A note on deadlines
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Imagine my surprise when, after speaking with a few editors, I discover that their main complaint about writers is a failure to meet deadlines.
Isn't meeting a deadline the number one rule when it comes to keeping editors happy? Or writers employed? Sure, writing is hard, especially when the urge to put things off until the last minute so that we can race to the finish line is a very cool rush. But to miss a deadline when there are a gazillion other writers out there, nipping at our heels to take our place in the word chain seems kind of...dangerous. In a bad way.
Perhaps it's my obsessive-compulsive nature, but I will do anything to meet a deadline, even if it means pulling an all-nighter and putting off laundry, grocery shopping or watching my favourite show. (That's why there are VCRs.)
So I asked these editors why they kept on letting these tardy prose-producers get all the glory. Because they can write. Of course, if they wrote AND met deadlines, that would be a major bonus.
That's where I like to step in, like the overachieving brown-noser that I always was in school. Well, until I discovered Duran Duran.
Isn't meeting a deadline the number one rule when it comes to keeping editors happy? Or writers employed? Sure, writing is hard, especially when the urge to put things off until the last minute so that we can race to the finish line is a very cool rush. But to miss a deadline when there are a gazillion other writers out there, nipping at our heels to take our place in the word chain seems kind of...dangerous. In a bad way.
Perhaps it's my obsessive-compulsive nature, but I will do anything to meet a deadline, even if it means pulling an all-nighter and putting off laundry, grocery shopping or watching my favourite show. (That's why there are VCRs.)
So I asked these editors why they kept on letting these tardy prose-producers get all the glory. Because they can write. Of course, if they wrote AND met deadlines, that would be a major bonus.
That's where I like to step in, like the overachieving brown-noser that I always was in school. Well, until I discovered Duran Duran.
posted by Bonnie Staring at 7:46 PM
3 Comments:
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. A failure to meet a deadline feels like a personal admission of crapness to me. If I agree to one, I have to make it.
And you're right - it all comes back to being the one who always, always had their homework in on time!
I couldn't handle being a writer for hire. I had trouble with the little bit of journalism that I did for a couple local papers in college. I dreaded staying up late to write some article on same boring town hall meeting at 2am.
Hey Katy - here's a shout-out to the honour roll! Okay Mike, town hall meetings? No one should stay up late to work on that kind of stuff. At least not sober. ;)
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