I’ve always thought I was a little ADD – generally, I flourish when I can be bouncing back sand forth between multiple tasks, and rarely do I sit down and do just ONE THING AT A TIME.
But sometimes I wonder if this serves me well in my writing too.
This last week, I cleared the decks to start work on a trilogy, letting one of my short stories, Oberon, run wild like it has wanted to for some time. I wrapped up all the other shorts I was working on, and got them sent off for submission.
So I was all ready to focus on this one thing.
Then I saw a call for submissions that sounded perfect for Wolf Dreams, a short story fragment I’d never finished. So I pulled it out of its dusty computer folder and took a look – sure, I could do this.
Then I happened across another opportunity to write something for a Faery anthology, and thought – oh, I have just the idea for this one. I jotted it down in my dream journal at 11 o’clock at night, and went back to sleep.
So now I’ve got three things on my plate. I’m thinking, ok, I can do this. I’ll just work on them round-robin.
Then one of my previous submissions, Free to Fly, comes back with some requested changes. OK, so I knock that one it in a night and send it back out. I’m down from four stories to three again.
Then the lovely Ashlyn Forge sends me a detailed critique for the story I submitted for Gay Sci Fi (MM Romance), Re-Life. And wouldn’t you know, there’s another requested change for Free to Fly.
So now my formerly clear desktop has five projects sitting on it instead of one. ::: sigh :::
So I knock those two out over three nights, and now I’m back to three.
I do wonder, sometimes, if my mind works best if I try to keep it focused on one project at a time, or if I let it roam from story to story? How about you?