Deadline Schedule
Posted on November 26, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 38 Comments
Book is due at the end of the year, which if you’ll check your calendars is six weeks away, and has some annoyingly time-consuming holiday things before it.
What this means: Whatever is a now a secondary priority. Indeed, pretty much everything that doesn’t involve me finishing the book is a secondary priority. Also secondary priorities: Eating, sleeping, bathing, shaving, keeping Athena from playing with power tools, being a pleasant human being to be around. Don’t tell my wife about those last two.
What that means for Whatever readers:
1. Whatever won’t get updated unless/until I have written a certain amount in the book daily and/or
2. You’ll get repeats from the vasty depths of the Whatever archives and/or
3. I’ll figure out some sort of audience participation thing to keep you all amused and/or
4. I’ll do some easily programmable thing that will take me fifteen minutes a day to bang out and/or
5. Some combination of any or all of the above.
I do want you all to be amused, but at the same time, you know. Book. Deadline. Gaaaaah.
Anyway, Whatever is on Deadline Schedule starting… now.
Do you want me to dress up in a bear costume and dance? It might amuse my fellow Whateverians. For two seconds.
::puts on bear costume::
::shuffles from side to side in dance::
(Hey, the bear costume is *warm* at least!)
Oh goody! We always get the best posts when you have other things that absolutely must be done. :-)
Seriously, though. Good luck.
Hey, you have to earn a living. At least that’s what the mortgage company tells me.
Stupid mortgage company.
1) Playing with power tools is the best way to become proficient with them. Start her with a drill press and work up to a radial arm saw. Save the router for her 13th birthday.
2) I still have links to some cool free Photoshop filters. You say when.
3) Charlie Brown Christmas music is best to work with this time of year. Never gets old.
Good luck.
I like how you worked in the Photoshoppery at the *start* of this process.
Good luck! Write like the wind!
> I’ll figure out some sort of audience participation thing…
Oh goody, please do!
Yeah, I’m sitting here all a quiver waiting for the photoshoppery to get going in earnest.
Good luck with the deadline, John.
Indeed. . . . my ‘to read’ shelf is conspicuously lacking in Scalzi-ness.
Go, John go!
WTF. John is going to refrain from entertaining us so he can finish his damn book to entertain us? BAH!
In light of John abandoning us to our own devices, I’d like to take this opportunity to announce the “Make Nathan a STAR” contest over on Whaterveresque! Its in the Wanton Pimpery section (where else), or you can get there from the link posted here.
There’s prizes. There’s sycophancy. There’s the chance to screw with IMDB. What more could you want.
Go there. Go there now. You know you want to.
Ah, the Charlie Brown Book Report Syndrome.
Can I suggest you have a contest for people to LOLCat the picture of yourself included in this entry. It has all sorts of entertaining possibilities.
Was this for the fantasy thing or for Zoe’s Story? I can’t keep track of it all!
Get to work, slacker!
Did I say that?
I mean… I’m sure you’ll get it done in NO TIME and then have time for Whatever frivolities and other web shenanigans!
Note to self: Give up book project. Requires loss of sleep, eating, bathing, and shaving, and I’d have to keep secrets from John’s wife. Too much work.
Go, sir, and write. Your admirers demand it of you.
Good luck. Good holidays. Have a good time. We’ll be waiting when you get back.
Oh. That’s what you were afraid of . . .
Cool! I love when John’s on deadline – it usually means five extra posts a day! :-)
I choke on deadlines for three-page papers. God only knows how I’d manage one for a book.
….That wasn’t encouraging at all, was it? Um… go, John! You can do it! I believe in you!
Uh oh, folks. It’s been hours and he hasn’t done any more photoshoppery. Maybe he’s serious this time.
Alternately, we could start betting on when he’ll crack and post a LOLbacon or whatever.
Say, John… correct me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t you supposed to speak at the Phila. SF Society meeting on December 14th?
I hope so, because we kinda have you scheduled…
Jeff is right out about power tools. I still fondly remember my mother teaching me to use and respect the chainsaw when I was ten. She also taught me to drive at the same time in case she cut something off while we were out salvage logging for firewood. Between the damage a chainsaw causes to a log and the implications of the driving lessons I developed a pretty good respect for other wimpier powertools like skill saws and such. So what I am saying teach her to use some really destructive tools. If you do not have a chainsaw (shame on you) A plasma cutter is nice a sparky. Yes I know Athena is not ten but if I had been a girl she would have taught me earlier.
Sidenote: If you teach your kid to drive when they are ten. Don’t throw the keys at them when they are twelve and sick of hanging out at your friends place and you are sick of listening to them whine. You will end up walking home or having bum a ride from the friend.
Man it took a while to turn the car around with the headlights off so they could not see me in the window.
There’s always plenty of things to PhotoShop when a deadline is looming.
Cats, dogs, kids, wives…
I’m waiting….
Hugh:
Yes, I’ll be there. And writing in my hotel room.
Ah. And the four-weeks-to-deadline feeling of black panic and despair sets in. See, now that’s entertaining.
As long as it’s, you know, you and not me.
Heh. I’m not actually panicked, Jim, but I do need to be less distracted.
..As he answers comments. I guess this is a pot/kettle discussion since I bought an Xbox360 yesterday to help me ‘decompress’ from working full time while in Engineering school…while the semester is 3 weeks from over. I just keep telling myself ‘C is for credit’.
Poor John. He says he’s really serious this time. Just like the last three times. Or was it five? Anyway, John, don’t take it personally if we collectively don’t believe you. The Whatever community is too fascinating to stay away from for very long — which is why I’m here when I should be inputting grades. Oh, look at the time. I should drive home before the roads get icy. Grades can wait til tomorrow. (grin)
Stay true to your stories, O Fearless Whatever Leader! Write like the wind!
Dr. Phil
Good luck John! (Sorry, I’d write more, but I don’t want to distract you.) ;)
***sends Scalzi the “get usefully creative FAST!” mojo***
Because we can’t live without our daily dose of Whatever.
Now you’re making me want to teach Athena how to use power tools . . .
Or is that have Athena teach me how to use power tools?
My husband has a book due on November 30 and I have barely seen him for MONTHS. So I think you’re doing pretty well, John. Keep up the good work.
My husband will have much entertaining to do in December. Except then he’ll tell me he’s on deadline for the NEXT book. Will I be quite so understanding then? Stay tuned….
Brett L. @24: As I tell my students who are facing Cs in the U.S. history survey: Your job is just to move it from the “Remaining Requirements” column to the “Done” column. A passing grade does that. Carry on!
Erik Ordway, when I was in discussing with my doctor why I was gaining weight, and he asked me what I did for exercise, I said I did yard work. He said that wasn’t enough. So then I had to explain that yard work for me involves a gas chainsaw and moving logs in the summer. In the winter I have a 55 foot, two-car wide driveway and a push shovel. He agreed that something else must be the problem (and it was).
Chainsaws, what did I ever do for entertainment before I had them? There’s just something about a freshly sharpened chain as it goes through red oak or maple like a hot knife through butter that makes the inner boy in me gleefully happy. And to anybody out there that is thinking about getting one, they’re damn dangerous tools, know what you’re doing before starting one up. Also, know you exit routes. Very important that is.
Hey, blog during breakfast…
Who eats breakfast? It cuts into valuable sleeping time.
C’mon John, breakfast is the best time to eat bacon!
feel the burn scalzi…feel the burn
Good luck with the ride in the fast lane.
Does this mean you’re not planning to tape bacon to Athena?