I'm a fairly patient person. I am not terrible at waiting. Waiting to hear back about writing I've submitted is part of the job. For a little while I was an editorial intern at a magazine, a job that involved reading through the unsolicited submissions. It was the best thing in the world for making me appreciate editors. Would-be writers sent in submissions that showed they had clearly never read the magazine: historical fiction (which we never published), middle-of-the-road opinion pieces to a liberal magazine, convoluted theories that were impossible to follow. I read through dozens of submissions, finding only one that might fit, and that one was nixed by the editors. It was discouraging to read so much writing that just wouldn't work and I was glad that it wasn't my job to that all the time, let alone try to polish writing that might work but wasn't ready.

So, thank you editors. Your job is frustrating and I'm glad you do it.

That said, I'm waiting a lot right now. I submitted two stories to anthologies this summer, but one of the anthology calls was deleted and the other's date was pushed back so I won't know anything until November. I won't hear about my novel until November. I'm FINALLY working on my thesis but I won't be done with grad school until May. I'm itchy for the next stage but right now it's so much waiting.

What do you do when you're waiting on forces beyond your control?

I'M SENDING MY NOVEL OFF TO A PUBLISHER, WHO WILL REVIEW IT AND MAYBE WANT IT. OR NOT. BUT IN ANY CASE I WON'T KNOW UNTIL PROBABLY NOVEMBER. NOVEMBER, MY FRIENDS. QUITE POSSIBLY LONGER THAN THAT.

I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS BOOK FOR A YEAR. I'VE BEEN PLUGGING AWAY AT IT AND NOW I'M SENDING IT OFF TO SOME VERY BUSY HUMAN WHO PROBABLY WON'T HAVE TIME TO LOOK AT IT FOR MONTHS, AND WHO MIGHT HATE THE SYNOPSIS AND NOT EVEN READ PAST THAT. IT'S VERY UNCOMFORTABLE.


I wrote this in all caps, which is obnoxious but I was so stressed out I didn't notice caps lock was on until just now. Such is my current brain.

The lesson I think I learned is that you should write your synopsis first, then pour your heart into a book, because writing the synopsis afterward--while you're also trying to put together everything else to convince someone that your book is worth reading--is awful. So bad that you'll write two paragraphs in all caps.