Welcome to my Deadline Formula Calendar, where you are going to learn how to choose and meet writing deadlines, makes those deadlines every time and finally establish real accountability for your writing. Here’s how: Use your cursor to hover over a date. See the description of something that happened on this date? These are some of my favorite emotional high holy days of the year.
What are your emotional high holy days? First read through some of mine, think about that question and then keep reading below the calendar.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Oct | Dec » | |||||
1November, 1 2024The Holiday Season Officially BeginsI know, I know. It once was that “the holidays” did not begin until the day after Thanksgiving. Well, no more. What’s a memoir writer to do? Take notes. And remember that your family will object to your version of the story, no matter how well you write it. Here’s a little coaching on how to cope with that reality. | 2November, 2 2024Let the Knitting — and Writing — BeginI keep a knitting journal, each year noting when I spot the season’s first knitter, as well as noting each sweater/sock/mitten/scarf I knit, who it’s for, and the date I delivered it. And it would make a great primary source for a memoir. You? What do you do to beat writers’ block? | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13November, 13 2024Lobsters Are On the MoveRight around now lobsters move offshore. According to the lobster research site at the University of New Hampshire, an estimated 20-50% of offshore lobsters are migratory, moving offshore in the winter and spring and inshore in the summer and fall. How far do they go? The juveniles don’t go far, but mature lobsters have an average annual range of about 20 miles. A small number of lobsters migrate very long distances, including one migrant lobster who reportedly moved 798 nautical miles in 3 1/2 years. That’s a long commute. | 14 | 15 | 16November, 16 2024Time for a Singalong!On this day in 1907 Oklahoma entered the union as the forty-sixth state. The state’s history as we know it, begins with its Native Americans, whose influence is evident even in the name, derived from the Choctaw Indian words “okla,” meaning people, and “humma,” meaning red. Along the way the state was the topic of a collaboration between the great Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, who made their first joint effort that of the production of their great musical called simply Oklahoma! | 17 |
18November, 18 2024Let Me Tell You About Telling TimeOn this day in 1883, precisely at noon, North American railroads switched to a new standard time system for rail operations, which they called Standard Railway Time. Almost immediately, many American cities enacted ordinances resulting in the creation of time “zones.” The four standard time zones adopted were eastern standard time, central daylight time, mountain standard time, and Pacific daylight time. Though tailored to the railroad companies’ train schedules, the new system was quickly adopted nationwide, forestalling federal intervention for more than thirty years, until 1918, when daylight saving time was introduced. | 19November, 19 2024Whew. I Mean it: Whew.According to the Old Farmers Almanac, right around now skunks begin to hibernate. Whew, huh? Got a skunk-dog-phew story? Write it up and read it on the radio. | 20 | 21 | 22November, 22 2024All Hail the Cranberry!Behold the cranberry. You probably are, right about now, in fact beholding the cranberry, as you will several times today while you cook some, eat some or store some leftovers. So how about a cranberry fact or two? The cranberry, along with the blueberry and Concord grape, is one of North America’s native fruits. First used by Native Americans, who discovered the wild berry’s versatility as a food, fabric dye and healing agent, the name “cranberry” actually is from the Pilgrims, who called it “craneberry,” because of the small, pink blossoms that appear in the spring resemble the head and bill of a Sandhill crane. In 1816 cranberries were first successfully cultivated. By 1871, the first association of US cranberry growers had formed. Now, U.S. farmers harvest approximately 40,000 acres of cranberries each year. | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |
All of our high emotional holidays come to us yearly, and all of them present opportunities for you to write Op-eds, personal essays, posts for your blog or guest posts on some larger public blog. And if you write those pieces well enough, people will notice and you’ll develop a following, perhaps even in the form of a publisher or an agent, and that book you’ve always wanted to write will get written.
How to Use this Deadline Calendar
Here’s the key to this calendar: Learning how to choose and meet writing deadlines begins with knowing that you need to write those pieces in advance of the event. So choose one date from here — or from your own year — but choose one that gives you the time to write and submit to a large online or print publication.
Let’s give it three months. Here’s why: You’re busy. Perhaps you need to learn now to write an op-ed or how to construct a personal essay (have you seen my recorded class on the latter?). Perhaps you are writing a book-length memoir from which you can extract a short section to turn into an op-ed or essay. Even better. Best yet, in fact. Two of my four books came from shorter pieces I wrote and published, both arguing what I believed about something large but doing so in a small format. Both led to profitable book contracts. Want the same success? Of course you do.
Would you like more on how to choose and meet deadlines? I have a course for that. Check it out here.
