Writing on Deadline

I have a serious love/hate relationship with deadlines. I love deadlines because they give me a drop-dead date to get things done by. Given my natural state, I'd simply plod along revising, revising, and gettign nothing actually finished. And I hate them, of course, because they give me palpitations when I think about them looming above me with scythe-like blades.

I have a number of pre-6/26 deadlines I have to meet. (6/26 because that's when I leave for the American Library Association Annual Conference, and I won't be back until July 2.) Given that I'm still semi-wrecked from residency, and still recuping from the drive to and from Lexington this weekend (no, really. I just turned 29. I'm old, and need serious nap recuperation time), my upcoming deadlines make my head spinny.

The good news: I have already written and sent off (and made the editor's suggested revisions for) two book chapters, "MLS, MFA: The Librarian Pursuing Creative Writing" and "The Poet-Librarian: Writing and Submitting Work," that should appear in The Published Librarian: Successful Professional and Personal Writing, a volume edited by Carol Smallwood, published by the American Library Association sometime in 2009, if all goes according to schedule. Yes, those are done. Deep breath, deep bow, pat on the back, relaxation.

Now for the stress. The big chapter I need to get written and polished before I leave is "The Haves and the Have-Nots: Class, Race, Gender, Access to Computers and Academic Success," for inclusion in Gen M: A Handbook for Educators and Librarians, edited by Vib Bowman and Robert Lackie, and due out from Neal-Schuman in 2009. But I was granted research leave by my generous colleagues and Dean to get the major portion of that done, which is what I'll be doing Wednesday and Thursday of this week, and polishing over the weekend. Happily, the research for it is already done and scattered on my desk. Unhappily, the citation format needs to be in Chicago, which I've never used. Blugh.

At some point I also need to create the poster I told ALA that I would present at the Annual conference: "Academic Library 2.0: Self-Paced Guided Training for Faculty and Staff." It shouldn't be bad, I've already started it in a .ppt poster template, and should be able to upload it to Kinko's and have it ready for pickup at the convention center. God, I love living in the age of the internet.

Anyway, these are the major deadlines, though I've got others for various other workstuffs. Those I can deal with. And I'll have much time for more local projects that affect the library - not to mention my creative writing and MFA work - once July hits.

Also, Dear July: When you come, if you could be slightly cooler than June, it would be much appreciated. Love, The Poetess.