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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Sep | Nov » | |||||
1October, 1 2024The First Day of the MonthOctober was the 8th month in the ancient Roman calendar. When the calendar was revised it retained its name in spite of several efforts to change it. There was a month named for Julius Caesar and one for Augustus, and soon the eighth month went on a veritable bender of renaming, being called Germanicus, for a distinguished general; Antoninus, in honor of an emperor; Faustinus, in honor of Faustina, wife of Antoninus; and then Hercules, in honor of the emperor Commodus, who called himself the Roman Hercules and insisted he be worshipped as a god. Oh, those Romans. Finally, good sense prevailed, and we went back to the original name — or was that sensible, since this was the name for the 8th month of the year? Oh my. You be the judge. What’s in Your Harvest Basket?It’s harvest season, a great time to take stock. Here’s what happened when I contemplated this time of year. First Day of the MonthOctober was the 8th month in the ancient Roman calendar. When the calendar was revised it retained its name in spite of several efforts to change it. There was a month named for Julius Caesar and one for Augustus, and soon the eighth month went on a veritable bender of renaming, being called Germanicus, for a distinguished general; Antoninus, in honor of an emperor; Faustinus, in honor of Faustina, wife of Antoninus; and then Hercules, in honor of the emperor Commodus, who called himself the Roman Hercules and insisted he be worshipped as a god. Oh, those Romans. Finally, good sense prevailed, and we went back to the original name — or was that sensible, since this was the name for the 8th month of the year? Oh my. You be the judge. | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
14October, 14 2024Indigenous Peoples’ DayToday is Indigenous Peoples’ Day which, as stated by the White House in 2021, celebrates the fact that “Since time immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures — safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations.” | 15 | 16October, 16 2024Do Tell, Wooly Bear. Do Tell Me About WinterI’m looking over a brown-in-the-middle and black-at-both-ends caterpillar, though he’s only one of 8 species of caterpillar that qualify as wooly bears, that caterpillar stage of the tiger moth. The best known is the banded wooly bear who grows up to be the Isabella tiger moth. I use the wooly bear to predict how the winter will shape up, weather-wise, the folklore being that the wider the middle stripe, the more harsh the winter. Some people dispute this. Ha. | 17October, 17 2024Full Hunter’s MoonToday is the full moon. October’s full moon is known as the Full Hunter’s Moon. | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31October, 31 2024All Hallow’s EveBoo! How’s that costume coming? Have you got an essay about dressing up as a kid, mistaken identity, or anything else related to pretending to be someone you’re not? Today’s the day for that to be read by others. |
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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.
