The Power Of Deadlines

This blog has really re-awakened my interest in writing. I miss writing - really writing - for a living. There was a time in my life where every week I had to come up with the goods. 700 words about this.. 1500 words about that.. every month.. every week.. today. While I can now look back on most of what I wrote at that time and wonder how I ever got away with it, I still miss writing to deadlines.

My job still involves me in some writing - not nearly as much as it used to, though - and in today's modern world, there's not really a lot that stops anyone from writing anything they want to. Writing is, perhaps, less exclusive than it used to be. Time was when I could walk into any branch of WH Smiths, pick up a magazine, flick through the pages, and say "I wrote that, and there is my name." A brief opportunity for me to show off which I doubt will return, not unless I can wangle my name into the credits of a TV show any time soon, anyway.

That said, maybe the world of print is still ripe. This evening I picked up a copy of "thelondonpaper", which is one of the (two) free newspapers people try to stuff into your hands when you set foot into the nation's capital. It has an essentially unpaid column called "the columnist" (since capital letters are simply not the style any more) and each day the great residents of London vote as to whether that day's columnist should write for the paper again, or not. Want to be a columnist yourself? Just write 400 words and send it to this email address, thanks very much. So far I haven't seen anyone last more than a day.

It's been a long time since I had to write 400 words about something. Well, not strictly true, I was commissioned for a series of ten 500 word narratives not so long ago, but the final results were so horrendously embarrassing that neither I nor the commissioner ever mentioned them again - probably quite rightly so.

But as a diversion, I like the idea of writing something which might just appear in a "hard to reach" place again. Aside from reading "thelondonpaper" this evening, (since spaces are apparently not the style any more either) I spent much of the train journey back home wondering what I could write about. And it wouldn't matter if it didn't get printed because at least it would fill up the space in my blog, making me appear prolific and interesting.

Itwould be nice to have some deadlines again. Maybe I should hold myself to at least 400 words a day, for the blog or otherwise. I don't know if self-imposed deadlines work or not.. I'm pretty sure I'd stop within days. But maybe I'll give it a try. Maybe.