Meeting deadlines...

Photo by Markus Winkler on UnsplashSS 141 Meeting Deadlines

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All this week, and part of last, I’ve been madly editing a memoir I wrote at a six-week writer’s residency. I wrote 600 pages. I started with a hand-written list of the stories I wanted to tell. I set a goal of thirty pages a day, either hand- or type-written.

When I returned to civilization, I faced the problem of retyping the entire manuscript, or somehow getting them onto a computer (which I didn’t yet own). A couple of month’s later I bought my first Mac, and I found someone who could copy the pages onto the computer and give me a floppy disk.

It was a nightmare. It took me ages to make sense of the pages. Turning them into something on a computer was by no means perfected yet. The pages were spattered with symbols and incorrect letters randomly replacing the correct ones. I typed the hand-written pages to help me live through the process.

I’ve mined the memoir over the years, using the material to write plays, essays, short stories, and poems. I had edited the pages down to a bit under three hundred (almost 90,000 words at 300 pages, meaning I had written 180,000 words in six weeks when I wrote it. Unbelievable to me now.)

But this year, this month in fact, an opportunity came up to possibly have it published by winning or placing in a writing contest. However, the maximum word count is 60,000 or about 200 pages.

As of this writing, I’ve reduced the word count to 68, 912. Will I make it before the deadline? We’ll see. Will I win or place in the contest? That would be wonderful, but even if not, I plan to finally publish this memoir of my life from age eleven to age sixteen.

Meanwhile, I’ve set aside the play I’ve been working on. I did write a short story (to a prompt) with a writing group, as well as a new poem. I’ll share the story with you here.

The Key to Wait, What Was I Looking For?

Where are my keys? A daily question she asked herself. What's that smell? is another. 
	Today she drove to the park for her walk, and after an hour of enjoying the trees, the grass, the moss, the tiny unexpected flowers in bloom, she couldn't find her keys. Again.
	She searched all eight of her pockets. She insisted on having pockets on every item of clothing she wore. Four pockets in her jeans, one on her shirt, and three in her anorak.
	She found a cookie, several Kleenex, one Tum, a worry stone, her wallet, and a grocery list, but no keys. And no phone either.
	She couldn't even call a friend to help her look. She took a deep breath, blew her nose, and began retracing her steps.
	She focused on a few feet in front and beside her every step she took. She found two quarters, a dime, a nickel, and several pennies. They didn't even make pennies any more. What would she do with all those pennies she'd saved?
	She found six pony tail elastics. One comb with several missing teeth. 
	She saw a tee shirt, a pair of pants, and one shoe, but she didn't pick them up.
	By the time she returned to the car another hour had passed, and she was hungry. 
	As she leaned against the driver's side door, suck on that Tum, she looked down and saw her keys leaning against the front tire. 
	(Written in twelve minutes to the prompt "suddenly you find 	a new key on your key ring")

Please leave comments. Do you use deadlines in any way? Do you write to prompts? Are you having happy holidays? Looking forward to kicking this year to the curb? I can’t wait to hear from you.