the direction of deadlines

As a student, I would sometimes find myself rushing about trying to meet deadlines. This is because deadlines are a strange animal. They trick you into thinking that you have a lot of time to get something done, like a paper, but then pounce on you from nowhere, reminding yout that, oh no, you don't have all the time in the world. It is how they hunt, it is how they feast upon the delicate psyche of troubled men.

I used to work at Kinko's, and I would encounter these business types who would wait until the last minute to do a project, and than expect me and my machines to somehow warp time in order to get their copies done right now when in fact they wouldn't be done for, say, two days. Usually it involved binding things as well. These people were needy, annoying and demanding.

Now, I work in a retail store where we are given deadlines with little to no chance of punishment, and we get things done well in advance, usually. It's a very differant enviorment, and I prefer it.

But as a student, I would often find that deadlines were an impossible creature to control. I never turned a paper in late, not once, and I never found myself finishing one the night before it was due. I always had at least a day or two to spare. One semester I had my entire term paper for one class done weeks before I even had to pick a topic. But that was in part due to the fact that I had nothing else to do during spring break and was absolutely in love with the subject at hand.

That same sememster I finishe my other term paper about three days before it was due. Doesn't help that the professor made it five pages longer at the last minute, and I chose a nearly impossible topic to research (though interesting no less). Mi bad.

I had three sizeable papers due in my last (and recently copmpelted) undergraduate semester. I was under a considerable amount of stress. Here was the sememster that was going to make or break me as a student, as a historian. I wanted nothing so bad as for that semester to end, despite the fact that I revelled in the process of researching and writing those papers. I stressed, I worried, I procrastnated, but I aced each one, and my capstone (the one that almost drowned under the amount of research I could have gotten lost in) was nominated for an award. All in all, I did pretty well under the stress.

Now, however, I'm simply interning (for the fun of it, and the experiance, but nothing resembling money) and working part time, which leaves me with all the freetime that I had so longed for. I've started reading fiction again, playing video games, going out with my friends, even started a novel.

However, I feel totally unproductive. I still have days where I have to convince myself that I don't have to go home and do research or work on my papers. Think of it as Post Traumatic School Disorder. I find myself craving the hectic, freetime-less joy of graduate school and researching until I nearly die.

The problem with having nothing that needs to be done, is that you don't have anything to balance the free time you do have, and thus you lose sight of the importance of that free time. You take it for granted.

Now, from time to time I write freelance role-playing material, and I do have a couple of projects in the can, one of which is most likely still-born, the other of which we fuly intend to finish. Only, until now, the subject of deadlines hasn't even come up. Now I'm simply waiting for one.

Nothing gives me joy (and I may be unique here, or reasonably so) like completing a project before that cursed deadline. I've tried to give myself deadlines, but that's a joke. When you know, full well, that there are no consequences for failing to meet a deadline, it loses it's significance. Other people must place the weight of the deadline upon your shoulders for you, otherwise it loses it's magic.

The other trick to deadlines? They need to be pressing, at least somewhat. I shold really be researching graduate schools, but since I don't have to apply until the end of the year, it seems much less pressing that it could be. And lo, I procrastinate.

Now that I have a potential deadline for something? Well, now my life seems to have a little more purpose, we'll see just how much purpose once that deadline actually gets assigned.

I don't NEED another blog.

As it stands, I have a LiveJournal, a myspace, and a Facebook, all of which tend to host my most recent blogging in some form or another. Now, I have a blogspot as well. Personally, I blame Ms. Diana Kimball, because I got this thing, essentially, to post a comment on her blogspot.

I could have ignored the urge, and just said what I wanted in an e-mail to her, but instead I signed up for yet another blogging site. I don't even particularly remember what I was going to say in that comment. So why go the long and painful route of giving myself yet another blog to update?

Because I seek fame. It's that simple.

I do not seek a great deal of fame, I simply want people that I don't already know in the real world to know who I am. It would be even better if people I don't know even in the digital world knew who I was. I have potentially earned some measure of fame by writing freelance d20 products, but this simply isn't enough.

I have a friend who gained some decent fame as a webcomic artist (he drew that picture you see on my blog), and I'm jealous. I can't draw, however so I'm forced to rely on my words, which is something that I find much easier. I've got a bachelor's degree in history, which I've earned by researching and writing, it's something I love doing and want to do for a living. I also write fiction and poetry occasonally, and the afformentioned role-playing stuff.

However, when put together, none of this amounts to much fame. Publishing fiction is very hard, from what I'm told, I've never really tried to do it. Publishing history is very hard as well, see the rpevious statement for my own actions towards such.

But the Internet allows me to publish whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want too! This makes it a huge trap for researchers, but it also makes glory hogs like myself giddy with excitement. I can post blogs on here and earn myself that elusive audience! People, whom I don't even know, hanging on my every typed word! And nobody will stop me on the street or get mad when I don't want to interupt my day off to talk to them or sign something! Bliss!

Of course, I'm not the only one doing that. Everybody is, it's easy, there's nothing to stop you, hence my many blogs. In fact, there are so many people doing exactly this, that the internet is innudated with it, and nobody pays it much mind. Which makes it hard to build that elusive fan base, without something awesome to provide, such as funny pictures or truly amazing content. I can't provide A, and I'm not sure I've got it in me to provide B.

So I bounce from place to place, hoping that I can generate new readers, and maybe direct them to a specific place where they can coelesce into one mediocre audience. It hasn't worked so far, but why not take another stab at it? I don't have much else to do with my time.