“Goals are dreams with deadlines.” (Diana Scharf)
Writing Sans Deadlines
For years I wrote my novels without deadlines except for the ones I made for myself. I would set goals for getting this or that story written by this or that time. Usually I did not meet those self-imposed deadline goals. Life would happen with all sorts of interruptions of my writing time. After all, nobody but me was waiting on that story to be finished. I didn’t have a contract saying so and so would publish my book if I could get it written and sent in by a certain time. I simply had a hope that if I wrote my story, some publisher would read it and want to put it out there for readers.
Writing with Deadlines
Then things changed for me. I got those contracts with stated deadlines. Publishers promised to publish my stories if I would get them written in an acceptable way by a certain set time. Time to get serious about deadlines! So as you can see from this picture that was taken several years ago at a book fair, I managed to meet those deadlines. Since this picture with that lovely spread of books, I’ve met my deadlines (with a grace period now and again) seven or eight times again.
Now I’m facing a new deadline for my current work in progress. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older that the months seem to spin by faster and make those deadlines zoom up before I’m ready. Then I have to keep my fingers to the keyboard and strain my brain to finish a story. I know some writers can go away and finish a book in a weekend by binge writing. I’ve never been able to do that. Well, to be honest I’ve never tried to do that. With my writing, I seem to have to let the creative pool fill each day and when I’ve drained it out by writing so many pages or words, I need time for the pool to refill. But a deadline approaching can make it necessary to rush that pool refilling.
Deadline – What does it mean?
Thinking about deadlines made me curious. Where did the word come from? When you look at it, “dead” is a hard word if you’re drawing a “line” in the sand. The dictionary says deadline is the time by which something must be finished or submitted; the latest time to finish something. That definition definitely works with writing deadlines but many work projects have deadlines too.
Origin of deadline
So where did the word deadline come from? Here’s where things get interesting if you love finding out about word origins. Look at this third listed definition of deadline: (formerly) a boundary around a military prison beyond which a prisoner could not venture without risk of being shot by guards.
It seems that during the Civil War there was a “do-not-cross” line in Civil War prisons. In the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate officer who commanded the Andersonville Military Prison where many Union soldier prisoners died due to horrific conditions, it was noted that Wirz established and caused to be designated within the prison enclosure “a ‘dead line,’ being a line around the innerface of the stockade or wall enclosing said prison and about twenty feet distant from and within said stockade; and so established said dead line, which was in many places an imaginary line, in many other places marked by insecure and shifting strips of [boards nailed] upon the tops of small and insecure stakes or posts, he, the said Wirz, instructed the prison guards stationed around the top of said stockade to fire upon and kill any of the prisoners aforesaid who might touch, fall upon, pass over or under [or] across the said ‘deadline.'” [Trial of Henry Wirz, Report of the Secretary of War, Oct. 31, 1865]
Hmm, that gives deadline a deadly origin. But now the word is not quite that deadly. Thank goodness. Now for me, it just means I need to get to work if I want to have another story out there for you readers.
“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.” (Rita Mae Brown)
Do you like making deadlines for yourself when you’re trying to get something done?
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