A quotation
From Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams:
The ultra-famous sciento-magician Effrafax of Wug once bet his life that, given a year, he could render the great megamountain Magramal entirely invisible.
Having spent most of the year jiggling around with immense Lux-O-Valves and Refracto-Nullifiers and Spectrum-Bypass-O-Matics, he realized, with nine hours to go, that he wasn’t going to make it.
So, he and his friends, and his friends’ friends, and his friends’ friends’ friends, and his friends’ friends’ friends’ friends, and some rather less good friends of theirs who happened to own a major stellar trucking company, put in what now is widely recognized as being the hardest night’s work in history, and, sure enough, on the following day, Magramal was no longer visible. Effrafax lost his bet — and therefore his life — simply because some pedantic adjudicating official noticed (a) that when walking around the area that Magramal ought to be he didn’t trip over or break his nose on anything, and (b) a suspicious-looking extra moon.
Does this have something to do with your attempt to finish your book in a specific amount of time?
Very perceptive of you. It was not mere coincidence that I posted this at the same time I took down the deadlineometer.
Fortunately for you, your life is not on the line; and there are no adjudicating officials around to observe and condemn–only relatives and friends who will continue cheering you on as you finish your novel at a more leisurely pace.