Three At Once

I have always worked on one project at a time. I enjoy thinking deeply about a project and letting myself sink down into it. When it comes to a creative project, I’ve come to fancy myself, not as a jack of all trades, but a master of one (to recklessly repurpose the idiom). I finished and published both The Confessions of Adam and Waterborne with this approach. I assumed this was how I’d work for the rest of my writing life.

But it seems this may not be.

I am shocked to find I’ve three viable manuscripts on my desk at once. I did not plan this event. I’ve no idea what to do. I could make the case for focusing all my energy on any one of them. My wife has finished reading one of the manuscripts and told me she believes (although nowhere near done) I have a story there. Another manuscript has certainly begun to find its legs. And the third one seems capable of what it’s initially promising.

I still don’t think I can work on more than one project at a time. But once again the process of creating fiction is challenging my thinking—and one must listen to the process.