Intro

For most of my writing life, I’ve firmly been a one project at a time type of writer. I liked being able to just focus on one thing so that I could get that one thing done as quickly as possible, then move on to the next thing. This is the way that a lot of authors do it, and it’s a great way to keep yourself focused and prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.

When I started publishing my Rise of the Oathsworn series, though, I knew from the start that I wanted it to be a long-running thing, something that I could keep writing for years if I wanted to. (And, at this point, I still want to.)  But, as much as I love it, I also knew that I didn’t want it to be my only thing; I wanted to write novels too, set in a completely different world with completely different characters. If I wanted to keep tackling only one project at a time, it could’ve been years before I was open to writing novels again. I could’ve waited—but I didn’t want to. And I knew that, if I managed my time right, I wouldn’t have to.

So, this year, one of the main writing-related skills I’ve been working on is my ability to balance multiple projects at once, making sure that everything keeps moving forward without me getting overwhelmed or distracted. And I can happily say that I’ve found methods that seem to be working pretty well for me. 

Because this is something that you often see writers trying to get better at, I thought I’d share these methods here on the blog. So, if you’re a fellow writer looking to tackle multiple projects at once, please read on!

Pros and Cons of Writing Multiple Books at Once

As you can probably guess, whether or not it’s a good idea to try working on multiple books at once depends entirely on the individual in question. It depends on your personal writing habits, preferences, and circumstances, and only you can decide whether they allow for working on multiple projects at once or not. So, instead of telling you whether you should or shouldn’t do it, I’m just going to talk about some of the pros and cons of doing it.

We’ll start with the pros. To me, the best thing about it is that, if I have multiple book ideas that I’m excited about, I don’t have to choose which one to write first; I can work on them both simultaneously. (I say both because, to me, two seems like the most manageable amount, but you might feel like you could tackle more.) This is great because it makes it so I don’t have to put one project off and risk losing my spark for it by the time I’m actually ready to work on it. Another pro is that, if you’re working on multiple things at once, you’ll probably wind up finishing them both closer together than you would have if you’d written them one after the other—which, if you’re a published author, means you can release them closer together. If you self-publish through KDP, this can encourage Amazon’s algorithm to pick you up more, which helps boost sales. Working on multiple projects at once can also be helpful in case you ever get stuck writing something; because you have other things you’re working on, you can always bounce to another project while you try to figure out how to get unstuck in the first. This way, even if you’re stuck in something, all writing doesn’t have to go to a total standstill.

But, of course, there are considerable cons as well. The most obvious one is probably that it can be easy to get overwhelmed if you’re trying to tackle more than one project at once. (We all know that writing one book is hard enough; throwing in another might—understandably—sound a little insane.) Working on more than one thing at once also might mean that, while you can release books closer together, it might take longer for you to actually write those books, because your writing time isn’t all devoted to a single book. So, if you have one book that you want to be able to finish and publish as quickly as possible, it might not be the best option. Another con is that, if you have one project that, for whatever reason, you consider to be more important than the others, it might be easy to be distracted from that project by the other projects. This is probably the biggest problem with writing multiple things at once that I’ve found; some days, I’m way more excited about working on my novel than I am about working on Rise of the Oathsworn, even though I consider Oathsworn to be the priority. Usually it’s not much of a problem for me, but it can definitely make it hard to focus on my main project, and I’d imagine that there are people out there who have found it much more disruptive. So dealing with it is definitely something to consider if you’re thinking of taking on another project.

To me, the pros outweigh the cons, which is why I decided to give it a go. While the cons are certainly there, they’ve been manageable for me so far, and I suspect that I’ll only get better at managing them the longer I do it. But you might feel differently, which is totally acceptable too; some of us just prefer to focus on one thing at a time. Like with all things related to writing, there is no single “right” way to do it; it’s all subjective.

Creating a Writing Schedule

The easiest way that I’ve found to balance multiple projects at once is to plan different times for working on each one. In other words, by creating a writing schedule. By planning when I’m going to work on each project, I help myself out in a few ways: 

First, it helps me determine if I really can realistically take on another project; because I do my writing planning in Google Calendar, where I also do all of my regular day-to-day planning, I can see everything I already know I have to do every day laid out plainly. If I notice that my schedule is super full and finding time to work on another project is going to be tricky, it might mean that committing to it now isn’t the best idea. 

Second, it helps me make sure that every project keeps moving forward—which can be tricky if you just have a single, unspecified “writing time”. Chances are, I’ll just default to one project whenever it’s time to write, and the other one will be neglected for an indeterminate period—which isn’t always a problem but, because I kind of want both of my projects to be finished in the not-so-distant-future, it is for me. By setting aside different times for both of them, I make sure they both get the attention they deserve, without having to compete. 

And third, having specific times that I work on each project also just helps me get into the habit of shifting into the right mindset for each given project. Both have pretty different tones, and the main characters have very different personalities that I have to slip into, so having specific times when I know I’m going to have to take on those vibes and roles helps make the transition easier.

So, yeah, scheduling time for each project is helpful. But how exactly do you decide when to work on each project? As you can probably imagine, that’s totally up to you. I usually decide based on a few different factors. The biggest—and sometimes the only determining factor, if my schedule is really tight—is knowing when I have free time that I won’t mind sacrificing to a project. This writing time could be daily, weekly, biweekly, whatever—as long as it’s regular, and I’m confident I can consistently show up for it. Obviously, I’d progress in the project faster if I do it daily rather than weekly, but, if it’s not time-sensitive, it really doesn’t matter; as long as I work on it consistently, it will be finished eventually.

Currently, I work on both Oathsworn and my novel daily. I work on Oathsworn for roughly two hours in the afternoon, after the bulk of my other responsibilities are done, and work on my novel for roughly an hour in the evening. This schedule has worked well for me and, if you want to try something similar, feel free. But this is just an example of what a writing schedule might look like; yours might look very different. No matter what it is, just remember that consistency is key.

Prioritizing Projects

Another thing that I’ve found helpful in balancing multiple projects is knowing how to prioritize them. While I love them both and, ideally, would be able to work on them both an equal amount, there will always be times when that’s not realistically possible, either because of time constraints, slow writing days, or a number of other factors. Because I rank them based on priority, I easily know which one is more important, and thus which one needs the most attention.

As I mentioned earlier, I consider Oathsworn to be my top priority project. The biggest reason for this is because it’s the one that’s currently being published, but there are other reasons as well, such as my attachment to the story and the fact that I can finish the novellas much faster than I can finish the full-length novel. The novel is less important at the moment because it’s something totally new with no expectations attached to it whatsoever, and is a long way from being ready to publish. (As of now, it just lives rent-free in my headspace. Which is fun, but significantly less important to me than keeping the ball rolling on Oathsworn.)

You, of course, might prioritize projects differently. You might base your priorities solely on how passionate you are about a project, or on upcoming deadlines—whatever works or is necessary for you. The point is that you should know what your priorities are so that you’re never frozen, wondering which project you should be pouring the most effort into.

It’s also important to keep in mind that, just because one project is the highest priority right now, doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way forever. As your projects progress, the highest priority one might change, based on deadlines, how close one is to completion, changing passions, etc., etc. It’s important to be flexible with your priorities and be willing to change them as the situation demands.

Outro

That’s all for today’s post. I hope you found this interesting and helpful! As always, thanks for reading!