There’s only two people I have as “onward, onward!” support for my small business and writing career. One of them is my little sister. And one of my best friends lives in New York City. Everyone else doesn’t understand it, or has the suburban “we come home and rest” mindset. Which has never been my feelings.

I’m pretty sure that I did most of my homework before everyone else. Maybe not in high school, though. The part-time jobs in university were something different, but see the “come home and rest”.

I feel like I’m saying more than I should but you certainly seem to be opening parts of your soul! Why not do the same? 🙂

Great post, Mark. And you’re exactly right. I hope things turned out okay with the plumber.

Why?

Well, same client, a good client, had an article due today, as a matter of fact. I was racing to get all the interviews done before I went out of town last week, but that didn’t turn out to be possible (because, it being August, a lot of people are ALSO on vacation). So this week I crammed in 2 or 3 additional interviews (out of 7 or 8 for this particularly big, complicated, important article), then was writing my ass off to get it done I had hoped by Tuesday night (nope), then Wednesday. Then Wednesday afternoon, I’m still churning away on the article (almost 5,000 words) when my wife steps into my office and says, “Why’s your floor all wet? Oh crap!”

In my office is a little closet where the water comes in from the outside world and goes to the house and out to the sprinkler system. The parts had been leaking a month ago and we had it replaced, but the valve cracked (God knows why) and it had two fine little sprays of water inside the closet that was seeping outside the door. And we hurried up and moved half my crap around and called the plumber, and I kept writing while he was here, and after he was gone, and until 9:10 last night. And this morning I wrapped up the article, sent it off, called the client and was offered a temporary but very regular gig that might turn permanent in addition to the other stuff I do for them.

And that’s why you meet or beat deadlines.