Multi-tasking

[msagara]

Having almost finished the requested revisions for one project (I'm waiting to get something clarified before I can actually say done and heave both a sigh of relief and a manuscript out the door), I'm getting back to writing the novel I put aside to work on revisions. [I've been finishing up the Sunburst Jury award work as well.]

Which is sort of my excuse for being so darn slow to get up to speed on HOUSE WAR again.

When I was younger, I found switching between projects almost a relief. I'm not sure if it was due to the fact that I had no children then, and that there was nothing therefore consuming emotional energy and time in the particular fashion; I do think about this a lot. Why? Because I think I'm becoming, in novel terms, a serial monogamist.

It takes me a while to sink the emotional roots I need to have in place into any novel, and when I move to a different project, I seem -- these days -- to uproot them all. When I come back, I have to give myself a big mental slap, and change speed, tone and direction -- all of which would be easier; I have to find the emotional threads and bindings, which is harder than it used to be.

So I'm sort of wondering how many people here can work on two books at once, and how they manage to do it if they can. I can take short story breaks, but I think this has more to do with the differing processes of the two media.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I'm going the other way, I used to be a serial monogamist with books, and now I'm not.

I don't have any useful practical advice, other than "get your head into the right place", which I'm sure you know already.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

Do you find that there's any difference in the way you approach the novels themselves now, as opposed to the way you approached your older ones?

I know that my overall process has shifted, like a type of writerly continental drift, in the years since I finished the first draft of the first novel I managed to complete, but that in many ways the core of it is the same. I don't work from an outline because it kills the book (for me) or stops it dead for a month or two at a time. I don't even structure the chapters that way; the most I'll do is jot a single line or two about what I -think- will happen/should happen next.

But this one foot in front of the other didn't used to be so tightly focused as it is now -- and I'm not certain if it's because I've grown -less- confident as I've grown older, rather than more <wry g>. When I was younger, I think I was less aware of the flaws and infelicities in my own work, and while I think I've improved with time, I'm still aware of them.

aireon asked if rereading the books I started work on 10 years ago was enjoyable.

And it wasn't; I could see the flaws. I could see almost only the flaws -- so it was like reading galleys/page proofs in which there are no corrections allowed. And I'm wondering if this experience -- you know, 8 books of it -- hasn't also made me feel much more aware of the balls that can be dropped. And how frequently.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've four published novels, and then the one I just sold, and I like everything I've ever written except the end of The Prize in the Game which has that no corrections nature. (It is too late to throw away the last three chapters and replace them with entirely new ones, when you're doing the paperback galleys, which is the last time I actually read it, and finally figured out what I should have done with that end.)

On rec.arts.sf.composition once, this sort of thing came up, and people seemed to split into two camps, those who re-read and like it and think "I'll never do anything this good again!" and those who re-read and think "All these flaws! And too late, too late!"

But the way I approach things -- I need the mode. If I have the mode, if I have a really clear grip on the mode, then I can do it.

The other thing is, when I finish a project, I tend to flail around starting things for a while, before I find something I really want to carry through on. It's hard to tell if the three projects I'm presently (intermittently) working on are in fact just flailing of this nature. I'd think I'm too far in on Lifelode for it to be that, but right now I'm much more inclined to start something new than to go back to any of these cold dishes of lovely-rice-pudding for-dinner-again.

It's a good thing I write fast, that's all I can say.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I've four published novels, and then the one I just sold, and I like everything I've ever written except the end of The Prize in the Game which has that no corrections nature.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I -loved- the ending of that book. Maybe you had an ending in mind that I would have loved better -- but at this point, I can't imagine it; the ending that was there was perfect. To me. As a reader.

On rec.arts.sf.composition once, this sort of thing came up, and people seemed to split into two camps, those who re-read and like it and think "I'll never do anything this good again!" and those who re-read and think "All these flaws! And too late, too late!"

Whereas I do both. While I'm working on a novel, it is All Garbage and No One Will Ever Read Me Again (and will also say, I waited Two Years for -this-??). Everything that I read prior to what I'm working on seems almost brilliant in comparison and I pull out much hair and weep with vexation. And then the Work comes back for proofing, and I -also- do the "all these flaws!" response.

Writer's Ego. You have to love it. Or not <g>.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You liked the end?

I'm glad somebody does.

I don't mean the very end, the last chapter from Ferdia's POV after he's dead, that's right. (I also didn't write that last, which considering that I always write in order is astonishing.) What's not right is the two chapters immediately before that. I was constrained by its prequel nature, but all the same... I went too far too soon, and I don't suppose I'll ever be happy with it.

It's good to know that other people can like it.