Sit & Write #172
Greetings, friends!
I've been thinking about my relationship to deadlines. Setting them, extending them. Needing them, loathing them. Missed or not, a deadline is a very useful threat, even when the call is coming from inside the house. I've been keeping a shared spreadsheet with an accountability buddy to track my writing progress. Each line has a chapter number, a deadline, and a space for me to mark when it's done. I've rearranged my timeline several times now, and am already due to adjust them once more. On one hand, it feels like a silly exercise: establishing goals and failing to meet them again and again. But without it, the sense of urgency that fuels most of my accomplishments softens, blending into the hazy depths of neglect alongside my other abandoned endeavors. Blame it on ADHD or overschooling, but without the threat of a looming deadline, I'm wholly lost. All of this is to say, I'm still not finished with chapter 21 of The Novel, but I'm hoping to get there by Wednesday …