A Good Swift Kick in the Pants

Yep, that's what I've been needing. I did a guest blog today on deadlines (will post a link to it when it goes live next week). What I've been lacking in my writing lately is urgency. I published Super Sargasso in a somewhat-timely fashion because I gave myself a deadline: it had to be available for sale by Marcon.

I used to hold myself accountable to a writing group. For various reasons, members sort of drifted from active participation in the group, which is a normal human thing that happens. But without that passionate group of writers pushing me every week, talking about what they were producing, etc., I let myself get lazy. Since Super Sargasso I've been afloat, picking around in little bits and pieces, writing guest blogs, slowly working on my next novel.

Well, no more. I've thrown two writing deadlines on myself.

1: I will have my second novel, Southpaw Junction, in fully polished glory in time for the Southeast Ohio Writers Conference. (Many thanks to my kick-ass writer friend Laura for the needed push on this one.)

2: I've just joined Columbus Creative Cooperative, and will have a reasonably polished section of my novel ready for critique in time for their July workshop.

Now I have a valuable tool in place to motivate me: public shame if I fail. So then, I should get to it.