[PUBLIC POST] Deadlines and other pressures

[ljwrites]

I am heartily sorry for skipping the public post last week, I was writing a story under a deadline and the weekend has been a blur. To make up for it I'll write two public posts this week.

So, to turn my excuse into an actual discussion subject, do you do well with deadlines and other types of pressure when you write fiction? How does it help you? How does it hurt? Do different kinds of pressure work differently on your writing?

Comments

[lizbee]

I find deadlines very useful -- they force me to stop procrastinating, get out of bed and just write.

On the other hand, I've never had an externally-imposed deadline for a novel -- only short stories and essays. So I don't know how I'd cope with something like that. I'm on a writers retreat right now, and one of my friends is saying, "Oh yes, I need to write four chapters of this book today, and then I have until next Wednesday to finish the edits on that other book..." It's a full-time job for her. But she's the first to admit she's an outlier.