I’ve known for a while now that I need deadlines, and that I respond to them intuitively. After many, many years of sliding for home so far that the grass stains dissolve my uniform like acid, I’ve gotten it down. Partly due to hitting the plate pretty dead square on–and lots of caffeine–I now make most of my deadlines, by the simple psychic technique of somehow counting backwards.

My last achievement was in making a piece of beadwork for my last session with my awesome therapist, whose fellowship had ended. It was a fairly complex project, requiring a long time (and some eyestrain). I worked on it over a couple of weeks, pulling the obligatory just-barely-enough-sleep bit–and triumphantly zapped the last beads into place in her waiting area JUST in time for the session to start.

I’ve been dawdling over a grant I’m writing for a small non-profit I volunteer with–and finally begged for a deadline. I feel much better now. Now I can procrastinate with a purpose.

And now, I’m feeling the gotta-do-this-now urge with the novel. Maybe it’s just the feeling that the vampire obsession can’t last forever. (OK, that’s a completely terrifying concept.) I set myself a somewhat arbitrary deadline of first draft by Thanksgiving–let’s see how we do.