Tuesday, February 1, 2011

I’m a person who thrives off of setting and meeting deadlines. But…as a writer, there are times that doing such becomes a monumental task. Right now, for example, I’m working on a project with one of my books that has a multi-leveled collection of requirements, demands and deadlines, with this particular deadline possibly ending sooner than is noted.

Nothing like living in the unknown. LOL.

But being that individual who thrives off of meeting deadlines, I’ve dug in and am attempting to get everything accomplished in a timely fashion, one that will hopefully meet the impending deadline, the real date of which is an illusive mystery at best.

One of the documents needed to fulfill the requirements for this project I’m attempting, is one that I ran by my writing critique group earlier this evening. As a writer, one must adopt the mentality that sometimes you’ll meet your mark while others you’ll fall so far short as to make you question if you got the concept at all. Another thing writers must come to terms with is the ability to not take criticism personally or allow it to defeat them, for that’s not its intention.

For a writer to grow, they must possess the ability to digest and accept constructive criticism. Tonight, I got a healthy dose of that. Not that I’m upset—I’m not. In fact, the comments made and suggestions posed, though completely in the opposite direction from how I’d scribed my piece, were ones that made perfect sense and that tomorrow I’ll readily incorporate.

Will this require but a few tweaks and adjustments? No. Instead, a major rewrite is needed to strengthen the piece to its full potential. So tomorrow, after I’ve gulped down a few mugs of coffee and my mind has come fully online, I’ll write the piece anew, excited to see how it will turn out and beyond grateful for the feedback I received from my fellow writers.

Meanwhile, there is a proverbial enormous clock tick, tick, ticking away in the background, its incessant sound driving me on at a steady pace. Will that pace be quick enough? Could be. But then…it could just as well fall short. Either way, I will be content knowing that I have tackled this project by putting forward my best effort. If that proves to be worthy, then great! If not, well, this is just one project in a long list of others. So if need be, I’ll lick my wounds should I fall short of my goal and carry on.