Dogged Deadlines!

I've been Missing in Action for much of the last month. My family wonders where Mom has gone. My neighbors may be asking if I've moved away. Social media connections almost certainly believe I've unfriended them. I've been on deadline.

This particular deadline crunch began with a challenge. I attended a writers' conference in mid-September. A woman I've known for years and have worked with frequently, managing editor at a publishing house that has produced some of my books, attended the same conference. She issued a broad challenge to anyone willing to accept it: The publishing house had a contest going involving three different genres. They sought novellas in each of the three categories, with the best entry in each to be published next year. One of those categories is historical romance and my friend, the editor, challenged me to send her a manuscript.

The problem? She showed me the flyer for the contest and issued her personal challenge on September 14. The deadline for all entries was October 15. Could I write a novella start to finish in a month?

Now you understand why I've been MIA. I've been pushing that deadline. The good news is, the novella is complete at 36,000 words. Three lovely readers and an editor gave it a once-over for me, even when I gave them a two-day deadline to get it done, and I submitted my complete manuscript two days ago, on October 14, actually one day early. It's a good story, too. I did it! But that's about all I've done lately.

What has this experience taught me? For one thing, I can be stubborn about taking on a challenge, even if it doesn't seem realistic. Also, I can write a book in a month if I'm highly motivated. Those are good things to know. Not so good are some of the other lessons, like realizing I can disappear so completely into the black hole of my fictional world that I can practically vanish from the physical world we inhabit. Not good. Not good at all.

I'm back now, remembering where I live and reconnecting with the actual people around me. I'm even working again on my other deadlines, which got pushed back or snubbed altogether during my month of publishing panic. Today, I appear to be just like other people with other jobs, people who work given hours and live the rest of the time with family and friends.

I'm not cured, however. Deadline Fever will surely strike again. One day soon, I'll realize I've spent so much time playing with my imaginary friends that my actual, physical friends wonder what has happened to me. Or maybe not. My friends know I'm a writer, after all.

Susan loves to hear from readers. Write her at susan.aylworth.author@gmail.com, or visit www.susanaylworth.com or her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Susan.Aylworth.Author. Watch for Amber in Autumn, Book 3 in the "Seasons of Destiny" series, coming early next year. Books 1 and 2, Paris in the Springtime and  Sunny's Summer are available in e-book and paperback formats. Winter Skye will follow soon. Who knows? There may even be an historical romance novella to add to the mix. Stay in touch for updates. 

Slothing, Deadlines and Retirement

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

I've always been a writer. I went to work for my parents' advertising agency before I was out of elementary school. I sold my first novel in 1979. I'm even one of the 40 or so women who founded RWA in 1980. I have been Editor in Chief of two multi-magazine publishing groups. Last year I wrote five novels.

As I've probably told you, during the last quarter of last year I had three surgeries - the first ones I've ever had. The first two went very well and recovery was speedy. Oh, don't get me wrong - the third one went better than could be expected, but had unintended consequences.

I had been told that I would be on strict bed rest for at least 8 days after the surgery, which didn't upset me at all. No distractions! I thought. I can spend all day writing without feeling guilty for not doing any housework.

Wrong. Oh, I had The Husband bring my computer on a bed tray and put it in the bed beside me. In case writing palled, I had the remote to the DVD player across the room, loaded with a movie I had requested. There were a couple of sodas, a full ice bucket and some tasty snacks by the bed. None of it made any difference - I didn't utilize any of them. I slept. I slept like a dead thing, barely waking to go to the bathroom - the only excursion I was allowed. For all 8 days.

At the end of my incarceration I was released to semi-invalidism; I could get up and move around the house, as long as I kept my foot (it was foot surgery) elevated. Now The Husband set up my typing table in front of the TV, I had the remote in hand and sodas and snacks beside me. Now I am awake, I thought, I can really get some good writing done.

Wrong again. I indulged in an orgy of mindless daytime TV and somehow managed to escape total brain death... but no writing got done. I even coined a new word for this strange lassitude - slothing - and have taken the sloth as my spirit animal.

Now it is 6 months later and I still have done very little writing, and a dreary sales record isn't helping. I haven't finished a single book so far - and I'd better get a wiggle on, because I have a deadline in early August, and I've never missed a deadline in my life. This lackadasicalness is very untypical of me; I've always loved writing and indulged in it every moment I could. Writing was my escape from a world that all too often unappealing.

Now, for the first time in my life, writing has become work, and that alarms me. I am of an age where retirement is expected, and even though I had never thought to retire from writing the idea is beginning to have its appeal. I am drawn to increasing the time spent on my political and social activism. I would like to do more work with my women's clubs and my scholarly Egyptological organization. And there are some bits of housekeeping that simply must be done! (I fully admit to lacking the housekeeping gene...) There are five full novels, all complete and edited, ready for cover and formatting and release, sitting metaphorically on my desk. (Actually they're on the computer, but you know what I mean.)

Perhaps part of my lassitude is brought on by the sudden and unexpected death of my dear friend and long-time cover artist Dawn Charles. A friend can never be replaced, but a cover artist not only can but must be... eventually. I've shied away from seeking covers for the simple reason that Dawn spoiled me - she 'got' what I wanted. After 20-odd covers, I just don't have the heart to start auditioning new artists right now.

So for now I am still working at working. I have contracts that must be fulfilled, and fulfilled they will be. Maybe by the time this contract is completed and I have found a new cover artist (those five novels deserve a better fate than being imprisoned forever in my computer) this cloud will have lifted from my spirit and I will be back in the saddle again, writing like a fiend and loving it. I kind of hope so.

Accountability - An Indispensable Tool

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

There are those who say writers must write X number of words every single day, including Christmas and their birthday. There are others who say that to rigidly schedule your writing is to kill creativity, and writers should write only when their Muse whispers in their ear. We all know several of each kind.

I kind of agree that doing exactly X number of words every day can easily start producing lifeless and mechanical prose, but waiting until your Muse cooperates can be a lengthy and unpredictable experience. Neither one is a real asset to a professional writer.

My solution is far from perfect - is there really a perfect one? - but it works for me. When I start a new book I have a rough idea (within 5K) of how long it is going to be - though that can and sometimes does change. I always have a deadline, even when I'm self-publishing. Then it's a matter of simple math to figure out how many words I want to write each day... or each week. Even though I record my totals daily I find weekly goals are more flexible, because life does happen. An emergency trip to the vet because the dog ate something unwise. Plumbing disasters. A 24 hour bug slaps you down. Family obligations. Sometimes it does seem the world conspires to keep us from writing, doesn't it?

Years ago I made an Excel spreadsheet with all the data on the book on top (title, start and end dates, genre, target length, etc.) , then below columns for Day (of the project), Date, Word Count Finish, Total Words Done, Daily Projected, Daily +/-, Projected Goal, Projected Goal +/-. In a different spot I also have a chart for chapter number and start and end pages. I made a blank master file and whenever I start a new book I copy it into the new file for the new book (you do keep a new file for each new book, don't you?) and fill out the pertinent information - dates, targets, etc. It takes me less than an hour and it's pretty much set for the duration of the book.

It sounds cumbersome, and I'm sure to many it might be, but it keeps me on track. Every day line is filled out, even if I have to do several together after an extended hiatus. This isn't an exercise to shame myself or make me feel bad about myself - there are some things that can't be helped, after all - but it is to keep me accountable. Am I writing? Am I staying near my goal? If not, why? Sometimes I put notes in the blank area to the right - Meemaw hospital, for example, or Grandpa here. Once in a great while I have to put something like Goofed off, or Family picnic. Remember, this is not a feel-good thing so I can see I'm 6K ahead of my projected goal, either. This is an exercise in accountability.

So whether I'm ahead of my goal or behind it, this is a record. Not a brag, not a punishment. Am I writing? Am I meeting my daily/weekly goal? No one ever sees this sheet but me (and the cat who loves to sit on my shoulder while I work, but she won't tell anyone) and it is I for whom I do it. It makes me accountable about my writing.

And we all know that if we're going to be a writer we must write, don't we?

Stripping, Deadlines and Memories

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

A writer’s mind is a funny – and sometimes fearsome – place. I was all set to write about deadlines and the havoc they can wreak on our lives, but yet we must adhere to them almost as much as the laws of God. I was going to tell how I learned to respect (and obey) deadlines while working in my parents’ advertising agency, but then I would have to tell you I didn’t just start out working with deadline responsibilities – hey, I was only nine, so my first job was as a stripper.

If you want to stop a conversation dead in its tracks, just say that your first job was as a stripper when you were nine years old.

Now to save my late parents’ reputations, I must say quickly that the job had nothing to do with removing any article of clothing. I did, however, sometimes wish to, as being somewhat spectacularly challenged in the dexterity department I got excessively sticky.

You see, in those antique days ads were built up with a great many pieces of paper put down with rubber cement. There was no point-and-click-shrink/enlarge-with-a-single-motion in those days. You had clip art (line pictures of all kinds of things which you bought in big books) or photographs. You had headlines and copy, done on a manual (in our office at least) typewriter, which was then sent to the typesetter to be set and printed in the font you had chosen. You had the size of your ad, generally enlarged proportionately on the working board so you could work on it easily. Then you had to figure out just how big/small each element had to be. Once that was done you sent each piece to the photostatter, to be reduced/enlarged to the desired size. So – hopefully - when everything was sized and pasted down the ad looked the way you wanted.

As we were a very frugal family, the elements that could be used again in other ads – clip art, some headlines, logos, etc. – were stripped off by using acetone, which dissolved the glue and rendered the whatever ready for use again. These were tacking in a big looseleaf folder divided into general categories, using just a small drop of glue to hold the paper in place. We could use an element sometimes ten or fifteen times before it got tatty, especially if it was of a standard size, saving the typesetters’ and photostatters’ fees each time.

Chosing the size of each element was done with a little tool of the Devil called a proportion wheel, which did exactly what it sounds like – told you how much bigger or smaller something had to be to fit in the space. God help you if you made a mistake, because getting things photostatted was expensive.

I have always been mathematically challenged (and why doesn’t someone do a telethon for those like me?) and the first time I got something wrong was on one of my first layouts when I think I was around twelve. I still stripped, but had received a sort of promotion to doing simple layouts. The first time I goofed Daddy took the time to walk me through it again and showed me every step several times, even giving me a written checklist.

The second time he docked my pay for the cost of the photostat. Yes, I received a paycheck – a token one, to be sure, as child labor is cheap – with social security and all taken out, just like a grownup. I have seldom felt so rich as the time I received my first paycheck – which Mother (the company bookkeeper) had to cash, as the bank wouldn’t believe that a nine-year-old child had her own paycheck. (And I have never used that bank since. Yes, I do hold grudges!)

After that I was very careful to get everything just right, usually by begging our real staff artist to do the calculations for me without Daddy knowing. As time went on I became more and more experienced and proficient, so by the time I was in high school I was working after school and weekends, and earning the same hourly wage as a regular artist.

That equality in my young years may be the reason I have always loathed school in spite of loving learning. (They are most definitely not the same, and a lot of the time not even close!) In high school I had to raise my hand and get permission from the teacher to go to the restroom, but after school I would take the bus downtown to the office where I could pick up the phone, call Tokyo and on voice order alone get over $5,000 (real money in those days) worth of ad placement. Heady stuff indeed.

Another memory. Most of the time in high school I dressed grown-up, in little Chanel-style suits or nice dresses and simple black flats, as after school I would go to the office where there might be clients – always have to project a business-like image, you know. Well, we had a period off in school once a day – they called it study hall, but it was impossible to study as everyone was so noisy. I quickly learned how to check in as present, then sneak out and go to the teachers’ lounge, which was usually empty and quiet so I could study in peace. The school year was almost half over before someone figured out I was a student and not a teacher and summarily ejected me. Sigh.

Strange how the pathways of memory will subvert even the most sterling of ideas and plans. I had been going to talk about deadlines, not stripping. Oh, well… maybe next time.

Good Grief! Today is What???

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

This year the Christmas elves have morphed into malign gremlins, entangling me in strings of tinsel and lights and sending me crashing flat on my face. I try not to post just one essay to both my first Wednesday blogs, preferring to do two different posts on two different subjects, but this time I really have no choice. You see, I forgot. It is now almost half an hour after they should have gone up online, and I am sitting desperately writing in a dark cold office while every other creature in the house is contentedly sleeping, including The Husband.

I do have good excuses/reasons – many of them. Christmas shopping. Out of town family come to visit. Self-indulgently, parties. A couple of meetings that could not be missed. Two hard deadlines breathing fire down my neck – one to finish a book, the other to finish edits. A chronic physical health problem flaring up, as usual at the most inconvenient time. And, perhaps the most annoying of all, this is our seventh week of having no internet at home, meaning that I will be breakfasting at my favorite internet café as soon as it opens in order to get this posted. I really don’t know whether to go ‘sigh’ or ‘grrrr.’ Or both.

As I have said before, do not marry an overly-analytical man. It does get ugly.

So now what shall I say to redeem myself? Nothing, because the forgetting of such a long-standing and treasured responsibility is unacceptable. Hand to heart, I promise to be better.

With any luck at all, all our Christmas shopping will be done this week. Except for my own present, I do all the shopping for the family, but I have been known to have to buy my own occasionally. In both The Husband’s and my families we only give token gifts as we are all blessed with what we really need, but the list is long and it is hard to find even tokens that are not outrageously expensive. As I lurch from store to store, happily shrinking list and traumatized credit card in hand, it is a painful mental gymnastic to think of something appropriate to give each individual. I predict that the gift-card people will be getting most if not all of our business this year.

So, dear reader, the hour is wee, the office is cold, and I am tired. Again, I beg your pardon for such culpable behavior, do promise to be better, and wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas!

(And if you see a couple of elves with sinister expressions carrying ropes of tinsel and lights, please don’t tell them that you’ve seen me!)