Deadlines and Goals

I'm a teacher at a university. I get paid (modestly) year round, but my actual job only requires me to be present in a classroom about eight months out of the year. I have so much "time off" that it seems like a perfect job for a writer. Right?

Of course it's not quite so simple. I don't really have four glorious months with nothing to do each year, but I still have significant time off when I can afford not to teach summer school. I often have a big project in mind, like writing a draft of a complete book or revising an entire book. Typically, August arrives, and I haven't done close to what I set out to do in May.

This summer, I knew I was going to have a tight schedule. I got married in June and then went on my honeymoon. I knew most of that month would be useless to get writing done, but I still set some large goals for myself. I wanted to return to the novel I wrote as my MFA thesis and do a final revision / polish and submit it to some contests and small presses. In particular, Autumn House Press has an annual contest with a June 30th deadline. So I thought, maybe I can take the end of May into June before the wedding craziness begins, and bang out a revision to submit.

I knew that goal was optimistic, but I thought it would motivate me. That's the thing with goals. It's easy to say, "I want to accomplish _____." But it's much harder to do it if there's no pressure to get it done. If I have the whole summer, I work a little here and a little there, and then it's August again, and I have to work on my fall syllabi. But if I say, "I want to accomplish _____ by June 30th, and after that, it's too late," I stand a better chance.

Surprise, surprise! I failed. The wedding stress took more out of me than I expected (though it was worth it!). Then came the honeymoon. And jet lag. I managed to revise half my novel by the end of June, which still felt good. Then July rolled around. I wasn't teaching, but I took a summer class for fun, and other factors of life occupied my time. By early August, I still had about a quarter of the book to revise. The problem was, it didn't feel urgent. The same doubts from when I worked on this book years ago resurfaced again and again: Why bother? Where am I going to send it if I finish this revision? Who will want to publish this? Am I wasting my time on something nobody else will ever read?

Then I found a new book contest from a small press. The deadline is Sunday. With less than a week to revise several more chapters, that goal is a tough one. But it's doable. So I'm back in gear. By Monday, I really need to focus on finishing prepping for fall classes, but for the next few days, I can focus on this book. And I think I'll have it ready by midnight on Sunday.

I wish I were the type of person who could more easily set a personal deadline and just stick to it. But it's nice to realize that there are so many presses and contests and journals out there, that I will be able to find external deadlines to keep me motivated.