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How To Juggle Writing More Than One Book At Once

By on September 2, 2020

Are you hoping to try writing more than one book at once? Or does this seem like an impossibility to you? Read on to find out how it can be done.

Writing more than one book at once may seem like a proposterous idea.

Let's face it, or lots of us, the idea of writing just one book can feel slightly overwhelming. Indeed, many people who set out to complete a book never manage to make it to the end.

However, the most prolific writers among us know that writing consistently, getting lots of books finished, published, and made available to their hungry readers can not only ensure that they keep their writing going but will also make them more money and keep their fans clamoring for more. 

Writing more than one book at once, and still having time to tinker with short stories, create pitches, prepare promotional campaigns, and all the other things a writer has to do might seem daunting, but with a solid writing process, good organizational skills, and a robust plan in place, anything is possible. 

So how do you juggle a massive workload and still ensure that you are producing high-quality, publishable work that your readers will enjoy at the end of it? Here are some useful tips to ensure that you stay on top of everything. 

Calendar everything

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a brainstorming session, a meeting with a publisher, scheduling your social media posts, or going to the dentist. Make sure that you calendar absolutely everything that you intended to do with your day/week/month. If you don’t, there will inevitably be clashes; you’ll run out of time and feel like you have let yourself down because you haven’t achieved what you wanted to. Any task, deadline, or appointment needs to go on there, and then you can see precisely how busy you are, and how much time you have left. Make sure that when you are working on your schedule, you do leave time for social events, downtime, and time for yourself and your family. Otherwise, you will burnout and end up not enjoying the writing process as much because you don’t have the energy or motivation to keep going. 

Use task lists

At the start of each day, write down everything you need to do and then prioritize it. As a general rule, and where permissible, you should start working on the most challenging and time-intensive tasks first. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself putting them off. If you don’t want to do it, do it first.

Work out your timings

Giving yourself tasks and goals and deadlines is one thing, but there is no way you’ll end up sticking to these unless you’ve bothered to do the math. Don’t use pick obituary deadlines and dates out of the air, or assume that if you make the deadline far away enough, you’ll definitely get it done. Instead, make calculations to help guide you. If you want to write an 80,000-word book in 6 months and have three 6 hour slots in your week that you can dedicate to writing, do the math and work out how many words you need to write each day. Suppose the number you come up with seems doable, you can stick with your deadline. If it doesn’t, you need to think about how to free up more time to dedicate to your writing or give yourself more time to achieve your goal. 

When you have more than one novel on the go, you need to do that math repeatedly and continually reassess according to your progress. Your books don’t have to be released on the same day, so divide your time accordingly to help ensure you meet your respective deadlines to the best of your ability. 

Create excellent outlines

Taking the time to plot and outline each of your books thoroughly will help you when it comes to juggling more than one story at once. A clear outline gives you a clear direction, and you’ll find it so much easier to switch from one story to another if you have your outline there as a guide to keep you going. 

Using the tips above will help any author who is embarking on the impressive goal of writing more than one book at once. Stay focused, stay organized, and be kind to yourself! Good luck. 

So now you've learned how to juggle writing more than one book at once, why not discover more ways to juggle multiple writing projects?

bethany cadman
Bethany Cadman - bethanycadmancreates.com

About Beth Cadman