August 1, 2012

Balancing Act

It's nice to think of writing as a nice, orderly profession, where you simply work on one project from start to finish and then move on to the next one, but I've found that it doesn't work that way.  Most of the time I am working on two projects simultaneously.  In earlier times I would often be working on three, but I decided that limiting it to two allows for maximum focus and productivity.

Right now I am putting the finishing touches on getting a backlist title (formerly Prelude to a Kiss, now Accidentally Yours) ready for ePubbing.  I had the original paperback scanned, and I proofed it and made some improvements here and there, usually spending an hour on it a day while working on my work-in-progress.  Now that I'm done with that, I realize that adding a pivotal scene will give the story a more complete feel.  Then I need to write a new blurb (the original is the property of the original publisher and cannot be reproduced.)  The cover art is already done, so after those two things are done I can publish.

I was simultaneously working on proofreading/revising Accidentally Yours while writing my  work-in-progress, Something Real, which will be an original Bunderful Books release.  Something Real was receiving the bulk of my attention, with Accidentally Yours being relegated to an hour a day.  Something Real is essentially completed, with me inserting a few scenes here and there to assist in continuity and to fully flesh out the story, plus I'm doing pre-edits before I submit it to my editor.  Maybe it would have been ideal to send Something Real to my editor first and then work on Accidentally Yours, but two things convinced me not to shift my concentration:  1) When I realized I had just 20K words left to read over, and 2) It's never a bad idea to take a break from a project, and I've been pushing myself pretty hard on Something Real.  It was clear that Accidentally Yours is closer to being ready for publication, so I decided to take a break and divert my attentions.  I plan to have it available within the next week.

How about you?  Do you work on more than one project at a time?  How many do you divide your attentions among?



    
Posted by bettye griffin at 7:00 AM
Labels: , , ,

2 comments:

Sunny Frazier said...

I wish I could do projects simultaneously, but I force myself to focus on what I'm working on. This makes it hard because I think a change of pace would do me good. But, I'm also afraid I would lose track of the storyline if I'm more attracted to the next exciting idea.

However, I find blogging helps to give me a change up.

August 06, 2012
bettye griffin said...

I also believe blogging to be an excellent writing exercise, Sunny! As for multiple projects, I learned to do this when I was writing romance for one publisher and women's fiction for another. These days I'm an indie writer, and when you're an indie, it's all about the volume...more eBooks, more money. So I'm always balancing the preparation of a backlist title for ePub with the creation of new work, or working on two simultaneous new projects. Of course, what's best for any writer is whatever works best for them as an individual.

Thanks for posting!

August 07, 2012

Post a Comment