I have a deadline on Friday for a feature article I’ve been working on since the first week of October. It’s coming along well, and I feel quite calm about my approaching deadline, but two weeks ago I was freaking out.
This is something I’m learning about myself as a writer. I need a lot of time for the final stages of writing anything well. That is, for polishing my work, I have to be able to read it through, tweak a little, walk away, come back a few hours later, tweak a little more. In these final days I may literally change two words each time I read it, and since it’s 20 pages long, it takes a lot of time.
Then I send it to trusted eyes to read it for fresh perspective, and I start over, incorporating a little bit, changing the work ever so slightly, with each pass. This just seems to be how I work.
With that in mind it makes sense that I was panicked about my deadline two weeks ago, but feel fine now. Two weeks ago I knew I needed to start entering into this polishing stage, and I only had it half written.
To friends and family it’s hard to explain why I can’t run off to the beach/park/movies because a piece that isn’t due for weeks is only half done. But that’s just how I work.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to recognize this pattern. I never have been one for last minute dashes. In college I was terrible at cramming, and if I’m going to pull an all nighter there better be loud music and fair amount of whiskey involved. I’m a planner. It’s boring but true. I like things (or at least my writing) to unfold predictably.
It might be a little dull, but it does allow me to make my deadlines, and I’ve always felt like that’s an important part of building a career as a writer. When I’m a big time, famous, hot shit scribe maybe I’ll be able to blow off deadlines without a care, but then again, knowing me, I never will.
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