I work best on deadline. People say that a lot, and when we hear it, we nod. Yeah, okay, who doesn't? If you really think about it though, there's always a deadline. Sometimes it's soft and squishy and semi-transparent, and other times it's in six inch block letters on a whiteboard.
External deadlines advertise their existence with a price tag: opprobrium, disappointment, money. In my case, hair.
In two days, I must deliver on the challenge to offer up a complete manuscript. I am pages away from this--have paced the ending to the hour. As though Thursday is the 26.2 mile mark. If that were true, I'm at 24.8 miles right now. Maybe 25.1. Anyway--I'm close enough to smell it. Additionally, though, I have a website to launch, myriad delineated milestones to accomplish, a sick kid upstairs and end-of-the-month billing to do. Without the indelible and consequential deadline, my novel would still be hovering around the 18.3 mile mark. Or maybe even 17.9. Competition for my attention is pretty dang fierce 'round here.
Okay then, it's 6:3o a.m., and I have client work lined up for most of the day--best get busy running that last mile.