Monday, January 25, 2010

Food for Thought


I finally watched the movie "Julie and Julia" this past weekend. It was pretty good, although it did drag in some parts because the screenplay had to weave two different people's lives together. I'd like to read the book now to compare. What most intrigued me was the deadline Julie Powell gave herself -- blogging about cooking more than 500 recipes in 365 days. I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say she succeeded, and landed herself a book deal in the process. (By the way, there is no way I could eat that much butter in one year and live to tell the tale). Maybe I've finally figured out what I'm doing wrong.
I have deadlines with magazine articles I write. But when it comes to anything related to "extracurricular" writing (such as fiction, blogging) I DON'T give myself deadlines for some reason. I've never participated in NaNoWriMo. A one-month deadline terrifies the heck out of me.
I was discussing my lack of personal deadlines with my husband and he reminded me that every spring, I take on some big life-changing project. The past few years has been related to training for different road races, but this year he suggested I finally hammer out my novel April-June, then work on revising it. If I put together a "training" schedule like I did when I trained for my half-marathon, maybe this could work.
Have you ever given yourself deadlines for non-paying work? How did it turn out?

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