Deadline

I was talking to my friend, Mayra, about a month ago and she told me that she had a writing teacher who had asked the class what was the single most important thing a writer needed .  The class gave several answers, but none of them were the answer that the teacher wanted.  The teacher said that the most important thing for a writer to have was - a deadline.

I laughed and nodded when she told me this story, because I have found it to be very true.  My first book took me over five years to write.  I didn't have a deadline or a goal even and so I wrote when the mood struck me.  There would be long gaps between writing sessions.  However, once that first book was finished, I gave myself a deadline of having the second book out in one year.  I knew that if I took five years for the next book, I would be starting from the ground all over again.  The next year I gave myself another deadline to have the third book out by a year and I made it.  I added another deadline of having a Christmas novella written and ready to be published by Thanksgiving and I made that deadline, too.  

This year, I have struggled so much with my deadlines.  My original goal for this year was to finish the KW Consulting series, start the next series and write a Christmas novella.  I had planned to have book four finished in the spring, but publish it in September when all the other books in that series have been published, but that didn't happen.  I always underestimate how much time I actually have.  I often find myself just struggling to squeeze in thirty minutes to write.

My latest goals have been to just write book four of KW Consulting and start my next series, but drop the Christmas novella for this year.  I just don't think I'll have time to do all three.  However, I'm still hopeful that I'll get two full length novels written within the year.  I had set a new deadline to finish writing book four by the end of June.  Technically, I missed that deadline, too, but since I finished it at one in the morning on July 1st, I'll count it as an accomplishment.  

I'm so excited to have book four finished.  It was a new challenge for me to have to keep up with multiple plots and story lines.  I hope that when I go through and reread it that I'll find that they flow as well as I think they do.  So the next step is for me to read through the book, making sure to make any edits that I find.  Then I'll send it out to be edited.  I'm hopeful to have the book back in August so that I can make the changes that need done and have it published in September.  While that book is being edited, I'll begin work on the next series.

Each step in this journey is a learning experience.   Sometimes I'm amazed at how much I've learned in four years and sometimes I'm daunted by how much more I have to learn.  I'm feeling excited about the recent progress I've made.  I can't wait until book four is ready for publication!