I have five more days to make my final revisions on my book manuscript for Herald Press. Tick-Tock – Today, Tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, then my deadline set for Saturday September 15.
There’s not much time left for me to procrastinate.
Why did we choose a Saturday deadline when the Herald Press office is closed then anyway? Monday the 17th would give me two more precious days.
Yet why stretch it out? Why not just write and get it done!
Last year I attended a lecture/reading by award-winning Canadian writer David Adams Richards. On teaching students to write, he said:
My main thing is just to finish the story or poem or whatever they’re working on . . . most of them will not be great writers I don’t think, but still what they’re doing is worthwhile.
I stood in line afterward to get his autograph on my copy of Lines in the Water: A Fisherman’s Life on the Miramichi (and no, I still don’t want to go fly-fishing, but I love how he writes about it).
I thanked him for his writing advice “just to finish,” and he replied:
Well, why not finish? It may not be the greatest thing in the world, but then again it might be, and you never know it might spark someone or something else.
So okay, it’s time to take his advice and finish. . . .
Writing/Reflection Prompt: What is waiting for you to finish?
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April Yamasaki 
Maybe I need to get this book to give to my grad students? Sounds like good advice.
I’m not sure if that piece of advice appears anywhere else in print, but it has certainly stuck with me, and I’m still trying to put it into practice!
This advice certainly resonates with me! I’m using deadlines to force completion also, April. Blessings as you make your work the best it can be within the constraints that are yours.