Recently it occurred to me that as I spent the greater part of last year writing both the upcoming Exitium as well as a detective novel I’m not going to talk about, I wrote a lot of short fiction. Just to give my mind a rest, you understand.
“Writing as a break from writing? What kind of shit is that?”
I know. I make no apologies, though. I write like 2Pac when Suge Knight bailed him out and he headed straight to to the studio to lay down tracks. That’s the level of self-imposed urgency I’m working with, here. If I’m not writing, I feel like I’m squandering precious time, so I generally do it nonstop.
As a result, I’ve got all of these random, homeless stories floating around which, as it turns out upon re-reading them, are pretty good! There are enough of them, too, that I can easily justify compiling them into an anthology.
These “slices” are all filtered through my evolving perceptions of the world around me during perhaps the most turbulent year humanity has faced in over a century.
I’ve listened a lot. I’ve watched a lot. I’ve learned a lot about how humans behave when push comes to shove. My preconceptions have all been shattered, and I’ve changed.
Here, then, is a glimpse into that process.
All of them have been posted to my blog, and they’re going bye bye, but if you’ve read them already, don’t bother with this. If you haven’t, Slices will be available very soon.
Patrick Walts 
Sounds neat! I think switching between multiple writing projects can be a good habit. It helps keep the mind fresh. Focusing too hard and too long on one singular thing can turn you into Jack Nicholson’s character in the Shining.
If I get stuck in a rut or start re-thinking the direction a project is going in, usually I can take a step back from it for a little while, work on something completely different and come back to it with fresh ideas and renewed vigor. If I try to slog through something I’m not in the mood to write, or that goes against my current mindset, the results aren’t satisfactory to me. It just ensures I keep writing. In the past, I would start to write one thing, get bored or stuck and just…stop. And that was it. Two years later, I’d start all over with something else and repeat this process. This technique of working on two or three things concurrently keeps me engaged and writing.
I was the same. It’s embarrassing how often I would stop writing something for a few days, or a few weeks, and then not be able to start again unless I started from the beginning.