Giving Yourself Deadlines

[Philip Overby]

Something I noticed that helped me when finishing my first draft was that I gave myself a deadline. I wrote on a piece of paper "February 28th." I then calculated how many words I had write per day to reach the end. It came out to about 700 words a day(after having already written 60K or so). Did I finish on Feb. 28th? No, but I did finish after my "one week extension." So there's that.

Recently I've be using deadlines in order to write as much as I can. I've started writing a short story a week, which so far has resulted in three weeks with three short stories. I find putting pressure on myself to complete something makes me work harder and provides me with a tangible goal to reach.

For me giving yourself deadlines has several benefits:

1. You have a goal to work towards.
2. It keeps you writing.
3. It simulates what will happen if you work for a publisher at any point (you have to make deadlines if you want to stick around)

Me, I like playing video games. However, I used to treat writing the same as video games. It was something I did when I was bored or just wanted to pass some time. I don't make deadlines for beating video games though. I guess it shows my change in attitude towards writing in recent years. If I want to get stuff down, I have to get more serious.

Do you find giving yourself deadlines or goals helps your writing output or do you just "write when you feel like it" and see what happens?

 

[Butterfly]

Deadlines and goals. I also track my progress with a spreadsheet and a chart like the ones you get on Nano. Seeing it growing day by day kind of pushes me on a bit more.

 

[advait98]

Oh, deadlines definitely help my putput. I couldn't write anything before I set for myself the stern deadline of one week per 3000 words (well it's stern to me). As I started to do it, my resolve grew and soon, it developed into a full-fledged habit. Seeing the number of pages grow in my register egged me on, and I only missed the 1 week deadline in unavoidable circumstances.

Of course, I couldn't write anything during my exams which ended a week ago. And I only wrote 900 words since then, damnit! The forced break (if you can call exams that) made me lazy (in terms of writing. I was definitely not lazy in studies), and now it's taking some time to get the steam back.

Someday, I'll sue my school...

 

[DSCroxford]

I have tried to set deadlines but rarely manage to stick to them which I find is really affecting any progress I make as I start losing touch with what I have written as some times I realise a week may have gone by without anything touching paper.

I want to be more strict with it but am finding the juggling of work life and home life seems to interfere too much, guarantee that something will come up as soon as the coffee mug touches the desk and then the deadline or goal is shot.

 

[Ophiucha]

Deadlines, no. I have yet to find a way to self-impose those to any degree of success. But I will often set short-term goals and have long-term reasons to finish my work. For instance, I have a policy that I get a manicure after I finish a first draft. This is primarily because the place I get it done does a full hand massage and cleansing along with shaping up and polishing my nails, which feels fantastic after you've spent weeks/months at a keyboard or with your fingers wrapped around a pen. Easy to power through something if I want a little relief, or if I've just been eyeing a new colour (currently have an itch for a pale green, so I might try to push out a first draft before summer).

I do have short term 'deadlines' in a way, since I make dinner every day and, if I'm working on something, I write primarily in the afternoon. I need to finish something up by however many minutes/hours I need to have dinner on the table by five, and generally that means I spend most of the afternoon faffing about on the internet and then pushing myself to get some words on the page an hour before I have to go downstairs. But it works better than just saying 'oh you could write it after dinner', which usually ends in me not writing anything at all.

 

[Butterfly]

Get up an hour earlier and use the time to do some writing. I find this easier to do in the summer. The extra daylight seems to give me an energy boost. It's too hard in the winter... so I am looking forward to brighter mornings fo this reason.

 

[wordwalker]

Deadlines definitely help. Especially in the larger sense Ophiucha uses, of different ways to set up a day or reward yourself-- the problem with keeping at writing is it's completely self-structured, but that opens doors too.

And like Phil says, they aren't just "a" way to work, they're the way real editors (and other professions) do it. That doesn't mean you can't be serious without a deadline, but it would put you more and more out of step with things... and I think every writer everywhere still spends at least a lot of time needing to force himself to write.

Two variations I'll add:

The hardest part of writing is often the Scary Bicycle, sitting down to start each day. So if daily wordcounts are hard to get into, start with a small minimum and just insist that you get that much each day, then stay at the keyboard as much longer as you can and see how much further you can get.

And, writing deadlines are pure quantity rather than quality. But they go well with a short checklist of things you worry you'll leave out; go back over your work for "Did I make the emotion strong enough?" or "Did I get in all five senses?" Of course this is really for rewriting later, but it can be fun to write fast and know you can check a few basics right away.

 

[Telcontar]

When I was first starting out with the self-publishing gig, I set pretty specific deadlines and even managed to stick to them for awhile. As my workload at both job and class got heavier, I started missing them - sometimes pretty severely. However, they accomplished their mission as they instilled within me the feel that my writing needed to be a priority, not (as Phil was saying) just a passtime.

I set much fuzzier deadlines now, and still end up missing a bunch of them. However, my writing has definitely remained a priority - it's just that I don't have a great deal of spare time to devote to it.

The implication of course is that deadlines are actually just a shortcut to this idea that "your writing is a priority." Once you've managed to internalize that, the actual deadlines become less important. I felt pretty guilty for missing them for awhile, despite the fact that I had little say in the matter. Eventually I realized that just the fact that I felt guilty for missing a deadline I had set myself was a pretty good sign that I was taking my writing seriously.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I find long-term deadlines difficult to set because I rarely know for certain how long a WIP will be in the end. Some I thought would fall around 100k wind up being closer to 150k (unedited & unrevised). Because of this, I've found much more success in simply sticking to small, incremental daily goals....at least until I start to near the end.

With an end in sight I can set a completion goal. At this point though, the motivation in doing so is to amp up desire to complete the story which can speed my writing along.

In general, I don't find long-term goals, for anything, particularly valuable or successful. The additive effect of small daily, weekly, or monthly goals is where I've found success in writing as well as many other endeavors.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I'm way too good at procrastination and self-justification for self-imposed deadlines to work. It pains me, but there's only two things that motivate me to finish something:

1) I really enjoy doing it

2) I will get in trouble if I don't do it

 

[Penpilot]

I think reasonable deadlines are good for getting yourself off your rump. But most of the time I use a daily goal of one scene, which is usually around 1000 to 2500 words and I write pretty much every day. If I don't feel like writing I ask myself the same question. Do I want to write or do I want to do X? Which is more important to me? If X is the answer too often, then I'll know I really don't want to be a writer.

The next thing I'm going to try is writing two novels at the same time and try to finish in 3-6 months.

 

[Philip Overby]

I'm way too good at procrastination and self-justification for self-imposed deadlines to work. It pains me, but there's only two things that motivate me to finish something:

1) I really enjoy doing it

2) I will get in trouble if I don't do it

1. I think we all really enjoy doing it.
2. Deadlines are a way of "getting in trouble" for me in any case. If I miss a deadline, I "punish" myself somehow. I do extra work-outs or I ban myself from playing games for several days. They're not major punishments, but they're something. That way I know if I miss a deadline, it's going to actually effect me someway.

My personal belief is that writing should be like work. Fun work, but work nonetheless. You sit down a certain number of hours and put your time in. Sometimes you have bad days and sometimes good ones. But you have a project due. If you don't get the project done, you don't eat. This method may not work for some people, but it's definitely helped improved my output.

For me, if I love doing something, I need to love getting it finished as well. Deadlines help me do that.