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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jun | Aug » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4July, 4 2024Holiday Jell-OOf all the Jell-O salads I’ve seen, perhaps my all-time favorite was a Fourth of July concoction. Got a Jell-O story? Sure you do. One of mine even tosses in a funeral. | 5 | 6 | 7July, 7 2024Daylillies in BloomIt’s daylily time in my neck of the woods. Do you know about the American Hemerocallis Society, an international daylily society? It was there I learned the preferred spelling is “daylily” as one word, and that the word Hemerocallis is derived from two Greek words meaning “beauty” and “day,” referring to the fact that each flower lasts only one day. Ah research. Remember to do it. See here for more on that topic here. |
| 8 | 9 | 10July, 10 2024All Hail Kitty Litter!Today is birthday in 1920 of the inventor of kitty litter. After serving a stint in the Navy, Edward H. Lowe suggested the use of clay instead of ashes for his neighbor’s cat, in an attempt to deal with the sooty footprints. What started as ten bags filled and labeled kitty litter and sold at his local dept store, resulted both in the use of kitty litter as a household name and the product being appreciated by cat owners worldwide. Got a pet story? I do. | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14July, 14 2024Meet the BeetlesIs there an official beetle month? Not really, but if there is an unofficial month for them, July is surely it. Fireflies in the twilight, whirligigs in the ponds, beetles are on your roses, beans, squash, and potatoes. Love them, hate them? Write to nature’s calendar. Here’s an example of how to do that. |
| 15 | 16July, 16 2024Armadillos are MatingAccording to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, armadillos are mating right about now. I wouldn’t lie to you. The season occurs July and August. Normal litter size is four, all of the same sex and all genetically identical since offspring are derived from a single egg. Born fully developed, it takes only several weeks for their pink leathery skin to harden into its lifelong protective covering. Nature has its own calendar, you know. Got an armadillo story? I’d love to see it. | 17July, 17 2024A Great Gift to AmericaOn this day in 1838 a ship left port in England carrying the possessions of James Smithson, who left those treasures to America to found the Smithsonian Institution. Interestingly, Smithson had never visited the US. Got a Smithsonian story? Here’s your news peg, news you can use to write memoir. | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 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.
