Deadline Hell Exposed

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Deadline Hell Exposed

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That deadline you confidently agreed to because you were absolutely certain Future You would be organized, disciplined, and completely undistracted?Yeah. Future You lied.I’m exposing deadline hell. How writers get here—and how we get out.Deadline Hell Exposed: How Writers Get In—and How We Get OutNo, I haven’t disappeared.I’ve been in deadline hell.And since I’m currently working my way through it, I thought I’d take a moment to explain exactly what deadline hell is.Deadline hell does not necessarily mean you waited until the last minute to finish your book. Though, yes, sometimes that happens.Deadline hell is what happens when you have an unforgiving deadline—either one you set for yourself or one you agreed to—and suddenly the calendar and the manuscript are having two very different conversations.The problem begins when we agree to deadlines while imagining ourselves as completely different people.We imagine Future Writer Us.Future Writer Us is studious. Diligent. Disciplined. Future Writer Us wakes up every morning refreshed and inspired. Life is going perfectly. Nobody needs anything. Nothing breaks. There are no emergencies, unexpected trips, illnesses, distractions, family obligations, or days when our brains simply refuse to cooperate.Future Writer Us just writes.And because we know approximately how many words we can produce in a day, a week, or a month, we look at the deadline and think:Absolutely. I can deliver that.Welcome to the dreamworld.Here is something I’ve learned: until you really understand how you write and have developed the discipline to consistently produce, give yourself 1.5 times longer than you think you need.Trust me. You’ll be grateful for the padding.Of course, some of us know this and still let that beautifully padded time slip away.Hello. It’s me.Know How You WorkI’m an everyday writer.That means I’m going to write or research every single day until I get that bad boy done.Sometimes I have an actual word-count goal. I use Scrivener, which has a wonderful—and occasionally terrifying—feature that lets you enter your target word count and deadline. It calculates how many words you need to write each day to get there.In the beginning, maybe that number is five hundred words a day.Notice I didn’t say five hundred good words.I said five hundred words.Then life happens.Suddenly that daily target is 2,500 words.When you’ve been in the game for a while, that number doesn’t necessarily frighten you.It probably should.But fear isn’t going to finish the book.Right now, my deadline for my next book is August 15. This will be book number 32.With the exception of one book during COVID—and perhaps one or two deadlines that had to move by a couple of weeks—I’ve hit my deadlines.I don’t say that to brag.I say it because deadlines are about knowing yourself.As a writer, you get better by writing. There is no substitute for putting yourself in the chair and doing the work. There will always be something more interesting happening somewhere else.The book does not care.You still have to finish it.So, from someone currently residing somewhere around Dante’s fifth circle of Deadline Hell, here are the things that keep me moving.1. Limit Social MediaYou can scroll forever.What looks like a huge block of writing time can become a very small one frighteningly fast.But as an author, I also can’t simply tell you to abandon social media. Social media is one of the ways we get our stories into the world. Publishers expect authors to participate in promotion. As you develop readers, they’re going to want to know what you’re writing, what you’re thinking about, and what’s coming next.Connection matters.I’ve taken long social-media breaks before, and I’ve found that rebuilding that connection afterward can be difficult. Algorithms aren’t necessarily kind when you’ve been gone for a long time—particularly if you don’t already have an enormous following.So don’t disappear.Set boundaries.Do what you need to do, then get back to the book.2. Accept That You Don’t Have All the AnswersI have a decent outline.I have a plan.That’s it.I’ve mentioned before that I’m a plantser. I plan my books, but I deliberately leave room for inspiration and for the story to change based on how the characters begin speaking, behaving, and moving through scenes.An outline is a map, not a prison.Characters reveal things. Scenes develop differently than expected. Something you thought would be important becomes unnecessary.And something you barely noticed becomes the heart of the book.Leave yourself enough room to discover the story you’re actually writing.3. I Don’t Truly Know the Ending Until I Type “Done”I know.That sounds scary.I usually know where I’m heading. But because I allow the manuscript to change, I don’t know exactly how the book will end until I get there.I don’t completely know what will stay.I don’t completely know ...

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