Hello Rosy! First of all, Merry Xmas or happy holidays! Answer me only when you can :) I’m the one who sent the ask about being stuck in my story, who suggested reading again to fall in love with the story all over again. I will take your advice, but with the holidays, I haven’t yet. However... I started reading a book this morning that is a totally different genre, and it got my ideas flowing. I was wondering what’s your opinion on writing two stories at the same time? +
+ I was thinking maybe it could help me get my writing flowing & I wouldn’t lose practice as well. Maybe it’ll give me ideas. But at the same time I’m “scared” I’ll lose the will to write both, that I won’t finish a single one. I’m a Gemini dominant, with air all over my chart (I don’t know if you like astrology lol), which means I lose focus very easily. It’s happened my whole life! I thought I could finally finish something, I was so excited! +
+ But I somehow lost it. I want to finish it, I was enjoying the story so much. So I’m really not sure if starting another story is a good idea. Sighs.
Okay, so I am an advocate for reading outside of your genre to get your creative juices flowing. I do that all the time, with my story in the back of my mind as I read, and can often get inspired to get back to work as I read someone else’s narrative.
I have also found that working on more than one story DOES work for me, as long as I don’t expend all my energy on one leaving none for the other.
But like that narrative break while reading, sometimes writing a different story breaks me out of block.
I’ve got this whole theory of writer’s block which says that it’s actually messages from your subconscious telling you that something needs attention in your story. So if you don’t actively stop and pay attention to what is blocking you, you get STUCK.
Of course with the way brains work, sometimes you don’t have to consciously “figure out” what’s wrong, but you can do something else and let your subconscious work on it. What that means is that getting stuck on a story is not a bug of the writing process, it’s not WRONG, it’s actually a feature of how we write. NOT writing, even not being able to write, is part of how we write and we have to take time off of writing words in order to allow our brains room to grow the story.
I say this even as a person who writes a 50k novel in 18 days. It’s not JUST about moving forward and putting words on the page, it’s also about stopping and processing and allowing the story to sink into you so you know how to keep going.
NOT writing is part of it. Staring out the window, reading, going for a walk, envisioning characters, talking about it, taking a shower, drawing or journaling, sleeping...while that’s happening, a part of your brain is still working on your story... as long as you give it room to. If you have anxiety over not writing, it’s harder to allow the brain to process. If you spend all your energy thinking how you suck because you’re stuck or how you SHOULD be doing other things, then you might not have room in your brain to process story.
The idea of writing two different stories can be a way to hack that non-writing processing time. Because you are actively writing something else while passively letting your brain mull over the original story.
I remember doing this a couple years ago when I was both writing my original novel and doing fanfic. The fanfic was the easier one and when I got stuck on my novel, I’d switch over and let it flow with the fanfic. When the fanfic got stuck, I’d go back to the novel. I never got a serious writers block because I never stopped writing. And yet, I still gave the story time to breathe.
Granted, I was writing fewer words in the novel than I did when I was only working on it, but overall, my wordcount went up by a lot.
I don’t actually do that all the time, work on two stories at a time, but I believe that period of time had me writing almost every single day for the whole year, which was awesome for me, because I often go through weeks or months after a project where I can’t write at all.
But you can also do other writing besides fiction. You can write essays, metas or blogs. You can write poetry. Maybe a play or songs? Short stories instead of novels? Or switching genre. One can be scifi, one can be romance. I do wonder if writing two novels of the same genre might bleed together, but I mean, if it works does it matter?
Would writing two novels at the same time work for you? Maybe it would. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe you’ll get distracted and lose focus. IDK. You really have to find the way that YOUR brain and your writing process works. Maybe by switching between novels, you never lose that writing momentum that has you going off to do other things. Or maybe you end up preferring one book over the other.
Sometimes I need to be doing more than one thing at a time... i’m not sure it’s the best way, but like, I used to paint while I watched tv. It seems counterintuitive, to spread yourself thin like that, but the tv took the top part of my brain, allowing the lower part to paint, and I wouldn’t get distracted or exhausted. “Top part” and “Lower part” are technical brain terms.* However, I’d never be able to do that with writing, because hearing words on tv will interfere with me writing words on the page. This is also part of why I don’t really listen to music while writing and if I do it’s instrumentals. I know for certain that isn’t how other people write, so you have to find out what works for you and how you can hack your brain to get the stories onto the page.
There is no ONE way to write. There is only writing. And if you find a way of writing that works for you then that is how you write. And sometimes that process changes. There is no one way for YOU to write. You just have to write and figure out what works for you and when that isn’t working, you try something else, or you switch it up, or you find a guideline, or set a timer or take a class, or read a book.
Whatever way it is, find your process, and get back to doing the writing that you love.
