I refuse to die (literally).

Monday afternoon my oldest daughter came home with a note from school. 

A project was due the next day.

A project she should have been working on for two weeks, yet I knew nothing about.

A project she would be presenting, from memory, to her class.

My daughter is seven.

I called the teacher immediately for details and sure enough, my daughter had failed to give me the initial FIVE page packet explaining said project, along with the additional TWO reminder notes sent home about said project.

I did not have time for a freak out. We plunged in head first, churning out notecards, internet pages, and everything we could find about Giraffes that could be rubber cemented to a poster board. She presented it yesterday and all went smoothly. 

I would even dare say, better than if we had all of the two weeks to prepare.

I work well on a deadline.

For those of you that may have missed me mentioning it in previous posts, I am a runner.

I am a runner that hates to run.

Running falls into the category of things I wish I could do asleep. Then running would just be a nightmare, instead of my dreaded reality three times a week. Because I absolutely hate to run and it’s really good for me, I schedule three or four races a year to keep me training.

There is absolutely nothing more motivating than an impending deadline, especially when you have a team of girls counting on you to be at the starting line with them.  

I feel this way about writing.  Half the time I wake up and write because I see the impending deadline in the future, the goal to finish my next book looming.

Sometimes I hate the writing process, especially when I feel myself tapping out words I know I will erase a week or two later.

I’ve been in a a bit of a slump recently, writing and erasing, writing and erasing.

Until I installed a new program into my computer to “encourage” my writing.

Write or Die. 

Have you heard of it?  It’s my newest obsession.  It combines the panic of finishing a school assignment the day before it’s due, with the pressure of training for a race.

There is nothing like the power you feel when finishing something that demands everything of yourself.

Use Write or Die in your next word war and prepare to be amazed at what you can accomplish.

-Laura