Q. Do You Have Deadlines?
A. Yes. I have one today, actually, and I’m missing it.
My editor Kate Jacobs and I keep in touch regularly about my progress with my drafts, and we mutually agree about when I have one due, based on what stage the book is in and how much revising needs to happen.
For instance, I’m currently working on the 5th draft of Vault 3, and when I began it back in July, I thought I could turn it in by today. I started realizing last weekend, however, that I was progressing more slowly as I hit sections of the book with deeper problems. I thought putting more hours in would catch me up, but I kept falling further behind.
So I emailed my editor Wednesday to ask about an extension, and Kate let me know yesterday that I can take an extra week. We’re still unsure if this draft will come in solid enough to warrant a close edit, or if it will need more discussion and another shuffle before that editing stage, which is even more time intensive for her.
In other words, I have deadlines, and I almost always make them, but sometimes I ask for more time. The deadlines match the work, realistically. When we’re closer to the end of the revision process and up against production deadlines, those are more rigid, and I can’t miss them. To be honest, it helps enormously to have a flexible, careful editor who works as hard as mine does. We’re definitely a team.
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