of dodge really committing to anything, if you know what I mean. And said career moved forward considerably once I focused on one thing and actually, y’know, finished it.

Is that where you’re at? Only you know the answer to that one. But it’s something I might consider when looking at those three or four or fifteen different projects on the desktop.

Next time… well, I’m hoping to get caught up on my reading.

Until then, go write.