Do You Multitask Your Writing?
Published By Casey Quinn • Jan 11th, 2009 • Category: Casey's CornerI am horrible at multi tasking. I can do one thing, and even then I think I do it poorly. I am amazed when I hear writers who have three or four novels being written at the same time and still manage to knock out a short piece of writing in their “down time” – amazing. When I wrote my first novel I was focused on it. In the world trying to build characters, plots, scenarios, etc… if I didn’t think about my book for a few days I sort of forgot where I left off and really needed to reread what I had written over the last few days to ramp back up. How do you all do it?
To me, I can have only one work in progress at a time anymore then that my work suffers and I can tell. Not only does it suffer but my writing time suffers as there is a learning curve between switching stories and trying to get back to where you left off if you have too much going on. More importantly, how does anyone who keep so many balls in the air every really get anything done? With only one novel it took me roughly two months to write and then two months to finish the first draft. I still will need another two months before I could consider it done. If I had a few of these going at once, I would think that timeline is doubled or tripled.
In the last writing I talked about where do you find the time to write in your daily life. Responses showed time is limited but some gets carved out. Just a little scrap of time, carved out to write and to me, having three or four pieces of writing to advance would be mind boggling. Which one do you chose? Do you write the same one day after day and then switch over at some point? Try and spend a few minutes on each? Again, I don’t multi task. I do one thing, and do it poorly. How do you do it?
Dear Casey,
I suspect that what happens with these multiple stories, novels, being written at the same time is that the writers reach a point in their story where they are stuck and then begin to write something else. I do that. Sometimes a story goes smoothly, the characters take on a life and know where they are going. At other times, the momentum stops somewhere along the way. I find that to force myself to think about it is not productive. I will let it sit and begin to develop another idea or write haiku.
I always have some poetry in the works. It takes a different mind set for poetry, but frequently an inspiration comes in the form of a haiku, haibun or tanka rather than as a plot for fiction. The story I set aside simmers in the back of my mind, and when it bubbles over I return to it. Of course, if I’m smack in the middle of a new story, then something has to wait. Maybe both stories suffer because of this multitasking, but rather than not be writing because I’ve drawn a blank about one story, I plunge ahead with a new one. I get antsy and restless if I’m not writing something. Perhaps other writers do, too.
Adelaide B. Shaw
Hey Adelaide,
I hear you about being antsy about writing – I always wondered though is a disclipline thing that we feel the need to write, even if we don’t have the words, to push through a novel or body of work instead of jumping ship if even only for a short while when not motivated on the specific piece you have been working on. Is it better to knock out 500 uninspiried words towards your novel or to leave it, write a poem or short story and come back to it. To me, the push through approach is the only way i would never get anything done!
Casey, I tend to have many stories going at the same time. Some sit and wait to be edited, while others are just stale and in need of inspiration. Inevitably, I get through them one at a time. At the moment I have four different tales going.
I am not sure if this is multitasking, for me it’s just how I do it.
Chris S. Silva
Hi Casey. I have a story that’s been incubating for over a year. In the meantime I’ve written several other short stories and completed the final draft of one of my novels. I think the problem with the story that I’ve been mulling over is that I’ve told the story to several people. Bad move. It’s best to keep the story bottled up inside and only let it out through your finger tips. I TRY to focus on just one story at a time.
Grace
I write short fiction when I just cant stand to stare at my novel anymore. This is the first novel I have ever attempted to write. However I kind of look at working on multiple projects the same as i look at reading various stories. Have you ever talked to more than one person in a day? Each person is coming at you with a variety of different experiances and stories that are going on in they’re lives. Most people typically do not respond to one friend with the same answer that they would give another friend. So you have to be able to focus on whatever it is you are doing at that moment. Afterwards you can think about what it is that is going on around you. Just my thoughts.