Secondary Projects

[BewareTheChain]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects? For example, I've been working on a series of most self-contained stories involving encounters with fantasy creatures on and off while I work on my next major project, and I've found it's helped alleviate some of the burnout.

I am worried, however, that diverting my attention like this could turn it from a light diversion to refresh my interest in writing into something more akin to a distraction that will detract from what I'm supposed to be working on. If anyone else has any advice or experience regarding maintaining side projects alongside their main works, I would love to hear about them, and whether they ultimately helped or took away from their output. Thank you.

 

[RejectReality]

If you're getting burned out, whatever assists you in getting back to the original project is perfectly legitimate.

You're the only one who determines what you're "supposed" to be working on. If you're staring at a blank page on something, but words are flowing on something else, I would say the something else is what you're supposed to be working on.

You try to lock your muse in a cage, and trust me, she's going to turn into the most evil fucker you've ever met and tell you to eat a bag of dicks while you stare at blank pages on everything.

 

[MrPixel]

Frequently. An inspiration hits, is fleshed-out, done. Some make it to uploading, many do not.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Not lately for ... reasons, but such things are back on the menu as of today.

 

[Writer61]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects? For example,

Many times, and I think it's a good thing

 

[ClintonBrooks]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects? For example, I've been working on a series of most self-contained stories involving encounters with fantasy creatures on and off while I work on my next major project, and I've found it's helped alleviate some of the burnout.

I am worried, however, that diverting my attention like this could turn it from a light diversion to refresh my interest in writing into something more akin to a distraction that will detract from what I'm supposed to be working on. If anyone else has any advice or experience regarding maintaining side projects alongside their main works, I would love to hear about them, and whether they ultimately helped or took away from their output. Thank you.

I sometimes do this.

Sometimes, when I am either actively seeking distraction or my mind is on it's own subconscious mission, I watch random sex gifs (anywhere from 5 seconds to 60 seconds long) on another site. Sometimes, I find one that intrigues me, so I open a new document and write a short scene (around 500-ish words) that usually describes a possible lead up to the short gif I am watching.

Sometimes, I end up with something worth saving for a possible (future) WIP. Then I go back to the story I was working on. The thing is to know the end you are working for, which is the action in the gif, then stop when you get there.

 

[IWroteThis]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects?

To a certain extent, that's everything I post here. While I have some longer works that are intended for Literotica, my main projects are mainstream novels I can put my name on and let my mother brag about her son.

I am worried, however, that diverting my attention like this could turn it from a light diversion to refresh my interest in writing into something more akin to a distraction that will detract from what I'm supposed to be working on.

Since I've started writing stories specifically for Literotica, I've also been adding more words to my mainstream projects than I was before. Perhaps, if I was to stop, that progress would grow even faster, but I think that I'm still benefiting greatly from the experience and feedback publishing here gives me.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects? For example, I've been working on a series of most self-contained stories involving encounters with fantasy creatures on and off while I work on my next major project, and I've found it's helped alleviate some of the burnout.

Not for my ADHD brain. I tried that, and eventually it led me to get a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth... and have a folder bigger than @StillStunned 's full with unfinished projects, added decision paralysis and also forgetting everything about the main project. Working on one thing at a time is better for me, no matter if it's something long or short.

"But how are you writing two different projects for NaNoWriMo, you dumb cat?" I hear you asking.

Well... I did have, and succeeded, at writing 85K on my phone through somewhat daily sessions of 10 minutes. That was my secondary project. And my current secondary project I'm both taking it slow, and recognizing that it's also an anthology, compared to the main NaNo project which will take me 85K for sure. Or maybe even less. I won't know until I have the draft finished. The secondary project I'm working on started, and still remains, as a hobby project because this isn't meant to be published as prose. It's just a learning exercise.

I am worried, however, that diverting my attention like this could turn it from a light diversion to refresh my interest in writing into something more akin to a distraction that will detract from what I'm supposed to be working on. If anyone else has any advice or experience regarding maintaining side projects alongside their main works, I would love to hear about them, and whether they ultimately helped or took away from their output. Thank you.

Treat it the same way you'd treat trying out hats at a hat store. Give it a shot for a week, and if you find it that it distracted you from your main project, return to your main project and don't do this again. It's not wrong to have a secondary project, but in my personal case, it's one piece of advice that it doesn't work for me with the caveat I've explained above. You'll never know until you try it.

 

[deathlynx]

I jump around on projects a lot. I'm not sure I really have a single "main" project at this point, given that the closest thing I have (a meta-plot in the Dhaseverse) actually consists of two parallel series of novels that don't intertwine until book eight or so. And that doesn't count the short stories that pop out of nowhere for things like contests and challenges.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects? For example, I've been working on a series of most self-contained stories involving encounters with fantasy creatures on and off while I work on my next major project, and I've found it's helped alleviate some of the burnout.

I am worried, however, that diverting my attention like this could turn it from a light diversion to refresh my interest in writing into something more akin to a distraction that will detract from what I'm supposed to be working on. If anyone else has any advice or experience regarding maintaining side projects alongside their main works, I would love to hear about them, and whether they ultimately helped or took away from their output. Thank you.

Everything I write is important!

But yeah. I have a main series I've been working on since I joined, and I'm about ready to wrap it up a little over a year later, but I have written more stories that were not chapters in that work than I have written chapters of that work (9 chapters vs. 12 standalones). I work on what interests me in the moment. Sometimes, between chapters, I need time to think about the characters I'll be writing and introducing, since each chapter features at least one new anthro-of-the-week, and sometimes they come to me pretty easily, and sometimes I need to let it percolate in the background while I work on something else.

I probably could've cranked out this thing in a few months, but I can get kinda antsy sitting with the same characters for too long. I crave novelty (it's why I write after all), and I love diving into new perspectives and new voices and styles. It doesn't help that the series I'm working on is fairly serious and primarily character growth, written in first person so I'm spending a ton of time in this dude's head, and it can feel a bit constraining at times. The world I've created is pretty grounded, and takes a lot of research and engineering to figure out anatomies and how a particular species is able to wear Y type of clothing, or how an amphibian can survive not living in water, or how a cuttlefish with no legs ambulates outside the water, and it can be kind of tiring at times. So I'll put it aside and work on something fun. The contests are good inspiration for me to come up with something as a standalone, where I can play around with new perspectives without worrying about the impact on my main series, almost all of my standalones are part of some event; only 3 were just because I had an idea that charmed me enough to drop everything and work on it.

I don't see anything inherently wrong with that. The issue is when you start to realize that you aren't working on your main project, and you've neglected it for a while. If it's really important to you, then you need to find a way to work on that instead. Put more rigid controls around your time, or alternate between one day working on the main project and one day working on something else you like. But if you find yourself struggling to find the motivation to work on that main series, it could also be an indication that it's either starting to run its course, or that there's a serious problem with the story that is causing it to unconsciously fight you/make it feel less appealing. Could be getting stale and you need to inject something new and fresh into it, or the characters are feeling less like people and more like puppets, or the scenes are becoming repetitive, or any other number of issues. If you find yourself needing to force yourself to write that series, it might be worth taking time to try to diagnose what about it is no longer as interesting to you as these other projects. Could also just be fatigue from working on the same thing for a long stretch of time, so time away is exactly what you need.

 

[JGittes]

I made a rookie mistake with my first published story here. I knew about the basics of rhythm, pacing, and tension. In an attempt to ratchet up the tension, I committed all the characters to an event that would take place well after the story I was telling. I didn't explicitly say there would be a sequel, but anyone who liked that first story would definitely want to see the continuation through the future event.

I spent two years trying to write the sequel before shelving it in frustration and starting (and finishing) another story. It's best to learn how to write a novel before trying to write a novel. I returned to the sequel only to stop again in frustration, partly because I needed the backstory more clearly settled. I started that process by stripping out all the backstory from the original story and, intending only to make notes or an outline, started filling it out. That eventually became both another story (published) and a learning moment. The lesson was that if your story needs significant backstory, you've started it in the wrong place.

Returning to the now novel-length sequel, I added, edited, and rearranged it for another year before deciding it really wasn't worth it. I broke it into individual parts I could turn into possible vignettes. I reworked one of those and published it before, magically, a solution to my novel problems jumped to mind. Back to work on the sequel, which has clearly become my Moby-Dick.

Part of the problem was that I started as a 95% pantser. It's easy for me to think up plot points and twists, which often lead me astray, only to cut them out and change them later. I'm now a 60% pantser, and I have a detailed story beat outline for the eventual completion of the sequel novel, and I work that way on new stories I begin. This lets me skip around between works in progress and within single longer stories, with minimal disruption.

I know this doesn't work for everyone, but since I'm a hack amateur and have no food-on-the-table deadlines, it works for me.

 

[StillStunned]

have a folder bigger than @StillStunned 's

A hundred WIPs make up one StillStunned. Fifty WIPs is a SemiStunned. One WIP is a CentiStunned.

 

[THBGato]

Has anyone ever found themselves writing smaller, quote-unquote "less important" stories in between entries in their main projects? For example, I've been working on a series of most self-contained stories involving encounters with fantasy creatures on and off while I work on my next major project, and I've found it's helped alleviate some of the burnout.

Yes.

There was a story ("Forty") I conceived in March 2024 that was deeply personal and I really wanted to write it. Tried starting in August 2024, got 14,000 words in and kind of ground to a halt.

Got a bit lost, muse-wise, then Dec 2024 wrote two paired shorts (3,400 words each), then a slightly longer sequel in Feb 2025.

But far from being a distraction, it turned out all three were vital back story research for "Forty", kind of the characters' origin stories as it were. They reinvigorated my writing and helped me get the 84,000 words "Forty" out in March 2025. It went to number 1 in category and, despite the trolling, is still in the top list.

So those little side projects ended up helping make the main project better (and probably whet some readers' appetites for it).

 

[MelissaBaby]

I've been working on a huge project, one that will probably top out over 200k words and requires a tremendous amount of research, for almost three years. If I didn't take breaks to write and publish other stories alone the way, I'm sure it would inspire at least one "Whatever happened to Melissa?" thread.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've done this several times. If I get bogged down on a more "important" story I'll let myself turn to a "diversion" story. I've found, though, that sometimes the diversion story does better than the other one. My most successful story by far was a diversion from a series I was working on, and it took me about 5 days from start to finish to do, which is very fast for me.