Some people have wondered, in comments and tweets, why I advise against filing a story to a magazine ahead of its deadline. “Wouldn’t that be a comfort to an editor?” Raspapple asked on Twitter.

It might be, and if you have the story ready early and the editor says it’s okay to file early, then it would be a comfort. But I wouldn’t just send it in early without asking first for two reasons. One, as I argued here, magazines run on tight, pre-determined schedules. Your editor is entirely focused on the next issue; just getting it out is more than he can do. Your story shows up in his in-box and it’s just something he has to push aside to get to the immediate work at hand. It’s a nuisance, a bother, a break in the exquisite rhythm of a magazine’s production schedule..

Aside from that, a story filed early can get forgotten. A story that comes early can sink very deep, and very fast, into an editor’s in-box. If I recall correctly, I filed my story about the Green Berets in the Philippines early. (You can see that story here, among the killed stories at the bottom of the page, and you can read the proposal that sold the story here. ) If you read the paragraph at the top of the story, you’ll see that the story simply got forgotten in the queue. I cannot be sure, because the New Yorker is such an opaque vault of secrets, but I’ve always suspected that had I handed it in at precisely the moment my editor expected it, instead of early, it might not have been forgotten.

Bottom line: If you are in touch with your editor, and she says it’s okay to file early, by all means do so. But I’d be a little extra vigilant. If you don’t hear anything back in a few days, call to make sure they know it’s there.