Do you choose to work on other projects besides your novel?

Yes. Just today, for example, I plan to change the cat litter.

caw

I have two different modes, and a set of rules for each.

Mode #1: Burning with Inspiration

Sometimes, I get borderline manic with inspiration. It takes me over when it arrives. Sometimes a crush on a new muse or some particularly inspiring new music will set it off. Others, it seems to come out of nowhere. But whenever I'm in this state, I know I'm supposed to create something. I become intensely fixated on that one thing and can't focus on anything else (including my day job, which is a big problem). I spent so many years fighting against these waves of inspired mania when I was younger that I missed out on a lot of work I could have gotten done. When I'm in this state, I can produce so much more than normal.

Recently I've decided that when this happens to me, I need to cast everything aside and focus on whatever my inspiration is showing me to do. It doesn't happen often enough that I need to worry about it seriously messing up my life, so I'm just going with it and doing whatever it wants. If that means dropping my current novel to work on a new project, so be it. This happened to me a few weeks ago, and now I have a 30K novella to play with.

Mode #2: Little/No Inspiration

At some point, that intense inspiration always fades away, and I enter back into my normal state. In my normal state, I can work on whatever I choose to put in front of me, so when this happens, I look at everything I created and decide using logic what to work on next. I do day job work and make $$ to support myself, and at night, I just work on whatever novel I would like to complete first. I keep going with the new plan until another wave of major inspiration hits (there's usually a couple months in between), then the process starts over.

I am redoing the novel I wrote years ago when I could be quite relentless in creative pursuits (when I was less saddled by life's debris) when I find working on my long project dreary and demanding, it's a very simple tale in comparison as it was written by a younger fellow, I am reworking aspects of it as I go along but keeping the structure and premise the same.

I'm also an aspiring playwright as well as an aspiring novelist, so it's really important that I keep up working on the craft of both! Fortunately what I do in the two genres is entirely different, so there's no worry of crossover or burnout. Plus when one's getting a bit too much, it's nice to have the other to fall back on so that it doesn't feel like I'm losing all that productivity!

Nah, I've got a one track mind, which makes impossible for me to focus on more than one novel at a time. If I were to do that, I'm sure I would confuse the plotlines of my novels, or worse! the characters' traits. So, I congratulate all of you who can work on more than one thing at the same time I can, however, focus on other projects to relax myself, like painting

I usually write a chapter or 2 of a random story throughout the writing process of a novel. This gets me thinking of something different and keeps the mind fresh. I usually take a break between novels though and try to write a short story, usually a childrens story.

I work on all sorts of things -- short stories, book reviews, novelettes, flash fictions.

If focusing on one writing project is increasing you overall productivity or necessary to bring a project to completion, go for it. I used to do that, but then I became prosperous and lazy.

Prefer to focus on one thing. Right now writing my 1st novel. I have ideas for 3 offshoots from it, but won't start any of them until I'm done with this.

When in the trenches for Origin I found I couldn't work on anything else.

Now that it's much more done, and had some revisions, I'm enjoying working on a a second project alongside tryign to do sequels.

One thing at a time for me.

I am constantly writing many things. I don't know how NOT to. I have several short stories on the go (I just won 3rd place in a short story contest for my short story on a woman's final day of walking the Camino de Santiago---I needed a break from my novel that day and I wrote the short story in an hour, basically to just get the f*cking lady out of my head and to the end of her journey---it was playing out in my head and getting in the way of my novel) at once. Around the same time, a publisher contacted me and asked me to write a short story for inclusion in their next anthology. So I wrote about 20-30 drafts (if was to be romance, but it's a genre I struggle with--but you don't say no to an invitation!)...and hated all of them. On the day before the deadline they gave me, I said, "Stop your bitching, sit down and write a f*cking story." SO I DID. They accepted it, though I myself had reservations. The anthology will be released in the fall. I also have two plays being produced in August for a festival just north of Toronto. I wrote them in a fury back in March when I was invited to submit to the festival when the deadline was very fast approaching. When they asked I wasn't working on anything, but when you get asked to submit somewhere you say SURE! And then you stay up for 48 hrs and write like a banshee. So, that's what I did. I wrote one play and I hated it. Was going to submit it, but felt it was lacking too badly. I sat down and got back into my novel instead. Then, I thought, "Wait...I can do this. There's still a couple days before the deadline." So I stopped writing my novel and wrote a second one act play. At the 11th hour of the submission day, I had the second play ready, so I thought there was no harm trying. I submitted it. Then, I thought, "What the hell!" And submitted the first play too. They actually accepted both and they'll be produced in August. I write poetry virtually every day, also. I wrote one and a half novels since May...I traveled to Brussels for a week to write a novel abroad---to get away from the novel at home...which is the one I am currently working on. And I blog quite frequently...because I like talking to myself.

Some people do one thing at a time. Some people do many. There's no right, no wrong. There's just YOUR WAY. Whatever works. For me, I have to keep myself open to the randomness!

I have several other pieces I work on, mostly because I have just begun to tackle the task of turning my story into a novel. I have two other finished narratives, 180k fanfiction and a 40k suspense/drama story. I have briefly considered doing something with the thriller but it's in an awkward place where its not long enough to be a novel but too long to be a short story.

I don't write shorts, never have.

For me, it's better to stick with one novel at a time. However, I stopped at Chapter Four in the sequel to Purple Guard. I was stuck like I'd never been stuck before and couldn't drag myself out of the muck. Since I'm only happy when I'm writing, I dug out my very first book, the one that got me started down the writing path in the first place, and I am now deep into a complete rewrite. In the back of my mind, the other book looms, and I've yet to figure out how to deal with the wrong turn I made. At least I'm writing.