That’s what the Other Melissa told me today when she asked what I was working on and I told her: 4 different stories, a poem and one novel. Yes, at the same time. I used to be a painter, so I’m wondering if that’s what brought on this strange work method. Or is this normal?

When painting, I tried to keep at least three canvases going (and up on the wall) at once. It helped me to keep working. The thinking was that I couldn’t get stuck on one painting because I could always move on to one of the other paintings. Plus, it helped me to see problems and possibilities in the other paintings — to look at them through different eyes. Eyes meant for another painting. It also kept my eyes moving, which is very important because we tend to return to the same ‘problem areas’ on the same painting…unless we force ourselves out of it somehow.

When it comes to writing I’m not so sure this works, although so far it hasn’t been a problem. You’d think it would make the ‘voice’ inconsistent in each of these stories. That the voice in one story (told from the POV of a teenager) would bleed over into another story (told from the POV of an ad exec). And maybe it has. I’ll have to check with my readers when it comes down to it. And these stories are actually finished.

So far, it’s actually helped me to stay interested in stories I would have abandoned long ago. Hmmmm, does anyone else work like this? Or am I all alone in my schizophrenia?