Juggling Multiple Writing Projects
Chances are, if you are serious about a career in writing, you have more than one project to work on at a time. You might even be at different stages with each project. Perhaps you are working on edits and revisions of your novel as well as planning the outline of another. You could also be researching an article for a magazine or writing the first draft of a blog post. Here is my process for juggling multiple writing projects.
Establishing Priorities
While all my projects are important to me, some are more important at certain times. I have found that a two point system works best for me. First, I prioritize in the order of importance of the project, length, and deadline. Then I give each task a time allotment and stick to it.
For instance, I am currently in the home stretch of edits for my Christmas romantic comedy (romcom) that is coming out at the end of the year and also polishing the first draft of the second book in The Soul Saver series. In addition, there are posts for this blog, a back cover blurb for the romcom, and the resurrection of my own blog.
My Work Process
I will look at the edits for the Christmas romcom as that book is being published first. Then I will spend time on one of the shorter pieces: blog post, blurb or article. This gives me a break before I start back on the longer work.
Generally, I will spend 60 to 90 minutes at a time on the novels and roughly 30 minutes on the shorter pieces. I will lather, rinse, repeat this process for the rest of the day. My routine prevents hair pulling, hand wringing and crying. The only exception would be when I am writing the first draft of a new novel. With that, the importance is both getting it down on paper and reaching the word count goal. I will keep writing as fast as I can for as long as it takes.
When you are juggling a lot of tasks, it can be easy to get sucked into the black hole of one project, pushing everything else off kilter. But by prioritizing and adopting a routine with an allotted number of minutes dedicated to each task, I can easily rein multiple writing projects, become an accomplished multi-tasker and watch my productivity soar.
This article first appeared on the Book-in-a-Week website 04/22/2016.