For those writing novels, is it good to be working on more than one project at a time? Can this result in a loss of focus for both projects or does the change keep each fresh?
Here’s my fundamental problem. I’m 70,000 words into my first story. I’m happy with the way its going and I feel that it is moving along towards the goal just fine. I’m just tired of looking at it for a while. In the meantime, my mind keeps percolating ideas for something different.
Then by all means write down notes and treatments for the new ideas. If you find yourself getting stale on one story, then swap to another.
But you may never finish any stories if you do not have the discipline to push through when it gets boring. If anyone every told you this was easy, they were lying.
It depends on the author. Some like doing multiple projects so they can switch from one to another if things go stale. Others prefer to concentrate on just one at a time.
I just read a book about Mark Twain and he was notorious for writing five novels at once. He might write several chapters of book A then stop and begin book B which he’d then decide he didn’t like at all so he’d start book C, write 3/4 of it then go back and finish B and then go back to A several years later. Huckleberry Finn was a book he started- in various guises- several times while working on other projects. (Twain also had tons of incomplete projects, including several sequels to Tom & Huck, tucked away in his files.)
I stopped working on my novel, 50 or 60 thousand words in, to go and get started on my master’s thesis. It’s seriously de-railed my ability to finish the book, although part of that is the harder deadline that comes with my school work.