Does this happen to anyone else?

[temporus]

I'm somewhere deep in the novel, around 60K words.  Now, as I'm trying to focus, so I can turn the corner and start moving toward my ending, I am being hijacked daily with new story ideas.  Sometimes more than one a day.

Really, this is getting a bit tedious, because they aren't just ideas, but now I'm getting specific thoughts and ideas milling around my head that might actually be useful towards stories for some themed anthologies.

I was considering breaking down my writing time into discrete chunks.  One time to work on the novel and keep that moving with my self mandated daily word goals.  Then a second time to work on various other writing projects.  I've never tried it before, and not sure if it would work, or crash and burn badly.*  

Anyone else out there have a strategy for simultaneously working on multiple writing projects?  Do you think it's a good idea?  Do you think it's better to just focus everything on reaching the end of the novel, then trying to go back and work on the shorts?  Do you have other suggestions?

Comments

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

I have the same problem. I think it's partly due to the creative, sub-conscious part of the brain working to a different set of instructions to the conscious one.

We're asking for creative ideas for our current WIP, but the sub-conscious just hears 'Send me creative ideas'.

I also think that writing a novel is a bit like a marathon, at least as far as hitting a wall goes.

That's the bit where I find myself tempted to do something else. I had that exact situation earlier in the year when I was getting a little stuck on the rewrites for Waking up Jack Thunder, and allowed myself to set it aside and work on some short stories.

Sad to say, it's been a hard slog getting back into the novel since then, though that doesn't mean you'd have the same problem :)

Hope that helps.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I can see that, once you open the floodgates on the creativity, the brain might just send everything that it can imagine, as opposed to just what you asked for/needed.

Of course, perhaps I did, unintentionally ask for it to think of ideas for me when I read the anthology guidelines and said to myself: I wonder if I can come up with something for that.

How was the subconcious to know that I didn't mean Right Now!?

[mepurfield.livejournal.com]

Gots that here too. Started a new novel and now I have ideas for the next one growing. The best I can do is write them down for later and keep on trucking. :-/

[temporus.livejournal.com]

How much do you write down? Just the fragment of the thought? Do you brainstorm it out at all? Flesh the idea enough that you could pick it up and start writing immediately?

[mepurfield.livejournal.com]

I try not to get too fleshed out. Mostly it may be a character trait or an action of the character. See, I'm not much of a planner, more of a plunger. I try to get enough so that later, when I do the real writing, I can just let inspiration take me. Then later, by the time I'm ready to write, it all just falls out onto the page along with creativity.

See what I mean?

Kill them all, God will know his own!

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Ignore them - what matters is your idea to generate cool ideas, not the ideas themselves.

Alternatively, create a huge mind map and add them as they come.

Re: Kill them all, God will know his own!

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I think it's Jay Lake who said in a post that he ignores them. He's of the mind that if the idea can't stick around long enough until you get to it, it's not worth it.

And in general, I can understand where he's coming from. On the other hand, it's hard to let go of the ideas when you've got a specific market, or character in mind for such and adventure. In which case something like a mind map probably isn't a bad idea.

[bonniers.livejournal.com]

I can't work on more than one thing at a time, but sometimes I switch projects. Especially when the major project has reached a point where it needs research, pondering, or other forms of non-writing work.

I liken it to cooking Thanksgiving dinner: while the rolls are rising and the turkey is in the oven, there's plenty of time to make fruit salad.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

So far, the closest I've come to working on multiple projects is taking a short break to write either a blog entry or a short article for my writer's group newsletter. But that's about it. Not sure I can translate that into multiple stories, but perhaps I can if the stories are short enough.

[bonniers.livejournal.com]

The important thing isn't whether you can switch projects, it's knowing which way your mind and muse work in the present circumstances. If multiple projects aren't your thing, then just ignore the new stuff, or make a few notes and move on with your main project.

One thing I've found over the years is that often these shiny new ideas aren't nearly as good as they seem when they flash their enticing little sparklies in my brain. I go after them, find nothing there, and then have trouble getting back to my original project. Sometimes when I make notes, when I go back, the idea is flat and dead. I used to think, "Oh, no, I killed it by ignoring it!" But more and more I suspect that they weren't strong enough to live in the first place.

Experiment with it if you want, but if that's not the way your mind works, you aren't likely to get much from it. And it seems like a bad time to be experimenting.

[bonniers.livejournal.com]

p.s. Didn't mean to get preachy there. I'm writing several things at once here :p and didn't skip to friend mode from essay mode very well.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

That's a potential for trouble for sure, shinies that distract, but have no substance, like a will-o-the-wisp that leads you into a quagmire.

I think though, that's why I'd be curious to try and make it a dedicated separate writing time. So I'd have my normal daily goal on current WIP of 500 words. Once that session is complete, take a break, do a bit of something else to "cleanse the palate" then sit down fresh with alternate projects.

Will this work? No clue. It is, in general how I tend to do blog posts and short articles. The only real difference is the nature of the writing.

[bonniers.livejournal.com]

It sounds like it's worth a try. It fits in with your normal working patterns, which is a good sign :D

I tend to be in either hyperfocus mode, or hyperdistractability. It's not so much that it's difficult for me to shift gears the way you're doing, it's that I forget I need to shift :p

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

I used to do that while I was working on some of the novel drafts--600 or 800 words per day (or whatever the goal was) on the novel, and then when I've made that goal I'd switch and let myself develop or write the other ideas. It worked well enough at least once.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I keep telling myself that I have the time to do this. But when it comes to sitting down and doing, I keep just reverting to working on the novel. But I'm over 66K, so I guess it's not a bad thing to get the draft done. I'm just about to delve into the big battle scenes, then the climax and denoument. I figure 15-30K more words, tops and I've got a rough draft.