Manuscript Infidelity

I know the drill, finish book 1 and query while working on book 2.

But here's the thing, do you ever get bored with book 2 and start book 3, then outline a plot for book 4, then go back to book 2 because it's fresh and exciting again, then while editing book 2 completely out of the blue start writing a manuscript you have no business writing just because it's fun?

No? Come on now, it can't be just me.

It sometimes makes me feel as if I'm cheating. As if I should be satisfied working on just one project or in one genre at a time. Problem is, I never am. I finished Bloodletting a while ago. It's not my first novel. It certainly won't be my last. But right now it is in the query stage and in between waiting for the rejections and reworking my query to quell future rejections, I have 4 projects (in multiple genres) in the works that I absolutely love. I cannot for a second dream of stopping any one of them to focus solely on one of the others.

This doesn't even include the long list of stories that are in the plotting stage.

I've always been this way. Ever since childhood. Much to the chagrin of my siblings who believed my multitasking ADD behavior was just my way of showing off. It's not, it's just the way I'm wired. I'm not a do one thing kind of gal.

  

I can't listen to a radio station for more than a minute. I flip through television channels during commercials.

I read multiple books at once. Therefore, I think it's only natural that I would find the need to write just as many.

  

That's not to say that everything I work on will be brilliant and worthy of publication. But, what I write, and the way I write, serves a purpose for me. It keeps me from getting blocked. It keeps the self-doubt at bay. It keeps me from over-thinking a project into oblivion.

And it works for me because I am a creature of my moods. There are some days I don't want to read or write horror. There are some days I can't stand the idea of Science Fiction.

I know that it is imperative that I write each and every day, but where's the law that says I have to work on the same thing every time I write?

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