Just one more minute, please!

Just one more minute, please!

Friday nights have always been special.

Back when, those evenings were full of fun and games. You were an expert at Monopoly, usually taking all your parents’ and brothers’ money. Sometimes the evening was spent peeking between your fingers while being half scared, half thrilled by blobs from outer space. Staying up way past your bedtime, begging for five more minutes, one more story, one more hand of cards. Sometimes the pleas were heard, other times not.

Later Fridays meant a movie with your friends and a curfew that you tried to stretch and stretch. Then came the dinner dates with a new love and lingering over that extra bottle of wine. Or an evening in front of a cozy fire with your special someone, champagne, strawberries, and massage oil at hand, coaxing her to spend the night.

But Friday evenings have a different meaning now.

While the weekdays may be devoted to work, the evenings are now full of family and social obligations. Poker night with the guys, while she has quilting bee with the girls, Suzie’s recital, Bobbie’s T-ball practice, laundry night and the weekly family outing to the supermarket. And let’s not forget those potluck dinners that Marylee-down-the-street organizes with clinical regularity.

But Friday evenings are still sacred.

Your fleeting thoughts just before falling asleep, those free associations while showering in the morning, that running private soundtrack while you are negotiating commuter traffic, doodling during boring meetings, scratching on half crumpled lunch napkins, sleepwalking through yet another case of colic or teething. Every one of these moments is now devoted to conceiving, gestating, and birthing the winning story before Friday midnight.

Painstakingly, through many years of practice and sacrifice, you, our hero, have conditioned yourself to manage life on four hours of sleep. This, you believe, adds twenty-eight precious hours to your weekly writing schedule. And it does. You spend an extra four hours every night at your computer. Though at least thirty minutes of which are wasted while you stares numbly at the blinking curser. And half of your work may be jettisoned the next day as being illegible drivel.

Throughout life, time restrictions have been fluid, or at least negotiable. Bedtimes and curfews were set, only to be wheedled and pushed back with a ‘pretty please’. Bills always come with a build in grace period. Appointments, especially with a medical professional, are hardly set in stone. Even the sun rises and sets at a different time each day. And the deadline for filing taxes can be extended.

But just as the polls have an exact closing time, putting a merciful end to biased ad campaigns, so is Reedsy’s Deadline non-negotiable.

Just before midnight on Friday, Deadline waits in the wings, poised to strike with ruthless accuracy. Thrilled to have its one shining moment each week, Deadline holds everyone accountable. It may pretend to be magnanimous, understanding, and helpful. But in the end, it will never give an inch, or a second if you will. In the end, Deadline is soulless, and, for all we know, may delight in rigidly following the rules week to week.

And once again it’s Friday night.

Through the week you have focused on your writing, after poker and a few beers, after the exhausting trip to the supermarket, trying stick to a list that does not contain sugar, after that infernal potluck block party and James’ near lethal punch, while yet another load of laundry is tumbling in the dryer, having one finally sleeping baby slung over your shoulder, you work diligently on your story. Excited because you are inspired, believe that you have found it, the elusive answer to what the judges are looking for this week. You all but throw the baby aside and type with a ferocity rarely seen at your desk.

Silently the door opens, revealing you, a lone figure lit by a single lamp, slumped over your desk. On cat’s paws the intruder approaches you, our exhausted hero. A well-manicured index finger sharply pokes between your shoulder blades.

“Thirty minutes.” Deadline towers over you.

With a jerk and a gasp, jostling the laptop, and waking the screen you protest the painful wake-up call.

“Yikes! I’m editing. I’m …”

“You are good, I give you that, but even you can’t edit a black screen.” Deadline observes wryly.

You sigh in frustration.

“I guess you’re here to give me a lecture on time management. Tut-tut about my late hours and wasted time due to fatigue. I challenge you to write a story in what’s left of the hundred and sixty hours after we subtract all our other obligations. Or do you have the ultimate secret? The one and only, sure-fire method of producing a prize-worthy story within those hundred and sixty hours. Are you’re here to teach me the secret that will work every time?” You sneer dismissively.

Deadline, having cleared discarded papers, dogeared reference books, one sleeping baby and other flotsam from a corner of an old, seldom used sofa, leans back, crossing one leg over the other, daintily brushing away imaginary lint and smiles indulgently.

“On the contrary, I am here solely for the purpose of reminding you that you have a limited number of minutes left.”

Though Deadline appears emotionally unaffected, there is a gleeful undertone to its voice.

“But since you asked. You apparently hope that your story will birth itself. Stand up, drink and cigarette in hand. Wave a nonchalant farewell and turn to meet the world, expecting the accolade it thinks it is due. Although it happens on occasion, it’s rare that such a precocious little thing is successful.

No, in my opinion brainchildren do better when carefully nurtured, endlessly cleaned, and diapered until they find their unique voice. When it is ready it will tell you which prompt it wants to belong to. One cannot, no matter how talented and skillful the author, believe that this process can happen in six hours. Not on a regular basis. But” Deadline scoffs. “You seem to thrive on the pressure. Far be it from me to interfere with a winning combination.”

Preparing to rise, Deadline cannot hide a quirk of its lips. Something akin to nostalgia flits across its face.

“However, I am aware that some stories take longer to mature, and I know of others that live in basements, playing with themselves in perpetuity.” Looking at the teething baby, Deadline shrugs. “They deserve to be loved nonetheless.”

Deadline rises bestowing a wink and a wry smile on you. “Seeing as I have taken up more of your time than I intended and you are now down to ten minutes, I shall see myself out. I wish you good luck and a good night.”

“No, no! Not fair. Wait!” You sputter impotently. “I demand those twenty minutes back. I need more time, please!” You beg shamelessly.

“And yet you ought to thank me, for if I hadn’t woken you ... who knows.” Deadline counters as his chuckle fades down the hall.

An adenoidal gasp wakes you. Rubbing your eyes, you squint at the tiny number in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen.

“Crikey!”

With your trademark sigh, while running a hand through self-inflicted thinning hair, you turn back to the computer, say a Hail Mary, cross your fingers and submit the story. Knowing that the thumbs up and encouraging feedback always outweighs the weekly agony.