I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
So said Douglas Adams, a man with whom I can identify, particularly in the form of writing deadlines. And blog deadlines. (Even this post was supposed to go out last Friday.)
The problem is that they are self-imposed deadlines, so nothing dire happens if I fail to meet one. Perhaps a unicorn sheds a tear or a fairy stubs her toe on a toadstool… but nothing really serious.
(Unless you are a fairy, of course.)
Except I want to be taken seriously and I want to achieve things. Even if the deadlines fail, I know I am putting in many hours of my time to get a book written or a short story submitted to a competition or a blog post posted.
What prompted this outburst? I had decided over the Christmas holidays that I would aim to write one short story or poem a month, probably based upon a prompt for a competition, and that I would post it here, on my blog.
That is all very well and, indeed, I have been inspired to write a story. But then I realised something. If I am to enter it into a competition then I can’t publish it here. (Many competitions require stories/poems not to have been published elsewhere first, even if that is an obscure blog online!)
So I was caught in a dilemma: meet my blogging/writing resolution, or meet my writing/competition winning resolution.
I’ve plumped for the latter.
Hear the swooshing noise? Yes… well… the first story is nearly finished but (as you can tell) it is already February. Already I am behind schedule. *sigh*
And at some point I will publish it here. I promise.
Meanwhile, you will have to put up with some more witterings, usually connected to writing, or Zambia, or the various calamities that hit our household. Oddly enough, there always seem to be enough of those stories to keep me going.
