Little by little, bit by bit

      I wrote another column. The panic has passed. Until next time. You'd think I wouldn't worry like that. After all, at last count, I've written over 300 humor columns over the years. But every time I approach it with this ... dread isn't quite the word, but it's close. Somehow that spurs the weird part of me where my humor has built its funhouse, and so far, it's worked.
      Maybe it was all those years working for newspapers. That daily deadline had to be met. Didn't matter how I felt or if the words wouldn't come, I had to meet your deadline. My job depended on it. I think a certain amount of urgency encourages creativity. At least for me.
      I have to exploit this on books and plays. I set small deadlines. So many words or so many pages, depending on the type of work. Those little deadlines keep me in the race. Just thinking about the 500 or so pages required of a book makes me tired. But if I approach it as 500 words at a time, well, that I can do. The important thing for me is to never look at how much still needs to be done. I just look what I've written and at what I'm writing today.
      More disciplined writers probably don't have to play these games with themselves. Or maybe they do. Don't you think that every great thing has only been accomplished by doing one small thing at time? A note here, a brush stroke there, a paragraph today, and so on. And then at the end you look back and are astonished at all you've done. That's a great feeling.
      Good night!