Better Half-Baked by the Deadline than Over-Baked Too Late

One of my tasks for this month was to complete a chapter I had been invited to contribute to an edited philosophy collection. This, of course, involved starting the chapter, writing the chapter, revising the chapter, and then submitting the chapter. As the deadline approached, I hadn't actually done ANY of these things. I had MEANT to do them, but of course that's not the same thing at all.

I had comforted myself with the thought that academic deadlines are often largely fictitious and fanciful. I know many academics who submit book chapters MONTHS past the deadline, with impunity. There are always stragglers. Maybe this time I would be one of them. I wouldn't miss the deadline by a huge amount, just a week or two. How terrible would that be? Not terrible at all, I told myself.

But then, a week before the deadline, I learned that it would indeed be VERY terrible. The co-editors were traveling to be together in person to meet and go over our chapters together, so they could send timely feedback to all of us, so we could revise in a timely way to meet the press's apparently NON-fictitious and NON-fanciful deadline.

Gulp.

Well, there would surely still be SOME stragglers, I told myself. Would this really be the first project in the history of academia with no stragglers at all? I started composing my heartfelt apology in my head. And believe me, I could put enough of my real-life hideous heartbreak and unbearable stress into the apology to cause any editor to weep on my behalf and excuse me from all deadlines, forever.

But then I thought . . . what if . . . what if instead . . .  I actually sat down and WROTE THE CHAPTER and sent it in on time???

Ooh!

I had indeed given the chapter plenty of thought. It was only supposed to be a maximum of 5000 words. That isn't SO long. The editors had encouraged us to write in a conversational and engaging style, and that's precisely what I'm good at doing. I still had a week, even though most of that week would be spent visiting my sister in Indiana before attending the annual conference of the Children's Literature Association, held this year in Indianapolis. But I love writing in other places.

So I started writing here at home at my desk. I kept on writing while sitting on the world's comfiest couch in the world's coziest living room at my sister's house. I allowed myself to miss one conference session each day to lie on my luxurious hotel-room bed, writing. And I sent the paper off by the deadline.

The editors responded within a day. They were "very happy" with it - and I'm sure they were extremely happy to have it on time rather than late. They noted the paucity of citations, which I had noticed as well, since I didn't have any of my books with me on my trip. If I wanted to add any, they'd be glad to give me another week to do so. And yes, indeed, I would!

Now, my tastes may differ from yours, but I much prefer under-baked cookies to over-baked ones and even prefer burnt cookies to no cookies at all. If I set the oven timer for less time than needed, I can always add more time, but if I set the timer for more time than needed, I end up scraping blackened cookie bits from the tray.

So now I'm off to add some citations to a paper submitted on time in an ALMOST-finished form rather than a perfect paper submitted too late. And then I may bake some slightly oozy, gooey cookies as a reward.