Are you a person who can balance several writing projects? Or do you prefer to work on only one project? This question came up a number of years ago when I didn’t know how to organize my time to polish several assignments that were on my plate.
I began searching for how other writers and artists managed their projects.
Isaac Asimov, who wrote over
500 books, kept five or six typewriters in his workroom, each with a page
inserted in readiness. He rotated from one project to another with whatever momentarily
piqued his interest.
Philip Yancey focussed on
writing one book at a time. When he was writing a column for Christianity
Today, he enjoyed taking one day off a month to write the column. (One
day! It would take me a week!)
Vincent Van Gogh set up as many
as 14 canvases of the same scene, drawing clouds and natural landscapes as the
light changed during the day.
Madeleine L’Engle combined
writing one book with adding ideas and journal entries to several others she
had in mind. Then when she was ready to begin a new work, she chose the one with
the most complete ideas.
Grace Fox, speaker at our Fall
Conferences, batches her work for speaking engagements, book proposals,
podcasts, books, etc. She works, for example, two days on one project, three days on
another.
As well as discovering how authors and artists worked, I‘ve gleaned wisdom, some from our own InScribers. I’ll pass them on to you.
Discover how many projects you can manage. Alan Anderson said he chose three. (Sorry, Alan, I can’t find the blog post where you wrote this—but I remembered it.) On the other hand, Steph Beth Nickel emailed me that she is a writer-juggler who loves to “keep all the plates spinning. ... Most of the time, having several projects on the go at once energizes me. Most of the time.”
But in general, maintain at least two projects. When you get bogged down with one, switching to another will enliven your spirits. Marcia Laycock needed to take a break from working on a major novel, so she wrote a delightful children’s book, Merrigold’s Very Best Home, that refreshed her and won awards.
Ray Bradbury said that sometimes a major project needs to be set aside and incubate for up to a year. When you come back to it, you’ll see it with fresh eyes.
If your current project is
revising and editing, continuing to write new material will keep your creative
juices flowing.
Along with the above
strategies, Tracy Krauss wrote in one blog post the necessity of keeping
balance in all things.
Like a complex machine, we must strike a
balance between marketing, promotion, and business activities…and the actual
writing side of things. All of these writing-related activities must then
fit into the greater balance of life…work, family, church, household chores,
devotional life...
But above all, we need to draw on the Lord's strength. As Steph
Beth said that she needs to, “rely on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide and to provide me with
the wherewithal I need to accomplish the tasks at hand.”
I’m reminded of Scripture
which says: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work
of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:17 NIV). He
will do it.
I’d like to know: How many
projects or project components can you handle simultaneously? What strategies
have you discovered? How do you balance your time and energy? How do you and God
partner in this process?
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