It's Not OK
August 2, 2002
7:08 a.m.
I had an eye-opening experience last weekend. It had to do with how I work, and how hard I work, and it was administered by the combined visions and experiences of me and my friend Lisa Silverthorne. I decided, you see, that I wasn't working very hard any more. That shocked me. I tried to argue with myself. I pointed to my progress over the past year--a novel and a few stories here and there--and said I was doing great. But the truth spoke more clearly. This past Sunday I even went back into my Daily Persistence archives and noted the pattern. What I saw was a bunch of entries that said something like "I wanted to get X accomplished, and I tried, but came up a little short. Oh, well. That's okay. I'll get it done tomorrow." When did I fall off the wagon, eh? When did it become okay to miss deadlines? I felt like the proverbial frog that gets boiled in the slowly overheating kettle of water. It made me mad, actually. It all started the week before when I finished a short story in two days. I felt a euphoria with that completion, and realized that part of that euphoria was merely focused on the fact that I had done something I had set out to do. The fact that the story was a pretty useful first draft just added to it. Deadlines are our friends. It's not okay to miss a deadline. This knowledge is something I lost somewhere. And so there I was, peeved at myself last weekend and realizing that I had to work differently. What did I do? The obvious. I knuckled down and gave myself a deadline: Fix Glamour of the God-Touched by Friday. I started Sunday. It's no surprise that I got into it so deeply and had my revelation Sunday night. Today's Friday. Fifteen minutes ago I finished fixing it. It's good work, too. I like it. The book is a lot better for it. But even if it wasn't I would still feel pretty danged good.   Have a great day.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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