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.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah...if one is where you need to be, then that's where you need to be.

For me, working on several concurrently is habit: today frex, I just finished a very nasty, very wrenching scene, and after my tea and LJ-run I'll be doing a rollicking scene for another book, and then I'll rewrite something with some added emotional texture that I thought of during the middle of the night for a third, and ponder the entry point for a tough scene in the fourth. Habit.

But any one of those could grab me by the chitlins and demand I do only it for a stretch, in which case that's what I do.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I've been able to do short story breaks in the middle of novels, but I started out a serial monogamist with novels and remain so. Once, for a period of about six months, I tried working on three novels simultaneously, but I found the required head-wrenching to be difficult, and I really wanted just to sink myself into one. So I did (turned out to be HOLDER OF LIGHTNING.) The other two are on my hard drive, left where I dropped them.

Maybe if I were writing two novels with nearly identical voices, which wouldn't require a drastic change in tone...

OTOH, for the last several years I've had a "side novel" that I turn to if I'm between projects, or if I need to take a substantial break from the current novel-in-progress/under-contract. Maybe one day I'll actually finish that novel.... I do like what I have quite a bit.

Songwriting multiple songs

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

When I am in songwriting mode (like right now) I often finish batches of songs, one by one by one.

I usually have about 7-8 songs/sets of lyrics that could all turn into songs, before going into this mode. At that point I usually select 2-3 songs and roll through each one, finishing it, before going onto the next one. And *then* I work on the performances of these songs *wry grin.*

[janni.livejournal.com]

It takes me a while to sink the emotional roots I need to have in place into any novel

I find this true for me, too. Since I'm a "method acting" sort of writer, I need to get the voices of my characters resident in my brain, to immerse myself in the feel of the book. Since every book has a different feel and tone, there just isn't room for more than one at a time, for all that I have tried to make that work.

I can work on short nonfiction articles alongside novels; they seem to occupy a different bit of brain.

[andpuff.livejournal.com]

Strict serial monogomous with novels.

No trouble with breaking for short stories -- really, no trouble, no matter how much I may bitch about it *g* -- but I don't even want to think about the next novel in the series let alone a new book entirely. When I took those three months in the middle of Blood Something to write the Rat Book it took me almost another month to get my head back with Vicki et al.

[maggiemotley.livejournal.com]

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.
This is the main reason why I'm also a serial monogamist with novels.

It takes a while for me to sink into the characters' emotional landscape, but once I do I've got a pretty instinctive feel of how they should/will react to the plot-spears I poke them with. If I shift projects I change mindset to gel with the new people, and so lose the old. Only one personality at a time, please.

Doesn't mean I can't do some flirting, though. I usually know what project will come up next, and have and idea of who and why. I can manage a first chapter, but any more derails me.

Shorts are usually okay for me too, but only in the less angsty stages of the novel. When the emotion's flowing at full pelt I have to either stick with it or lose it.

[larryhammer]

I've been staying quiet because, well, I've never written a novel. But I'm serial monogamist with stories: finish a draft, set it aside for another. Because I have to set it aside before I can revise, so I can see it fresh. Only when I'm truly going nowhere on the mess-in-progress will I switch to another, to give it a rest.

I used to be able to write lyric poems on the side of prose stories; with narrative poetry, I don't — whether because of conflicts or simply I've regeared my brain for longer verse, I don't know. Possibly both.

Oh, and method writer.

---L.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

Don't feel the need to stay quiet -- I write novels, so I tend to think of projects as novels, but I think the creative process has to have similarities regardless, and I'm still curious about how other people handle this.