This piece I wrote about a freelance artist who fibbed and gave me a huge deadline problem continues to draw mail. This is from Steven Marsh…
I've been a professional magazine editor for nearly 18 years, and your column about Mr. "No Problemo" darn-near gave me an anxiety attack just to read and experience second-hand. So, once again, your writing has provoked an emotional response from me!
My question is: Do you have any insight into WHY an artist (or other creative) would DO something like that? Is it hubris? Delusion? A vain attempt to FORCE the creativity to come? What's the best-possible outcome they can envision?
Yeah, I can explain it because after I forgave the guy and began giving him work again, we discussed it. The artist was a freelancer who worked for many companies and editors. I absolutely sympathize with anyone in that position because that's been my entire career for 49 years now — juggling assignments, working for several places at the same time.
By his own admission, this artist worried incessantly about not having enough work to meet the expenses of life. Even when he had a full dance card and was turning down work, he was fretting, "What if there's nothing more after I hand in my current assignments?" When I asked him to draw the story for me, he should have said no, he didn't have time. He was already committed to too many other jobs but on impulse, he said yes. Remember that I had just become an editor for the Hanna-Barbera comic book division. He wanted to establish himself with me because I was a new source of work for him.
He also wanted to get a lot of work from that division. We paid a little better than others and we paid faster than anyone else. With everyone else he worked for, it took a week or two to get the check. If I received the work before 2 PM, the check would go in the mail that day or if you brought the pages to me before 2, you could hang around for fifteen minutes and I'd get the accounting department to issue the check then and there. Also, the artist liked me and wanted to work with me.
He thought he was doing both of us a favor by taking on the job…and he thought he'd have more time than I said. When most editors say "I need this in two weeks," the freelancer assumes he can fudge it by a week or two; that there's padding built into the schedule. I told him there wasn't but as he explained to me later, "I always assume there's more time than the editor says because there almost always is."
I probably erred by not saying something like, "And I honestly just have to have it in two weeks. Please don't take it on if you can't get it done in two. I'll offer you some other work soon but I truly need this one in two weeks."
So he took it on and then one of his other employers made some threatening noises and he felt he had to do an assignment he had from that guy before he tackled mine and…well, everyone has limits. He simply mismanaged his time and mis-estimated how long everything would take him to do…so he couldn't get everything done when he said he'd get it done. This happens. His real crime was in not being straight with me as to how the work was proceedings. He apologized, I decided he was sincere and we put it behind us.
This reminds me of a story about Betty White that I don't think I've told here. I'll try to write it up in the next few days.