There Is Always A Way

I have a deadline looming. I just submitted 20,000 words and have 8 days to finish the rest of my manuscript. 25,000 more words. I am averaging about 10,000 per week. I’m not good at Math, but I’m pretty sure that means that I am running out of time.

I called my editor to renegotiate a later deadline today. Can I have another two weeks? No? One Week? Uh…hello? How about an extra couple of days? No go. This sucker has got to be pounded out in time for Valentine’s Day. Which means October 1st is firm and final.

What does that mean? That for the first time in as long as I can remember, I may have to finish something on time. I haven’t been so good at it lately. I tend to self-sabotage and am not so good at the positive self-talk. I am realizing that I have been living inside my comfort zone for a really long time. Simply put, if something is really hard, I just won’t do it. Mostly because I seem to have spent my twenties working MY ASS off with no pay-off. So I just stopped working my ass off. Except that I’m not 20 anymore. And this is something that I really, really want. And. There *is* a huge pay-off. AND. The hard work will be worth it. Truth be told, I’m also afraid of failing. So basically, in the past, I stopped trying. Because then if something didn’t get done, it was because ‘I didn’t feel like it’ and not because I can’t set goals and see them trough. Took the pressure off.

So, head down, ass up. I am going to finish this. To prove it to myself. And it is going to be good. And I am just going to keep telling myself that over and over and over again.

Twenty-five thousand words in 8 days. Seem impossible? The new loop running through my head is this: There is always a way.

One of my friends wrote an entire manuscript (50,000 words) in a month. Because she felt like it. She has a husband and two kids. No editor breathing down *her* neck. Nope. Just wrote a book for the heck of it.

If she can do it, then so can I.

I'm out of commish for a while.

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