The Deadline Monster Party Trick

📮 When your deadlines misbehave

My deadline monsters

Dear Powells,

Forgive me for not writing sooner. The last four months have been the most intense of my life, and I had to abandon all thoughts of writing to you and do only what needed to be done. ‘What was that?’ I hear you ask and I’m glad you have asked because I am bursting to tell you and receive sympathy. Sometimes in publishing, schedules slip a little (manageable, not worth mentioning) but sometimes they slip a lot (problematic, worthy of a Substack postcard). For the past 8 years, my deadline monsters have been well behaved, at times they’ve been positively idle. But in December not one, not even two, but four of them got together, presumably at some monster Christmas party, and decided they were bored, and that it would be entertaining to set their deadlines back-to-back and see what happened. Then they knocked back their Eggnog, high-fived, and got to work.

The result? I found myself finishing and delivering a picture book in January; Roughing and inking the third Montgomery BonBon book in February and March; Roughing and inking The Swifts part deux in March and April; and roughing the second Dermot ‘O Leary book in May. And no, you didn’t read that wrong, I said MAY and YES, I am aware we are only 3 days into May… thanks to my deadline monsters, I have learned to work fast. Alongside all of that, I wrote the first, second and third draft of my debut book, which is hovering around the ten-thousand-word mark - I didn’t know I knew ten thousand words, but apparently I do, albeit some are repeated. I also illustrated the first 3 chapters of aforementioned book, and the cover is underway.

But the last laugh is on me, Powells! This little deadline monster party trick backfired because, whilst I had to sacrifice a few things along the way (social life, temporary sanity) I actually got it all done. I’ve also made a few changes and now my schedule has so many gaps in it, it resembles a block of Swiss cheese.

So, the next time my deadline monsters are bored and twirling their furry thumbs they can go play tricks on someone else.

Until next time!

Powell. x