Three Novels, One Brain

I haven't blogged for a while. Here's why.

Right now I’m working on three novels at once. Not in a vague, “ideas in the air” kind of way—these are real, active projects, all at different stages. One is in very close revision, the kind where every line matters and I’m down to the level of commas and breath. Another is finished but still in flux, as I tweak and reshape and try to find the right home for it—with a press, an agent, someone. And the third is further out, having a full makeover, where I’m rethinking the world of the book to make it darker, stranger, more the thing I meant it to be in the first place.

It’s a lot. Too much, probably. I don’t recommend it.

Most days, I feel like I’m misfiling scenes in my own head. A sentence I wrote in the morning will show up again in the afternoon, in the wrong voice. I forget who knows what. I start to revise a page, only to realize it belongs to an entirely different book. These projects have different speeds, different internal logics, and keeping them separate is like trying to keep three balloons underwater at once. One always pops up.

And yet: I’m doing it. Because I have things I want to write, and I’m not, as they say, getting any younger.

There’s real difficulty here, and not just the confusion. There’s the mental overload, the restless anxiety of unfinished work, the constant suspicion that none of it is any good. There’s the weird guilt that comes from neglecting one book while focusing on another, like you’re cheating on your own characters.

But there’s also something energizing about being fully inside the work. Not waiting for the perfect moment, just writing as hard and as honestly as I can. Even when the progress is uneven, I can feel the work happening. And there’s something satisfying about that—knowing I’m deep in it, using what I’ve got, not sitting around waiting to be struck by the perfect sentence.

So no, it’s probably not wise to be working on three novels at once. But I don’t want to stop. Not yet. I’ll take the mess, the blur, the small forward motion. For now, it feels like what I’m supposed to be doing.