Fallen into the trap of Writing two pieces simultaneously. It’s never a good Idea. And as a rule, there is always someone wanting something from you, that would eat away what time you have. It’s a beautiful spring outside,  family wants a little road trip, the dog wants to go out, cousin wants to change something in that excel macro that you wrote eight months ago. But all you can really think of is a long overdue second part of your fantasy book and a new SF novel.

Well, here is some thoughts. First of all, it is good that the two stories are so utterly different, that once you switch from one to another you can keep a Focus on what you are currently working and for the moment forget all about the other. Plots are different, the era in which they are happening are far apart, and characters are quite distinctive. Nothing that would make you skip back and forth between two of them while working. That is on the good side.

On the other hand, when you are doing some research it could be time consuming, with limited usability. If you need to get some facts together, there is nothing you can use for both of the pieces. So you are forced to spend more time learning some fairly specific stuff. No reusability! At least not for the time being, and if you are in a tight spot with the time, and don’t do your homework thoroughly, it means that you will do it all over again, when the need arise.

It is so nice to have all the resources of the Internet available, but even so, sometimes just the idea of pausing to read long sheets of information could be daunting. Asking a question on the forums could give you more than you are bargaining for. One of the nice solution for the problem is to use youtube as a source. There are excellent video clips with thorough explanations and comments. So if you want, you can drill down into the matters deep as you want. Don’t have to be an expert on the subject to write the plausible story, but you should have some clue about what you are writing.

Wonder how the authors at the time before internet did this. Guess there was a lot of visits to the library or even better, a lot of time spent in discussion with friends and acquaintances that were experts on the subject.

So as a conclusion, it is a bad idea to do two things at the same time, and I would probably be forced to focus on one of them, and leave the other for the latter. But it is feasible, and can be rewarding in its own way.