There is nothing quite so motivating as a deadline. I’m down to under 2,000 words to meet my Camp NaNoWriMo for April, 2019, which – bonus – I probably wouldn’t be this far into my next book had I not joined up to do a camp NaNo. But sometimes you write and write and write, and can only get so far.
There’s a fine line when it comes to writing; are you telling a story, or are you just putting words on a page. Sometimes it’s okay to put words on a page, as long as you can edit it to a coherent story later on. And sometimes working with deadlines does make you feel like you’re just putting words on a page. I didn’t feel that when I’d first gotten into this Camp NaNo event, but I indeed have the last couple of days.
The good thing is, I’m following my plotlines as I’ve laid them out, so at least it seems to be working for me. And I’ll more than likely get those last 2,000 words in before midnight tonight and beat that deadline. But even if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. It’s making progress on something I love.
My original deadlines for writing were a lot more arbitrary than the ones I have now. Before, I said I wanted to finish one book in the first quarter of 2019, and then finish this book that I’m currently writing in the second quarter. Good, noble goals. But the fact that there was no external element to the first set of goals, but there was for the second (e.g. Camp NaNo) made all the difference for me.
So here’s to goals and deadlines. They get us to where we want to go – sometimes.
I think the best representation of how I sometimes feel about deadlines was said eloquently by the late, great Douglas Adams:
