Current Project: Doctor in Petticoats
Status: page 164
I envy Alice, Eli, and those of you who work on one project at a time. I bow to your one track minds and the ability to focus on a story so completely you eat, sleep, and breath nothing else.
These days I feel like I'm being split in fourths, with eight main characters vying for my attention. There's the WIP I'm slowly putting to paper and agonizing over whether it is moving along fast enough, is it realistic, how do I sustain the emotion and keep the reader turning the pages? Then I have the characters from the paranormal I sent a query and partial to an editor that I'm cleaning up as well. There I'm adding emotion and digging deep into why they do things. And then I have the Christmas novella characters wanting to come out and play. The hero in that story is so strong in my mind there are times he dwarfs the hero of my WIP, shoving him aside and causing a fist fight to gain my attention. Then there is the story in the works I'm corroborating with another author- and whenever she writes and says she thought about this or her character is doing this, the heroine in that story flashes in my mind and starts asserting her aggressive nature upon me and I cower and want to leave the characters of the WIP in an embrace and head on over and help her find her sister.
So do tell- How do you lock the characters not of your WIP away and keep them and yourself happy? Or do I just succumb to the straight jacket and hope for some peace and quiet locked away from my computer and all the tings that inspire me?
9 comments:
Paty -- eight main characters -- no wonder you feel like you need a straightjacket. Ack. I don't think I could handle it at all. Too fractious for my one track mind.
I plot a book in pretty broad strokes and usually another book in brief, send them away and then wait for an answer. This time, I[ll probably move along to plotting another book in case the one I send takes a long time to get a response but usually, I take down time while it's gone. I LOVE down time. It's my reward for being a good little soldier and gives me an opportunity to do the things I don't do on deadline. Like clean the kitchen or go to the dentist.
When an idea for a book pops up in the middle of another book I'm writing I assign it a file in the back of my head and insist it wait its turn. And knowing myself, I would be careful of accepting close deadlines on multiple projects although I do know writers who can do this. I need to stay in one world at a time.
Do you always have this many projects going at the same time or is this an unusual occurrence? Maybe it's just the way you write, you know, maybe you need to juggle balls (read: characters). Maybe you are just exceptional at multitasking!
Ack!
LOL at your "voices", Paty.
I think juggling characters is something all writers learn to deal with, though we all go about it in different ways. I just finished that RS proposal and sent it off to my agent, then started in on my new paranormal book (which I'm loving!) but I know my agent will send that proposal back to me at some point soon with suggestions and I'll be back in that book as well. So there's 4 main characters there...add in the revisions on the 3rd Stolen book, which are due anytime, and you've got two more main characters. And though I'm not writing the 3rd para book yet, the story for THAT book actually starts in this second para and those two characters are key in this one as well. So I think I'm up to...um, yeah. 8, just like you!
I can't do all of them at once though. I have to pick and choose, focus on one until I get it done, then go to the next. Right now my focus is that 2nd para. When the Stolen revisions come in, I'll break from the para, finish the revisions, then go back to wip. Same with the proposal. It's too hard for me to have more than one main book pinging around in my head. I need to be immersed in my characters worlds to really write the story they need me to write.
If you ever figure out how to juggle all the balls without some anxiety...please share your wisdom. Right now I'm taking it one day at a time and doing what works best for me.
Eli makes some very good points. I hadn't thought about all the editing characters that come and go during the writing of a book. I read your blog, Paty, and decided you were trying to write four books at the same time, but upon more careful reading -- what a skill, I should really try it more often! -- I can see that you're working on two books, editing another and trying to keep the hero of a fourth from pushing his way to the foreground before you're ready for him.
I still say you should maybe line up a padded room.
LOL- Alice, I'm beginning to agree with the padded room! LOL Though in a way I'm kind of in the stages of you and Eli. I am writing one book, editing another, and the other two are really in my "stew and brew" process although I have written the first chapter of the novella because it was so strong in my mind I had to get it on paper.
But my problem is patience. I want them written- now. I want to work on them and I know, I have to keep the WIP solid in my mind. It's the only way to make it the best book it can be.
Thanks ladies for making me see, I need to gag and bind the characters who I don't have time for. Let them reside in the tower, knowing they are there and hopefully regaling their life history so that when I do sit down and write their stories it flows and I am happy I made them wait.
Whoa, Paty, that's a lot of voices! I think you're right about needing patience.
I tend to have characters pop up demanding that I pay attention to them that don't belong to whatever current project I'm working on. Usually I have the patience (there's that word again) to make them to wait their turn. But sometimes I'm like my cats and get distracted and...ooo, shiny! LOL
I'm learning that for me that usually means that something isn't working quite right in my current project.
Hey Debbie!
Yeah, I'm fining the more projects I'm asked to work on, the less space there is in my head! LOL
I need one of Genene's color coded charts and label it Play Chart. Right how Clay and Rachel can play on the weekdays. Weekends Wren and Himiin can come out and play. In June, Maggie and Ty can come out and play, and if no one is requesting Mae and Beck or Gina and Holt- then Van and Tessa can come out and play and no one else is allowed in my head until that one is done! LOL
LOL, Paty!
I vote for the straight jacket and padded room! I'll bring the colored highlighters and easel pad.
Right now I need to finish edits on my novella. (Debbie's right--succumbing to other characters is a stall tactic for me too. :)
The characters from my nine-book series have been relatively polite so far. They have limited their forays into my mind to short scenes and thoughts, which I key into the computer and save in their folder for "later." I don't want to leave them rattling around in my head lest I forget that vital scene that will make the book an absolute page-turner. LOL!
It will be interesting to see how well these characters behave in a couple months when I start working on the series again. Since these books are all connected and what happens in one story will affect the others, I figure I will be doing a lot of back and forth among the stories as the plotting becomes more detailed. We'll see.
Right now, I'm going back to edits on the novella!
This was a fun blog, Paty!
This is what made choosing a WIP this round so hard for me. I don't think I can easily switch between two WIP's at this point in my career. I need to see one WIP all the way to "the end." I can handle multiple things in various stages of editing though, because those characters are more "set."
Genene, with your nine book series maybe we can share a padded room! LOL Good luck with all those books.
Wavy, I'm doing my best to stay on track with the WIP, but the characters in the upcoming books are really strong personalities and I think that's why they are so forceful. Their books are going to be fun to write! Not that this one isn't but the characters in the WIP are more sophisticated and trying to fit in to society so they don't stir the pot.
Good luck with your WIP.
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