There is a deadline looming. It is the only thing you can see ahead of you. The deadline has been there for a while but like all of us you chose to let it loom for a while. But the deadline has crept closer and closer and now is almost upon you. It. Is. Soon. But you don’t feel like writing.
What do you do?
When this happens, I write. Something. Anything. Sometimes not even the thing itself but something else, something small, something quick, something that I have not been thinking about, worrying about. This calms me. It helps me focus. It reminds me that I can do things.
I can find words.
I do find words.
I will find words.
It also helps me be kinder to myself. If my words here are flowing then, I think, my words there will flow too. And so by doing this I guess I write around the problem and by doing so swing back around to the project and its deadline. This works for me. It has to work for me because I still have that deadline looming ahead of me and though writing something else might seem a bit like avoidance I do actually find it galvanises my efforts and lets me complete the task at hand.
Admittedly, this is a risky thing to do and will likely end in missing a deadline sometimes, like it has done before. It certainly isn’t surefire and, as such, is not something I would necessarily recommend to other people. However, it does work for me most of the time and that’s about as much as I manage when it comes to the process; there is just so much about all this that can’t be regimented or forced – the best that I can do is manage some parts of the process.
What about you?
