I spent the first half of the year writing and drawing the next book, so I guess it makes sense that I’ve written so many newsletters about deadlines.

In March, I made a zine called Death & Deadlines:

I can really relate to this excerpt from Terry Teachout’s Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington:

“He was the most chronic of procrastinators, a man who never did today what he could put off until next month, or next year. He left letters unanswered, contracts unsigned, watches unworn, and longtime companions unwed, and the only thing harder than getting him out of bed in the afternoon was getting him to finish writing a new piece of music in time for the premiere. “I don’t need time,” he liked to say. “What I need is a deadline!”

Two weeks ago I wrote about the 5 things that work for me when I’m on deadline:

You spend most of your life as a writer being misunderstood by the people around you, but the one thing people seem to respect is when you say, “Sorry. I can’t. I’m on deadline.”

This week I wrote about the 7 types of deadline music:

The majority of my work in the studio has to do with words, so most of the time, I can’t listen to podcasts or audiobooks. (In fact, if there’s a podcast or an audiobook I really want to listen to, I’ll go out of my way to schedule time to work on something non-verbal, like a collage.)

After all that… I have hit my deadlines!