Reaching the line

"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to hang in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully," was Dr  Samuel Johnson's take on a deadline. Not something we are likely to face, even if we consider writing in the same vein as Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of Liverpool Football Club, who considered the game to be more important than life and death.

Chris Baty, founder and chief instigator of NaNoWriMo considers the dead line to be the writer's secret weapon. Douglas Adams  always enjoyed the sound of them whooshing along as they sped past.

Deadlines, not facing the hangman, or speeding by, but a limit. Self set, and policed, by the independent. There's the rub, self control makes them potentially flexible. Ideally they should give enough time for the job to be completed with a smidgeon of leeway, and not come up like you're running at a brick wall, even if it can move ahead of you.

The next deadline comes up tonight as Read an eBook week closes its doors and the discount code (RAE25)  at smashwords expires. The alternative codes remain valid,  on this blog and  at cheekyseagull.co.uk for the individual Grange Thrillers.

Which brings me to the plan, it's a bit formal calling it a plan at this stage, more a what am I going to do next arrangement.

Two projects,  both of them Grange Thrillers, Gone to Earth and  ClearWater, both unfinished and frankly, Gone to Earth needs a kick start, so, in need of a dead line, I've given myself a prompt. April, twenty five thousand words and hopefully a first draft put to rest by the end of the month. The protagonists are mustering for the final denouement and the scene will shortly be set, once Josie Burke has figured out the necessary deployment.

The plan is to unpublish Gone to Earth, to pull it offline until the work is finished. Once that's dealt with Clear Water takes the head and will be the focus.

When the time comes I'll keep you posted as to how things are progressing.