The Multiple Projects Problem
22 April 2025
Alison Rocket Ross
I have too many ideas in my head.
When I sent out my most recent draft of INTAKE AND OPERATION, I was left empty. Everything I had went into that fun and horrifying little dystopian research hospital script. I grieved for my characters. The time I had spent with them. The endless rewrites and precise dialogue work that took a good amount of time to get right. All of that, I had to let go. Start something new.
I got to work on a sequel. Then had a desert bandit idea. Then thought I should revive MIRALO. All while still thinking about this dumb little werewolf pilot I’d been cooking up. But then again, whatever happened to that cowboy short I wrote a while back? Or the feature length version of USURPATION I drafted, then abandoned? I should just write a book. Yeah. A book. But it can’t take away from the AARON (35) LANDSCAPER blog. Oh, and I should probably go to the grocery store…
The clock was ticking. I had to finish all of these things before the set dressing work came back. Before I would be working twelve hours a day in the hot sun. Right? I had to finish it all, right?
Nope. I just burnt out. Paralyzed. Overstimulated. Scattered.
I wish I could tell you I found a solution. Nope. No solutions here, only band-aids.
After just taking a deep breath… I realized I had to focus. The script I needed to work on would show itself if I just kept at it. Every morning, I choose ONE script. Do my initial hour of work first thing while I have my coffee. Then I work on AARON (35) LANDSCAPER since that’s a priority.
So this goes on for weeks. Flipping between scripts. Getting lost in all of them. Loving all of them. An hour on the novel one day, an hour on the sequel the next, then desert bandits, and so on and so forth. Nothing really clicked. The words were coming, but they weren’t great. The stories were getting mushed and mangled.
Finally, after a few long months, something stuck. A story out in the desert. Multiple concepts put together to create something I was actually excited about that I knew I could execute. And it took off. That’s what I’m working on now. Every day. But I’m noticing it pulls me away from AARON (35) LANDSCAPER in a sense. Like all my good words are being siphoned into this secret script. I had to change my mindset. Change modes. The only way I could make it work was to give each piece 100% of my attention for a set amount of time.
Timers help.
I’m still learning how to do this. How to juggle multiple projects without sacrificing quality. I will say, every day I get a little better at it. Being gentle with myself, reminding myself that I’m not a superhero. I’m not that special. This is takes works. This is hard. Those things help. Gratitude helps.
Every morning I say hello to my mint plant. I smile as my coffee pours. I feel a sense of calm from every drink of water. And yes, of course I want to scream and curse out the universe for making me like this. For forcing me to be a writer instead of something easier and more secure. But it’s ok.
We scream sometimes. We cry sometimes. But it’s fine. We’re fine. We’re alright.
The Wisconsin state motto is “Forward”.
So we just go forward.
The only way out is through.
-Rocket