I consider myself a good multitasker. And yet...
I rarely read more than one book at once. I know some people have multiple books on the go at all times, but not me.
Same with writing. I've heard of some authors jumping from one project to another in the same month, week, even day. I've never been great at that. I get really focused on the one project I'm working on to the point where everything else is a distraction. It's hard for me to suddenly click "off" on a certain set of characters/world and "on" to another. I also have a hard time not finishing something once I've started.
For example, I've been struggling with Romance Book 3 for awhile now. I did end up putting it aside to write my short story THE BEAST OF PEMBERLEY, which is going to appear in the upcoming anthology THE DARCY MONOLGUES (like I haven't talked about it before, lol). I went back to book 3 after, finally finishing what I thought was the hardest part- the middle section. I thought once that was done, the rest would come easy.
I have managed to find somewhat of a groove with book 3- not writing as often as I would like but still making forward progress. I really really wanted to finish the first draft of this book before doing anything else.
But now, my editor is finished with his first pass of COLLIDE (Romance Book 2), meaning I can start in on that anytime. I'd really like to publish it by the end of this year. PLUS, my novella has been waiting for a long time... I was hoping to have it out in the summer. With my slow progress on Romance Book 3, I just keep thinking, maybe I should set it aside and work on these other two instead.
But it's so hard. I feel like I'm quitting, even though I'm not. I know I'll finish book 3 eventually, but dang. I want to get it done now. At the same time, I have self-imposed deadlines for the other two projects so I have to shift my thinking.
Learning to jump back and forth between projects isn't going to come easy, but I think it's going to become a must. Just this week, I put aside book 3 to reread my novella and did a surface revision before sending it to a CP, and now I'm back to book 3 again. I have got to learn to compartmentalize each project in a way that lets me move back and forth between them if I must. I don't really know how to do this, but as they say, practice makes perfect, right? Or, at least, practice might help me get used to it, since perfection is a long way off.