By Elaine L. Orr
The first full year I had this blog I had 50 entries, though many are what we would today think of as social media posts rather than blogs entries. I went way down a few years later and finally settled on doing three per month. I don't usually get to 36, but I get close. February of this year (after a compression fracture) was the first zero month in years.
As with many things in my life, if I don't set a target, I put things off. Maybe, as in when I'm writing, I do more research. If you look at the dates of my blog posts, sometimes all three are the last week of the month.
If blogging were an important part of my business mode, for lack of a better term, I'd set a schedule -- every other Saturday or something like that. But my model is writing books, and I have to push myself to do that. I like to write stories and very much dislike deadlines. Without deadlines, though, I'd dilly dally and write (or publish) far fewer books. I also like money, so I set deadlines.
The website, Hacking Your ADHD, has an article on "The Surprising Magic of Setting a Deadline." It goes through why they help and what their impact is in a practical manner. I found it very useful.
I remember a management seminar decades ago in which the instructor asked how many people believed they worked more efficiently as a deadline grew closer. I think we all raised our hands. He said we could work that way all the time if we chose to do so. I suppose I buy that, though I'm not sure I have that energy level at this point.
I believe in deadlines enough to put my books up for preorder on Amazon before I've finish them. Some people would say that's foolish, and for literary fiction it probably would be. For my mysteries -- good books but not as complex as Water for Elephants -- it's doable.
Now, back to The Judge's Last Contest, which has a looming deadline. Wish me luck.
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