Why I Have So Many Writing Projects

…and no, it’s not because I never want to finish anything. I actually want to finish them all, and sooner rather than later preferably.

You may have guessed one of the main reasons-I have so many story ideas wanting to be released. They just don’t understand I have to focus on one at a time to actually get any of them done in good order.

But that’s not the main thing I’m here to talk about. One of the reasons I really enjoy writing is similar to a major reason I enjoy reading-it’s an escape from this life into one of imagination. It’s a place where I can root for a person similar to me as they actually go out and conquer their issues, even though everything just gets worse for them. I can sympathize as they get hit with hard problems and reel back then cheer as they press on. And I can hope for a good ending when I see them reach their goal or something different but good.

Only with writing, I get to create the universe, and the characters, and through complications at them mercilessly to break them down. It’s a little more fun if you ask me.

When I sit down to write though, I have the main book I’m working on rewriting, but I also have a bunch of other started writing projects to finish writing/rewriting/plotting/editing. Almost all of them are unnamed so their documents are titled ‘ideas’, ‘chapter 1’, ‘scenes’, etc. How do I decide which to work on? Honestly it depends on how the day has gone thus far and what my mood is at the time. With multiple projects going on simultaneously, I’m writing different situations in each one. So if I feel especially like tormenting a character, I choose a project in which the character is getting pummeled or needs to be. If I need to see a victorious moment, I get into a project in which the plot calls for a hard-fought for victory. The list goes on.

Of course, sometimes there just isn’t a place that’s good for what I’m feeling like writing. When that happens, I’ll do one of two things. I’ll either write a random scene that may be in some book somewhere sometime, or I’ll just pick one somewhat randomly and bring in my mood to the plot. If I do the latter, it can seriously change the direction the plot is going, but I’ve found that the change usually enhances it. I do write seat-of-the-pants as opposed to plotting after all. I just tend to do it emotionally. Which is probably why I’ll never make a good, full-time author…but I still plan on publishing each one of my dozen plus stories.

How does your day/emotions influence your writing/reading choices?

 

(p.s. that picture is of my laptop screen. I got the desktop picture off some free desktop site and it was kind of hard to avoid getting a little in with the picture of a representation of some of my writing projects. The open documents are maybe half of my writing projects, and no, I don’t usually have that many open at once.)