Tuesday 21 February 2012

Project hopping

Half-term is over, and I'm on maternity leave, playing the waiting game.  What a gorgeous amount of time to spend on writing projects to pass the time....but of course not.  The two-year old is at home, and finding it risible that I suggested he amuse himself, even for half an hour. (He's helping me type now, with sticky fingers on my laptop keys).

Fortunately, in trying to keep a little writing routine going as much as possible -for as long as I can - I have things that I can tackle in ten minute slots. I dug out my Grandad's life-story this week; I had typed it up a year or more ago, but it needs lots of footnotes.  One day I hope to use a POD service so I can give my sisters and Dad a copy.  It's a very personal project, which I'm trying to edit and interfere with as little as possible - it's about Grandad, not my writing, and I only wish I'd asked him to write it earlier, as he might have got further along before he died. It's a completely different project, and the change is good. It also has intriguing little stories in that I would love to use sometime; he was a dispatch rider in the Royal Signals during WW2, and had a fascinating wealth of life experience by the time he was in his early twenties. It turns out that this project, at a very uncreative point, fits well into ten minute slots.

In direct contrast, my next book-to-be is still at the planning and plotting stage, and I can pour gallons of creativity over it to help it to flare into life.  Yet it also fits into short sessions. 

There's a definite benefit to having a range of projects, of wildly different kinds, on the go at the same time.  I wonder if you work like this, and if it suits you?

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