I always set a personal deadline for my manuscripts, since I don't have publishing contract to motivate me. I usually set loose deadlines for drafts, and hard deadlines for revisions. Unfortunately, that means I'm usually a week or two late on drafts. Well, this time I really do have a deadline for a draft and I don't see how I can make it! You see, the book keeps getting longer. At this count I project it will be 20K longer than originally planned, and I set a deadline of June 1.

Actually, I set it for May 15, then pushed it back when I realized that it was going to be a little longer than planned. So I've got two weeks now to write 30,000 words. I've also got a firm deadline so I can start a new project for which I am being paid. To further complicate the issue, I decided to make slipcovers over the next three weekends (and arranged to borrow a sewing machine), and am now taking a business trip for the last three workdays of the month!

All I can say is: Eek!

And it's partly my fault that I'm running behind. I thought this work-for-hire project would start in early Feb, and I finished the revisions on my last manuscript January 1. I gave myself a month to recharge. Well, by mid-February I still didn't have a green light on the work-for-hire. I finally started work on my current MS March 1. If I'd started February 1, I'd be done by now!

So, I've learned an important lesson: always tie my personal deadlines to hard external deadlines. I can always meet an external deadline. I'm usually even a couple days early.

My current MS had a hard deadline for the final draft: the RWA National conference. But, that gave me flexibility in writing this draft and still leaving room to revise. Now not only am I pushing hard to achieve the next-to-impossible by June 1, but the long-delayed work-for-hire will take up my revision time.

No more two month breaks for me. Which is okay. I didn't really like not writing anyway.