deadlines

As if it wasn't obvious enough before, I have officially proven that I don't do deadlines well. I've always been wary of becoming a "professional" author because they have deadlines, and I didn't think I would be able to write if I had to. And this past month has only demonstrated that.

At the beginning of June, things we going swimmingly. I was writing at least 1,000 words a day, sometimes churning out whole chapters. I knew that if I kept it up, I would be done with the whole thing by the end of the month. And so, stupidly, I told myself that I could finish by June 30th. That was the plan. That was the goal. That was the deadline.

And having that deadline made it absolutely impossible for me to write anything but crap drizzled with lamesauce. I would sit down to write, and my head would be blank. Or, worse, I would know what was sort of supposed to happen but be unable to find any words to explain it. I didn't even feel like writing Thistleswitch anymore, and I didn't even care that the June 30th deadline was approaching.

Skip ahead to June 30th, 10:00 p.m. I finally open up Thistleswitch after a two week lull. I tell myself that I'll just give it another try, and if it doesn't work out it's not the end of the world. I really didn't even care if I just ended up deleting everything I wrote for the dozenth time.

And I wrote. And the next day, July 1st, I finished my first chapter in a month. Just like that.

Now, maybe I psyched myself into being unable to write for the month of June. Maybe it was my own dang subconscious, refusing to work under these conditions and laughing in the face of deadlines. Maybe it was the story itself, telling me that it calls the shots and I'm only along for the ride. Whatever it was, it's made me all the more certain that I can't be an "author" in the career-sense.