The irony doesn't pass me by that the current WIP may have started as a distraction. Yes, it started out as an usurper of the star of the show, irrisistable as a new and shiny discovery before it too developed growing pains...or maybe sprained an ankle! And there are plenty of other worthwhile distractions waiting in the wings.I thought about this a lot while reading Donna Cummings' wonderful blog post "The Lure of the Other WIP." I can relate and I love to hear how other writers manage to nurture the current WIP to completion while also figuring out what to do with incoming new ideas.
To me, it can feel like a powerful force like natural selection is at work to favor the new idea, and it's rather awe inspiring to think that every finished story has a writer who made the commitment to stick with the WIP, no matter what. Some do it with one WIP at a time, start to finish, while others let the new ideas develop into multiple WIPs and work on them simultaneously.
Which way is the right way? Or the more realistic question may be, haven't I learned by now not to ask? This is one of those writing process questions with multiple answers. Every writer will answer differently. Heck, for many writers, myself included, the method changes from story to story. The options are wide open.
