“I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.” — Douglas Adams

Monday morning and we’re back at the grindstone. Funny, but I’m dealing with whoosing deadlines in my day job as well as with NaNoWriMo and a few other things. Our end of the year process has gotten started late, so any deadlines we might have outlined back in July have long since vanished. Our contractor promised to have the port-a-potty removed from our front yard over a week ago; it’s still here.

Even with all this, though, the writing continues. Notes scribbled in margins during meetings, typed into the phone on the sly. Lunch is my meal and my portable keyboard with my iPad, the evenings are making certain everything’s synced in the computer and I haven’t lose any of the important bits. And while my NaNo is going really well this year, one eye is always on the clock, painfully aware that the 30th is drawing ever closer.

I hate pressure. It’s the feeling that tightens your shoulders and makes you ache by the end of the day. Without that pressure, though, there is no sense of urgency, nothing to move you forward. There is no conflict, and just as we’re approaching the point where we suffer the annual “My writing sucks!” moment, we need that struggle between us and the calendar to make certain we move forward. If nothing else, deadlines are our signposts along the way.