Bad author! No beer for you.

Today was kind of an odd day. I worked through all the writing chores I could think of. Today is also the day I call my parents, something I do every week. Then my daughter showed up for an hour. She likes to talk about her job and her cat. The dogs are starting to get along with the kitten and it’s kind of cute that he tries to play with them. Otto really is more curious than anything, but he’s kind of indifferent to the whole idea. Frankie concerns me. She’s been pretty good, but she’s gotten slapped more than a few times.

About the time my daughter had to go to work, she put the kitten away, leaving me with the morning phase of the dogs. The morning phase is more calm than the evening phase. I opened the Estivation manuscript and made a light editing pass. Then I added a few words, nothing to really brag about. Something just isn’t working for me yet here. I need to transition the characters from a getting used to the new normal phase to an outright horror phase. I don’t want to jump in too fast, and I just need some more daydreaming time on it. Right now it’s coming across like a recipe card and not an engaging story.

Sooo, I reviewed all my storyboards. Then I created some folders in my word processor. A little time on Google, and I came up with a few names. With names, I created a couple of casts of characters.

Then I wrote 1500 quick words on a new project. File name The Lantern Fish, it will eventually be Something Of The Lantern Fish. It will come to me later.

I know, I know. This is bad. It felt so good though. The words flowed pretty well too.

One thing I believe in is finishing the stories I start. I have one (two) chomping at the bit, and Estivation feels like it needs more daydreaming time. I really should force myself to finish Estivation and deal with issues in the editing phase. If I don’t get the length I’m targeting, I can always park it for another Experimental Notebook.

On the other hand, I have worked on one novel and some short stories at the same time. Could a novella work as my side project? I don’t really know, because I haven’t tried before. Short stories and micros, sure.

What do you guys do? I wrote one of my Experimental Notebooks as a side project. The other one was the main project, but there were multiple stories going on at the same time.

I think I can do this by making Estivation my side project.

Here’s where it gets crazy. I have another novel that would also make a great side project. I’m sorely tempted to start it too. This one doesn’t even have a complete storyboard, but I already know all the characters and several situations that have to happen. Then there is that one I may never write, and it has a complete outline.

Winter has always been my best writing time, so I think I have to lay down some rules. Two projects at once might be possible. Four probably aren’t.

Seriously, what do you guys do when this happens? I know some of you write pretty fast, so maybe it’s not an issue to just wait. I’m a weekend warrior and quality writing time is limited. I have to be a little selective as to what I spend that time on.