Be able to meet any deadline, even if your work is done less well than it would be if you had all the time you would have preferred.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've worked my whole life and never missed a deadline.
Having deadlines helps because people are constantly breathing down my neck, and tapping their toes waiting for pages. So I just have to work nine to five. If I didn't have deadlines then I might be more of a golden hour kind of guy, writing from eight to noon and calling it a day, but that's just not the way I work right now.
There are always deadlines I have to meet. I don't let myself get too close to the deadlines, so it's not like I'm just sweating bullets or anything if the clock is ticking. I never let myself get in that situation.
I've never been good with deadlines. My early novels, I wrote by myself. No one knew I was writing a novel; I didn't have a contract.
I've been a freelancer my entire career, and, at any given time, I have several deadlines for all sorts of things, whether it's some magazine piece or ad copywriting or anything.
At some point, I would like to write a book and other things, but I work best when there is some sort of deadline in my own mind, but not when fifty people or fifty million people are breathing down the back of my neck.
Deadlines aren't bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it.
Deadlines are meant to be broken. And I just keep breaking them.
One, I push my deadlines closer than anybody else, or let's say it this way: I'm really late.
The only deadline is the one I give myself.