{"id":1124,"date":"2014-05-02T07:47:53","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T14:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=1124"},"modified":"2014-05-02T07:47:53","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T14:47:53","slug":"due-dates-making-friends-with-deadlines-by-michelle-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/due-dates-making-friends-with-deadlines-by-michelle-wing\/","title":{"rendered":"Due Dates \u2014 Making Friends with Deadlines by Michelle Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Blogger Michelle Wing writes:<\/p>\n

I have always been rather envious of writers who say they sit down at their desks each day at, say, 9 a.m., and write for three or four hours. In other words, writers who have a pattern and a discipline to their output. That is simply not how I am wired. I can\u2019t do anything that way \u2013 exercise regimens, meals, study sessions \u2013 nope, I fail at every attempt to adhere to a strict schedule.<\/p>\n

Instead of berating myself over this, I have learned to look at what does work for me. What are my ideal conditions for writing productivity?<\/p>\n

I thrive under deadlines. Having spent over 15 years of my life working as a journalist, I am very familiar with the feeling of having to get a story out \u2013 now \u2013 just under the wire. It is its own particular type of adrenalin rush. Journalistic copy is often fairly straightforward \u2013 a news story, maybe a longer more elaborate feature, a column. But always, that common thread of having a short time frame to get the work done.<\/p>\n

I still have a couple of similar gigs now. I write a monthly literary column which appears in four local newspapers, and I also do a Q&A interview on stage craft for a local theater company, as part of the program handed out to patrons at the show. These writing assignments are easy for me to manage, because I simply calendar them. I know when I have to be brainstorming for ideas, when interviews must be scheduled, and when the final copy is due. No problem.<\/p>\n

So what about my more creative work? How do I make space for it in my otherwise very busy life? The best way I have found is to treat my prose and poetry the same way. Find deadlines. One option is to look for submission opportunities. I choose a reasonable number, and put them on my calendar or my white board. A call for pieces for an anthology, due on June 1. A contest for creative nonfiction, due on June 30. A local group asking for contributions to a poetry chapbook, due in August. I may decide along the way not to go with all of these, but at least they get me started at my computer.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I enjoy working with deadlines, and having specific projects in mind, is that I am a percolator. Especially with poetry, much of my writing is done when I am not sitting in front of the blank page. It happens when I am walking, or reading someone else\u2019s verse, or when I am sitting at a coffee shop waiting for a friend to arrive. My poems brew. By the time I sit down to write, entire lines are already formed. But I can get lazy, and not stick with an image or a poem. Knowing that I have a deadline coming up, I will encourage this process to pick up the pace a bit. Remember, I will whisper as I wake up in the morning. We have a poem we\u2019re working on. Keep your ears open.<\/p>\n

This can be used just as effectively on much bigger projects. When Ruth Thompson of Saddle Road Press<\/a> first approached me about writing a book of poetry, it felt completely overwhelming. How could I get a handle on something that huge? It turned out to be very basic. We set a deadline \u2013 final manuscript due by Jan. 1, 2014. As soon as I had that goal in mind, all the rest fell into place. I found I was able to do the work, pace myself, make the time, get it done. All I needed was that firm deadline.<\/p>\n

\"Goals<\/a>So now, when asked how many hours a day I sit at my desk, I don\u2019t feel ashamed to say that sometimes, I don\u2019t sit there at all. Because it doesn\u2019t matter. The dates are on my calendar; the work is in process; and I am a writer, whether or not I am at the keyboard.<\/p>\n

\"Michelle<\/a><\/p>\n

\"9780991395200_cov<\/a><\/strong>Michelle Wing<\/strong> is a poet (Body on the Wall<\/em><\/a>, May 2014) and writer of creative nonfiction who blogs<\/a> about writing. For more information, see her website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Blogger Michelle Wing writes: I have always been rather envious of writers who say they sit down at their desks each day at, say, 9 a.m., and write for three or four hours. In other words, writers who have a pattern and a discipline to their output. That is simply not how I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[445,443,446,447],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-body-on-the-wall","tag-michelle-wing","tag-saddle-road-press","tag-the-poem-whisperer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-i8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}