Progress Without Deadlines

Hey hey. How is everyone doing today? Me… Well, I’m hanging in there as always. It will be an off the wall week around here. Gremlin is on spring break, which means I’m going to be in a constant state of WTF. 

See even on good days, Gremlin doesn’t stop, and on bad days it's much and I do mean much worse. Think of a toddler that can’t make up their mind and amp it up to 10x the legal limit of sass and uncontrollable anger. Then add in the fact he’s nonverbal, and damn near the same size as me at the age of 10. I’m sure he will be looking me straight into the eyes by the time he’s 12. 

What does this mean for my week? Well…. It means I sit for no longer than 45 minutes if I’m lucky. If he gets quiet for more than 10, I need to go look and see where he is. And once the husband goes to work my whole area gets moved to a place with a line of sight not just hearing him. Why? Because my gremlin likes to take it upon himself to walk out the front door without me knowing about it. And while he hasn’t pulled the Houdini act in the last year and a half, he did two weeks ago. 

This is what makes my situation fortunate and want to pull my hair out. See because I don’t have a regular 9-5, I can be here for all the breaks, sickness, and odd ball shit that gets thrown my way. I am also the one that changes the move every 5 minutes because he only wants to watch the first 10ish minutes of something. I am the one that deals with the up-downs and running to the other side of the house. 

Which means I get little to no work done when he’s home, and what I do get done gets interrupted at the very least 100s of times. This is the ugly part: there is no separation between home and work because for me it's the same damn place. 

My office is invaded once every 15ish minutes by either the Gremlin or by the other damn adult. There is no “Please for the love of God leave my ass alone.”, “Do you see I’m Fucking doing something.”, or my personal favorite “You are the other adult figure it the fuck out.” Naw Naw… I am the mom, wife, and author. 

As an indie author, there’s something both freeing and uncomfortable about working without a deadline. There is no countdown, no pressure clock ticking in the background, no external voice reminding you that time is almost up. Everything that applies/ed pressure is non-existent. And at first, it feels like relief that no one is telling you what to do.

But then something else creeps into the back of your mind like a demon sitting on your shoulder. Without a deadline, it’s easy to question whether progress is even happening. There’s no clear marker for success. No finish line to sprint toward. Just you, the work, and an open stretch of time that can either feel expansive… or endless. It’s also what allows that good old imposter syndrome to poke its ugly ass head out of the box like a sadistic children's toy.

Progress without deadlines requires a different kind of trust and motivation. It asks you to show up without urgency. To create without the adrenaline of last-minute pressure. To keep going even when no one is waiting on the outcome but you. And that can be harder than working under pressure. Because the only one you have left to impress is you.

Deadlines force movement. They create structure, even if it’s stressful. Without them, you have to build your own rhythm. Your own accountability. Your own reason to keep going when motivation dips. But there’s also something powerful here.

Without a deadline, the work has room to breathe. Ideas can develop more naturally. You can take the time to explore, adjust, and refine without feeling rushed. The process becomes less about racing to the finish and more about building something that actually feels right.

Progress shifts from being measured by speed to being measured by consistency. With the questions rolling through your head: Did you show up today? Did you move something forward, even a little? That’s how you get to measure your progress now.

It might be slower. It might be quieter. It might not look impressive from the outside. But it’s often more sustainable—and sometimes more meaningful—than anything built under constant pressure. Unless you need that kind of pressure. Then you can come hang out with me and my group on Saturday Nights on the Hold My Pen Promptcast…. We will keep you honest with yourself.

I say all that to say this: working without deadlines doesn’t mean the work doesn’t matter. It means the timeline is yours. Freedom can be intimidating, but it can also be exactly what allows something real to take shape. Its also that moment to allow your characters to scream into the void in which you are hearing. 

How do you stay consistent when there’s no deadline pushing you forward? What helps you recognize progress when it’s slow, quiet, and completely on your own terms?

Be Brave, Be Bold But ALWAYS Stay Humble

Finding My Rhythm Again (Slowly)

Good Morning Peps. How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was a little chaos mixed with a whole lot of realization. See between the show (The Hold My Pen Promptcast), writing (46 WIPs), and the general day to day that revolves around my home and family (chosen or otherwise), I am in a constant state of WTF now. Some say I’m doing too much, others don’t understand that I am basically a one woman wrecking crew that has run out of gas and fucks to give at the moment. 

Last week, I played catch up in zombie mode. Which sent me into a tail spin of shit not getting done. House still looks like a group of chaos gremlins had a party, laundry is multiplying faster than rabbits, and the intrusive thoughts that keep everyone second guessing, decided to have a party in my head. Which again has caused me to spiral worse than any other time in my life.

See, there’s a strange feeling that comes after a long stretch of chaos, and no one talks about it. It’s when you are desperately holding on to that little shred of hope that things will go back to normal. But when normal never comes it sends, you into the worse tail spin of your life. Which makes everything 10x worse. Makes you snappy, makes you second guess paths you already set out on, and it also sends you into the feeling of why the hell am I still doing this.

When things finally start to settle, you realize your rhythm, the tried and true method that has gotten you through every day, has gone a little quiet. Two things happen with that you either breathe a little easier because things are finally lining up like they are supposed to, or you start looking for the missing puzzle piece that might not exist. The routines that once felt natural now feel slightly off. The habits you built take a little more effort to return to.

First of all breathe…. Its not like the car keys are missed place or the backpacks have suddenly grown legs. Even though it feels like that currently. This is what I like to call “paying the piper”. Because reality is nothing is gone, but its past time to rediscover what works and what doesn’t. This is the evolving period in our lives. Completely uncomfortable, and making us wish there was an easier way when alas there isn’t.

After busy seasons, stressful weeks, or stretches where life takes priority over everything else, finding your rhythm again rarely happens overnight. Hell, we are lucky as hell if we manage to lock something that works down in a month. But we beat ourselves up when things happen slower than we need it too. Which lets face facts, doesn’t help anyone most of all us.

Opening a document and writing a few sentences.  Clearing one corner of a room that had been neglected. Cleaning out the fridge to find that damn mystery smell. Or even taking on the chaos that is the gremlin’s room. All tasks that put me into potato mode instead of the way shit used to be. Which is to get it done and so I don’t have to worry about it later.  

Taking a deep breath before jumping into the next task. Giving yourself 15 minutes to just be. Or just setting the damn timer (or remembering to do so) can make a world of damn difference. You’d be surprised what you can get done in 45 minutes when you are racing against the clock. 

These little actions are the beginning of momentum. And let's face it your world didn’t just explode into this overnight. It chipped away until the results in front of you couldn’t be ignored any longer. Like I ran experiment that both proved me right and fucked me over. Now I am both vindicated and stuck fixing it. The experiment…. How much I do around this house vs the other adult. So, I stopped doing everything that was directly tied to gremlin and me. Now the house looks like hoarders live here. I am constantly doing or redoing laundry…. And the other adult… Well, he has a knack for calling me lazy.  

We often expect ourselves to bounce back immediately, as if productivity and creativity should snap back into place the moment life calms down. But that expectation can create more pressure than progress. It also lets the intrusive thoughts of us not being good enough have a say when it should never get a fucking say.

Rhythm doesn’t return through force. It returns through patience. Through repetition. Through showing up, even when the pace feels slower than it used to. Through trusting that consistency will rebuild what disruption scattered.

Some days the rhythm will feel familiar again. Other days it will still feel slightly out of sync. That’s part of the process. The important thing is that you’re moving again. You're fighting forward no matter what forward looks like. 

Which is something I have to remind myself on the damn daily. I didn’t just sit and become a potato today. I started laundry. I am fixing to pick up and clean the gremlin’s room. I am going to start working on a project even if that is just reading through it again. 

Slow is still forward. Quiet progress is still progress. And rebuilding your rhythm, no matter how gradual, means you haven’t given up on the things that matter to you. Eventually, the steps become easier. The flow returns. The work feels natural again.

But until then, there’s nothing wrong with taking it one small beat at a time.

So, when life has handed you a shit storm, what do you do to put the train back on the tracks? How do you rebuild after shit has gone sideways? Leave me a comment below and lets compare what works for others.

Writing While Things Are Still Unclear

Happy Monday Morning Peps. Its been a hell of a ride for me this weekend, and with that I figured out a lot of things not only about myself but also about the world I’m trying to create. For those that don’t know, I was at Sinful Signings in Roanoke, VA with PA Power as his PA. An event that I have personally been waitlisted for three years running. 

To say that it was eye opening would be an understatement. I have never been to let alone been a part of an event so established, let alone had so many authors, most of which I knew from my TikTok days. I got to meet so many amazing people, Taco and Uncle Copper among them. I also realized that some events try to have an appearance of more diverse table holders. 

While networking and running around, I came to the conclusion some events just aren’t for me. Not saying if they were to come to me and say, “Hey we really would like you here.” that I would turn them down. I’m just not chasing, or begging for the chance anymore. I would say its unproductive second guessing myself, when I know who I am.

See, there’s this quiet pressure that creeps into creative work, the idea that we’re supposed to understand everything before we start. That clarity should come first. That once we know exactly what we’re doing, then we’re allowed to sit down and write/ plan our futures. But shit rarely works that way. 

Most of the time, the page is where the clarity happens, not where it begins. Some days I start writing with only a feeling. A sentence that won’t leave me alone. A character whose voice keeps tapping at the back of my mind. I don’t know where the scene is going. I don’t know if it even belongs in the story yet. I just know that if I ignore it, it will keep circling until I give it somewhere to land. So I write it anyway.

Writing while things are still unclear can feel uncomfortable. It means stepping into the fog without a map. It means admitting that you don’t have all the answers yet. It’s also giving time to your work even if you just spent 72hrs peopling. But strangely enough, that’s often where the most honest work comes from. 

Because uncertainty forces curiosity. Curiosity pushes the story forward, or at least gives you something to laugh about later.

When everything is perfectly planned, sometimes the writing feels mechanical, cookie cuter even. But when things are unclear, you’re discovering the story at the same time the reader eventually will. The page becomes a place of exploration instead of execution. And sometimes the words that come out during those uncertain moments reveal something deeper than anything we could have planned.

A character says something unexpected. A scene takes a darker turn. A theme emerges that you didn’t realize you were carrying.

Suddenly the fog starts to thin. Not all at once, but enough to see the next step. That’s really all writing ever asks of us: the next step. Clarity doesn’t have to arrive before the work begins. Sometimes the work is what creates it.

So if the story feels messy right now… if the direction isn’t perfectly clear… if you’re staring at a blank page wondering whether you should wait until you understand things better. Don’t wait.

Start where you are. Write the uncertain scene. Follow the half-formed idea. Let the characters talk before you know exactly what they’re trying to say. The answers often show up halfway through the paragraph. And sometimes the best stories are the ones we only understood after we wrote them.

Have you ever started writing without knowing where the story was going? Did clarity come later, or did the uncertainty lead you somewhere unexpected?