Deadlines

Why Deadlines are our friends.

The name “deadline” seems pretty intimidating. It always has to me, anyway. Ever since I first encountered the concept sometime in my early teens as I was grasping the various concepts associated with my chosen field of drawing stuff.

So it doesn’t surprise me that we have expressions like “the dreaded deadline doom” in our society. But I’ve come to realize just what a boon deadlines can be.

I just finished one up, in fact. Yep. I just finished another series of illustrations for Weekly Reader Corporation (the little darlin’s just keep coming back for more, and I couldn’t be happier about it). Burned a disk, packed it up and sent it out via UPS to the WR folks in Stamford, CT. (I won’t tell you who, what, or how much…sorry, some things are still private).

But I will tell you this, I got the job about 22 days ago, and have been on the work pretty much since then. I was glad to get the work, as I had just gotten back from MegaCon in Orlando…which did not go as well as I had hoped it would.

So I went from discouraged to full out elated in about two seconds when WR got in touch.

But, unlike some other clients, WR is a breeze to work with. (I should mention that this has been my experience at WR throughout my time doing freelance there. I’ve worked with three awesome art directors so far, and hope to do more there in the future). I think it helps having a tight deadline.

This one was extremely tight. Four illustrations in 22 days may not seem like much to some, but recall that these each had to be presented to the publication every step of the way: I had to turn in thumbnails, get those approved by art director and creative director (and probably editor too); go to pencil roughs, get those approved; do the inks, get the okay; then do all the colors, and make sure those were good.

There was not a lot of time for rethinking things along the way. Every step had to be pretty much on the mark, every time. So I’m proud of what I’ve done. And I’ve even managed to keep several other freelance projects going at the same time.

Hopefully, this will mean that I can pay my taxes on time.

I’d like to publicly acknowledge my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for making it all possible, and keeping me healthy during the drawing phase (because I couldn’t afford to be out sick or the whole thing would have fallen apart). I’d also like to thank my wife for doing her part to keep the food coming, and getting me to our chiropractor and massage therapist a couple of times during it all.

I was talking about deadlines.

In this case the deadline was my friend (although at around 11 this morning it was looking pretty evil when my CD burner was acting up). If the deadline hadn’t have been tight I might have been asked to make major changes in my art.

Not that WR has ever done this to me! (I like working at WR and don’t want to mess that deal up, that’s why I keep coming back to this point).

I hate making changes over and over. That is extremely frustrating. I’ve had clients who want to micromanage and they drive me nuts.

Almost as bad is the client who has an artificial deadline that is much too tight, and then when you do as good a job as you can during the time given…and that job sort of stinks because you did it too fast…then the client sits on the job for another six weeks! If I’d had a week more to fix that job it could have been great. But the artificial deadline messed it all up.

But I still like deadlines. They give me the right to say, “that’s good enough, I can go on to the next thing!”

For instance, I’ve been writing my own notes for a Sunday School class I’m teaching. I write my notes on Sunday evenings, visit with my minister on Monday for lunch and run those notes by him, then type the notes up during the week, usually finishing up on Saturday sometime. Nice and neat.

My minister, on the other hand, (who is very candid about his process, so probably won’t mind me saying this here) gets up around 4 a.m. on Sunday to get his notes together for his 11 am sermon.

It’s not that he procrastinates at all. He’s been working on that sermon all week. I see him on Monday and he’s working on it even then. He is so conscientious about it that he just has to do that extra work every time.

I told him yesterday, if it comes down to that for me, I’d better start using a lesson quarterly.

But I’ve been doing the deadline thing for so long now that it’s begun to be easier for me. I get to the target date and I can let go. That’s good.

That’s not to say that I’m not a little nervous right now waiting to hear if the overnight package got to Stamford okay. But the creative thing is done. For good or ill, the art is “in the can”.

Now I can get to work on other stuff.