Well I had my looming Cozy Mystery that I was DETERMINED to finish before that. So I committed to a mad writing weekend...
Now Friday my husband also started a new job. It's been a while since he worked—he's been taking classes for a couple years... but besides that... last time he worked he was a lunch lady. That meant he worked about 4 hour shifts cooking, serving, cleaning... respectable work, but rarely respected... I mean seriously, how many of your kids say... say... I'd really like to be a lunch lady when I grow up...
So HWMNBMOTI decided he wanted to go to school for some actual training... he's been doing nursing pre-requisites. And as part of it, he took a course (and a state certification test) to be a certified nurses assistant. He finished his pre-reqs earlier in the month, and since the waiting list might be as long as two years, he decided to work USING that CNA. He got a job as a home health aid.
So Friday was his first day... and darned it if he didn't want to TALK about his day... there I was (naked, of course... in the tub... my writing time) trying to write, and he kept coming in and sharing something else... and it was too cute to say 'stop it!' but I think I only got 100-200 words written Friday. [note: HWMNBMOTI is not normally effusive and so honestly, I love it when he wants to talk... but that story isn't as amusing]
So on Saturday I asked my FB crew to double dog dare me to finish by Sunday... I looked at where I was and made a calculation... I figured I had about 4000 words left.
 |
| Note: I don't wear hats. My head is big. |
I managed to write 2500 words on Saturday... felt pretty good—that is about a thousand past normal in my world. I was pleased... but I could also see I was NOT 1500 from the end. My estimate had been off. So Sunday I got up rearing to write right off the bat... I wrote a little... I went next door and sat by my neighbor's pool and wrote a little more (I have the world's BEST neighbor)... I came home, I wrote some more... I got in the tub and wrote some more.... 4000 words on Sunday... AND I STILL WASN'T FREAKING DONE! *sigh*
BUT, I figured I had also written 2500 words more than I planned, so it wasn't like I'd been slacking. I decided to be a LITTLE gentle and just extend my deadline by a bit (well not a BIT... but... you get what I mean).
And so I DID IT! About one yesterday afternoon I looked and thought... I need a tiny wind down and the press release (done later in the evening), but this BOOK it DONE...
That was book #9! YAY!]
Is it me, or do I seem to take longer and longer to get to the point? Call me brain fried. No, call me DESERVEDLY Brain Fried...
I seem to be able to push myself so much harder with a deadline looming. This 'has to be done before I start the next thing' FINALLY kicked me into gear. This book has been the slowest write I've had in ages—more than a year, anyway... I think I've only averaged... lets see... I think it took 15 weeks to write 68,000 words. That is less than 650 words a day. NORMAL for me when I am writing is about 1500. [that average goes down quite a lot when you take out the 8000 in the last three days]
Funny, I don't think this book ended up any worse for being so hard to write... We'll see after it has it's sitting time, but it feels okay at the moment. I'm SURE I didn't make the mistake I made last time of having the killer too obvious, as I changed killers about three times in the end.
So any of you have some made deadline drives recently? Do you work better with a deadline? Do anything fun when you meet one? (for instance I cleaned the bathroom and sorted my writing piles *shifty*)