Deadlines...this is new...

Even though this is the first official deadline I've set for myself (and any time I say "official" that just means I've said it to enough people to make my life hell if I don't follow through), it's still a daunting task to put a time cap on something. Perhaps the reason I did it is for practice, because I know that eventually...deadlines are going to be something I must perfect. Until now I've been very wishy-washy, saying things like, "Oh, I'll be done by the end of 2008," and then taking an additional six months to do just that. I can't count the times I've told myself and maybe a handful of others that I'd be done that weekend, that month, that year. Ugh.

Another reason, perhaps, is to keep myself motivated. Am I tricking my own mind? Possibly. But if it works, I can't really argue. The idea of having fifty people expecting something from me on a specific day and then not delivering churns my stomach. I couldn't handle disappointing that many people. And so here I am, glued to the couch for the second day in a row writing and rewriting.

To this day it amazes me how many transformations take place in a story over time. I think back to the original draft of Intrepid Earth that I wrote in high school and realize what absolute garbage the prose is to me, and at the time I was thinking, "Man! My writing can't get much better than this!" Boy, was I wrong. Now, writing the first chapter from scratch for the fourth time, I'm coming to understand something that I'm sure all published and successful authors struggle with: No piece is ever finished. It just reaches an acceptable point to give it to the world. I think forward to when my novel will be sitting on the shelves (nothing wrong with wishful thinking) and...sort of dread knowing that it will be final, that even if I go home and draft another version ten times better from scratch, that's it. It's on the shelves. Done.

*sighs* Best to make sure that the published version is kick ass to begin with, and then put it out of mind.