Nobody Hands You a Deadline.
I've written three versions of the same novel. The first draft went out in 2021. The second took four years. The third took less than twelve months. Same book, same bloke, and I was working on it the whole time. So the difference wasn't effort. The difference was that in the last twelve months I kept putting myself on the hook. This episode is about manufactured deadlines, external accountability, and why projects with nobody waiting on them quietly take years. In this one: Sending the first manuscript out in 2021, and what came back about how the story was written Why the second version took four years, and which part of that time was actually necessary Carving the David out of the stone, and the difference between distilling and drifting Work with no external deadline expands to fill whatever time you've got, then takes the rest How the last twelve months got made? Setting the date, telling the editor, booking and paying before I was ready, saying it out loud on this show Why the work isn't the work, and the real discipline is manufacturing the consequence Why the final stretch was taking words out, not adding them Nobody hands you a deadline. You go and create one, and then you have to live with it. Over to you. What's the thing you're working on that nobody is waiting for?
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