Writing to a deadline

With the start of National Novel Writing Week upon us, I thought I'd talk about writing to a deadline this week.  As a writer not subject to a publishing contract, I could write at whatever leisurely pace I wanted.  But when I gave up the 'day job' I made the decision to work as if I was a professional writer under contract.

I decided I would write a new book every year, and in the decade since I gave up work I've done this.  The cycle of planning, writing the first draft, revising the second draft, then editing through various stages has become the rhythm of my life.

If I wanted to, I could do absolutely nothing with my days.  But that's not who I am.  I have always been a creative person, and I've always had a creative project of one sort or another on the go.  Watching films and TV, reading others' work, is passive consumption of other people's creativity.  I can only do so much of it before the urge to create arises.  A new story idea is presented to me, and before I know it I'm immersed in plotting, creating the characters, and the storyline.

Whilst I set myself the one book a year target, I don't have to stick to it.  Nobody is depending on me to turn that book in on a certain date.  But this year I've been writing to deadlines imposed by others more often.  I decided this year I was not going to do lots of story submissions.  Instead I'm targeting themed anthologies that match my interests.  I've rewritten a couple of short stories already for these, and also submitted a non-fiction piece.

Earlier this year I joined a new spoken word group, T'Articulation.  I've been performing my stories at several of their events.  Those events give me deadlines to meet, and usually a theme to write to as well.  And those stories are written to fairly short deadlines.  I also wrote two stories for the Subaquatic Steampunk Weekend at the end of September, forcing me to think about steampunk themes.

On the other side of the scales, I'm currently turning a 2,500 word short story into a novella.  It must be at last 17,000 words, and it has to be written, edited, and submitted, by the end of November 2018.  That is most definitely a challenging deadline,

I've set aside the edits in my current novel to do it, and in two and a half weeks I've written 18,000 words.  I'll finish the rest of the writing in the next week, leaving time for rewrites and edits, and some necessary changes, before submission.

Writing to a deadline concentrates the mind and stops me slobbing around, and it's certainly concentrated my writing mind this year.