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Deadlines

 


As a writer, I thrive under a deadline. Deadlines keep me motivated and focused. I like participating in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), where I have one month to write a 50,000-word novel. It is a good challenge, and it gives me motivation to write every day. There have been other small projects where I have had a deadline, like the recent anthology Rainbows Aren’t Just for Leprechauns. I had a deadline to get the story in, and I made it. Without a deadline, without something pushing me forward, it is just too easy to not write. Procrastination is my nemesis. Give me a deadline. I am happy with a deadline.

But there was one project I signed up for where the deadline proved downright terrifying . . .

I joined a twenty-four-hour theater project. You can sign up as a writer, or an actor, or a director or tech crew. The idea is that each play goes from conception to performance in front of an audience in the course of 24 hours. I signed up as a writer. The writers come in at 10:00 PM and get writing prompts (things that have to be in their play). They have until 6:00 AM to finish their plays. Then the directors come in and select which plays to direct. They cast the plays with the available actors and then they have the day to rehearse, block, and stage the plays which will be performed at 8:00 PM. This sounded like a good challenge for me.

At 10:00 I sat down to write along with the other writers. One of the prompts drawn out of a hat was the setting for the play which was: Hell. Now, Hell could be interpreted many different ways, It could be biblical Hell, or a town named Hell, or a metaphorical hell. It could be about Orpheus and Eurydice, or a nightclub named Hell. There were lots of different possibilities to consider. I started to consider all of them. I started picking a scenario and then running some plot possibilities, only to run out of steam and start over. There was a grandfather clock in the room. When the clock struck 12, I realized that two hours had gone by, and I had written nothing.

I applied myself. I told myself I just had to pick something and start writing. Pick a theme. Pick a character and just go, go, go. Still, so many choices, so many wrong turns. When the clock struck 1:00 I had written a half a page. This was a nightmare. Three hours gone and only five to go. I was blowing it. I think I was actually starting to sweat. What’s worse, I was getting drowsy. The word is: panic.

Somehow, I had to pull it together. The deadline was not going anywhere. When 6:00 came, I was going to have to present them with what I had, and it was going to be really embarrassing if I didn’t come up with something. I plowed ahead, not knowing if what I was writing was good or crap. Six AM came. I had something. It was only nine pages, a little on the short side, but it was a complete play, and I felt okay about it. When I got to see it performed that night, I felt even better about it.

So, yes, deadlines are good for me. It worked I produced something I could be proud of. But for that particular deadline, fun it was not.

Star Liner

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