My Schizophrenic Weekend

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
- Groucho Marx

Hubby and I love to travel, but we spent this Presidents’ Weekend at home this year, working around the house (him), writing (me), and doing our taxes (both).

And for some reason I decided I would tackle every writing project that’s on my four burners right now. Though I felt at times as though I had major mulitple personality disorder, I did get some good writing accomplished. Just to bring you up to date, here’s what on my plate right now:

Paradise, USA - This is the serial novella that’s been contracted by Virtual Tales. I’ve been emailing back and forth with my editor about the cover, which I think should be in the last stages of completion. I also worked on revising the last half of the story, since she only has the first half because that’s how this publisher works. I still love this story; I love the characters and I love what happens to them. I did run into a little snag near the HEA, only because I'm not happy with how the last few pages unfold, but I'll get it.

One Night in Boston - This is the full-length "24 hour romance" novel that’s been contracted by Samhain Publishing. I haven’t gotten the edits back from this editor, so the only thing I had to do was finalize the promotional blurb for her. That will probably be up on their website in a few weeks. Oh, you can also take a peek at my author's page, here.

One Night in Memphis - This is another full-length, “24 hour” romance that I’m really pushing to finish by June 1 to submit to Samhain. I would love another contract with them and am crossing my fingers that the 24-hour concept will catch on among readers. I’m about 1/3 of the way through this one, though I have an earlier draft (from a couple years ago) that I’m working with, so it’s not all brand new. Just most of it!

Summer’s Song - Finally, this is a single title romance that I wrote about 4 years ago. I shopped it briefly and had some interest from a couple of publishing houses, but no offers. I still really like this story and think I’ve figured out a way to make it stronger, so I spent some time this weekend working on the outline and the characters. I plan on shopping this one to traditional print houses and would love to have something complete by the fall.

So…that’s what I did this weekend! I feel good about my progress but, again, more than a little split between projects. I'm not really good at it, nor do I like it. I'd rather focus on one thing at a time. But that's not always possible.

What about you? If you're a writer, are you able to shift between projects? Or do you need to finish one before moving on to another? And if you're a reader, can you read multiple books at onc? Do you have a novel in the bedroom, one in the living room, and another in your bathroom? Do you have any problem picking up and moving from storyline to storyline?