On Waiting

It's nice to have company while we wait, yes?

Any writer will tell you, the hardest part of the getting-published process is the waiting game.

It's not the writing. That part's fun.
It's not the editing. Even though it's sometimes painful and sometimes makes your head want to explode, at least you're being productive.

Waiting is the worst.

When you're querying, you wait to hear back from agents.

You get a request, you send it off, and then wait for the decision.

You sign with an agent. Maybe you have revisions to make. You send them off and then wait to hear if your manuscript is ready for editorial eyes.

Your manuscript is declared ready and goes out into the scary world of big publishing houses. Again, you wait.

Your agent tells you there's interest, but to wait a few more weeks....

I could keep going, ad nauseam, but you get the idea. The waiting  never ends, even after you've signed the contract, even after your book is on display at B&N. You're waiting for sales figures and royalties and to hear back on new projects.

So, what do many of us brilliant writer folk do to pass the time while we're waiting?

We ... WRITE, of course!

This is so genius because it gives us a new manuscript-baby to invest in while our school-aged manuscript is away. The problem is, that manuscript-baby grows up and gives us ... something new to wait for.

I hit a couple milestones this past week. I laid my little book, Seagull Rising, to rest after just under a year of having it out on submission. It wasn't too heartbreaking, to be honest, but only because I have two new manuscript-babies ready for manuscript-kindergarten (a.k.a. my ninja agent's opinion). That's the other milestone -- I sent my agent two manuscripts in under two weeks. (I'm not sure if that's against some unwritten rule, but ... they were both ready to go! What's a girl to do?)

So, here I am, between projects ... waiting.

I have two new ideas. One is a YA contemporary set in Hong Kong and the other is a MG historical verse novel. I really liked how this worked the last few months -- having two very different projects going simultaneously. I hope this new pairing will work well together, too.

That's all from me! What do you think of waiting ... and moving on ... and waiting some more? If you're a writer, how do you spend your time between projects?

Photo credit: whistla from morguefile.com