Writing is a lot of hurry up and wait. When your mind is in the grip of a story, all you want to do is grab every spare moment to sit down and do your best to get it written down before the ideas and the passion slip away. At least that is what it’s like for me.
Now add to that the desire to have as many of your books before the reading public in as short a time as possible.
As slowly as I write compared to other authors who either have a longer attention span or fewer distractions than I do, I still put a lot of pressure on myself to write faster. And when the story is finally told and the editing process is complete, then what?
You wait.
If you are a new author, you write a query letter and a synopsis and you send it around to literary agents and / or editors and wait to hear back from them (if you ever hear back at all). If you are really fortunate, someone will like what they read in your query letter enough to want to see more. So you send the manuscript off and you wait some more. And don’t forget, many agents / publishers won’t accept simultaneous submissions once they get to the manuscript evaluation stage so you potentially have to go through this process over and over and over again.
I am lucky enough to have a publisher at this point, but that doesn’t make it a done deal. I still have to submit the manuscript and hope they like what they see. My editor reads fast so my wait is shorter than some.
And in the meantime I can always start something new. Today I think that will be a loaf of bread…
Yep, that’s what we do, isn’t it? Well, I’m gonna start a new wip about shapeshifters, just for something new. The first time you see my guy, he’s a raccoon. Seexxyy, no?
by anny cook May 17th, 2007 at 3:04 amI’ve been terribly lazy this week. I have two ideas and one has sort of cut in line and is demanding to be written NOW. Guess I’ll have to comply.
A *raccoon*??? This I have to see!
by Jenyfer Matthews May 17th, 2007 at 5:58 amJenyfer