Monday, February 23, 2009

What inspires you?

It's Monday morning. The start of another work week, and along with that, I now have the pressure of an all-too-soon deadline hanging over my head!

In a way, it's pretty exciting. Deadlines mean I have a contract, which is cause for celebration right there. =) Plus, I usually work well under pressure, and I've been crazy-early with every other deadline I've had so far with this publisher.

However, I'm eager to get busy and carve out that big dent in this round of revisions so I'll feel a LITTLE more confident as time passes.

When you have a deadline, whether writing related or personal-life related, what inspires you to get busy? What convinces you to take the plunge into the project despite feeling overwhelmed or even helpless at times? What urges you on? Is it the glimpse of the end result? The relieved feeling that you know will come at the end? Or are you naturally a goal oriented person?

For me, I think its keeping my word. I said I would do this in a certain time slot, and I want to hold to that. Also, I've always been a bit of a pleaser - so I would love to continue to impress my editor with early-met deadlines and keep a good reputation in the publishing house!

Do you work well under pressure, or do you cave? What treats help keep you pushing forward? For me, it's a giant box of rainbox Nerds and a ton of Diet Coke. =)

Pray for me during my lunch hour today that I will be productive on my revisions!

5 comments:

Georgiana Daniels said...

Hooray for lunch time revisions!! I hope/pray you do carve out a chunk today.

Your talk of deadlines reminds me of taxes. Ugh. Not sure what's motivating me there, but I suppose it's time =P

Erica Vetsch said...

Keeping my word is important, that and killing myself trying to make everyone happy.

What really motivates me too, is having a plan. Once I know what to do, I work in a straight line to get to the goal.

Probably one of the hardest things for me about the whole publishing industry was not knowing what to do next, not having a checklist of things to prove that I was on the write track. If I could've just checked things off my list on the way to publication, it would've been so much easier.

POV skills = check
Writer's conference = check
First dozen rejections = check

But it doesn't work that way.

At least with a revision letter you have a list...a looooooong list of things to check off. :)

Betsy St. Amant said...

I do enjoy my checkmarks!! hehe

Eileen Astels Watson said...

For me, it's the commitment, definitely. Though it doesn't make it easy at times. But I always met work deadlines because people were depending on me to do so.

I'm praying for you, Betsy. An early submission would be so awesome for you and the editors.

Anonymous said...

The end result motivate me. The little I can do (due to back surgeries) makes me motivated to see a change in areas I can finally do again. "Look what I did today!"