I am not a patient person. I suck at waiting for anything. I am the original ADHD, instant gratification, I-want-it-now girl. Needless to say, I’m in the wrong business, since it seems like the getting-published side of writing is all about waiting. Ninety days is a lifetime to people like me. And when that 90 days stretches into five or six months, I become a walking basket case.
(That Tom Petty—he knows me. He speaks to me. When he wails, for twenty-nine nasally beats, “THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART,” it’s like he’s singing what’s hidden in my soul.)
I know part of this comes from my control-freak nature. Control freaks hate to wait—not because we are impatient, even though we can be—but because waiting for someone else to do something means that something is out of our control. My manuscript is out there in the cold, hard world and I’ve lost control over it. God only knows where it is or how long it will be until someone actually picks it up to read it. Control freaks can’t handle not being in charge.
I know; I need some serious therapy. Counselor Shelley is working with me on this, but I’m not making much progress. See, I want to be cured of my impatient, control freak problems NOW, not tomorrow. Not after six sessions. NOW. NOW. NOW.
Sheesh. And I wonder where Amazing Child gets it from…
So, I’m sitting here, waiting, slowing losing my mind while I drive the Playfriends, Shelley, and my CP insane with my incessant complaints of “Why is this taking so freaking long?!?”
Then I take a deep breath and remind myself that no news is good news. Each day I wait without hearing anything is one more day I haven’t been rejected. One more day where I can pretend the editor with my manuscript is dancing up and down the hallways with joy over what’s she’s just discovered. One more day I can dream that THIS manuscript is the one.
So that’s a good thing. Sorta. But it doesn’t make the waiting any easier. I blog, I write another email to Shelley, and I whine at DG for a while. Then I break out the Tom Petty CD and wail along at the top of my lungs…THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART.
How do you handle the waiting?
PC
6 comments:
Other than whining to you all, I cope with it best by just forgetting about it. I know - how could I possibly forget that my baby is out there? Well, honestly, I can. Its on my brain constantly the first few days and weeks, then it just fades. By the times months roll around, it might pop into my head, make me nauseus, then something else more pressing will force me to forget again.
I had completely forgotten I submitted to Womans World until I got an R.
Now, grant it, I can NOT forget about who has my current stuff. Its not often one can directly deliver one's work into the hands of someone like that. That makes it all the more aggravating to wait. I'll take any tips I can get on that front.
I have one magazine article that's probably on the editor's desk now and another that's heading out the door this afternoon.
How am I going to pass the time? Write, I hope. And wear gloves so I can't gnaw my fingernails to the quick.
LOL! My word verification was "gaxjin." Is that one of Miss Snark's brands? *g*
Uh, I don't. It might look like I do but really, I don't.
Patience - not one of my virtues.
I'm with SP though, I simply try to put it out of my mind. And if I can do that I'm usually ok. It's when the fact that my baby is out in the big bad world pops back into my brain that I have issues which usually translates to a chocolate binge. Isn't it funny how Chocolate can cure all?
Instigator
I just realized last weeks blog was MINE, MINE, MINE, and this week's is NOW, NOW, NOW.
I'm probably not winning a lot of friends by sounding like my 4-year-old
But as DIVA-IN-TRAINING, we wouldn't expect anything less. :)
SP
Patience Grasshopper, patience.
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