Big day? It kinda is...

This morning I crawled out of my deep, dark writing cave for a few minutes to send the opening pages of my new novel to a few readers to get feedback. I know it shouldn't seem like a big deal, but for me it kinda is (I'm hearing that as Russell on "Rules of Engagement," what about you?)

Here's why: I'm the type of writer who prefers to hoard the whole manuscript until it's finished and I'm happy with every page. But I'm not going to have the luxury of doing that this time around. The deadline is looming, so I'll have to overlap parts of my usual writing process to make sure I'm finished on April 1.
Yeah, my deadline is April Fool's Day. There's probably some cosmic message in that, but frankly I don't have time to puzzle it out because I have to get back to writing.
[Note: If you're interested, though, I'm going to start logging my progress as I try to meet that deadline. Just as an added incentive to myself not to slack off. Public humiliation is such a powerful motivator :-)]