How Writing to Deadlines Can Hold Your Life Together

I was surprised when Steven Pinker told me, as we discussed the writing biz, that he would be daunted by the terms under which I have written for The Chronicle for the past seven years.

Once each working week, on a quasi-randomly chosen day that The Chronicle stipulates, I have been required to come up with a readable 750-word post suitable for a mainly academic readership. Steve told me he couldn’t take that pressure — not 50 weeks a year. Though he seems undaunted by the task of coming up wi...