I only write to meet a deadline.  No deadline, no writing.

Of course, the deadline for my writing this blog is self-imposed, and for more than three years I have met every weekly “deadline,” including emailing one blog to my assistant on a Monday at 10:45 pm so that she could post it for Tuesday morning delivery.

I was urged by Nancy, my friend and editor, to “get ahead” by writing three or four blogs before I left on vacation last Monday.  She also suggested that it would be alright if I too...