Growing Patience & Self-Imposed Deadlines

I have written about self-imposed deadlines at the Alley before...I am pretty sure it's a struggle for many aspiring authors. We aren't held to a contract or have an editor pushing us along. But we are anxious to get this writing career going and want to get the submission-ball rolling. At least, that's how I feel most of the time.

Self-imposed deadlines are great goal-setting tools. I enjoy writing toward something; holding myself accountable to my writing time; keeping in mind that near future date so I stick to the story and don't allow non-writing things get in the way (well, the non-important non-writing things like Facebook and retail therapy).

There is another benefit to self-imposed deadlines, though. And that is the flexibility to change the

date if need be. Recently, I surprised myself after a decade of my publishing pursuit, when I met my self-imposed deadline with a complete manuscript...and then..I didn't hit send on that date. I wanted to be sure it was where it needed to be, not when I wanted it to go out.

You know your patience has grown when you pass up a self-imposed deadline to get it right.

It's a fine line to know when to hit send and when to pause for another read-thru. Sometimes, we peck our stories to death and tweak and tweak and suck the joy—and perhaps the voice—out of the story. There's a lot of fear and guts and vulnerability in hitting send. So those self-imposed deadlines can give us that courage.

But, sometimes, that self-imposed deadline should become more of a checkpoint than an end. I took another week after my last deadline and did a read-thru and more tweaking. I am so glad I did. That fear and vulnerability died with my cut lines and deleted commas.

How about you? Do you set deadlines and ever pass them up to get it right?

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Angie Dicken is a full-time mom and lives in the Midwest with her Texas Aggie sweetheart. An ACFW member since 2010, she has written six historical novels and is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of The Steve Laube Agency. Angie also spends her time designing one-sheets and drinking good coffee with great friends. Check out her author page at www.facebook.com/dicken.angie, her personal blog at angiedicken.blogspot.com and connect at:

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