Deadlines Are Good, Actually?

I’m writing this newsletter at the last possible moment! That’s unlike me. In school, I would finish my class assignments the night before, not as class was actually starting like my cooler friends.

When it comes to Equip Story, I like to have a queue of three newsletters in the bank. That way, if I have a rough week and don’t have time to write because I’m fleeing the country for… reasons, I can publish a newsletter I’ve written ahead of time and keep to my weekly cadence. At one time this year, I did have a queue, but my life has gotten crazier lately. The game studio I work for has entered an intense period of production on the title I’ve been writing on all year. Combine that with some traveling and my queue vanished, even though I thought it was locked up safely in the newsletter bank! I suppose I could’ve skipped the week, but I didn’t give advance notice to you and I try to stick to my commitments. As a writer, it’s a point of pride that I meet my deadlines.

Deadlines are stressful. No one likes to feel under pressure. Yes, I love listening to “Under Pressure,” but if I had to listen to Queen’s entire discography by tomorrow or I’d be fired from my job, an otherwise enjoyable act would become stressful. (I’d want to break freeeee!) When my deadline means pass or flunk, succeed or fail, eat or starve, my deadline feels stressful, aggravating, or unfair, even if I first received it well in advance. The deadline is part of the oppressive capitalist system that keeps me bound to my desk instead of taking a leisurely walk in the sun or finishing Shredder’s Revenge, as humans were meant to do.

However, when the stakes are low, I find deadlines are a useful motivational tool for getting creative projects done. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how our publisher Dorian gave Amanda and I a tight deadline to complete the first three chapters of The Phenomenals, our sexy X-Men inspired dating sim. We decided it was worth adding a bit more stress to the project, because the artist they hired was excellent. It seemed like a fair trade-off, even though the deadline was sprung on us. My friend Matt replied to that newsletter with a better reason for us to stick it out…

I assume you and Amanda could probably cobble together a couple hundred for art if needed. The other psychological factor with a publisher is that if they’re investing in the project at all then it shows that somebody besides you gives a shit. That can inspire a lot of motivation you otherwise may not have had.

Not the point, but it would be more than a couple hundred for art, but this newsletter isn’t about visual novel budgeting. If it was, I would’ve had to write this waaaaay further in advance!

Matt was 100% right about the most important thing Dorian brought to the table for us: motivation. By giving our production process structure, from art investment to an in-house editor to a ship date, they were providing us with motivation to finish. But since we never signed a legal agreement saying we would abide by those deadlines, it felt like the right amount of pressure for a creative project. Just enough to encourage us to cross the finish line, but not so much that we felt threatened.

I feel the same way about game jams and competitions like IFComp. I would not have completed my interactive fiction games Fix Your Mother’s Printer or Use Your Psychic Powers at Applebee’s without the deadline pressure of the competition and knowing those games would be entering an ecosystem where people would actually play them. Admittedly, I made tweaks to both games on the last day before submission. There’s something thrilling about that, like Indiana Jones escaping the deadly cave just in time to grab his fedora and make a funny remark like, “Hat’s off to ya.” (Indiana Jones says “hat’s off to ya,” right? No time to look it up. Only a few minutes before I hit send!) If I had missed the IFComp deadline, it would’ve been a bummer, and depending on how close I was to finishing development, maybe I wouldn’t have finished those games at all. But I also would’ve moved on, knowing I gave it my best shot.

Truth be told, I’m very good at self-motivation. When a project idea excites me, I can usually finish a first pass or demo without the need for a deadline at all. Traditionally, though, in the back of my head, I’ve had a future outside deadline in mind. For example, I’ll design a card game out of the blue for fun, but then I’ll motivate myself to playtest and perfect the game with the motivation of demoing it for publishers at a convention. Outside deadlines have helped me take projects from concept to completion. On the flip side, I’ve definitely dropped projects I was excited about when the structure around them falls. A publisher loses interest or an executive passes and what was once an invigorating creative project becomes a digital tumbleweed blowing around my hard drive. That kind of demotivation is hard for me to overcome. Because I could publish the card game myself on Kickstarter, but after the publishers pass, it’s like… why?

That’s what I love about my Equip Story projects. They’re all about enjoying the creative process. If the motivation to make something is to have a good time, and I do, then the project was successful. Yay! I did it! *Holds up a gold “Best Creative Process” award!* If a deadline helps me have a better time, by encouraging me to finish and therefore feel better about the time spent, then the deadline was useful to me.

So, yes, I could’ve skipped this week’s newsletter, but I didn’t want to. I love Equip Story. I love taking time out each week to reflect on my creative process, in order to understand what I’m doing, why I do it, and how I can make it more fun and rewarding. And because I love this project, I do my best to honor the structure I’ve set up around it, which is why you’re reading this today. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of client work to do today. Deadlines, am I right?

🎲 Your Turn: What do you think of deadlines? Do they motivate you, frustrate you, or both? Could you finish work and projects without them? Reply to this email or tell the world what you think by clicking the orange button below.

📨 Next Week: I accidentally overwhelmed my creative partner Amanda as we designed the first two episodes of The Phenomenals. We had to figure out a whole new way to collaborate.

Image by pch.vector on Freepik