Hard Deadlines

One piece of advice to my fellow new authors. Don’t work for a weekly magazine if you value your creative process! Hard deadlines are the worst!

God damn I am tired. You would think that my ten years of experience as a published author would’ve prepared me for the high pace demand of my editor.

“I want one story a week from you every Friday by eight o’clock, Benson! And no less than five thousand words! You are our main attraction for the next six months! Your stories better earn us some Pulitzers if ya wanna earn your paycheck from home!”

That’s what my editor just shouted at me on the phone. I know what my job is, Steve! Pricks like him think that Pulitzer worthy stories just fall out of the sky. Creativity takes time and effort. Hemmingway took sixteen months to write For Whom the Bell Tolls! I should be given the same leeway if Steve expects Pulitzers from me.

But that’s not what I signed up for. I gave up the right to complain about hard deadlines when I agreed to take this job.

Why did I agree to take this job?

I look at my at home work desk. It is a standing desk that I have in sit-yer-ass-down mode. Scraps of loose paper, sticky notes, partially filled notebooks, and other random assorted writing supplies litter the surface of my desk.

Then as I pick up one of my notebooks a piece of mail falls out from its folds. It reads “Second Notice of Termination of Services” in big, bold, red letters.

Right, I’m broke. That’s why. Guess I better suck it up and do my job if I want to keep the lights on.

But who could work with all this pressure!? How do journalists do it!?

I slam my fist onto my desk. Only instead of a satisfying thud, I am met with a very sharp pain from hitting a hard cover book on the corner. I wince and pull my hand back rapidly which causes many other things to come tumbling down onto my rug.

It’s the last thing that falls that catches my attention. My debut novel The Death of Common Sense by Jolene Benson. It took me eight years to write it, get a literary agent, find a publisher, and then strike a book deal.

It sold twelve thousand copies in its first year. Which my agent told me was far above average for a new author. He said it will start selling itself soon.

Then the next year it sold six thousand copies, and he told me to hurry up and finish the sequel while my name was still relevant. I did as he said, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with some of the narrative short cuts I had to take to make my first hard deadline.

But he was right. Releasing my sequel novel A World without Logic kept my name in the mouths of literary critics. That book put me on the map as they say. Over one hundred thousand copies sold worldwide by its second year. It was on the New York Times best seller list for almost a whole year! Life couldn’t have been more magical during those years.

A sea of book tours, talk show interviews, and even the start of a movie deal.

But nothing lasts forever, including popularity. Only five years after the release of my sequel novel and I was old news.

I didn’t have any inspiration to write more books in my genre so I tried writing outside my comfort zone. I did blogs, short story competitions, poetry, and even tried my hand at writing and illustrating a children’s book. None of these satisfied me, and the bills kept piling up. I was far past living beyond my means.

And so my agent connected me to the editor of this well established, literary magazine Ready Easy! They got their start in the UK and are now the biggest online literary magazine in the EU. Many new authors battle tooth and nail in their short story competitions to get a coveted spot in their monthly magazine.

My name is meant to spark more interest in America and their new section called “Famous Fictioneers.” And that hard deadline is meant to ensure that at least one of my stories is picked to put in the section.

Which is crazy to me! If you hired me to be one of the famous authors, then why does my work need to be judged worthy of being in the magazine?

Whatever. The pay is too much to ignore and I’ve already sold my dream house to some company that’s going to make a new shopping plaza. I don’t want to downgrade anymore. Is that too prideful? Maybe, but I am who I am and I like the comforts I’ve grown accustom to over the years.

It has been only two months since I’ve started and I’m already out of ideas. Being forced to be creative is honestly the worst. I wouldn’t wish it on any of my fellow authors.

There has to be something I haven’t written about. Some tiny thread of a story line that I can spin into five thousand words. But what?

God I hate not being inspired. The writer’s block is hitting hard this week and its Friday. I piddled away the early morning for an extended work out to try and get the juices flowing, but all that did was keep me on the couch for an extra hour. Now it is ten in the morning.

Ten hours until my deadline and not a morsel of inspiration can be found in my mess of a desk.

Ugh! I don’t know what to do! I hate this pressure to perform! Dance monkey, dance! People expect those that struck gold to keep on digging it out, and it’s not fair! Maybe they should try to find their own gold!

Billions of people on this planet! Someone else must have a story worth telling. Why am I the one that needs to tell it?

Like being splashed with ice cold water, a wave of chilling inspiration hits me. I remember when my sister and I would sit at the local park and make-up stories about random strangers we saw. It was fun to try and guess what kind of lives they lived based on their appearance, mannerisms, and what they were doing the brief moments we observed them.

I can write a story about someone doing that! I’ll call it The Lives of Strangers.

For the next eight hours I sat outside on my porch in my large, plush, green reading chair with a fresh notebook and my favorite note taking pen.

I watched couples walk by hand-in-hand. Some would giggle as I heard fun, flirty conversations between them. Their hearts swelling with new love. Others were more stoic as if the mere presence of their loved one next to them was enough. Time had tested their relationship, but their love was stronger.

Next, I saw an uncountable amount of families in their large vans slowly driving by in search of their Airbnb by the beach that I’m sure they were massively overcharged for their weekend. The parents were often spitting at each other or the kids in the back. I like to imagine it was because they had various misadventures on their drive that caused grief, tension and drama.

One tan van even pulled over in front of my porch. I saw a man get out and yell “If you think you know where you’re going then you drive!”

Then another man got out from the passenger side and shouted “I will! And I’ll do it without rear ending THREE cars at THREE different red lights!” The two exchanged seats and then sped off into what I’m sure will be a very tense vacation.

Later, after various summer programs let out, a bunch of teenagers would come crashing down in whatever beater car their nepotism level could afford. Their cheers, jeers and gears heard from a mile away as they take on the world with their youth and optimism.

As the afternoon turned into late evening and people got out of their day jobs, I saw a larger variety of people in interesting arrangements. Runners of varying age, gender, and body types. All doing their best to achieve their goals with each labored step. Dog walkers with even more variety of dogs than people. Elderly people out for a leisurely stroll down memory lane. Stray animals looking for their dinner.

I look down at my watch and it is 6:30pm.

Yikes! Got lost in my observations. Time to get to work! I stand up and stretch like I’m a cat waking up from a sunbath. Then I skip over to my laptop, pull my desk up into time-to-get-down-to-business mode, and I write.

My fingers glide over the keyboard. The tip-tapping away of each key creating a rhythmic cadence that urges me forward.

Words pour onto the blank word document like rain trickling down a window on a stormy day.

Maybe hard deadlines aren’t so bad after all. I wouldn’t have been forced to remember my favorite childhood game if it wasn’t for it.

So thanks, Steve. I guess.

I look at the clock and it reads “7:30pm.” Just enough time to give this baby a read over for grammar, then I can send it over to my editor.

I would like to amend my advice to new authors from earlier. Obviously, if you know you don’t work well with hard deadlines, then don’t work for someone that will give you them. However, sometimes when we challenge ourselves is when we find the greatest inspiration.

When we are forced to really delve into the pool of our creativity, and see that it isn’t as deep as we thought we are pushed to dig deeper. Make more room for things we might be uncomfortable with at first, but learn to love. Maybe even uncover lost memories that were once precious to us.

So if you want to grow as not just a writer, but a creator, then I recommend hard deadlines. Weekly if you can. It worked for me.

Happy creating, my fellow “Famous Fictioneers.”