As a writer, it is my job to write. Turning an article or manuscript in late, or not turning it in at all, is the difference between building a career and moving into my parent’s attic. Basically, missing deadlines is not the best idea.

Many deadlines are, I find, easy to meet.

You need a 400-word piece about shoes? Done.

You want 500 words on dating? No problem.

These are the easy things, the trivial projects that I can bang out without much thought or effort. They might not win me any awards and they don’t make me feel any better or worse about myself, but they pay the bills

It is when a project is important to me that the words don’t come.

When a well-respected publication or website asks for an article on something that actually takes some level of critical thought or consideration, my brain freezes and all of a sudden 600 words seems like a Ph.D. thesis. It is an impossible and insurmountable task that I put off day after day until the last possible moment at which point I am so stressed and on edge that I can’t even remember what I’m supposed to be writing about.

The things that I care most about doing right are often the hardest to get done.

But then sometimes, even when the words start to flow like warm honey, I don’t want them to land. I work on different projects, catch up on every TV show I’ve ever heard of, and procrastinate like my life depends on it. I delete draft after draft, telling myself that it just isn’t right.

What isn’t right aren’t the words though.

There are, I’ve found, a very special group of assignments that fall into this uncomfortable category. The projects that even though they are for an impressive publication or important website, I just can’t get jazzed up about. While the words might come, the enthusiasm doesn’t.

These assignments almost feel worse than the ones that I want to complete but struggle to finish. They are the projects that I know I should want and that I’m ungrateful for not appreciating, but that I just can’t bring myself to do.

I find myself with an unsettled feeling in my stomach. I become insular and unhappy. I lash out at those that I care about most and every little thing bugs me to the point of an argument.

So I let the deadline pass and that unsettled feeling is replaced by one of failure.

My job is to write, and to get paid for it is a privilege, and yet I let a job go just because I didn’t like how it felt.

The deadlines I miss most often are unfortunately the ones that matter, but not for the reason that most people expect. I am not lazy and I am not unmotivated. I do not feel entitled to success and I do not think that just because I’ve had a taste of success, I deserve more.

Those pieces that I struggle with because I want to get them right? I get those done. It might be down to the wire, but I make it happen. I am a writer, even when writing hurts.

If I let myself miss a deadline, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good opportunity. It might have paid well, gotten a lot of press, or led to more work in the future. But if I let myself miss a deadline, it isn’t one that I was supposed to make.

Because even when writing hurts, being a writer shouldn’t.