Your success or failure as a screenwriter can be measured in one word: deadlines.
Don't like that? Tough. Here's the sobering truth. If you can't write on demand, on-time, Hollywood has no use for you. There's too many writers out there who can write on demand, on-time.
You may think you're the greatest writer who ever lived and they'll want your work so bad it doesn't matter whether you finish on time or not. If so, you're delusional.
Hollywood is an industry. It's no different than building cars, the parts have to arrive on time or they're useless. Imagine an entire assembly line shut down because the headlights didn't show up. Entire cars sitting there on the line, with no headlights, and workers standing around getting paid to wait for those headlights—or worse, laid off because they're not needed anymore.
What do you think would happen to the headlight supplier? Either they're going to pay back the money lost because those headlights weren't delivered on time willingly, or they'll be taken to court and ordered to pay restitution for breach of contract. Either way, it's not very likely they'll be making headlights for that company anymore.
That's pretty much how big business works. Remember, Hollywood is a business.
It doesn't matter how good you are, if you can't meet deadlines, you're costing somebody money. I don't know about you, but I don't want to do business with anyone who costs me money. I'm not in a very forgiving mood when it comes to people who cost me money. I don't give people a second chance to cost me more money.
If I'm a nobody and I feel that way, just imagine how powerful executives and studio heads feel about it.
-The Illiterate Writer
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