Deadline Day

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I've always worked better with a deadline. Without one I tend to find other, more important, things to do.
Like filing. Or baking. Or reordering my bookshelves.
It's not that I don't try. I sit down, type some words. Delete them. Type some more. Read them. Panic that they're flat, lifeless. Delete them. Type some more. Read them. Panic that they're flat, lifeless. Leave them cause I need something concrete to show for my time.
A deadline takes away that luxury. I have to get those words down. Flat and lifeless? So what? They can be rewritten later. Filing? Let it pile up. Baking? Buy it. Bookshelves? Well, a girl has to have some standards.
This last deadline was tight even by my standards. I had three months. That was the smallest amount of time I'd had to turn in a book so far.
So of course I frittered away a month. My bookshelves looked lovely.
And then I wrote five chapters. In a month. Half the book done. Great.
Only they were flat. Lifeless.
So I started again. From scratch. With a month to go.
50,000 words. One month. 12,500 words a week. That was 1700 a day. Written and edited. Easy!
A weekend away with the daughter, some busy days at the day job. The actual day job. RSI (officially tennis elbow. Who would have thought watching tennis could be so dangerous?). All ate into my schedule. The daily word count went up and up.
Until it was 6 days, 16,000 words and a line edit to go.And Wimbledon was on.
Somehow. With late nights, constant words, editing during my lunch time at the day job. No Wimbledon.
Somehow I got it done.
I have no perspective. No idea if it's good, bad or just plain ugly.
It's with my editor. There will of courser be edits. They may well be substantial. But I made my deadline and that feels pretty damn good.
And in time for the second week of Wimbledon... (ignores new tighter deadline.)