Actually, I don’t know how to answer this question. I’m not very good at committing to one project for longer than a few weeks. (If I’m lucky, I can make it a month and line it up with NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNo. I…am not usually lucky. Oops.)
I’ll work on a novel or project for a few weeks and then I switch to another project. Admitting this makes me squirm uncomfortably, in all honesty, because usually the reason for the switch is lack of inspiration and desire.
And we all are familiar with the quote ”writing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”, right?
Oops.
However! I am not chasing plot bunnies every time I switch projects! I actually am rotating between the same projects each time, and I am making progress on each!
This is definitely not how I used to work a few years ago. I had a one-track mind and would work on the same novel for 9 months straight. But alas, I am now in college and working a part time job and no longer have the free time I did in highschool and junior high, so I’m cutting myself a bit of slack.
What I do is pretty simple. I’ll work on the project I’m excited for until the inspiration runs out. Then I’ll keep going for another week and make sure that the inspiration is truly gone and not just that I’m stuck or too tired or something. Once I’m certain I can’t just work through the problem, I take a step back and work on the second project in my list.
It’s pretty easy for me to get excited about my projects. All I really have to do is talk about it to someone willing to listen and I get all jittery and giddy about the project. So I get myself excited and I repeat the process with this project.
Then I repeat again with a third project. And when I’m stuck on the third one, I’ll switch back to the first one. By this point, I’ve had enough time away from the project that frustration has faded and I can get myself excited again, and I’ve gotten distance from whatever got me stuck and I can sit down and figure out how to get past it.
It’s not a foolproof method. Sometimes I get frustrated with how slow my progress is on each story. Sometimes I end up working on a project for only a few days before I switch again.
But so far, I am making some progress, and I am continuing to write (or outline or world-build or etc.) while going to college and keeping a job.
So yay!
I’m working on projects that I’ve talked about here on the blog. And the corresponding characters have been blabbermouths.
Tiri: She means you specifically, Ereinne.
Ereinne: Hey!
Guys, be nice.
There is one of my three projects that I have never mentioned here on the blog. Part of that is due to the fact that it’s a newer project as far as plot is concerned, and part of it is that the two protagonists are sappy lovebirds and if they tried to write a blog post (or add commentary to one), everybody would be gagging.
So…there’s my workflow. Comment and tell me about yours! I’d love to hear about it!
Studies in Character 