September Dreams and Deadlines

It's September in a couple of days, as I write this. Mornings are a little cooler, evenings are a little darker, and I am drawn to the displays of pristine stationery in all the stores.

Yes, I might be nearly 60, but I still have those back-to-school vibes every year at this time.

I loved going back to school. I loved the new notebooks, the new clothes, the new timetable and the new unsullied track record, as I hadn't yet failed to turn in homework or turn up late for class. That would inevitably change, but for the first few days, I reveled in the Fresh Start.

Years later and I feel the same way. Fresh Starts are way easier in September than January I think. We've just enjoyed the wild freedom of not having to wear socks for months, eating outside and chilled beverage on the back deck every single night, and now there is the scratchy feeling in the back of our brains, reminding us of commitment and responsibility and deadlines. Now is the time to buckle down. Achieve goals. Write books. Or is that just me?

Being a plotter rather than a pantser – meaning that I plan my books as far as I am able (doesn’t mean the plan works) – I feel familiar with to-do lists and deadlines.

I now work for a magazine, so my life is all about deadlines.

And that’s the thing about writing and publishing. We harness our wild creative spirit for our storytelling, but if we want our stories to get out into the world, then we need to have a grasp on the least romantic part of being an author – which is the dull business tasks.

I would hazard a guess that when you – like me- dreamed about becoming a writer and then a published author, spreadsheets, business plans and marketing strategies were not on your bingo card. We got into this because a character kept turning up in our consciousness, or the perfect scene played out in our minds and we wanted to know what happened next.

But unfortunately, for today’s indie author – and to some extent, even traditionally published authors, the boring planning stuff is part of the job, and can’t be ignored.

The Myth of the Muse – and why you shouldn’t wait for him (or her)

True artist don’t sell out, right? They don’t do it for the money, they do it for the art, the creativity – and only their creative muse tells them what to do.

That might have true when writers and artists had patrons who paid their bills. If you have a patron then stop reading now. This is not for you.

If you don’t, like most of us, and you have the dream of someday writing books for a living, then waiting for your muse to give your permission to write, is not going to work.

Plans, deadlines, admin – all those boring, non-creative activities – those are the bedrock foundation of a creative career.

Admin isn't the enemy of creativity. Admin is what lets creativity keep happening on a schedule that pays the bills.

Deadlines are a love letter to your future self

Here's a reframe I like: a deadline isn't a cage, it's a promise you make to the person you'll be in six weeks, who will otherwise be sitting there in a panic with half a manuscript and a cover reveal already announced.

Deadlines force decisions. That subplot you've been circling for three chapters because you can't decide if it matters? A deadline decides for you. Some of the best instincts I've had as a writer came from being backed into a corner by my own calendar — no time to overthink it, just write the true thing and move on. Creativity loves constraints. Total freedom is actually kind of paralyzing; a blank page with no boundaries is scarier than a blank page with a delivery date.

The trick is making deadlines that are yours — built around how you actually work, not some idealized version of a writer who cranks out 3,000 words before breakfast every day. If Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are eaten by a day job, then your writing plan needs to know that, instead of pretending those days don't exist and then feeling like a failure every week when they don't produce pages.

Plans and strategy aren't the opposite of instinct

I think the fear a lot of writers have is that if they get too strategic — thinking about series arcs, reader retention, which subgenre actually sells, where the drop-off happens between book one and book two — the joy will leak out of it. It'll start to feel like a job instead of a calling.

But strategy, done right, is just a way of protecting the time and energy you need for the fun part. When you know your launch calendar six months out, you're not scrambling to write ad copy the week a book comes out — you get to be all in on the actual writing during the actual writing season. When you understand your numbers, you stop guessing which projects deserve your finite creative hours and start knowing. That's not a betrayal of the art. That's stewardship of it.

So how do you actually balance it?

A few things that help, in no particular order:

Separate the seasons. You don't have to be the strategist and the storyteller in the same hour. Some writers do admin in the morning and fiction at night, or admin on set days and fiction on others. Trying to toggle between "what's my Q3 ad spend" and "what does grief sound like in this character's voice" in the same fifteen-minute window is a recipe for doing both badly.

Let the plan be a servant, not a master. A good plan exists so you don't have to think about logistics — you just follow the steps you already worked out when your brain was calm and clear-eyed, instead of reinventing the wheel under deadline stress. That frees up mental space for the actual writing.

Build in slack. Every plan needs a little room for the muse actually turn up and screw us your plans. If your schedule has zero cushion, one bad week turns into a crisis. If it has some breathing room, then a few bad days are just some much needed spontaneity.

Creativity and planning are not rivals. They are team -mates working together to make the dream happen.

So, I need to harness this 'back-to-school' vibe I’m feeling and get my plans in order for the rest of the year.  But not just yet. I have a couple of days in flipflops, and a few more cold beverages to go. I’ll start tomorrow.