We had the absolute pleasure of having author Shelley Sackier write a guest post for The Nerd Daily about deadlines—a struggle all authors face, but in truth, is universal to all. Shelley’s latest book The Antidote, which is an incredible YA fantasy novel, was released earlier this month.
Shelley Sackier is the author of The Freemason’s Daughter (HarperCollins 2017), Dear Opl (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky 2015), and the upcoming novel, The Antidote (HarperCollins 2019). She writes both middle grade and YA fiction. She visits schools to illuminate the merits of embracing failure just like NASA and to further her campaign to erect monuments to all librarians.
Website: www.shelleysackier.com | Facebook: @ShelleySackierBooks | Twitter: @ShelleySackier
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Written by Shelley Sackier
I have uttered one phrase so often the last few years it has become as familiar to me as my own name, except it’s usually followed by a giant sigh or a wide-eyed look of panic. It is:
I have a deadline.
Currently, it rattles off the tongue as regularly as one might say, “I have a cold,” or “We need milk,” or “I didn’t mind giving that second TED talk, but the third one was a bit of a bear.”
You get my point.
It is mundanely routine.
Whether you’ve got a fixed time to show up for work, or class, or the meeting, or you’ve got only so many minutes before the bus pulls away from the curb, or the plane pulls its wheels from the runway, deadlines surround us all.
The homework is due, the test will begin, the doors will be locked—just a few more self-imposed timed boundaries we float within. And I’m pretty sure most of us have experienced the star-bursting, lung exploding moments where we realize we have fallen below the waterline and are now drowning in The Great Sea of Overdue.
As a writer, nothing would give me more pleasure than to pen a new edict stating that anyone imposing some fresh cutoff date or time restriction that doesn’t favor us by falling under the umbrella of when we say two day shipping we really mean it this time will be faced with the punishment of high treason—hung, drawn, and quartered—your entrails toasted over an open flame while you’re barely conscious enough to watch it being barbequed in front of you. (Okay, it may be true that I’m spending too much time researching my next YA historical fiction, as it’s bleeding into my everyday life, but I’m serious about the whole due date debacle).
My workspace is small. Purposefully so. Simply to induce that same calming feeling that miraculously occurs in newborn infants when you swaddle those suckers up like a human cannoli. There is no space for flailing, injurious arms, no room for every assignment to be on display, and not enough expanse to encourage the lying down beneath my desk for a quick mid-day kip or the body collapsing posture of giving up altogether.
In fact, much of the space beneath my desk is occupied by assignments that can be ignored until next month and will serve me better acting in the position of foot ottoman.
Paper is everywhere. Attached to the papers are brightly colored sticky notes with due dates on them.
Calendars are taped to the walls. Last day benchmarks are highlighted in neon colors or sometimes old grocery store stickers for children. Most of them say things like Maybe broccoli doesn’t like you either, or Pinch your pennies like you pinch your sister and have nothing to do with the D-day for the copy editor of my latest manuscript. But still, I think I’d rather see a picture of a head of broccoli than a picture of the editor with a word bubble saying, “There is so much wrong here, I don’t know where to begin.”
Nuff said.
Some deadlines are not hard deadlines, but usually they’re ones that do not apply to my efforts. People with heftier job descriptions get to blur the edges of their dates, whereas my notices show up with blaring sirens, a photographer to witness my failure, and enough guilt to ensure my therapist will be able to upgrade his seat on his next flight for the cruise I also paid for.
One of these days, I’d like to know what it feels like to be someone like Mother Nature, who, when I hold my calendar to the sky and reveal the thirty days of time elapsed since her agreed upon announcement of Spring, simply blows me a raspberry and creates yet another hard freeze that shrivels even the meritorious efforts of the hardiest of daffodils.
On the flipside, I have found a couple areas where deadlines are flexible. Booking that annual dentist appointment—because he’s expensive and visits are time-consuming, plus how many working teeth does one mouth truly need? Visiting my optometrist—because ditto to the first two parts, plus squinting is the new Warby Parker. And the replacement of cat litter. One just simply needs to recalibrate one’s definition of breathable air.
I suppose if I’m going to be honest, deadlines also create a sense of necessary urgency for many of us. It’s likely I’d still be working on my first book had someone not shouted, “Taking three months to switch out two adverbs is not going to make a difference! Your book is done.” I love the feeling of accomplishment, just not the giant hamster wheel of heart palpitating turbulence fueled by the jet-fuel strength coffee needed to acquire it.
No doubt due dates and deadlines will be the status quo for an indefinite amount of time—at least for me. If my future plays out as I hope, I will continue to pump out books that will be not only life-fulfilling but life-sustaining.
In fact, I’d probably die a happy woman and consider my life well-lived if my tombstone’s epitaph read:
Shelley Sackier
Deadline
Deadline
Deadline
Flatline
