Managing the chaos of too many WIPs

One thing I planned to do this year was finish writing a bunch of books I was writing all at once at different times. I am not the kind of person who can only focus on ONE thing or work on just ONE thing. I have to have several irons in the fire at one time. Usually, with me, those irons are books I am writing. The Works-in-progress – the WIPs. I work on one book a little here, another book a little there.

And for a while, that was working just fine.

Thing of it was, though, is it was taking me too dang long to finish writing ONE book!

So this year, I decided to just tackle one each month. And, so far, that plan was working out pretty good. I ACTUALLY FINISHED WRITING BOOKS! Imagine the surprise and delight to FINALLY finish writing that novel or to FINALLY finish writing a book. It was AWESOME!

Then summer vacation rolled around, and because I make time with my family a bigger priority than time spent writing, I fell behind. There was a book I didn’t finish writing. A couple of writing projects I didn’t get done for that particular month, either.

Hey, I ain’t complaining, though. Family is important. Time with my kids is important. They are Number 1 in my life!

However, the kids are now back in school. They started school last week.

And, me? I’m back to writing! Specifically, writing books.

However, I kept beating myself up over not getting that book done. Boo! Hiss!

So I thought about it for a while. And, ya know, I figure, why not try again? Give that attempt another go.

Try. To finish. Writing. That. Book. AGAIN!

So, that’s what I am doing now. In addition to working on this month’s book, I am also trying to finish writing the book on prayer – which is the book I was not able to finish writing. But, I figure, I got so much else going on book-wise, how am I gonna balance it all out? I have got to re-revise my novel in addition to the new version of the haunted houses book, which I’m also revising. I want to get THIS novel finished in the revision stage because THAT is the novel I selected to get revised this year. And I was told it needed more revision. In addition to the OTHER book I am trying to revise and get THAT done in time too (by December). Plus I have the other book to do research for and also get some writing done on it in order to finish writing it by December. And, I figure, what the heck. Time to start doing more research for the Supernatural book, too. Because I have a feeling I need to start writing that book once the new year rolls around.

But, even so …. IT WAS TOO MUCH! There was too much to juggle. I could not keep track of it all.

I solved that problem, though, by getting my hands on a dayplanner to help me keep track of what book to work on when. Problem was, I could only find dayplanners for 2018. Hey, no problem. I just wrote in the days along with all the books and now I was all set!

So I have been using the dayplanner to keep track of everything I have got going on this month and posting the work I’ve been doing on my Author’s Log – another thing I am experimenting with for this year. It has turned out well and I am happy that I can stay on top of all the writing, revising and research I have got going on this month.

So, problem solved. Hopefully, I get everything done this year. I am planning to write the Supernatural book next year, as well as End Game, and so I really hope that I finish writing the books that I plan to finish writing for this year. Next year I will be revising the remaining GHOST Group books (one at a time, though!) and send off the next two.

Dayplanners. What a beautiful thing!