The holiday season past and the new year upon us, our group is joyfully adamant about progress for our project. We are starting to refine our ideas about what exactly it is that we want to submit to represent ourselves in the anthology, and also redefine what it means to have a poem be the thematic beacon for the project. How strongly should the submitted work be tied to The Angled Road? Should our finished piece be inextricably linked to the poem, or just touch on the idea that we all face unknown turns in our lives? We’ve decided that we will lean more towards the latter, although, we think it should be clear how our writings relate to Emily’s poem without having to “draw a map.” We have also set some clear deadlines, and come up with a way to support each other before final submissions. We’ve decided to have an initial pre-edit with one other group member, so that feedback can be received and considered before the piece is presented to the rest of the group. So, before the final submission deadline of February 20^th, each member of the group will be reading and providing feedback for another member. The hope is that this process will reduce anxiety as well as provide a sense of support going into the final editing phase, where feedback will be given by the other members of the group. We’ll let you know how it goes!

So, the question today is, how does the DEADLINE affect your creative process?

Liz Burr-Brandstadt: I do really well with deadlines. As a matter of fact, if I didn’t have one, who knows when I’d be “ready” to write. I don’t feel that a deadline compromises the creativity or quality of my writing—it stimulates it.

Jules Dickinson: My mind is a blank. How long can I procrastinate and still get this done?

Mary Ann Woodruff: Deadlines-I like ‘em. I’m a “J” on the Myers-Briggs –scale, so I like finishing things. Deadlines are a call to completion. Deadlines are friends.

Sue Swanson: The deadline is burned in my brain. I picture the calendar the date and the deadline in caps in the numbered square. Inspiring, motivating, insisting, unforgiving. The deadline is reached, the goal achieved. The next day’s calendar square is empty—relief, joy, peace. Ahhhh!

Greta Climer: The deadline itself is a placeholder. It’s merely there. It awakens my subconscious but simmers while I attend to more pressing matters. The more pressing matters themselves deadlines who are arriving. No longer placeholders. No longer merely there. Now boiling into their own doneness. Because I now care to assemble the parts, craft the dish, cook, stir, taste, season and serve.

Mary Dicker:

I do not believe in deadlines

Someone else makes them up

Someone else wants to impose them on me… How dare they!

So I’ll turn my back and go my own way I want the freedom to focus

I want the freedom to roam I know how to evade rules.

If you are very quiet, no one can find you In the garden of your mind.