Get used to it

There are a few different things you have to get used to if you want to be a published author. One of the biggest ones is... waiting. There's lots of hard work, and deadlines, and goals, and writing, and all that. But then there's the wait. We work, we hope, we send off our stuff. And then we wait. And wait.

Hurry up... and wait some more.

Writing, reading, editing, revising, copy editing, printing, PUBLISHING a book takes time. There are moments of hurrying and then there is waiting. Waiting for the response from a CP, waiting to hear back on a query, waiting to hear back on a request, waiting for revision notes from your agent, waiting on editors to respond to submissions, waiting for your edits, waiting for your publication date.

Another time when there is a lot of waiting? When you're pregnant. I have no idea why that would be on my mind, but it is. It has nothing to do with the little person rolling and spinning and kicking and stretching in my belly; basically making herself very well known. How is that I feel like I've been pregnant forever, and still have so long to go? And yet, at the same time, I can't believe I'm going to have another baby in about 10-12 weeks! A whole new person, a lovely, untouched soul entering the world in such a short time, who will be completely reliant upon me... that'll make you pause for a minute, to say the least.


So, back to writing. Getting an agent can be like this, and having your book coming out on a shelf (aka published) does, too. You want something so badly. You go through all the ups and downs, the pain, the longing, the hard work (that's usually more applicable to writing, not pregnancy), the nausea (usually more applicable to pregnancy, than writing), you get the idea. It takes time and work and effort and patience to publish a book, or to bring a baby into the world. Because ultimately, you can't rush things. And you shouldn't want to. No matter how uncomfortable I already am (hello ligament pain, aren't you fun! not to mention a few other side effects that are new this time around but I won't mention), I definitely don't want my baby coming out too soon. I want her to be fully developed, full term, healthy, happy, strong.


The same goes for my "book baby"--I don't want it out in the wild prematurely. I want it to be fully developed and the best it possibly can be before it hits a shelf. And that means I have to wait. Wait for this baby to be done cooking, wait for the timing to be right for my book.

Hmm... did that analogy actually make sense? Or did it just end up sounding like the ramblings of a crazy preggo who's trying to convince herself it's a good thing she still has about two and a half months to go? Eh, I tried.

What about you? What are you waiting for? And do you ever get used to it?

Patience... and lots of it!

So, one thing you MUST have to succeed in the publishing world...

PATIENCE.

Talent is great. Determination, excellent. But if you don't have patience, you won't get anywhere. At least not without a LOT of frustration. (Trust me, as someone who struggles with patience, I know. I understand.)

Things take time in this biz. Lots of time. Oodles of it. Hurry up and... wait. Hurry some more and... wait. Write that book, edit it, revise it, send out those queries and... wait. Get some requests, hurry and rush through your partial/full again to check for mistakes, read through your three sentence response to the agent(s) fifty times and change one word ten times and finally send off that email and... wait. Get an offer of representation! Sign with your new agent!! Talk on the phone about all the possibilities the future holds. Get told they want to do a round of revisions and... wait. (to get those revisions.) Do the revisions, send them back, and... wait. (Possibly repeat any of these steps any number of times.) Finally, FINALLY get told by agent that your mss is ready for submission. And guess what?? Yep! You get to wait some more. (Some longer than others.) And then you get the offer from an editor who wants to buy your mss and... ha ha! Wait some more! See a trend here? ;-)

(Side note: Speaking of waiting... Don't you just love it when people ask you what your book is about, and say "I can't wait to buy it!" Then when you tell them once it sells it might be anywhere from 12-24 months before it's on a shelf they either stare at you incredulously, or look like they want to pat you on the hand and say, "oh, ri-ight. You're a writer. Uh huh. You just keep me posted on that little hobby." Thankfully there are lots of people who understand it takes time to edit and print and market a book. But, yeah. Not everyone. )

So my advice for today? Practice honing your patience. Learn how to distract yourself and stay busy and not become addicted to "refresh" or "inbox." I wasn't too great at that when I first started querying. I'm a "hurry up and get it done now!" kind of girl. However, over the intervening YEARS (not days, or even months) since I started querying and accepted the offer from my agent, I've definitely learned how to be (at least a little bit) more patient.

How about you? What are some of you techniques to stay distracted or busy when you're in the middle of waiting?