Dreaming about a finished book manuscript is fun, but actually sitting down and writing a book is hard work. Writing projects are largely self-motivated and that motivation can be hard to conjure. Bobbie Christmas, editor and owner of Zebra Communications, shares how she uses deadlines to keep herself motivated. Deadlines have been the most consistently helpful tool for her in finishing work, whether that work was a book or an editing project. Christmas pulls out her calendar and breaks up a big deadline into smaller, more manageable deadlines. This takes forethought and a considerable amount of planning. Do you have a goal for having a published book during a certain time of the year? It’s easy to forget that a lot of things come after a manuscript is done. For example, a cover needs to be designed, printers and distributors need to be chosen, and it needs to be edited. The process for setting a deadline needs to include all of these things. Learn more from Christmas about setting deadlines and finishing your book in the clip below!