At Least Not Very Often…

Folks, deadlines are a fun thing and they really help us all at times get writing done we might not have gotten done without the deadline. That is what The Great Challenge is all about. Deadline.

It is a no-lose challenge, where even if you miss a week, you get the money you paid for the challenge in credit toward anything we do in workshops. And the reason is to give each of you a deadline to get a story finished and to me each week by Sunday night.

Second week now. Not everyone has started yet, and there is still room to jump into the challenge. But for those that started last week, here it is on Saturday night and a number of those who started last week have not gotten me a story yet.

Dangerous.

In the anthology workshop, the deadline to turn in stories is also Sunday night and you can’t believe the number of people who are mailing me stories ten minutes before midnight.

Now I have done that same thing a few times over the years myself, pushed a deadline until I only had minutes to spare. And a few times life during the week caused me to write far too close to a deadline for my comfort.

But one sure way to miss a week in this Great Challenge is to make it a habit to finish the story at the last minute. Some life event will happen and force you to miss. It is inevitable over an entire year, sooner or later.

And in the time of great forgetting, chances are it will be sooner.

So caution. If you have to turn your story in on Sunday, that’s fine, makes no difference to me. But this post on this Saturday night is a hint that maybe your deadline should be Friday night each week. That way if life gets in the way and you are a day late, you won’t miss the Great Challenge.

And as I said above, still room to jump into this silliness. Check it out on Teachable.