Day 20. Late at night. And I’m still working on today’s article for NaGraNoWriMo.<\/p>\n
Why? I mean, isn’t it okay if I miss a day? It’s just funny books, after all. Can’t I just blow a deadline?<\/p>\n
Are you crazy?<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, stuff happens. The kid has to go to the emergency room, the computer crashes, that person you had a crush on in high school is in town for the night following a painful divorce and they were thinking of you and…<\/p>\n I don’t want to hear it.<\/p>\n Do you know National Novel Writing Month got started? Because for most participants, they had an idea for a novel but never took the time to write it. And do you know why most of those novels never got written? No Would be writers would think about the plot for years on end, twiddling And it never happened. Because there was no deadline, and consequently, no pressure.<\/p>\n And understand, in comics, it’s not just you.<\/p>\n Your collaborators are waiting on you to finish. If you’re late, you’re cutting into the time they have to draw your book. Which means they’re going to rush to finish your masterpiece.<\/p>\n Editors aren’t going to want to hire you if you blow deadlines– they have lots of other people they can hire who won’t give them that trouble.\u00a0 <\/p>\n And finally, do you really want to deal with the people like me on the Internet complaining how the last issue of your miniseries is months late?<\/p>\n So get it done. Stop procrastinating. You’ve got pages to write.<\/p>\n And if you haven’t started writing your graphic novel yet, you now have the focus of a very condensed deadline. Ten days instead of a month. You don’t have the luxury of putting it off any more, you have to buckle down and write the dang thing. You’ve eaten up your slack time. So get to it.<\/p>\n Use that pressure! No more time to put it off, no more tweaking– just get it down and get it done.<\/p>\n If you need tips, remember: you can follow all the NaGraNoWriMo posts here<\/a>!<\/p>\n Jump to comments (1) <\/a><\/p>\n
\ndeadline.\u00a0 No pressure. <\/p>\n
\ntheir thumbs. They’d come up with brilliant twists while showering, which they’d never get down on paper. They’d make
\nvague plans about renting a cabin at Yaddo someday to actually write the damn thing. <\/p>\n