Sunday, April 8, 2012

Teaming Up

My multiple projects have been the subject of a couple of my posts now, and it seems that this one is going to be no different.  Probably because I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed by how much work I've managed to create for myself.  The fact that I actually want to add more projects to that list is really not the point.  The point is that despite how much I have on the go, I have yet to get anything completed.

I'm not the only one with this problem.  A friend of mine on twitter recently commented on a post a made.  It was a random one about having to finish my critiques before going away for the weekend.  She asked if I could look over some of her work, and I happily agreed (because I'm not nearly busy enough, I need to add a couple of more things to my schedule).  She told me that she wasn't close enough to being finished right at that moment, but she would be eventually.

The conversation went on in that direction for a while until she said something about another twitter friend telling her she needed to actually finish a project.  Pick one thing and actually focus on it.  It was so close to my own situation where I just keep project hopping, and never really settling in to get one done, that I couldn't help but tell her I had the same problem.

Of course, us being the writers we are, this realization that we had the same problem when it came to our writing quickly escalated into us have Wonder Twin-Multitaskers Powers.  Don't ask, it was late.

Anyway, while this may seem like nothing more than a random conversation, it was a lot more than that because of what came out of it: accountability.

I don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to being accountable to myself.  I tend to let myself off the hook more often than not, and that leads to things like entire weekends being spent getting caught up on TV shows as opposed to writing the book I was already 40,000 words behind on (no...that book is still not finished.  I no longer have and ETA on that, but I'm hoping eventually, as I have some serious plans for that series.)

Anyway, the point is, it was obviously not working.  Finishing a project isn't the same as doing something like nano.  There I have a chart I have to update daily, I have a word count goal that pretty much everyone in the city whose doing nano knows about.  I have other people working toward that same goal (Yeah, okay, maybe not exactly the same...theirs might be just a bit lower than mine...) that I can compete with to keep myself going.  Right now, though?  Right now I have nothing to keep that motivation.  And if I'm slacking on keeping myself accountable, nothing is ever going to get done.

That's where Moni comes in.  Since she's been having the same problems as me, we've decided to team up.  Create a system where we will be accountable to each other, and with any luck that will be what we need to get our projects moving forward again.

Of course, we haven't started yet.  With travelling over the weekend and critique group, not to mention the fact that we're in different time zones, we've decided to try and get started on Tuesday.  I'm hopeful that this will work.  There's nothing more encouraging than knowing there's another writer out there working on their projects at the same time as you and struggling just as much with the same issues.

Come Tuesday we'll see if we can actually get our projects done.  (I will be working on The Commons and getting it ready to be sent out, even though Pandora isn't done being written yet.  I would love to spend all of my time in Jayne's world, but it's really not fair to characters and plots I've already started.  Only once The Commons is out to beta readers will I allow myself to be pulled back into Pandora. Sorry Jayne.)

I will, however, be doing Camp Nano in June this year.  I don't know yet if I will just be writing the end of Pandora or if I will be writing something new.  I need to see how quickly I can get through my editing.  Either way, though, I'm glad that I found another writer than can hopefully help me through the multitasking cycle of starting a new project without finishing the last.

2 comments:

  1. Wait Danni has a blog? While I can't read it now cause I have work, I hate my job, but I'll take a look later. ~ Abe.

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    1. lol. I do, in fact have a blog ^^ Sorry, I always forget to post on facebook about it. So far I'm enjoying it ^^

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