So, we've just had a month of deadlines, courtesy of the lovely Chris Baty over at NaNoWriMo* and now I've taken on the onerous task of setting myself deadlines. Woo.
...there's nothing quite like the sound of eight pm rolling around and realising that you:
a) have to finish one and a half novel outlines in less than four hours;
b) tumblr was down all day, so you really have no excuse for not having done anything**;
c) probably didn't have to watch the ending of The Hangover.... twice***;
d) should not be writing a blog post right now OMG WHY ARE YOU NOT WORKING JESSICA;
e) oooh, it's Monday morning in the US and all the blogs are being updated! **__**
People can be divided up into three categories.
1) Those who can break down tasks into little tasks and get things done before the deadline.
2) Those who work well under pressure. Less-than-four-hours-before-it's-due sort of pressure.
3) Those who work to their own timeframe and deadlines just don't matter.
I'm in the 2nd category, unless I collapse and fall into lucky category number three. (I'm not sure why it's a lucky category.) Like, during NaNo, I started panicking because my university releases the nasty YOU-FAILED-YOUR-EXAM-SO-WE'RE-GOING-TO-MAKE-YOU-SIT-MORE-EXAMS-MUAHAHAHAH notes on November 26. And there was no way that I could study AND write a novel. (I'd stop studying, fo shiz.) And let me tell you, I was CONVINCED that I'd have to sit those extra exams. I'm not so much a glass-half-empty person as a the-glass-contains-a-posionous-liquid kinda gal.
With that pressure on, I churned out 10,000 words in twenty-four hours. (I didn't have to sit the exams which quite possibly means I failed the year. I don't think that's a good thing.)
So maybe pressure and scary deadlines with the possibility of impending doom is good for my writing. Who knew?
*I'm jess.jess over at NaNo, should you want to cyberstalk me. Which would be rather flattering, albeit incredibly creepy.
**I did do edits for an entire novel, but that was mainly because I was procrastinating from my own novel. On that note, if you'd like me to be YOUR beta reader, drop me a line at jessica(dot)denoire(at)gmail(dot)com. You can also send virtual flowers and cookies to that email and I won't complain, pinky promise.
**I also watched an episode of Jeopardy and pwned Alex Trebek. There was a Books category, a Science category, and an Australian Geography category. IT WAS MEANT FOR ME.
2 comments:
I wanted to do NaNo, but I knew (at the time) it wouldn't do me any good. I can write pretty fast, but it's the editing that slows me down (a disease called "perfectionism"). I don't want to keep writing if I don't have some major details in the beginning hammered out because if I make big changes, that means I'd have to fix the ENTIRE thing. Making big changes without having the other 3/4ths written means less large-scale fixing. I THINK I'm saving myself trouble, but I'm also really slowing myself down.
AND for the record, I'm #1 and #2. Sometimes I can really break it down and work piece by piece. Othertimes I just procrastinate (by accident!) and then I have no choice but to just get it done. I often will fall asleep early, like 9pm, and then wake up at 4am just to write a big paper that's due later in the evening... Because the deadline is even tighter then.
Can't say my writing is any GOOD on a tight deadline though...
Ouch, perfectionism. That's killer! But I learnt the 'I-need-to-have-details-hammered-out-before-I-begin' lesson during last year's NaNo - I've been able to keep 500 of the 50,000 words. Everything else has to be rewritten.
Oh, wow. You totally win the award for most successful procrastination. /AWARD/ And I wish I could break things down - I try, but then I'm like... OH SHINY OBJECT I MUST SPEND THREE SHOURS STARING AT IT.
And I saw you won TH Mafi's contest - congrats! (:
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