For the Freewrite prompt contest 2068
5 minutes to write a post, and the topic is timetable. Is there some irony involved here? I barely know the rules, where to post and what tags to use, and time is ticking. I hope I spelled the required tags right, not much time to check.
Would it have been ok if I spent some time thinking about the topic before I started writing? Or is that cheating? I don't want to cheat! But I hate the stress. A timetable for me is my own list of "do this thing before that day" and I can always give myself an extension. But now I hesitate. Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe a timetable is someone elses rules about how fast I have to do something, and at what hour?
I'm getting scared now. 97 seconds left to write, and maybe I have misunderstood the topic and will get a huge FAIL! slapped on my effort? Maybe they wanted trains and airports? Is there even time to check grammar and spelling one last time? Probably not. Let's add some tags, hope for an upvote or two, or can I add the tags later? And BEEP time to stop writing! I didn't even find an image to use...
Timer is off, and wow, that taught me something. I spend way too much time checking my spelling, googling for synonyms (or antonyms) and editing my text on the go. Editing is for later. Or for the editor! Write, write, write! I didn't edit afterwards what I wrote above in the 5 minutes I had, because I don't know if that would be ok. But I self-edited while writing. Wasting time.
I've had deadlines to hit before, especially when I freelanced as a translator of comics. Back then I took "by Wednesday" as meaning "before the person gets to the office Thursday morning" and spent the night between Wednesday and Thursday doing the job. Despite having had two weeks to do it. It never occurred to me that they had deadlines too, and would appreciate me turning in my part at the earliest instead of the latest. Not even when they started asking me to send in my translations "by Monday" instead.
