: Re: When is it a good time to move on to another project? I've seen it mentioned in software development the concept of Fail Early, Fail Often. Using failure as a learning process is important

@BetL639

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This is one of those things where there are no easy answers but there's always advice you can use as a guideline.

For me, if a story isn't working, or I'm finding myself dreading working on it every time I sit down, I'll but it aside for a bit. That can be as short as a week or so (sometimes writing something else can help clear the cobwebs) but sometimes it can be longer. Usually though if a story isn't working I'll at least step back and look at it, try to understand why I'm feeling frustrated by working on it. Though that has lead to large rewrites in the past.

As an aside, I've found that putting a finished story aside for a time helps with the editing processes, letting you look at it with fresh eyes.

I would also recommend never fully giving up on a story, even if you put it aside because you just couldn't finish it. After three or four years of doing other writing you might be able to look back on an idea and see what needs to be done to fix it. I once had a story take seven years and three false starts before I found the right way to tell it, so don't give up.

One of the rules of being an author, never thrown anything out, just file it away for later.

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