Writing Fantasy

[Airerûthiel]

I always do plans for my stories first before I sit down to write them. I get character plans from writing websites, draw maps with various features and track my characters' journey on them, and always write chapter synopses so if I get stuck I can write a new bit and see where that goes. Generally I'm one of these people who finds that if you trust to fate your story suddenly gets boring at about chapter three or so, and then I give up cause I can't work with it.

Just a question to ask everyone here: What's everyone's opinion on having lots of book projects occuring in parallel? I'm nearly a third through one novel, have begun the first chapters for another two and am currently formulating ideas for a fourth. It's difficult, but I still feel I need to get the ideas down as soon as possible or I'll forget them. I'm curious to know your thoughts on this.

Also, how do people pick the names for their characters, places etc? Usually I use name generators or name-meaning websites, but sometimes I get dumb names out of them. What does everyone else think?