The Wait

Everything is busy when you’re working on the first and second drafts of your novel. All else has to fit in around it.

Then you are absorbed in the mechanics of getting an agent and publisher, maybe working on submitting short stories to pump up your new writer resume.

But after that comes the wait. You redo your query letter and submit to a few more agents. You run another spell and grammar check in the novel, and find bits you aren’t quite happy with, so you make them better. Then you worry you shouldn’t have submitted so soon, maybe it wasn’t done.

I’m finding the key to this period is to be disciplined and keep on writing new material. I have to trust that a potential agent will see potential even if everything isn’t perfect. Because an agent who wants me to be perfect is going to be sadly disappointed at some point anyway. And let’s face it: your novel is never done.

I’m also finding that this is the time to remind myself that there is a world out there. I can actually go see a film, go out to lunch, see friends, finish watching Dead To Me. It’s all fodder for future work as well as enjoyable.

You can’t go backwards. You can’t let your novel become your tyrant.

Onward ho! (The ho is not me.)