How Many Projects Do You Keep Going At Once

This might be my ADHD talking here, but I have gone from one writing project to three ... and with notes for a possible fourth and fifth.  My first, which was supposed to be a short story has ballooned into a novel.  I put that aside temporarily when I found the short story I wanted to write as a start within that novel (which is probably about another 20,000 -40,000 words from being finished).

I've plugged through my first short story and done two edits so far with several other items already noted for improvement.  That one stands at about 5,500 words.

Then I started a third short story.  This one came out of ideas I had for the first short story but that simply did not fit with the character that story was about nor her persona.  This one is just shy of 1,600 words as a rough draft.  Most of it is dialogue so far with the intent to add other elements.

I still feel like I am focused on each of these projects.  When one doesn't seem to be working for a given day I move on to another to see if any inspiration hits me and so on.  But I know if I get too many going I will undoubtedly get overwhelmed.  I decided today to forcibly limit myself to just these projects as active with notebooks to track ideas for the other two ideas I have if and when they cross my mind.

How many projects do other people here keep going at one time?

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Writing takes time.  Writing takes patience.  Writing takes critiquing.  Writing takes rewriting.  Writing takes rewriting some more.

Trust me Mathias, I believe most of us are juggling many stories at one time. 

I have blurps of stories I want to focus on from 1987.   You may not have been born then.  I belong to a writer's ink group and we meet on the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month.  We have a suggested writing topic from one week to the next.  Unbelievable as it may seem, I always have a current story to tell.  I'm not sure how it happens.  This past week we had to write something on Travel - I just returned from a trip to Colorado the week before and I had plenty of stories to write, plus pictures. 

One time our topic was Stream of Consciousness - I had been thinking about the world as it is, was I happy, why did people look so angry, why were people behaving badly, and on and on. Great material for that topic. 

So, I guess what I'm trying to say, just when I try to sit and continue a story I already have going on, another story needs to be written.  It's safe to say,  I have at least 33 (I stopped counting), stories in the making.  Which one I'll work on tomorrow - who knows?  I see I want to write a story for "100 words or fewer" contest.  This will take some time.  So, I just keep writing whenever I can.

Hopefully you will do the same - Just keep writing - good luck.

Mother's Happy Child

(It's the write time.)

How many you should have going depends on you. A friend of mine typically has three ongoing - one in final edits, one WIP, and one being outlined/developed. She has various days of the week scheduled for each.

Me? I have a couple projects, but I have to distance myself time-wise or I start getting things mixed up between them. Suddenly Joe from Story A is doing what Frank from Story B should be doing - and the other Story A characters are staring at him, wondering what the heck is going on...

I have a list of projects in various stages of being worked on - Some are just thoughts, some are several pages. i 'm never at a Writer's Block. My problem is time to do it. Such a list keeps things fresh.

from childhood's hour I have not been As others were - I have not seen

As others saw - i could not bring My passions from a common spring

(from Alone - Edgar Allan Poe)

I'm not ADHD, but I sometimes have as many as twenty projects going on, and in various stages of completion.

I may have four novels, a dozen short stories, several articles, poems, a screenplay, and you name it, all started.

But each gets its own scheduled writing time, perhaps according to deadline, and sometimes through interest.

What matters is that projects get finished routinely.  If this happens, it doesn't matter how many you have going.  If it isn't happening routinely, there's a problem.