Deadlines

Had an interesting little back and forth on the subject of deadlines on Twitter today. I'll be frank with you. I'm about to miss a deadline on my current MS to my beta readers and that has me stressed. 

I hate missing deadlines, they keep me honest. They make me work on my writing. They may be the only reason in the world I ever revise a story, especially now l have downgraded my writing ambitions for a year or two.

So why, on this story I feel born to write have I dropped the ball? I've had a lot of "life" come up in the weeks since I set this deadline: an unexpected week long trip "home", the flu, my kids out of school an extra 4 days. That's three weeks of delays right there. But I feel that's only half of the story...

You see for me, missing deadlines means I have caved in to fear. Fear my writing isn't any good, fear I'm doing the wrong thing with my life, fear I have not done right by my character, fear I have missed something completely embarrassing.

So I want to know if you miss deadlines why? 

As for me, I think I'm going toiss.this deadline because I didn't give myself enough time to begin with. And that will only make me a better writer.