without running out of time!

Deadlines!  We have all had them in some fashion or another.

Spelling, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Reading homework assignments with next day deadlines--pretty much everyone had them in grade school.  As we got older, the course names may have changed but we still had deadlines.

Then off to the real world... there isn't a job around that doesn't have some sort of deadline for each and every work tasks.

As a writer, "looming deadlines," is similar to a character making it through the "darkest moment" of a storyline.  If you succeed, there is a happy ending.  If you don't, then you have to deal with trying to make sure you and your editor/publisher/agent have a happy ending by the revised deadline.

My deadline for writing my blog entries is midnight daily.  Some days I make it, others... I don't.  Today, because I'm doing laundry...  Yeah everyone wore their last pair of underwear, socks and pants!   Of course, they waited until 930pm to tell me.  ...I have time to write my blog.

I think it was a conspiracy to make sure I sat down to write my blog.  What do you think?

without characters talking to me

Long ago when I started down the path
of attending writing workshops
a speaker once said that some writers
could hear characters speak to them.
Almost everyone laughed when they heard that,
but there were a hand full I can bet that didn't laugh.

I was in that hand full.
Yesterday, after a long absence I heard one of my characters.
She wanted me to know more about her.

Usually, the characters wait until I'm doing some mundane task
to begin a conversation...
Nine times out of ten, my hands are wet and/or soapy.
Then I have to scramble to dry them, find a pen
and begin to write feverishly fast to keep up
with the dictation on some scrap of paper.

Yesterday though I was fortunately lucky enough
to be standing in a long line at the deli counter...
The character whom I have been struggling with
decided then and there to let me know something
about her... and then more "what if questions" came to me.

Before I knew it, the line at the deli counter
had dwindled down ... and it was my turn.
As soon as my number was called...
She ended our conversation, and I was left standing there
with a grocery list covered with notes...
wondering what I was suppose to order.