Are you the sort of writer who needs a competition deadline or a journal submission window in order to finish your work, otherwise your good intentions just seem to drift?

My creative writing prompt/exercise for you this week is to choose a deadline two months hence – but complete your entry one month early.

You can check out some writing competitions here.

It is your decision whether to go for poetry or short fiction, memoir or opinion etc. The point is to add some urgency to the process, so you get to the finishing line with time in hand.

Regulars here will know I often enter competitions, and one of the big contests, the UK-based Bridport Prize, has a deadline at the end of this month. The Bridport competitions are for poetry, flash fiction, short story and novel, and have been open for months. Yet it is well known there will be a surge of last minute entries as May 31^st dawns. The competition is fierce – they have thousands of entries – but the kudos for standing out from that crowd is huge. And there are cash prizes, too.

The Bridport team published an amusing quiz asking what type of deadliner are you, and I repeat it here for your entertainment:

A Racer – enjoys the adrenaline rush to beat the clock

B Satisfier – prepares and meets deadlines with time to spare

C Ponderer – takes a while to get going but always hits deadline

D Almoster – good intentions but misses out through distraction/life/whatever

E Annualer – there’s always next year

F Denier – what’s a deadline?

And there’s another date for you: 5pm (Dublin time) next Wednesday, when I will post another creative writing prompt/exercise here to inspire some new work.