Balancing Your Writing

Wow. That was super-procrastination time. Yiiikes. Well last night I was up and managed to be super productive so finally I'm finishing this post! Ridin' the wave! (I've had too much caffeine and not enough zzzz's...)


As you may well know, I am currently working on a new novel. At this point, I have put a considerable amount of time into it, and I am trying to really focus on on getting it finished. Way too many of my projects get started but end up collecting dust, and completing a long project like this is a huge goal for me. 


So tonight (and by that I mean last week sometime), while I was driving home and came up with a great idea for a story I was a little perplexed as to what to do. I didn't want to forget the idea, so I wrote it down with the details I wanted to really remember. However now I am having trouble redirecting my thoughts on my current project. (That's kind of gone now too but for the sake of this post...)


This led me to wonder what other writers and authors do to keep their ideas and projects balanced. So with the wonderful advent of Twitter I asked for their opinions, and here is what I got back:


Steven Montano, (@Daezarkian) author of the Bloodskies series, said "I'll usually find a way to force that new idea into my current project. It isn't always clean, but for me it usually works great."


Michael R. Hicks, (@KreelanWarrior) author of the series In Her Name, "For myself, I have to stay focused on the current project or won't get anything done! I write notes about other ideas for later."


I also brought this up with few of my friends who like to dabble in writing, (nothing published, they do it purely for themselves) and the response was pretty much a slight variation of the old write it down and get to it later. A few however, did say that they worked on multiple stories and various types of writing when they are confronted with writers block. The change of pace and subject freed up the mind a bit and allowed the ink start to flow again, even if it was just in the form of a short story, poem or a personal blog post. 


I find that when I don't procrastinate and keep up on this blog or on my novel, the words come much easier than when I take a break. I didn't let myself think about my new idea too much, because I didn't want my mind to stray any farther than it already had. In the end I just had to force myself to write a bit until my brain found it's way back to the story I was working on. I am going to attempt Mr.Montano's method and try working future ideas in, just to see how it goes. 


I have to imagine that there are many talented writers who are able to work on multiple things at once, but for me I think that I just need to follow Ron Swanson's advice... 


How do you balance writing? Let me know!