Monday, February 28, 2011

Working on Two WIPs

Last night I saw my partially written manuscript, The Journalist, laying on the table and decided to flip through it. Perhaps a mistake. Now when I say partially written manuscript that makes it sound long, it's only 35 pages long, and I read it all last night, and was taken over by the idea again. As I read more ideas came up on how to fix this or that and how to make it more complete and stuff and. . . well, today I find myself writing The Journalist instead of The Chronicles.

I feel like I should keep myself focused solely on The Chronicles and not give into the temptation to write The Journalist but why should I do that, really? Why should I waste this onslaught of inspiration? It's not like I'm going to abandon The Chronicles, I'll just work on them both at the same time.

But I still feel a bit guilty. I don't think I should though. I mean, what if this book will get me published? Quicker than The Chronicles could have? And that's quite possible with The Journalist being only one book long, while The Chronicles shall be three.

So now I find I'm going to be working on two WIP's at the same time.

Would you guys do this? Or would you work only on you're main project. Or just let the new (or old) idea sweep you away and only write it?

I hope everyone writer luck!

(Does this not give you inspiration?)

4 comments:

Claudie A. said...

This happened (more or less) to me earlier this month. February 8th is the day. I ever *marked* it on the calendar, because the idea I had was one I'd been waiting for years.

I spent about a week without touching my WIP (I wrote maybe 2000 words in that time) and instead, I planned the other in as much details as I could. I wrote down characters, snippets of dialogues, scene outlines, even a few drafts for key scenes... but I didn't start on the WiP proper.

I've been jumping from one project to another. There always seem to be something better to be writing.

I'm not helping your guilt, am I? ;P What I am saying is, be careful to stick with these two projects. Don't get carried in a third. Getting published involves *finishing* something, and that is harder than it sounds.

Misha Gerrick said...

It happens to me all the time.

I tend to stick with main idea though.

Because if I hopped after every new inspiration, I'd never get anything done.

Good luck!

:-)

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

One thing that helps me out is I keep my manuscripts short (around 120,000 words). This amounts to about 24 chapters or so to tell a story. I have two finished manuscripts (completely different from each other). One is sci-fi, the other is dark fantasy (with lots of homoerotic sex in it). It's refreshing to bounce from one to the other and I like both for different reasons.

Trisha said...

Well, this is a bad thing if you have a deadline for the other book - but if you don't, then I don't see it as a bad thing really. ;) Go where you're inspired, as long a you're writing something!