Week 8 and a bit...

It had to happen. Life finally caught up with me this week and the plan to complete last week’s chapter was left in tatters as real life intervened and sent my weekly plan to life’s shredder.

I suppose I should not complain. The reason I was unable to produce my quota was that I was involved in a book launch – one I had edited, as opposed to written – and the ever-stretching elastic that normally contains all the things I need to do in a week, finally gave up the ghost and snapped.

Come Sunday night – my normal deadline – I had only written 700 words of the 2500 I was aiming for. I had to raise the white flag of authorship and switch off the computer, skulking shamefaced to bed.

As if I needed a lesson in the importance of deadlines, once I accepted I was not going to hit my word length, it all went pear shape. I didn’t write another word for two days.

While not exactly up there with the day J.D. Sallinger decided he’d had enough of the whole “publishing your work to widespread critical acclaim” thing, it was still a localised disaster.

Or was it?

As it turned out, when I did finally get down to finishing the chapter, I found that I was writing with a renewed vigour. It’s amazing what a break – even just a few days – from a predefined routine can do for the creative juices.

It turns out that missing a self-imposed deadline once in a while, is not quite the calamity it initially seemed.

Of course, as the monk said to the tailor who was showing off his new horsehair cloth, probably better not to make a habit out of it.