Every Week (Writing)

Every week I panic about all of my deadlines. I hyperventilate that I won't get it all done. But I do. And it still just magically seems to happen. I don't have a method, except that the fear of not getting it done seems to be a sufficient propellant.

I am currently taking an 8-week non-fiction writing course that I always dreamed of doing and then by some miracle, I found a smart fella from St. John’s, Newfoundland who was willing to take me on as a student. I set it up to begin a week after I finished my book, thinking that the break from deadlines would do me good and then I could sink into writing just for me.

Because this was my first book, I didn't take into account all of the editing the book would require, the time it would take to format it, and then letters and submissions to agents and publishers. There was no break and of course, I panicked.

This is the worst time to be doing this, I thought. I need to be concentrating on getting my book published. But as I whined to friends and colleagues, I realized that there was no 'perfect' time. And if I waited for that time, I would never take the course.

A couple days after I received my first lesson, I received a huge and prestigious assignment for a magazine that I had been trying to get into for the last couple of years. Great. No. Really. Great.

But great. Now what I am going to do?

A woman who I spoke to a university class with a couple of weeks ago knows what I'm talking about - and then some.

She is a columnist at a big paper while holding down a full-time job as a lawyer. And did I mention that she has a 3-and-a-half year and an eighteen-month son, along with a handsome husband, all while she is catching a plane to Napa, California and chasing down a story about chickens.

Compared to this lovely lady, I have all the time in the world. Why I am stressing?

And it's not like I'm Lindsay Lohan, who I imagine has got only two full night's sleep since The Parent Trap (and that was only in the hospital when she was treated for "asthma exhaustion").

So, I take a deep breath and try and readjust.

I can do it. I will find time somewhere. I always do, even during the time that my Dad was in the hospital with pneumonia, when I had a piece due the following day and had to secure an interview with someone during opening night and write it up in a matter of 24 hours. I made the deadline and managed to cook a pretty good dinner too.

I can do this. So I will write a large entry for a music encyclopedia, do my fifth lesson for my writing course, edit my three author biographies of 3,000 words each, write this month's arts column and article, figure out the focus of this month's home design column and write it up, and write up the five articles, all due this week.

I can do this.

I hope I can do this.