I added up all my projects already completed and slated to complete from May ’09 to May ’10. Um, it’s a lot. It comes to the equivalent of 5 books, but since 2 are novella collections that add up to novel length (Wishmasters and Take Me, Lover) and others are standalone novellas, it’s a lot more than 5 projects.
There are pros to this: I wanted to clear out a bunch of my inventory of works in progress, and I’ve done that. I wanted to set up a bunch of e-releases to increase my monthly income. I’ve done that (still doing that, actually, it takes time for the payment/release cycle to hit). I wanted to see how much I can actually do without overloading my brain, and what I’ve learned from this exercise is that I’m capable of a lot without strain, but that the accumulated load of blurbs/cover art/contracts/edits/proofing/promo for each individual project adds a lot of work to the same word count if I’d just done novels. That’s a pro, because I learned something. Also in the pro category, writing to different lengths works different story muscles and that’s been good for me. I’m definitely keeping my name out with frequent releases. And finally, I’ve learned that I really am more productive working on multiple projects than focusing on one at a time and it seems to minimize the “I finished the book” mental black hole effect.
Cons: Adding a lot of work to the same word count for 5 novels.
So, while I am happy to have done most of what I set out to do, and will continue along that path as I keep turning stuff in through May, I’m going to take what I’ve learned and set different goals going forward from that point. I’ll switch to focusing on novels. I will always come up with the odd idea for a novella or novellette or a novella collection, but I’m going to put my main focus into bigger projects. Hopefully this will strike the optimum balance between the workload that works best for me and frequency of releases.
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