the best feeling!

Deadline for my HarperCollins YA: 1/15/06
Today's date: 1/15/06
Most satisfying activity undertaken today: emailing the completed ms of my HarperCollins YA to my editor.

HOORAY!

I am SO not a fan of taking things down to the wire, but I couldn't help it with this book since I didn't get the green light on the story until the middle of the December. Normally, I would be very stressed at the prospect of starting to work on a book less than a month before it's due (I prefer to turn my books IN a month before they are due!), but I worked REALLY hard at staying organized and managing my time, and not getting caught up in the big picture or the "what if" game (like, what if I get the flu and I'm down and out for two weeks??? what if i can't get this story worked out to my satisfaction in the amount of time I have? what if i run into problems with the writing? what if my computer crashes and dies...oh, wait, that actually happened...). I kept focussed on my little daily goals, stayed confident that if I kept to my schedule I' d be fine, and fought against any surge of panic.

Amazingly enough, it worked! I was able to really enjoy the writing process, instead of fixating on the moment when I could say "the end" and know I'd beaten my deadline. And I think the book shows it. I loved every minute of writing this book, and I think it's my best effort to date. And I really believe it's because I was in such a positive frame of mind the whole time I was writing it, immersing myself in the joy of writing instead of knocking myself out with the worries and stress of making the deadline. I do this job because I love it, but so often it's easy to get so burdened with the stresses that I lose sight of the joys.

Not this time.
This time I enjoyed every minute of the ride, and it was awesome.
And now that I know what's it's like, I'm going to do everything in my power to have this attitude from now on, no matter how close that deadline is or how much stress is trying to crush down on me.

So there!

posted by Stephanie Rowe @ 11:21 PM