Ready to Juggle?

As a lot of you know (if you read my blog), I am a juggler and not the fun physical kind.  Can't do that shit to save my life.  No, I'm a task juggler. I absolutely cannot focus on one thing consistently ever.  It's how my brain works and fighting against it is like backing away from the same brick wall and running into it the exact same way. Some people see immersion as finite, like there's an actual depth to singular focus. I have to disagree with that.  My knowledge of one fandom is not watered down by my knowledge of any others. If you believe that a brain can only retain so much, that may be true, but I'm also a believer of keeping notes or talking out loud to retain the vitals, the information I am using for any current projects. I don't delve deeper just because the focus is singular.  It would be like assuming a scuba diver carries all the tanks of air they will ever need instead of having a life involving the surface world. We all come up for air, so we don't need to drag all we need with us.  The same goes for our creative projects.

Let's keep in mind that someone often DOES do just one thing when the demand for it both creates livable revenue and a number of other rewards. I don't ever pretend that applies to me.  Whether or not I am successful, fans will need to understand one thing-- I am not the sort to ever focus on one thing I do just because it is popular or demanded.  Sorry, but muses aren't tempted by money or fame.  Believe me, I want to do all the things and as quickly as possible, but you should also take comfort that I'm not just churning out bullshit for a buck. I'm putting my talents where they are best served. Part of an artist's skill set is largely about project management.

Incidentally, the person that can work for 14 hours straight is not necessarily more productive than the person that only works 3 hours at a time.  I've seen some really interesting articles on the maximum productivity of humans.  I won't belabor this myself, but there's some interesting research if you want a rabbit-hole to chase...

Article on Productivity

There is a lot of evidence that suggests that taking advantage of when you are most productive is far more valuable than how much you push yourself to work.  More is better?  Not always.  Sometimes you spend much more valuable gobs of time simply correcting what you did when you probably should have been taking a break.  If you're paid by the hour, sweet deal.  Doesn't matter what you do as long as you're keeping the bosses happy.  For the creative, time efficiency holds much more value. 

In any case, I bring up stuff like this so you, as a consumer/artist/all-of-the-above, might see a little from both sides of the fence. You may grumble about how an artist would have THIS done if they weren't fucking around with THAT, but I will posit that the artist might be blocked from THIS if they aren't utilizing THAT to keep moving when one thing presents a problem. Artists do want to make fans happy, but we're an extremely self-critical lot already. We'd love for every problem to be Point A to Point B, but part of what makes us hit or miss is that it's not that simple. We blog to give you a little insight, but it's never going to account for the explosion of thought processes that really assault us. We try to understand you or the market or our own motivations, but the art is number one and we all move with the muses whether they are our own or not.

So, the subject of juggling came up for good reason.

I started UnSung today.  One thing I have to admit-- I hate starting things.  It's always a hurdle for me.  If I manage to think of an opening line, I am DIVING for the keyboard to start that new manuscript because it is the hardest part for me always. Starting that was a necessary evil.  Until I finish this series, I will always feel the need to have one of them on WIP status, no matter how much I can put into it. However, this puts it running alongside Piscine and the Dreampunk Chronicles in terms of current WIPs.

You probably heard me mention a romance story I did.  Yeah, it had to get pushed. I want to do a cover for it then throw it on Wattpad.  It was never a grand venture, but it will see the light of day eventually. I'll have updates on that when I am certain.  Romance isn't a genre I feel passionate about, so I'm not rushing this. It was just one of many challenges and while I enjoyed it, it's not a niche I care to create a demand for.  None of my books are devoid of some sort of romance, whether in mention or in a bigger plot.  Focusing solely on it is another matter entirely. It may be a genre that becomes more appealing to me over time, but right now, I'm a fan of action, adventure, intrigue, and lore being at the heart of what I write. (Even my more sexually laced fantasies still tend to be lore-heavy. It's not enough that there's a world floating around the characters-- I have to splash a lot of paint on it too.)

If you're a fellow juggler, revel in your flightiness. It's not a shortcoming. Artists may have to remind their fans that is helpful to their process and fans should know that the output actually is more favorable when they are always keeping busy.  BioWare fans aren't all fans of everything they do. I'm a Dragon Age fan, but not interested in Mass Effect. This means that, unless they have teams working on both, that there will be a wait for that next Dragon Age game while they are appeasing their Mass Effect fans. As a series gamer, I've had to wait as long as 7 years between the next installment of a series.  Not all companies are big enough to have several teams working at once on multiple games.  Whether or not I understand the popularity of one of their series, I don't begrudge their other fans that work. I don't know if being an artist that works on many things simultaneously makes me more sympathetic, but I have never felt entitled to someone's hard work just because I like it.  

There are a ton of arguments on how long something takes to make and what time is appropriate to make fans wait. Seriously, fuck that debate. Are we still debating that artists are people? Artists often labor to tell people what they are working on or even that they need breaks and I am gracious enough to know not to ask why.  Artists are talkers.  If they want you to know, it would have been said. It's cool if someone is getting fancy with progress percentages, constant blogs, etc. but they aren't setting a gold standard of expectation. Yeah, series are tricky.  We all want to know what happens next. However, I have never had my enjoyment dampened by the next book not coming out on some time frame I deem adequate.  That time frame doesn't exist.  I just always hope it didn't get phoned in when they didn't cave into some demand.  For me, the integrity of the work is most important.  Not when, not how-- surprise me, entertain me, and that's all I need.  Hang the guarantees.

All right, things to do still, so I'm shoving off. I'd love to do more for my blogs eventually, but things are not incredibly exciting for me outside of writing.  I'm hoping a bit of advice and insight is helpful at least, even if I don't have a lot of bells and whistles at this point. Things will only get better, so I do hope that everything I do benefits from some TLC over time.  Feedback might eventually help me get a rein on things. I'm in a bit of an echo chamber there, so I just keep soldiering on with what I've got. I'm just happy sharing both for free and through markets.  That is plenty to keep me going.