It really is.
Below is an example of what my day is like while I am waiting to hear back on a submission.
Rebecca wakes up in the morning and runs to the bathroom (Too much information?) I’m 30 weeks pregnant with our third child, what can I say? The children get up and my amazing husband and I somehow tag team them into eating breakfast, getting dressed, and out the door so, at the moment (at least until the end of August) my older son can go to camp. I come home and stick on my computer.
Okay, I’ll pause here and admit for the sake of admitting to anxiety that sometimes I get the computer on before this moment. Sometimes, I get it on when I first get up. I cannot tell a lie. But let’s say it’s one of those days when I don’t and this is the point where it comes on.
I check my e-mail. If I’m lucky there is a note there from my amazing CP and some friends in addition to the bill reminders and the things some of the online stores think I should be buying from them. I check my groups and I sigh. Why the sigh, Rebecca, you might ask?
Because I am waiting on submissions.
Now, I can’t complain. Not at all. I just sent out the query letters. It could be months until I hear and that would still be reasonable.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t check my e-mail another fifty times that day on the off chance that somehow the person reading the submissions read at lightening speed.
I can’t imagine being the editor in charge of deciding whose work gets signed and who’s doesn’t. It would be rough for me and the acquisition editors I have worked with have been amazing. So I don’t blame them when I’m sitting there hitting renew on the webbrowser and holding my breath.
Its my own anxiety, I know that. I had a writer advise me to just keep writing and forget about it. I assure you I am. I have a work in progress moving right along and two more stewing in my brain. I have other things I could be submitting. But none of that is going to erase the need to keep checking that lingers in the side of my brain where I know I’m still waiting to hear.
Is this just me? What do you do when you’re waiting?
On another note, next Monday, August 3rd, 2009 my first book will be released. It is called Her Wolf: The Westervelt Wolves Book 1. Here is my amazing cover.
Liquid Silver Books took a chance on me when they signed me to my first contract last winter. I will be eternally grateful for the chance. Now, I guess I get to wait to see what people think of my writing which I have to admit feels a little bit like opening my diary for the world to see. But that’s okay, it’s always been my dream.
So we’ll need to see which I find harder: waiting on submissions or waiting to see what people think.
Anyone out there with experience in this want to tell me which will be harder??
14 comments:
Definately waiting on submissions is harder...well, waiting on reviews to come in is stressful a little bit LOL Writing/publishing is a hurry up and wait game. Keep your head down and keep writing LOL
Good luck with sales. I'm waiting for opening day!
I like how you liken release day to "opening my diary for the world to see." That is so true.
But the review, hmmm. Got my first one last week and it felt a little like my 'baby' went to war and came back all bloodied. Wait that's a story that keeps running around in my head! Anyway...
I haven't looked for reviews, so somehow in my mind - I guess I see it as the worse of two evils. LOL
Looking forward to your release!!
Congrats on your release Rebecca! Love the cover.
Still love that cover. You know me, Rebecca. I'm wearing out the refresh button on my e-mail.
I haven't experienced both at the same time so I imagine that waiting on a submission would be harder. That I have been through and everyday your checking the e-mail a dozen times just in case.
The cover art is awesome. You should be proud of it.
Congrats on the release!
Liena~
Waiting on submissions is such a challenge, particularly when dealing with the "if you don't hear from us, we're not interested" folks. Then it becomes a cycle of, "but what if they didn't get it? Shouldn't I send out a Did You Get It query? But what if they DID get it and now I'm just pissing them off!"
*snort*
Ah, the life of a writer... My tactic is to keep writing WHILE checking email obsessively. *wink* Good luck with the queries!!
--Chiron O'Keefe
The Write Soul: www.chironokeefe.blogspot.com
It's all hard, Rebecca. There's absolutely nothing easy about this business.
Sandy
http://www.sandramarshallblog.blogspot.com
Can't wait for your book to come out. Your diary will be a lot more exciting than mine!
Hope all is well!!!
Lindsay
I completely understand. I have the exact opposite problem right now. I am waiting on two full submissions and I don't want an email. My stomach is all in knots when I open my email everyday and as each days passes that knot tightens. Because I know if I get an email, it is 99.9% a rejection. My anxiety level is going out the roof everytime the phone rings these days too. In a way I'm looking forward to this all being over with, but at the same time, no news is good news, lol.
Submissions have always and will always be the most difficult for me. reviews I do take with a grain of salt. I love them don't get me wrong, but what one person likes another might not. What matters really to me is that I got it pubbed. So my publisher believed in me.
Congrats on release!
Esme
Thanks guys for all of your experience and advice!!! I know I'm even lucky to be having these problems. Thanks for everything!
A good way I have of working around both these issues is to have a CP who cuts no corners and holds no punches. If I've been through her clutches, I know that whatever a reviewer will say won't be as much a blow as she can deal!
As for submissions, well, for me, it's a part of life, as in, it's out of your hands. I akin it to waiting for exam results. You have no control beyond sending the query/writing the exam. Then you have the waiting time they tell you to expect, and you bid your time until then. If they say 6 weeks to 2 months, I'll stick it around 2 months in my mind, after which I'll email again.
It works for me, though it's a terribly stressful and harrying process.
Love the cover, btw, and best of luck with the release! I know you'll knock them all off!
Hugs
Z(Aasiyah/Nolwynn)
Hi :)
Thanks for sharing.
It's a great blog post.
I adore your cover too.
Submissions? Forget 'em till you get yea or nay.
The anxiety over what people will think of your book is another story. (heh)
I, for one, am eager to read your first published novel.
Love and best wishes
twitter.com/RKCharron
xoxo
PS - Take it easy, relax, rest, & be well!
Thanks everyone. I am completely grateful for all the advice and thank you for all the compliments on the book cover. Anne, who is one of the cover artists at LSB, is amazingly talented. I actually cried when I got it. (Well,I'll admit, I have two book covers and I have cried both times.) There's nothing, to me, like seeing your work made into a picture that someone just captures perfectly. I've been really lucky both times!
Wow, Rebecca I think you totally captured the way one would feel waiting for the good news to arrive in their in-box!
My daughter is a competitive gymnast and once her coach explained to me that gymnastic training is "like watching paint dry." Slow going, repetitive, not so much fun. It is the end result that we see at competitions that is exciting. I believe being an author, working on stories, sending out queries, partials and waiting for that special email saying, yes we want it, is just like watching gymnastic training, like paint drying.
Good luck on your submissions and thanks for your honest sharing, as a new author it is encouraging.
Christa
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