I've always thought of myself as a binge writer... that is, I start one project, then work on it non-stop until I have a first draft, then take a huge long break to do other stuff in between. The thought of working on multiple WIPs at once confused me. I could have multiple PROJECTS going on at once, but only one thing I was WRITING writing (the rest were things I was in the process of editing, publishing, or promoting). Basically, I could only have my head into one thing at a time.
This year, though, my writing game has been all over the place. So I decided to shake things up. I'm currently working on 2-4 WIPs at the same time, depending on how you count "working on".
The first is a YA magical realism that was supposed to be my current PROJECT project, the one I sat down and wrote until it was finished. But for various reasons, I've been blocked. Meanwhile, I also had an idea for a YA sci-fi knocking at the back of my head. Depending on the day of the week (or sometimes the hour in the day, or the minute in the hour), I'd either be like "OMG I'm so excited about this magical realism thing and I don't want to stop until it's finished" or "ugh this thing is going nowhere and I should really just work on that other book since it's more my usual thing."
The other two are shorts--another FIREDRAGON novella and my story for the next BRAVE NEW GIRLS anthology. These two I'm still happily brainstorming, but I have a feeling I'll get the hankering to dive in and WRITE before I can finish either of the full-length WIPs.
So I'm doing something I thought I'd never do... I'm working on multiple projects at once. Write some pages of this, write some pages of that, depending on what strikes my fancy. Although, to keep me from getting TOO scattered, I'm making myself write at least a chapter of each before switching gears to the Other Project.
In case any of you are following me on Twitter or Facebook, that's why one day I'll be complaining about a 6 Character Disaster (the nickname I gave the magical realism out of writers-block-induced annoyance one day), and another I'll be marveling at how freaking far away Neptune is (the YA sci-fi I'm working on is about a mission to the Solar System's outer planets).
Will this work? Will this get me out of this rut? Or will I just end up confusing myself?
I have no idea, but since my usual thing wasn't working, I figured it couldn't help to shake things up a bit. Wish me luck!!
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