The Schizophrenic Writer

I'm wondering if this happens to other writers. Right now I've got several different assignments due and they are all on different subject matters and will run in completely different publications. I find myself having a hard time switching from one project to the next without getting a little confused.

For example, tonight I had to work on an article for Little Blue World, the Tori Amos fan magazine. They have their own style guidelines so I had to make sure the document was formatted correctly before I sent it off. Then I had to switch gears from writing about fans meeting Tori to a woman who gave birth to a baby at 21 weeks of gestation. That one's for a parenting website that has a different set of guidelines. After that, on to potty training success stories.

As I bounce between articles, sometimes I'm supposed to say ," says Smith and other times I'm supposed to write ," said Smith and I'm getting very, very tired and confused about what goes where.

The difference in word length and style guidelines for different publications really came back and bit me in the you-know-where this past month. I got an assignment for a local business publication and they require their profiles to be about 2,000 words long. I'm used to writing 1,200 words maximum for online publications and between 500 to 900 words for the Charlotte Observer. Needless to say, I fell a little short on the business profile and was scrambling around trying to come up with more words on the day it was due. Lesson learned there.

Anyone else ever have this problem? Blogging is a completely different animal too because typically posts don't have to be more than 300 words or so for a paid gig -- but, you do have to add in images most of the time. I don't know how people keep everything straight, because I know I'm struggling. And now, off to bed so I can get up and start the whole process over again tomorrow. 'Night!