Deadlines

The weekend had been going so well.

We started off interviewing some really cool RivalFriends on Friday night’s RCM On Tap. Saturday was spent almost entirely on the couch in comfy clothes, catching up on naps and books (yes, folks, I actually took a day off!). Sunday was a powerhouse of editing work: I proofed and prepped the next ten chapters of Sims Saturday and got them in the posting queue, proofed and sent back editing notes for this week’s Fireside Tales to Miggnor, read over and sent suggestions to Sekani for an article he’s working on, and got the tweeter alerts written for the upcoming week. All this on top of the normal prep work and show time for Ghost in the Podcast and watching the first and third installments of our new Youtube series Vampy Builds.

I was on fire. I was excited. I was getting ready to reward myself by tucking in with my book (currently working on Erik Larson’s new one, Dead Wake), when suddenly…

“So what’s tomorrow’s Accidental Podcaster going to be about?”

…

Image credit: Beryl Baker of http://lifeandberyl.blogspot.com

Er. Um. Shit.

The problem was a simple one: I had the outline done three weeks ago. I knew what I was going to write about. I had specific dialogue and thought process and everything ready.

I just hadn’t had time to actually write it.

Most editors I’ve known didn’t start out with editing being their end game. All of them write; most of them set off on literary careers with the idea of being the next Ernest Hemingway or Bob Woodward or, if nothing else, a Stephanie Meyer. To be fair, all of them enjoy the work they do, in spite of the long hours and occasional creative battles. But what drives them – their love of the written word and the English language – is certainly centered more around their own writing. I have an acquaintance, the editor of a local magazine, who confided once that his favorite part of his job were those rare opportunities he had to get out and cover his own stories for a change, rather than always reworking someone else’s.

But the timing, as I said, is the key here. As with all projects done in our fledgling upstart, completion of tasks is at the mercy of the other factors going on in our lives, and prioritization has to take place. I’ve been fortunate in that our team works together better than most groups I’ve ever encountered, and for the most part help one another to be fairly efficient given the limited resources we have. But there are still only twenty-four hours in a day, and two days to a weekend in which to get things done (unless you’re like Killer and have a nice federal contract that celebrates Columbus Day, but I’m not jealous of that. No sir). That said, you enter a sort of love-hate relationship where you try to fit in everything you want most around everything you just need to be done already. Sometimes it works (“Do I really need to do dishes every day? Screw it – paper plates just saved me a half hour.”), sometimes it doesn’t (I’ve learned recently that adequate sleep is in fact a vital part of a person’s well-being).

And sometimes, in the never-ending task list of prioritization, you push things back because you have a plan for it. It won’t take long to do. You just have to get this other thing done first and then you can pound out that other thing real quick and…hrm, now there’s this other thing, but it won’t take long, and then…And the next thing you know, it’s eleven on a Sunday night, you’re in your pajamas getting ready to head to the Land of Nod, and suddenly a random thought floats into your head and shoots a blast of adrenaline to your brain so you start typing words onto your laptop like a madwoman. It happens. But no worries, next week will be better.

You see, I’ve had this column idea sketched out for the past three weeks…