Being a writer, Part 4: How many projects?

How many things should you work on at once? How many projects? One? Two? Three? Eleven?

Different people would give you different answers. Some say, definitively, that it should be only one. This way there is nothing else to distract you and you finish each novel one at a time. But this is too simplistic. There may come a time when either you get writers block, get stuck or fed up, or realise (perish the tought) that your precious blockbuster isn't working. Then what? You need backup.

I have found that it helps if every 30,000 words or so you start a new story. A proper writer should have no shortage of ideas for this, and it allows these ideas to come to life instead of being forgotten or dusted off after five years. So my answer to the question is: four. One at its end and in the editing stage, one at about 60,000 words, one at 30,000 words and one about to start. Believe me, it's miles batter than the sequential approach, and eventually you will be putting out completed novels on a regular basis.

Of course there is always the temptation to pursue every idea you have, but this will stop when time doesn't permit it. There will come a natural point to end this 'call of the filed.'

Jack Orchison, February 9, 2014.