Every year as I scramble, desperately trying to pull a book together in time to release on my birthday, as the time grows shorter and shorter and I find myself having to drop this marketing scheme or that cover design because there simply isn’t time for it all; every, single, year – I wonder if I wouldn’t be better off, if my work wouldn’t be better off without a hard deadline for publication?

Spotty Updates Ahead

So last year I gave myself plenty of time. I finished the rough draft of “In The Absence of Famine” in plenty of time for a summer release but decided that the manuscript needed more time to mellow, while I did – other – things. Oh my, did I do other things. So many ‘other things’ that November caught me with my pants puddled around my ankles and absolutely no closer to publishing anything than I’d been back in July.

You see, I’m far too flighty not to have a hard goal in mind. When I don’t have one my mind wanders, I find other projects, I even spend a few days, weeks, months playing when I should be working. I forget all about writing and break out the old oil paints. I decide to learn another language or watch my entire collection of Doctor Who again, from the very beginning (I have the entire Doctor Who collection – yes, I am that geek and proud of it). I decide to bake pies, biscuits, muffins, cakes, cookies, towers sculpted out of pizza – just about anything instead of writing.

Buckled Down and Pen to Paper

Things only start to coalesce when I have a goal set in such solid stone that I can’t weasel out of it. Since there’s no one riding my ass about my books, except for myself, the only date set in that kind of stone – is my birthday. Because it’s sad and pathetic to not have some kind of celebration planned and the only celebration I do plan is giving away the work I’ve slaved over for free.

Maybe that’s not exactly the best celebration ever but it’s mine and it is enough, for me any way, otherwise I’d sit on these things for years, maybe rewrite them half a dozen times but more likely not, and I’m already such a slow writer I just couldn’t bear to be slower. So another year, another deadline and hopefully another release on deadline – wish me luck, and a Happy Birthday!