A little while ago I was discussing writing schedules with a former crit partner. Right now I am juggling a crazy number of projects. At least it’s a crazy number for me. I really like the “work on one thing until it’s done” philosophy, but then I start thinking that novels take a long time, so I should intersperse short stories with them. And the next novel really wants attention, so I might as well start poking at ideas because they’ll take a long time to incubate. And I really didn’t mean to to let the previous novel sit this long before being revised…
So right now I’ve got the main book, which is being written at lunch and in the evenings and sometimes on the weekends. Â Most weekend writing time is for revising the previous book, unless it’s a weekend set aside for writing or revising a short story (approx. one weekend a month, kind of like the national guard). My incredibly short morning writing session is when I’m planning the next book, except for this week, because I need to think about the next short story…
It feels like I’m juggling a lot of projects, but the current book is almost drafted, and so far revisions on the previous book are going quickly (I haven’t gotten to the part where I have to retrofit a new plot yet). I’m looking forward to late summer, when I plan to be juggling just one novel.
Meanwhile, assigning projects to dedicated slots keeps them all moving.