On Deadlines: Muse or Mush

My daughter just finished applyingto ten colleges—at the expense of ten years of my life. Her deadlines nearly did me in.

We have different styles, she and me. I tackle things quickly to get them off my list, while she can’t really get started until there’s no room left to procrastinate. She never misses a deadline, but she also lives constantly under the looming threat of running out of time. Her life is my worst nightmare.

And yet deadlines can work either way, right?

At times they’re just the kick you need to work nonstop, to keep yourself on task, fighting your way to the end because there are no longer options to put it off. Not without blowing your deadline. And often, when it’s over, you realize just how much you accomplished in such a short time—and that the intense focus drew out your best work.

But then there’s the alternative outcome, where the looming deadline can keep you pushing ahead even when your project is getting off track, taking a turn into mushy netherworlds where you can no longer neatly connect the dots so you just shove them toward one another. Because you’re running out of time, there’s no time to go back and fix anything. Said another way, the deadline can sabotage your potential.

We’ve all seen this in the publishing world, haven’t we? Especially on those second or third novels that come hard on the heels of a successful debut. Where the debut felt carefully wrought, perfectly polished, the follow-up book feels hurried, like it got rushed to the printer. We as readers feel disappointed, knowing in our bones that a great story could have been inside these covers, but there hadn’t been enough time or attention to find it. It’s the case where we hear ourselves say, “This book could have used an editor.”

Recently I read an interview with author Kristin Hannah, who said she’s twice blown her deadline. Once for her mega-bestseller The Nightingale, where she asked for another year to revise because the book was complex and needed the time. And then, more recently, when she had a manuscript that absolutely refused to work, so she pitched it and started over in the same setting with a different time period.

I so would have hated this—blowing a deadline. It’s completely in my marrow to make deadlines. But I think there’s a lesson to be taken here, because I’ve also, perhaps more often, made the deadline with work that could have been better.

For my latest project, I have no real deadline. Only whatever arbitrary one I might make up for myself. So I’m making a different type of commitment. Rather than setting a deadline, I’m setting a quality standard. My new goal is not to put out work until I’ve solicited so much feedback and polishing that I’m as certain as I can ever be that the work is ready to be in the light.

Which isn’t to say there’s NO deadline, in that I have to get it done before I die. Or lose my wits. But I can take as long as I need to put out work of which I feel proud. And really, because I’m me, and I secretly love deadlines, I'm telling myself that the deadline is an extra year. But if the work isn't ready then who knows, maybe I can get an extension.