There’s something I’ve noticed recently. Now that I’m being forced to, I’m writing faster. And better.
If I have a one-day deadline, I have to do it in one day. I don’t have time to sit around and wonder if I’m motivated enough, I don’t have time to research for five days, I don’t have time to wait for someone to respond to emails, and instead have to call them and do the interview right there and then.
I wasn’t inefficient to begin with, but I do remember that as a new writer, I would see a call for submissions and most of the time, I wouldn’t submit, because I didn’t have anything to say.
Recently, an editor wrote to me assigning a 500-word personal essay. They’d asked several people to contribute these small essays for a big feature they were planning, and I’d have to stay within the word and topic limits.
Fine, except, have you ever tried writing an essay to a prompt? It’s very difficult!
I used to try all the time. Oh, Chicken Soup for the Soul is looking for romance essays for their new book. I should write one. And then, five days before deadline, I’d be sitting there with no ideas and no way to start.
The same thing happened this time, except that there was nothing I could do about it. I had to write– good or bad, slow or fast. I had a topic, a word count, and a date of delivery.
So I did it. Easily, too. What the heck was all that fuss over the last six years about?
Here’s what I think happened: the choice was taken away from me. I delivered and I got paid. Or I didn’t deliver and I lost a fabulous opportunity.
Imagine if the editor of a Chicken Soup for the Soul anthology asked you to submit something that would surely get published. You would, wouldn’t you? No matter what, you’d get your butt on the chair and write that thing and submit it two days early.
So for all of you who don’t currently have assignments, pretend that you do. Pretend that someone’s hired you to write that essay, that feature or that op-ed and your deadline is one day away.
Do it, and then come tell me how you did.