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Ring Psychology

by Aaron Hall

Volume Eleven: Dealing With Deadlines Writing, like any other artistic or creative undertaking, is far from an exact science. I in no way believe myself to be a master of the game or a voice of authority on the dos and don’ts of writing. This column is simply me sharing with all of you some of the things that I’ve picked up along the way that seem to help me out. Use them, abuse them, make fun of them, or sell them on eBay. Now, on to the article! “Dealing With Deadlines” With all of my projects that I work on, I do something that most people think is pretty insane. I impose self deadlines on myself. I have a calendar and I mark on it when I need to be finished with what. And I’m not nice to myself either, I impose some pretty awful deadlines on myself sometimes. I only have until July 5th to get to page 30 on my graphic novel script. After that, I’m giving myself one week to get another 20 pages scripted on it. Most people hate deadlines, but I love them. I think that they are nothing but a good thing. When it comes to being an amateur anything, it pretty much means you do it in your own time. The word amateur means you’re trying to become a professional, but you’re not quite there yet. So, that means taking time out of your free time to do more work. I talk about this all the time, it’s about sacrificing free time. I work full time, I’ll soon be back in college full time, and I’m still going to deadline myself. By imposing deadlines and sticking to them I guarantee that I’m going to keep moving forward with my projects. It eliminates the possibility of being lazy, because I can look at that calendar and realize that I’ve got a lot of scripting to do, so I probably shouldn’t waste an hour watching The Real World on MTV. And let’s be honest, I don’t always hit my deadlines. But it’s never for lack of trying. I get sick, I get overwhelmed, I have a personal crisis. There are a lot of things that can make you come up short of a deadline. But the fact is, if you don’t get yourself used to hitting them, you’re never going to make it as a professional. My editor at Top Cow comics isn’t really going to care that my wife left me for the gardener, he’s just going to care about the fact that I didn’t make my deadline. The fan that waited all month to get the newest issue of my comic book doesn’t really care that I was too tired to write. All he knows is that his favorite comic book is three weeks late. It’s one of those harsh lessons, but the fact is most people are going to be pretty unforgiving about this stuff. It’s best to get yourself used to that idea and get yourself used to working under deadlines now, instead of being surprised and overwhelmed by them when it’s an editor putting them on you. It really comes down to what you have inside of yourself. It’s the measure of any good person, how they act under pressure. Some people snap, not able to deal with the pressure of a looming deadline. Others, like myself, thrive under that pressure. To me, breaking a deadline is like breaking a promise to myself. One day, it’ll be like breaking a promise to my fans, and that’s something I never want to do. I love creating and writing and if I’m ever blessed enough to have people actually reading my comic books, the last thing I want to do is disrespect them by being too tired or lazy to hit my deadlines. I’ve talked about it before and I’m sure I’ll talk about it again, but we live in a world of distractions. Take control of your environment and take control of your free time. What’s more important, finishing up a project that you’ve been working on or watching every episode of Reno 911 on Comedy Central? When you’re old and your bones are brittle one of those two things will be something to remember, something to be proud of. And I can pretty much guarantee it’s not the Reno 911 thing. Until next time, this is the member of Russian parliament who dared the president to keep the super bowl ring and the lead singer of Stomp, Aaron Hall, signing off. If you have any questions or comments about creating comics feel free to email them to freejenkins@gmail.com and I’ll answer them right here in this very column because yes, I care about you that much.