I can feel it on the tips of my toes and it is beginning to make its way to my ankles and upward. It begins with just the tiniest irritation and then it becomes hard to ignore. It grows by the minute, hour and day and there is little I can do about it.
What is it you ask?
It’s the dreaded waiting period from the moment you send in your first query and/or manuscript. You begin knowing you need infinite patience, but patience is a virtue few have control over. I’ve often found myself battling the need to relax and wait even though I know exactly when the hour is coming. Each minute becomes an hour and each hour, day. I hate waiting. Lines drive me insane. Even one person ahead of me at the grocery store is – to me – a waste of my time and energy.
Oh well … I’m in an industry where time means little. It works at its own pace and doesn’t concern itself with those desperately awaiting answers. For my own sanity, I have tried to come up with my own 5 Writers Steps to Acceptance. These steps are even based a bit on the 5 Steps to Acceptance for those dealing with death.
Step 1: Excitement
The first query is in the mail. You are excited and you begin making those plans that will make you successful and famous. You can’t wait for the return envelope with the offer to purchase your epic work. That’s Day 1. And Day 2 and so on and so on until you realize it takes much more time than you hope. That’s when you face …
Step 2: Anger
What’s taking them so long? Can’t they see its one of the greatest literary creations since Gutenberg’s printing press (which of course was created just for this moment in history). You tell yourself to calm down, but you want to make that phone call to someone, anyone. Fortunately calmer minds surround you to remind you it’s only been a couple of days. You decide there must be another way and begin …
Step 3: Bargaining
… to attempt to find a way to nicely contact the *publisher/agent* to let them know your amazing manuscript should be on their desk, but maybe someone misplaced it. Then you turn to prayer, each night offering some small piece of yourself if only … and then it happens …
Step 4: Depression
… You know no one is going to accept your manuscript. No one knows your name or even cares that you wrote this third rate garbage. You know the *publisher/agent* is never going to send you a rejection much less call you. Maybe you even decide to give up writing, choose a new career path – trash hauler or janitor or if you are absolutely at the bottom of your depression, you decide the state must take care of you – yes, welfare sounds exciting. Time passes and you remain in a deep funk until one day you finally …
Step 5: Acceptance
… come to acceptance that it’s only been a week. It does take a bit more time.
While this is meant to be a light look at the process each and every writers faces, there is some reality in the process. Admittedly, this is an industry where time is of little consequence. Sadly many within it don’t even recognize the stress and emotions so many writers go through because of time.
It’s funny in some ways. I am going through the 5 Writers Steps of Acceptance right now and I haven’t even mailed out the manuscript or queries. I expect to put a couple in the mail in the next week or so. Afterlife is complete and I am just waiting for a final spelling/grammar check to be dropped off at the house. Then I can do a final format and mail it out.
But I can feel every bit of the itch already. That tiny irritation has been niggling at my toes for a couple weeks and I really want to scratch it, but I know better. I need patience … unending fortitude in the wake of my efforts.
Maybe I should start working on the next brilliant novel. Yeah, that’s the ticket. I’ll forget I submitted anything and start from scratch. That way my toes won’t itch.
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