DEADLINES

From the Editor's Desk

Friends, I know a little about 'time critical'.  

Sometimes it's for a mission where you're finally actually doing something that may be impactful and the fuel gauge is running down 24lbs/min and the ship is sailing away from your current position at 22kts and if you spool up your sonar dome now from its 700' depth it should take about 4min then if you hustle back to the ship's projected position 25mins from now at 130kias you should have just about enough fuel to not have to ditch into the middle of the Mediterranean in time to turn you and your crew into shark bait. 

Sometimes it's life and death and someone has had a couple too many beers and rocketed their snowmobile into the trees during a nighttime ride and their femur's shattered which won't be a problem if the hypothermia has it's way because it was 25 below in the daytime and you know you'll be 12 minutes loading up firing up and getting airborne then you have a 36 minute transit to the scene where the ambulance is useless because this wreck is in 3' of snow about 3 miles from any plowed roads and if you rush this and clip a powerline on final or don't do a thorough check of the weather and pick up a bunch of ice on your tailrotor on the way there you may now be looking at a quintupling of bodies your own included.  

Sometimes it ain't such a big deal.  'Important', sure-  for scheduling and goal setting and planning and all kinds of other elements that keep ink in the presses and our projects on the tracks, but none of these things are multi-million dollar operations or have lives hanging in the balance.  I have to remind people of this sometimes (myself included), lest we get far too wrapped about the axle in this pursuit of writing and publishing- which, in my opinion, should ultimately be enjoyable and satisfying.  

For one thing, we'd like to see finished products that we know the author has had time to go through a few separate times. A job worth doing is worth doing right, after all. If you find yourself saying at some point "eh, good enough, but I HAVE to get this to my editor or all hell will break loose", then you need to take a step back, read this article again (yes, you may reference it when next in this position) and let me know you're just not there yet.  Oh believe me, we'd prefer all went according to our master schedule, but things happen, the best laid plans, etc. We get that, and sometimes it's pretty easy to talk someone else into releasing their book a couple months early in the spot where yours used to be!  

All I ask is for you to keep your publisher posted, keep at it, do your best, and keep the urgency of things in perspective!  

JD