If you're a writer, you might be familiar with this issue of wanting to start many new books when the one you're working on isn't actually finished yet. Sometimes, the temptation becomes too great and we find ourselves walking into the trap of writing just the starter of an idea without knowing how it suddenly blossomed into a full-fledged work with readers who demand more.
Sounds familiar? You've come to the right place if you wish to know how to survive writing multiple books at once without killing yourself.
Are you ready?
Tip #1: Make Use of a Writing Schedule
I've talked about this last week about the uses of a writing schedule and how you can do it in this post. However, if you have not read the post, I'll give you a summary.
Generally, a writing schedule allows you to keep track of the chapters you're meant to publish and the word count you've written by a certain date. It should give you a rough estimate about how many words you should write in a day on average and how many chapters you should aim to complete.
The writing schedule should also include the different projects that you are working on so that you have an overview of the progress for all your existing works. It allows you to know how many words you've written in total and how many days in advance you have before you run out of chapters to publish for your upload schedule.
It might be a race against time but it will not be an impossible race against time if you plan carefully.
Tip #2: Prioritise Your Projects
Let's face it. We're writers, not printers. We don't churn out words like a machine, we need time to research, think and get into the writing mood. There can be days when we write over 10,000 words and other days when 100 simply feels like a struggle.
It's not uncommon to find yourself in a writing slump for a prolonged period of time.
When this happens, don't beat yourself up. Instead, take a break and create a buffer space. You won't be able to deal with all 10 projects that you have going on at the same time. But you might be able to focus on bringing that 1 you wish to strike off your list first.
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Reducing the number of on-going projects would help you regain some control in your life. I personally do not agree with dropping a series but if you really have to, please go ahead and do what is required. Else, you could change up plans of making that book into just a standalone instead of the trilogy you intended it to be. In fact, you could shelve the two other books of the trilogy for a future project after finishing that one book if you really wish to.
Even J.K. Rowling took 3 years to release the Order of the Pheonix so don't be afraid to take all the time you need. Instead, focus on the quality that you're bringing to your readers. Loyal fans don't mind the wait as long. They know that it will be worth that while.
For those of you who didn't know, I was writing five books at one point and what I did was to put Ball of Nothing and Time Cross Academy on hiatus, E-Ghost on hold for almost a year, Love Journal with reduced publishing release to focus on completing Survival Bunker System Developer. After the book for Ringdom was complete, I rushed to finish Love Journal and stock Time Cross Academy for the contract before resuming Ball of Nothing's release. Only when I was stabilised with enough chapters did I complete E-Ghost. It took me a few months to regulate the writing schedule to a somewhat medium-stress threshold but I that was how I wrote 5 books at the same time.
Tip #3: Factor in Time for Mental Reset
What's a mental reset? It's when you have to shift the gears in your story-telling mind from a supernatural romance story to a high-fantasy wizard war story.
Some people only need a few hours to completely reset their state of mind to start another project. Other may require longer. It depends on you and this isn't fixed. If you are a full-time writer, you could opt to do one in the morning, rest for the afternoon and resume another project at night. If you are a working or studying individual with other heavy commitments, you could plan to work on one exiting project for three days, take a day off and resume working on your second project for the next three days, repeating the cycle.
During the mental reset period, I would advise re-reading what you've written to refresh your memories of the story you've written so far. making small notes about the plot is also advisable so you know where to continue if you don't have a habit of creating plot drafts or outlines for your stories.
That's all the tips I have. Hopefully, this would help make the process of writing several works at the same time easier on you. If you require any assistance, feel free to drop me a message on any of my social media and if you found the tips helpful, don't forget to leave me a tip on my Patreon <3
That's all, thank you for reading and see you next week!
