Deadlines

Everyone hates deadlines, don’t they? (Well, except for Douglas Adams, who loves the whooshing sound they make as they go by.)

Anyhow, as I type this I have just over two hours before I have to get ready for work. Two hours to finish this blog post, and to finish editing a flash fiction piece for a contest and get it formatted and submitted.

The contest was launched a month ago, and no, I haven’t procrastinated writing for it. I’ve been thinking about it, coming up with and discarding multiple ideas, making several false starts that all want to take more than the allotted 300 words.

(I should seriously put together an anthology of failed flash fiction pieces.)

Last night (well, in the wee hours of the morning) I started writing with no clear concept of where I was going. I discarded the first start, started over, and ended up with something 310 words long that needed two names and a clearer ending.  But it was good enough – it was enough to start with.

So I saved it and went to bed (about three o’clock in the morning), scribbled a note to myself to make a change, and slept.  Now it’s down to 295 words and I’m taking a brief break before reading it over one more time.

And, oh, yeah. It needs a title. *sigh*

But all of this has been made possible by a deadline.

A real deadline, not one that I self-imposed.

One I can’t let go whooshing by.