Melting Snow

Productivity

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Paraguay Rocks  (E) A beautiful country #2144785 by Prosperous Snow celebrating

The "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  promppt for Day 1477
“True productivity is not about the volume of work. It is about doing what matters on demand, without the pressure of external deadlines or forces.” Nicholas Erik, from The Writer’s Productivity Crash Course What does productivity mean to you--in writing, in personal life, or in general?

I wasn't going to respond to this prompt today, but then I had an issue with productivity. It was my own fault for not rereading the rules for poetry submission to "Invalid Item" . I have no excuse, I thought I could remember the line requirements for the poems; obviously I couldn't. As a results of this senior moment, memory slip, or brain fart (call it what you will), I had to add some lines to my acrostic poem Paraguay and rename it to Paraguay Rocks (which was suggested by the person who reminded me of the line number requirement).

I usually recheck the rules, and I don't know why I didn't recheck them this time. My only excuse, if it is an excuse, is that it is January 2018 and January is always a weird month. It is a month when odd, intriguing, and weird things happen to interrupt my productivity. As for Mr. Erik's quote, I disagree with it to an extent, because in that quote he only states part of the issue with productivity.

I believe productivity includes the demands of "external deadlines", as well as dealing with external forces that interrupt the flow of the work or the words. A productive writer deals with all these things, and knows the rules for any contest they are entering. When in doubt about the rules, a productive writer checks them again. Checking the rules is especially important if more than a week has passed since you last entered the contest. Even if you entered the contest last week, it is still a good idea to check the rules again.