Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "deadlines"

I've given myself a week to get it all together. I've long nown that I do best with a deadline. They're natural for teachers, because every hour of the day is at least one. For a writer, there are plenty of deadlines as well, but not always when you need them. I've got plenty going on: two books coming out soon, one edited and in need of promotion; one whose editing hangs over my head like that sword in mythology (When will they send it back? How much will they want it changed? How much time will they give me to get it done?)

So I know I should be finishing the WIP, getting it into some sort of shape for readers to begin gnawing at its edges. And there's the rub: I have no deadline for that. I can set it aside for a dozen reasons...especially when the going gets tough.

So there: I'm announcing to the world that I WILL finish it this week and present it to my first reader next Tuesday.

Stay tuned for a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Nothing is real to me until about three weeks before it happens. Saturday, at a book signing where not much was happening, it occurred to me that three weeks from that date I would be modeling my Catherine Parr dress at the Romance Writers of America annual convention.

Yikes.

It's been fun planning the costume, making the underpinnings, and anticipating the "big" dress, which I hired done lest I overstep the bounds of my sewing talents. (Pictures of the process will be up on my FB page this week: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/...)

But now it has become real. I promised I would step out in front of many, many people and pretend I know something about history. I promised to lead nine other women onto the stage (only one of whom I've met) and make them look good, too.

Suddenly details matter. Shoes? Hair? And what about the fact that I need my glasses in order to read the scripts? Very un-Tudor like. And then there is the matter of Being Seen and Judged by Others. One of the model/authors, Jeannie Lin, did a great video blog about that terrorizing prospect. (See it at http://www.jeannielin.com/index.php/v...).

A deadline serves a purpose other than striking fear into my heart, however. It makes me concentrate. I start my lists of things to do, things to take, things to remember. I practice, going over in my mind different scenarios and making sure I can handle them all. It's a great word, when you think on it. Deadline, the point at which anticipation dies and reality shouts, "It's alive!"

Some time ago, my editor at LL asked when I might be finished with the second book of the Dead Detective series. After a pseudo-scientifi process, I told her June.

Wrong. Here's why.

First, I am an incurable optimist. I tell myself that I will write for four hours/day, five days/week. That never happens, of course. Life intervenes.

Second, creativity does not like being forced. Even if I could sit before my computer for four hours a day, five days a week, much of that time would be spent cursing an unmoving cursor.

Finally, I'm just a tad anal. I can't just write it and say, "There it is." I have to read it over and over, making it better. Then I have to get people I trust to give me feedback. Then I read it again. More than once.

So I started telling myself that July starts with the same two letters as June, and the editor might not notice. But July is fading fast, so it might be...well, it won't be January. I hope.

Maybe I should have told her from Day One that I am a cockeyed optimist.