If you’ve been following along with my posts, you’ll know that I have a lot going on at one time. I never have just one project at a time, I have a myriad, and in a lot of different stages too. It’s a way of writing I really enjoy, but it’s certainly one that has its drawbacks. Whilst it can give you the opportunity to move from project to project in various stages so you can leap from world building, to writing, to editing, it can sometimes lead to an intense, overwhelming sensation where you have so much going on at once, you don’t know what will be best to work on at any particular time. I’ve certainly covered that latter feeling in previous posts, and it can be hard to push past that. That’s where that dedication in writing comes in, all that perseverance and resilience that are so necessary, even when you’re the one creating the problems by making too many stories to focus on!
That being said, I do, probably ninety-five percent of the time, love having various projects going on at once. I think, if you focus on one at a time, maybe that’s great for really working a project until all the kinks are smoothed out but, for me and I’m sure for many other writers out there, it’s not good for our creative freedom. There’s often so much going on in our heads at one time, if I focused on one project for long months, maybe even for years, and didn’t look at anything else, I’d probably go insane.
I’ve definitely mentioned before how time away from projects and letting them breathe is a good way to actually strengthen that project. It gives you time to think through plots and their holes, piece together elements of story to make it stronger, and time away allows you to see grammar mistakes when you come back too because it’s less familiar to you. For some people, they take that time away to do other things, exerting creativity in other forms or just taking the time however they need. For others, and that’s me included, whilst certainly working my creativity in other fashions, I go to other stories and work on them for however long is appropriate or necessary.
As you can see, this has lead to four named projects already on this blog (and those are only the ones I’ve written about here!) All of them are in vastly different stages, which I love. Sometimes, I’m in the mood to just write and get pages full of words, other times, I want to plan and construct a world and its characters, and then other times, I’m eager to read and refine what I’ve already written. Having lots of projects allows me to do what I want to do and when (though there are absolutely times where you need to do something you’re not feeling so keenly because perhaps you’ve got deadlines or goals to achieve that require you to edit when you want to write. There’s a lot of freedom with writing, but there’s also a lot of dedication that means you can’t always just do what you want as things won’t get finished!) In a lot of circumstances, however, flitting between what you’re currently in the mood to work on is a total possibility, which I adore.
So what are my projects, and what stages are they in? Well, let’s go through them and give an explanation, for my peace of mind and perhaps for yours too.
Project #1, which I can reveal has a title whose initials equate to TTOOY, is one that has absolutely given me a lot of trouble through the years. It’s a story about youth burgeoning into adulthood, it’s about relationships and feelings between friends, diverging paths and the intensity of friendships. It’s a story I feel very passionate about, and the complicated nature of teenagers trying to embark into adulthood and all that comes with it is something I have found incredibly fascinating to explore.
But it’s gone through a lot of changes. From how many characters to their relationships with each other to setting and timelines, it’s shifted a lot. It has certainly taught me about my ability to self-edit but has also left me with a lot of uncertainties. I’ve considered different genres, different endings, different beginnings, different POVs, and it’s gone through so many changes that it has, at times, left me wondering if it’ll ever be in a position to explore fully. It’s forced me into an almost constant evaluation and, in all honesty, has never had a completed, first draft. It’s something I still feel passionate about because I know there’s a story there to tell, but where it was once in a stage where I was ready to get it drafted, it’s been restarted, and multiple times too. At the moment, it’s something that’s been left in the background for a little while, but I’m not ready to give up on it, and I hope I never will be.
Project #2 is my big fantasy series that I’ve been working on, at this moment in time, for about a decade. And it still needs a lot of work. This is one, unlike Project #1, that I knew would take time. There’s maps and history, magic lore and complex characters that require the kind of building that can’t be done in just a year, or even just a couple of years. At this moment in time, I’m busy fleshing out all of the cultures so they feel more concrete, and this is something, given the quantity of the world that I’m creating, that has taken a few years. I dedicate only a little bit of time to it per week, and so it’s still something that needs time, and lots of it.
I love it though. Fantasy is definitely a genre I feel very passionate about. I love contemporary drama, but I also adore fantasy, and there’s something about building a world that I can never get enough of. I run the risk of this becoming a project I have such high hopes for that I never feel it’s ready enough to share. There’s still time before it gets there anyway, it’s not even had a completed draft since I’ve made some pretty intense changes, but I’ll have to tackle that one day. Not in the near future, but one day. I have this feeling about this project that it’s going to be special and so that is definitely daunting. When you have this idea of what a story is going to be, living up to that expectation is never going to be easy. So I know this will be something that I’ll be working on for a very long time, but I also know I will have to tell myself that I can’t keep working on it in the private sphere forever and that, for it to become what I want it to become, I’ll have to share it.
Project #3/OFBB is a contemporary, adult drama about the complexity of marriage when one isn’t being truthful to who they are. There’s themes about queer identity, fatherhood, marriage, and society as well. In terms of publication, it’s the closest to being ready, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s going to be in the hands of people next week. It’s a gentle story with acceptance as its core theme, and it’s one that I think will resonate with people. (If you read my last post, you can definitely get more insight into what stage this project is in, but that’s all I should share right now. Just know that, in terms of being at the beginning of a project and at its end, this is certainly towards the latter).
Then, finally, we have Project TDOA. As you can see, I’ve changed from giving the projects numbers and opted for initials instead, and this is for a multitude of reasons including the fact that sometimes the earliest project is not the one that’s going to come out first. I’ve mentioned before that we can all plan to the tiniest detail, but writing is never a straightforward path and you cannot guarantee that the first idea you have will be the first thing in people’s hands. This is my latest project that was created during NaNoWriMo 2023. It’s fantasy, though entirely unrelated to Project #2, and although I managed to achieve the November target, I’m still not finished with its first draft. I knew it was going to be a big story, but it’s turned out to be even larger than I had anticipated, and that’s because I am a combination between a pantser and a plotter; I absolutely plan things out before I start but I often let the story take me where it needs to go and sometimes that winds into a plot I hadn’t grappled with before I got there.
Despite the size of the story continuously growing, I’m loving it, as I love everything I write. There’s so many kinds of fantasy stories out there and being able to explore different fantasies and the world that comes with it, as well as a host of characters I’m really enjoying, it’s been a great process. And there’s still so much more to go! Even more so, because it’s not even in a completed first draft, there’s definitely kinks that need working out. But that’s all part of writing; if it was all smooth sailing, I don’t think stories would be worth it. The process and difficulty that comes with writing is what makes writing so rewarding, so even though it’s hard, enjoying those difficult parts is actually a massive part of creating.
So there we are, and that’s only the things I’ve already mentioned on this blog and does not include the other things I’ve got going on that I haven’t been able to talk about. What will be in the hands of people first is not something I can confidently say. There’s a whole host of reasons that the things you think will come first don’t, and that’s just part of being creative, it’s never a straight, exact path, it winds and weaves and darts off in other directions all the time. But there are plenty of things for me to work on and I hope, one day, each of them will be in the hands of people to enjoy, whenever that might be.
If you’re like me and have hundreds of things on the go at once, I commend you because, whilst I think it can make some things easier, it certainly can make things harder too. I love writing and I love having lots of different things to write at once, even if it can sometimes be overwhelming. So I’ll keep writing and editing and planning, and I’ll keep creating new stories well before my other ones are finished, because, in a lot of ways, that’s just what being a writer means.
To all my fellow writers out there, good luck with all your stories too, however many that may be.
Robyn x
R. A. Howard 