Simultaneous Projects

So, with the elongating and soon to be editing (I assume) of the short story I recently had accepted for an upcoming anthology with my publisher, I am in a personally unique position of working on two writing projects at once. I have only been in this situation one other time and I didn���t do so well with it. I abandoned the new project and dove back in to editing the old one���and never picked up the new one again.

I don���t want to do that this time, but I find myself reluctant to jump into the old one. I���ve divorced myself from it. I have taken my mind out of that situation, and I���m no longer invested as I was. I read it again, and it was nice to read, but���I���m just not invested anymore. But I have to be, or when the editing process comes along, I���m going to let things slip that I shouldn���t, and not work as hard with some as with others. What I need to learn is how to balance them both.

It���s something that has to be learned. Otherwise, my output — which is already abysmal — will be reduced to nothing. If I dive into editing, that means I will be incapacitated until early summer at the earliest, and not writing anything. That will make the separation that much harder and will leave me in a funk���and what will I be doing in the meantime? Not working on myself or my writing, that���s for sure.

Also, let���s say that in the magical world of the future, I am moving toward being a mainstream author with an actual agent and all that other nonsense. The ability to diversify and do more than one thing at a time is crucial to getting more than one story out a year (my current output���one novel and two short stories so far. Kinda pathetic.) So, I���m looking forward to this opportunity to do two different things and make them both work for me at the same time. If I can get a rhythm like that, I will be a producing fool.

For now I���m just a fool. And that isn���t as fun.