Without deadlines

I’ve had an ear and sinus infection which just didn’t seem to want to shift and a busy few days at work so the last thing I wanted to do when I came home exhausted from the office was sit down and write. Fortunately it’s the first week of the summer break from my course so there have been no urgent deadlines to meet.

When you’re in the habit of writing every day, though, giving it up is hard to do. Facing down an empty evening, during which I can do anything I want, seems strange, disconcerting even. I’m starting to realise that I’ve come to rely on deadlines, that without them life just doesn’t feel right.

I’ve still been doing writing practice most mornings over coffee, and I’m doing lots of reading for research, but I know that I need to become more self-disciplined, that even on bad days I need to be able to write.

Six years ago I was living in Italy, teaching English and writing freelance for magazines. That winter had been one of the coldest for years; the medieval fountain round the corner from my flat froze solid and I remember one day when the weather felt mild and the thermometer outside the tabbacheria in the square read -1C at noon. My apartment in an old stone house had seemed romantic when I’d chosen it the previous summer; in the depth of winter it was hideously cold. I caught flu which lingered for months, leaving me exhausted and down-hearted and struggling through each day.

Yet working freelance at both my writing and teaching jobs, I had little choice but to push on; wrapping myself in my warmest clothes, sniffing through lessons in the over-heated school, dreaming of carpeted floors and insulated ceilings and living anywhere but a hill-town with streets like wind tunnels.

 I coped until the spring came, met my deadlines, paid the rent, started to feel better. Like every other freelance, I had no choice. Which is why – though I know I’ve been lax this week and I know I can’t make a habit of it – I don’t feel too bad, because I also know when it comes down to it, I can get stuff done.