CREATE YOUR OWN DEADLINES

I've been working on revisions of a novella. I don't have a publisher in mind, though I have been checking into some traditional and POD publishers. So, at this point, there is no deadline for my work. That means it can fall by the wayside, or I can work day and night on it. It's a loose way of writing.

As writers we should all work to deadlines. If we freelance for others, or are writing a book under contract, we definitely have deadlines. I do a column for The Storyteller Magazine and have deadlines for each column. I set a deadline for myself as I attempt to write all four columns (after a proposal has been sent to, and approved by, the editor) by a certain time before the first column due date. I have my personal deadline in place. That keeps me on course.

It's imperative that we have deadlines with editors and publishers, but what if we aren't selling? What if we're writing a book we always wanted to produce? We don't have an agent or publisher breathing down our neck, so we don't have an official deadline.

Listen to what I am going to tell you: If you want to be more productive and efficient in how you/we work, you should also be setting some deadlines of your own.

Let's take my column as an example. Let's say that I haven't written the next column and I need to get it into the mail (or emailed) by Wednesday noon. Since I've left it for the last minute without a deadline of my own, I am going to spend tomorrow writing, editing, proofreading. I've left myself no time for letting it "sit" for a week or so in order to go back to it with a fresh eye for mistakes/content. I have not set a proper deadline for my work.

Instead of waiting until the last minute, we need to get tough with ourselves. Set time aside for our next article, or the chapter of that book. Write a first draft. We then put it aside for a week or so, or go on to write on another subject, or the next chapter. Several weeks later, we will reread, edit, change, do whatever it takes to complete a finished product. We've set a deadline, given ourselves time for corrections/rewrites, and then are ready to set the next deadline.

Some writers set a certain number of words or pages to write each day. Some of us have so much else going on, we grab the bits and pieces of time we find and run with it. We can still set a deadline for the end of the week or month to have a certain amount of work done. We need a time frame to produce.

There are benefits to being tough on ourselves. We certainly get more done. It will probably be better work than we normally do. We also feel better, more positive about seeing our work progress. And we'll feel a greater sense of accomplishment after meeting not only an editors/publishers deadline but our own.