{"id":26072,"date":"2022-11-04T03:00:36","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=26072"},"modified":"2022-11-01T10:19:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T17:19:21","slug":"the-costs-of-creative-chaos-by-catharine-bramkamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/04\/the-costs-of-creative-chaos-by-catharine-bramkamp\/","title":{"rendered":"The Costs of Creative Chaos by Catharine Bramkamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Let\u2019s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp<\/a> as she shares with us \u201cThe Costs of Creative Chaos.\u201d Enjoy!<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no denying the romance and excitement of the last minute.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rushing, the forgetting, the rising blood pressure. The deadlines, the finals, the late nights.<\/p>\n

Students gathering for days– or at least a couple hours– in the unfamiliar library stacks cramming for classes they don\u2019t remember attending.<\/p>\n

Office staff clustered around the coffee machine sharing their surprise conclusion that if they had started their presentation earlier<\/strong>, they wouldn\u2019t be so stressed this Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Social media doesn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

There are no popular images depicting a calm person brandishing a scheduling app happy they finished every project ahead of deadline.<\/p>\n

There are countless memes featuring crazed creatives working up to the last minute<\/strong>, or rushing to their book signings, or just finishing edits before deadline– except for troublesome page 120, we just skipped it.<\/p>\n

Authors are infamous for our contentious relationship with deadlines, it is part of our story as authors.<\/p>\n

But what if that\u2019s not your story?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are bereft of harrowing tales about barely finishing your novel\/cover edits\/final edits on time, read on.<\/p>\n

This article was born from a comment made by my significant other. I announced I had finished an article for this blog site early.<\/p>\n

He responded: Of course you did.<\/i><\/strong> He meant it as a compliment, but it was a surprising trigger.<\/p>\n

Organized people are boring, dull.<\/p>\n

Organized people are not creative.<\/p>\n

Organized people and our instinct to finish and file automatically bars us from the fellowship of writers and turns us into mere accountants– boring, untalented, blocked from the wild ride that is the creative life.<\/p>\n

I disagree, to my organized tribe<\/strong>, there are benefits to being a responsible person that can very much feed and nurture creative endeavors:<\/p>\n

More Vibrant Work<\/b><\/h2>\n

Rather than wasting emotions and time on everyday chaos – you have the energy to capture all the crazy that is not your home life and drop it all into your book.<\/p>\n

Create more Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you finish work, you have time to create more work. With life under control (more or less) you free up bandwidth to find another passion, create another piece of art. You get to do more.<\/p>\n

More likely to get published<\/b><\/h2>\n

You research, you complete, you spend the time submitting your work to the most likely outlets.<\/p>\n

Who knew THAT approach would be successful?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, the wonderful, crazy chaotic artist does get lucky breaks. But the author with a well considered MS and a consistently applied strategy, finds her own luck.<\/p>\n

Submit better work<\/b><\/h2>\n

Working ahead allows for more breathing space. Drafts can be put aside for months at a time, allowing for more creative editing and better focus.<\/p>\n

Time is your friend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are the editor\u2019s new best friend<\/p>\n

The slap dash, misspelled, poorly formatted doc (rather than docX, please upgrade your Microsoft Suite) is not as inconsequential as you think. Sure the piece could be brilliant, but if it immediately inspires a sigh, it\u2019s already behind.<\/p>\n

Allowing time to create not only the best work possible<\/strong>, but also reviewing the editorial requirements, puts us out of the accounting category and closer to the published author class.<\/p>\n

The Procrastination Cult<\/h2>\n

So now you feel pretty good about working ahead of deadline, but that doesn\u2019t help mitigate emotional thrill and fellowship of the Procrastination cult.<\/p>\n

When a wild eyed fellow writer accosts you in Starbucks, what can you say?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be sanctimonious, that just makes it worse.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want to sound like you belong to the cult, er, club, here are some responses:\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n