Deadlines suck | The Wonderful World of Was
I'm back. I'd have been back sooner if I dealt with deadlines better
Welcome back to the Wonderful World of Was, my lovely people. And for those of you who’ve subscribed, I hope you’ll welcome me back to your inbox.
For anybody who hasn’t kept count of the time I’ve been away, it’s been six months (give or take a few days) since my last edition. For a “monthly” newsletter, I haven’t exactly been hitting my marks. Really, we could go back to the latter half of 2023, and look at my failure to complete my latest draft of Luminary as a warning sign.
So, instead of considering this as a monthly newsletter as we enter the second half of the year, let’s just consider it an ad hoc newsletter. I’ll endeavour to get them out on a semi-regular basis from here on out—sometimes more than once a month, sometimes less, and hopefully, never again following a six-month delay—albeit shorter, sharper, and with less rambling.
But, I hear you begging to know, why haven’t you been writing to us?
Well, the answer is quite simple…
Deadlines suck
The paragraphs that follow are going to elaborate on the suckage of deadlines, which is unfortunately one of life’s truisms. If you simply wanted the answer without my ramblings, feel free to scroll past them and to my links to the books I’ve reviewed through the intervening six months. There’s some totally entertaining reads that I can heartily recommend you dedicate some time to.
My day job—otherwise known as part of the real world where I’m not convincing myself I’m an author—is packed full of deadlines. You can probably look at my job (and many other jobs) and write a two-word description: “meet deadlines.” Outside of work, there are also deadlines that, according to life, must also be met. For some people, meeting them is easy. I’m not one of those people. I’m the type of person who’s far more comfortable ambling along at my own pace, which generally involves as much procrastination as I can possibly pack in. Sure, when push comes to shove, and it’s time to race to the finish line, I can bring it. It gets the adrenaline pumping, and I do my best work when I’m in an adrenaline-fuelled frenzy.
Hell, as I sit here, punching this newsletter out, I’m glancing at the time: 12:55 am, and I’ll be logging in to the day job in around seven and a half hours. I still need to finish writing this, then edit it, and then schedule it to go live before I even consider sleep. It’s how I roll. I could have been in this position three hours ago, but procrastination, baby. It’s also how I roll.
However, rolling like that hasn’t worked quite so well this year. At least not with my writing.
You may—or may not—be aware that I’ve been writing reviews fairly consistently for the last couple of years. These started at about one a week, and then grew to up to three a week. Whilst doing this, I was still writing and editing two novels, writing short stories and posting various updates on my website. I was productive as fuck. Sure, there were scrambles and late nights and many an hour spent lambasting myself as not being as productive as I wanted to be. But I got through a lot.
And then the productivity ground to a halt. Maybe in balancing that output with a full time job and family commitments, I would inevitably hit a wall. Maybe it wasn’t so inevitable. Inevitability aside, it happened. And here we are, half way through the year, where I’ve neglected my novels, I’ve neglected articles for the website, and I’ve neglected you, dear reader.
At least I’ve been writing book reviews, right?
Well, yes. But not the way I’ve wanted to.
If it’s targets for the novels, or timeframes to post short stories, maintaining regular output for the website, or getting this newsletter out each month, these deadlines were of my own making. But I haven’t even been hitting the deadlines for my reviews, which I’ve agreed with the book’s authors. Those are commitments, and while I’m getting most out reasonably close to the agreed date, I’m still missing them.
(Dare I mention that at the start of the year, I decided to cut down to closer to one review a week to combat this very issue?)
Whether it’s reading the book, or writing the review, I’m still procrastinating to the point where those deadlines zoom straight past me. It’s not a great feeling, especially because I know that with a little more focus, I could have hit those deadlines. With a little more focus, I could have hit them, and worked on my novels, and written some short stories, and posted on the website, and kept up this newsletter.
But I didn’t.
And truthfully, I won’t be hitting all those marks again in the short term.
Longer term, I’ll no doubt get back into the swing of it and start hitting more marks, but let’s not commit to all of them.
And you know what? This is the secret I haven’t been willing to tell myself, but I’ll tell you: that’s okay.
Most of my deadlines were self-imposed, but they don't need to be. I can have targets, but if I don’t meet them, life will continue, and I’ll keep working on them. That’s okay, too. At the end of the day, I need to be kinder to myself about this shit. I’ll get Till Death Do Us Party out. I’ll get Luminary out.
I’ll even get some of the other ideas I have out. But I won’t get them all out. That’s also okay. Even if I happened across eleventy billion dollars and could hide away at my desk writing day and night, I still wouldn’t get them all out. I have ideas that I’d love to get out into the world faster than I could ever write them. Hell, faster than Stephen King could write them, and I haven’t found a dark master to sell my soul to for the ability to write at his speed. Yet; there’s always hope.
All I can do is what I can do. Sometimes it’s because there’s a very real limit. Sometimes it’s because I’m me. I just need to remember it’s okay.
And if you ever struggle in feeling you’re not accomplishing as much as you want, that’s okay, too. You’re human. Being human means we can be right royal shits, but all too often, we can be shits to ourselves. Let’s break the cycle and chill the fuck out.
Book reviews
If you did just scroll through that last section, you probably missed the part where I said I haven’t been hitting my review deadlines. Regardless of missing so many of them, I’ve still reviewed a decent number.
As we jump into the list, I’ve included links for a reason. Not only are there more of my words which you’re sure to not be at all sick of after reading this newsletter, they include some thoughts about the book, and may give you an idea of whether you’d like to read them. So, click through to the reviews, grab any books that appeal to you, and help out some people who are creating art without the big publishers behind them (all reviews are in order, except where I’ve grouped multiple books by the author).
Never Be a Saint and Motherland by Mark Jonathan Runte
Halls of Fire by Christian Cura
The Secret Order of the Scepter and Gavel by Nicholas Ponticello
Paladin and Necromancer by Adrienne Miller
Being by Kedi Daniels
Sinta, Sorceress-Detective by Sedigitus Swift
Shadows of the Dark Realm by Tyler Edwards
The Disposable Soma Trilogy: The Disposable Soma, Psittacide and Bubblequake by Zeb Haradon
Mannigan: A Speck of Light by L. Ross Coulter
2040 by Robert Albo
Medusa’s Son by Ian Mitchell-Gill
Another Kind of Devil by N.B. Clarke
The Witch and the Wolf by Erik Julkin
BattleFront and The Last Sentrys by TC Marti
Third Name’s a Charm by various
Sheg by Dima Tsyptsiura
Starlet by Danger Slater
Remnant by K.R. Solberg and C.R. Jacobson
Kakapo and the Fiery Sundown Case of the Berjudas Hellhole Triangle by Ilbert d’Orcence
Odd Devils by Zwahk Muchoney
Bleeding Hart by Conor Metz
TTFN,
Was