multitasking?

[pixie juice]

A question for all fiction writers: how many creative projects can you, or do you, work on at one time. I mean, short stories, flash, poems, or novels... not including non-fiction.

Can you be in the writing stage of a novel, and work on other things as well? If so, do you ever mix up your characters, back stories, or plots?

I ask this because I want to start a novel, but I know that I'll need to be writing short fiction for a class this fall. I wondered how successfully I might be able to do both.

[AstralisLux]

Good question. I've often read that it's best to focus on one novel at a time but keep the ideas in a separate notebook. That's what I tell myself anytime I want to start a new project.

I'd also like to know what others think.

[maestrowork]

Like anything else, you need skills to juggle between projects, but it's manageable.

Personally I only write one novel at a time (I know writers who tackle multiple novels at the same time). But I also write short stories, and little stuff on the side, not to mention non-fiction work. I actually prefers that, since it gives me variety, especially when I'm blocked with the novel.

Obviously, you only have 24 hours a day. The time you're writing something else, you're not writing your novel. It's a time management issue.

[James D Macdonald]

Me, I have two or three projects (in various stages) going all the time. I find that when I stop for the day on one, that I'm all fresh for the next.

[Jamesaritchie]

Why exclude nonfiction? Some of the most creartive work I do is nonfiction.

But if you want only fiction and poetry, right now I have four novels and seven short stories in progress. Without counting, I also have somewhere around six poems in first draft form. This is pretty close to average.

But I don't know if "multitasking" applies. I may work on three or four each day, but I only work on one at a time.

[arrowqueen]

I write three short stories and a bit of novel per week. (Deadline's November.)

I've managed to remain unconfused so far. (Though to be fair, I do keep losing my car keys.)

Cheers,
aq

[mammamaia]

back when i was writing my own stuff full time, i worked on just about every kind of writing there is, all at the same time... would just take a break from one and work on another, as the mood [or muse] struck...

song lyrics, novels, a screenplay, poems, articles and essays just popped out whenever they needed setting down on paper and i just followed their lead and kept on typing... in between, i wrote anything that took words, for fee-paying clients...

now, as i'm mentoring/helping bunches of others with their stuff, i natcherly hafta keep zipping from one form to another all day long... so, maybe my old writing habits were 'training' for what i do now, huh?

hugs, maia

[Yeshanu]

I have a hard time switching focus within a particular day, so I'll generally work on only one project each day. But if I take the time to switch gears before I go to bed at night, I can then move on to something different the next morning...

I need to work on that "switching" process so I can do more than one thing a day, because it's holding me back.

[macalicious731]

Right now I have one project. When I was in elementary school and middle school, I wrote short stories all the time, and usually they overlapped each other.

Now I have one idea, and I'm sticking only to that one. And I think the reason is that it's the only thing on my mind. Sure, every now and then I get another idea (Oh, that would be interesting...) but it never pans out because I'm too involved with the current story.