{"id":628,"date":"2010-09-23T16:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T16:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2010\/09\/23\/self-imposed-deadlines-are-real-deadlines\/"},"modified":"2010-09-23T16:33:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T16:33:00","slug":"self-imposed-deadlines-are-real-deadlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2010\/09\/23\/self-imposed-deadlines-are-real-deadlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Imposed Deadlines Are Real Deadlines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

>rant
I work from a home office with a large whiteboard. I put all my deadlines for the next three months on this board, with little boxes to check them off when I finish each item. I put my classes for graduate school up there, and also my writing projects.<\/p>\n

I was speaking with a friend on the phone the other day and stressing a little because I was behind on one of my writing goals, which meant that the due date for another writing goal would be pushed up to coincide with a school goal. I didn’t want that to happen, so I dedicated a few nights to stay up until three or four in the morning to put in the extra work to meet the deadline. I still have to get up in the night to nurse, and then rise early to send the hubby and toddlers off to work\/preschool, so that meant I didn’t get much sleep.<\/p>\n

This had consequences. I was tired and grumpy, which annoyed my friend.<\/p>\n

“You keep talking about writing deadlines, but you don’t have any real<\/i> deadlines,” she said. “So why would you do that to yourself?”<\/p>\n

Right. I can’t have real writing deadlines because writing isn’t real work. <\/p>\n

No, no, she said. “But you can do it whenever you want and it doesn’t matter if you really do it right away or not.”<\/p>\n

Look, I understand her point. One reason I want to be a writer is exactly so I can write whenever I want — but this means imposing my own deadlines, not escaping them.<\/p>\n

The distinction may be fine, but it’s important.<\/p>\n

It was especially frustrating because around the same time, a relative chided me for not being “focused” enough, and I should “get a real job.” You know, because being a stay-at-home mom with a three month old infant AND going to school AND publishing a book — not one of those counts as a “real” job.<\/p>\n

I don’t say this often, but… screw you. I work damn hard. At real work. With real deadlines. And maybe the world doesn’t particularly value mothering, academic research or writing fiction, but that doesn’t mean the things I do have no value.<\/p>\n

>\/rant
Ok, on a more positive note, I was tagged with a Prolific Blogger award by Jai at Jai Joshi’s Tulsi Tree, and now I have to figure out who among the many awesome blogs I read am going to tag myself. I have to admit, I always worry a bit when I get one of these awards, because of the chain-letter\/ponzi scheme pyramid structure of the meme. But I also feel really happy that someone thought of me, and no money or cursing is involved \ud83d\ude09 so I will pass it on. But first I have to think about who to choose! Argh! There are so many good blogs…. I’m thinking I might tag some of the blogs where I read but never comment, because I feel bad I never comment. Check here later for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

>rantI work from a home office with a large whiteboard. I put all my deadlines for the next three months on this board, with little boxes to check them off when I finish each item. I put my classes for graduate school up there, and also my writing projects. I was speaking with a friend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}