// Creative Commons photo by James Willamor. // When I began my writing career, stories came to me one at a time. I would write a novel, wait a year or so, get inspired and write another one. Everything was neat and orderly.

Now that I am getting my feet wet as a scribe for the screen as well as the page, I have found my writing life requires a bit more multitasking.

On the day I wrote this post, I finished edits on the latest draft of my novel for my publisher, then I read through a full draft of the screenplay my writing partner and I are working on. Later, I sent my manuscript to a novelist a lot more accomplished than I am for a potential review.

All this does not take into account the zero draft of a screenplay that I am working through in my spare time and the novel idea for which I have a prologue, outline and some research completed.

Some might compare this to juggling balls or spinning plates, but I tend to  liken it to being an air traffic controller. I have several different projects that are varying distances from the runway that is a release date. Which “plane” gets my attention to and in what order is critical. The question is not which project do I want to work on, but which one needs my immediate focus and which ones can be left in a holding pattern.

Because, in the end, I need to get each plane on the ground as smoothly as possible so that the passengers (readers/viewers in this extended metaphor) want to fly with us again.