Juggling Act

I have always been the kind of writer who prefers to work on one thing at a time, as well as the kind of writer who prefers to write in order and never skip from scene to scene. It's linear, it's straightforward, and it gives some stability to a process that can be anything but.

"But wait!" some of you observant readers are saying, "You have three word count meters on your sidebar, not one! Three!"

You're quite right, observant readers. There are three word count meters on my sidebar. Because, despite the fact that I vastly prefer working on one thing at a time, I find my loyalties currently divided between three stories. Two are old projects being overhauled, one is new, and all three are pestering me to give them more attention than the other two. Some days it's pretty tiring, and some nights I can't sleep for wondering what character A is going to do in story 3 while character Q does X in story 1. Keeping it all straight is, to put it bluntly, really damn difficult. I've got a lot of respect for writers who can do this on a regular basis, because bouncing around between stories has got my head spinning.

I try not to bounce between projects in one day, because that's a bit much, but sometimes I find that while working on story 1, story 3 wants me to clean up scene M. Story 2 creeps in and demands attention for character delta, and then they all get whiny as I take a step back to take a breather. It's bizarre, it's not my typical writing style, and, to be honest, despite the frustration of trying to juggle everything, I find I like the challenge.

Today I'm working on one of the older stories that's getting an overhaul, but who knows what I'll be working on tomorrow? I certainly don't. That would have terrified me once, but where I am now in my writing career...well, it's kind of fun to wing it from time to time.

Though I'm still not a pantser. No matter how much I bounce around, I don't think I'm ever gonna be very good at winging a story. It's all plotting, all the time. But that's another post for another day.

'Til next time,
J.