The Writing Project Love Quadrangle

I'm a committed woman right now. What with the end-of-the-school-year crunch at my day job, the precious few hours I have for writing have to go towards one project, and that project is currently elbow-deep in revisions. Until I get this manuscript polished to go out into the universe, in other words, it's going to have my full attention.

Once it does go out into the universe, however, I'm going to have a fight on my hands. There are currently three other projects trying to seduce me.

There's the project that waited: the one that I started a little fling with last summer, that has patiently waited for me to wrap up my current MS. There's the wildly ambitious project: a sexy genre-blender that I'm really excited about... if I can pull it off right. And there's the dark horse: a thoroughly random idea that came out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. How's a girl to choose?

I know people who can juggle multiple manuscripts at the same time, and I'd very much love for those people to teach me their secrets one of these days. But until they do, I will have to contend with the writing project love quadrangles. True, it's an excellent problem to have, and you can always come back to a project next time. It'll probably be better for the extra time it spent steeping in your head. But it's so hard to take a world and characters you're already in love with and say, "Sorry, not yet."

If you've found yourself caught in a love quadrangle, maybe you've found a way to consider the pros and cons: whether you weigh market concerns, write a little of each project to see what shakes out, or imagine each of your love interests wrestling in jello. But one way or another, you have to choose eventually.

Best of luck. ;)

How about you? What's your strategy?