Deadlines!!

I hate and love them!

Write Like You Mean It

You know that feeling of having about three or four of them breathing down your neck thinking the same darn thing: "tick-tock"? Well, that's my life in a box right now.

Of course there are positive sides to this. I only have 8 chapters left from a 14 chapter manuscript go go over. I have just over a month to do that. I have about 4 pictures drawn from final target of 40-60. I have about a month and a half for that.
And of course there's Camp NaNoWriMo coming up. Of course I've lost my plot notes for my novel.

Deadlines seem like one of those Marmite kinds of things, you have to hate or love them, there is no middle ground. But I wonder what it's like for other writers.
I don't seem to be able to get much done without a deadline. I say I will go to the library to write, or the café on wealthier days, and then I find a funny video on YouTube and off we are. Next I look at the clock, it's six and everywhere is closed.

X Days, Y Hours and Z Minutes
Until You're DOOMED!

Now if there is a deadline pressing on me, it's a bit different.
I think about wasting away on YouTube and suddenly it's like this angry old lady appears over my shoulder and screams, "What!! Don't you realise you've only got X days Y hours and Z minutes before you're DOOMED!?"
And like magic I find that extra bit of motivation to actually go to the library.

Then again there is also the evil side. Like when that old lady tells you that you only have so many days, and you realise that a week factually isn't long enough to paint a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa while blindfolded. Yet you can't very well do nothing.
So begins what can only be adequately described as the death trek of the "next best thing". That commendable yet inevitably slightly sad effort to save yourself which results in staying up until 3 AM almost every night and excessive consumption of coffee.

Then, about three days before the deadline, you take a look at what you have and get a reassuring sense of confidence. You are almost there. Even with only so much time you will certainly make it. You relax a little, take some well deserved time off to recharge.When you go back to your project, feeling refreshed reassures you that little R&R was definitely justified.

One day before your deadline, you take a look at what you have and want to chew your own arm off. You're not even close. You'll never make it. In fact the half-finished piece of junk that you will most likely be forced to turn in has the semblance of the brilliant idea you had when you started. An idea which you could have finished if only you'd not taken that R&R time a few days earlier. This phase is called 'regret the R&R' also known as 'panic'. This is the night you stay up as long as humanly possible, if indeed you choose to sleep at all, using every precious minute to complete your project.

The moment of presentation draws close. You're nervous, near terror. In truth if you ran right now and moved far away somewhere nice like India or Hawaii, and changed your name, surely things would be made right. Then the moment comes, and you stand in front of actual people and actually show your actual work, and suddenly come to realise, it's not quite as catastrophic as you first thought. Considering you spent only 7 days on it, it really does have the semblance of a masterpiece.
People hum and nod and after the day is over, you go home, much more relieved, with much fewer brain cells and higher blood pressure, and acknowledge that indeed it was work you'd never have done that fast if it wasn't for the deadline.

Although I'm not exactly hoping it will turn out like this, somehow it always tends to with me.

Sound familiar?