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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Feb | Apr » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12March, 12 2024Girl Scouts FoundedWere you a scout? It was on this day in 1912 that Juliette Low founded the Girl Scouts. Millions of us were scouts, including me and my sister. But we have wildly different memories of the troop. Why? Hint: Our mother was the scout leader. What to do with those varying versions of the same experience? | 13 | 14 | 15March, 15 2024The Ides of MarchRight. It’s the Ides of March. What is that again? Come on, now. You do know you have to do research when writing memoir, right? | 16 | 17March, 17 2024A Day for Green Beer. Or Not.St. Patrick’s Day is one of those holidays that provokes some people to make fun of other people’s food. I know a little about that. I’m a New Yorker married a South Dakotan. See here for a way to write about those cultural differences as revealed in our food. |
| 18 | 19March, 19 2024Vernal EquinoxOn the Vernal Equinox, the Sun rises exactly in the east, travels through the sky for 12 hours and sets exactly in the west. On the Equinox this is the motion of the Sun through the sky for everyone on earth, with all of us together experiencing the same 12 hours of sunlight. Here in the northern hemisphere, let’s enjoy this first day of spring. How to make something that affects everyone in the Northern Hemisphere uniquely yours? Think in propinquities. | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
25March, 25 2024Full Worm MoonLove it or hate it, the name for the March full moon is the Full Worm Moon. We take our names from the Native American tradition, this one referring to this time of year when the temperature begins to warm, the ground begins to thaw and earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. Worm person or not? It’s a way to sort people. So is this. Maybe it will inspire you. | 26 | 27March, 27 2024Cherry Blossom FestivalsOn this day in 1912 some cherry trees got a very auspicious designation when then First Lady Helen Taft joined Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, to plant two of the more than 3000 trees to be planted in Washington. It was the beginning of Washington’s famous Cherry Blossom Festival. Do you garden? Maybe this will inspire you. | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
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.
