Why does my creative practice feel scattered when I have too many projects?

Scattered feeling is often a sign you're trying to prove something rather than explore something. Murasaki Shikibu didn't write one thing—she wrote diaries, poetry, fiction—but she had a center. A practice needs gravity, something that everything orbits around. The question isn't really "how many projects is too many?" but "what connects these projects to each other?" If you're jumping between unrelated work, you're resetting your attention each time. That's exhausting. Instead, notice: is there a theme? A technique? A question you're asking across different forms? When you find that thread, the scattered feeling often clarifies into focus. You might still have multiple projects, but now they're in conversation with each other. Sometimes scattering is also a symptom of not committing deeply to any single thing long enough to get past the difficult middle part. That's where real learning happens—past the initial excitement, in the sustained work. Try this: pick one project as your primary focus for a defined period. Let the others rest. You might find that depth in one area actually feeds the others when you return to them.