Interactive Deadline Calendar

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.

February 2025

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
« Jan				Mar »
					1	2 February, 2 2025 Groundhog Day Ah, Punxsutawney Phil. You’ve gotta love him. He’s a true American icon. Have you got a Ground Hog Day story? Remember to think in propinquities. What do I mean by that? See here.
3	4	5	6	7	8	9 February, 9 2025 All Weather, All the Time It was on this day in 1870 that Congress authorized one of those national offices whose information we use every single day, the National Weather Service. Located at www.weather.gov, it’s a fine place to add to your research sites when writing memoir. You do remember that you’ve got to do research when writing memoir, yes?
10	11	12 February, 12 2025 Abe Lincoln Born On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. Do you have a Lincoln story? For dates like this, it’s a good idea to do some research and learn something new. Full Snow Moon It’s February’s full Moon, known as the Full Snow Moon. We take our names from the Native American tradition. Got a winter full moon story? Remember what memoir is supposed to be, as well as what it’s not.	13	14 February, 14 2025 Valentine’s Day Ok, so nearly everyone celebrates this. How to make this story yours, while making it interesting to readers? Follow this, an essential rule of writing memoir.	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28 February, 28 2025 Ramadan Starting tonight and running through March 29, 2025, this is Ramadan, a holy month of fasting, community and prayer for Muslims. Officially the ninth month on the Islamic calendar, this is one of the most sacred times for Muslims, as it is the month in which it is believed that the Holy Qur’an was sent down from heaven “as a guidance for men and women, a declaration of direction, and a means of salvation.”

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.