The Dreadful Power of the Self-Imposed Deadline

I have a problem finishing things. I like to read twenty books at the same time and alternate between movies (fifteen minutes of Touch of Evil, twenty minutes of Fargo, five minutes of 27 Dresses). Not finishing books and movies isn't much of a problem, of course. I can take my own sweet time or I can tell my inner perfectionist to 'bite it' and even leave a book or movie unfinished forever.

But there's something else I do that looks similar but is serious. I have start projects and abandon them before their done. Projects that mean a ton to me, that I have worked hard on, that I have tortured my friends and family by being too chatty about. I've gotten quite a ways into them and then ditched them. I've left them shelved and blithely moved onto the next idea. I'm always working on something but nothing ever gets finished.

No one really sees what I can do. No one really sees what I believe. No one hears the thoughts inside my beautifully messed-up head. No one really sees my heart because nothing ever gets finished. Trailers get posted. Excerpts are shared. But nothing is ever finished.

You won't know this until March 1st rolls around but mark my words: starting now, I finish my projects. My current one, Little Wing, is due in one month. Jeez! One month and I have so much left to do: two more screenplay pages to animate, all the voice acting (including the terrifying idea of actually getting Lilly to cooperate for more than one minutes at a time). The score needs to be finished, the film needs to be edited. Then there are several steps just to get the final product exported and posted on the internet. One month to do all those things.

And the beauty is: that deadline, that March 1st deadline? I set that. I don't have a boss. Unless you count my wife, Kristen, who will stab me in the mouth if I don't have a finished product on March 1st. I set that deadline and I'm busting my ass to make and I will make it. Making that deadline means that I've been working on Little Wing six days a week. It means that most of those days start somewhere between 3:30 am and 5:00 am and go until the day's quota (two shots) is filled.

I love that I respect my bossless, self-imposed deadline so much that I'm getting up three hours before the sun comes up. I like Little Wing, its characters, its images, its music, etc. but right now, even more than Little Wing, I love my deadline. It's dreadful that I have to release whatever I have on that date and it's great too. On March 1st, I will be done. I will have finished something. I will start on something else and will be setting a whole new dreadful deadline.

On March 1st, I officially become a dreamer who DOES. Just you watch me. I'm gonna...

Here's more about Little Wing:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1760401338/little-wing-animated-short

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