Sometimes it seems as if the writing life is one long waiting game. It doesn't matter where you are in the process of publication, you are always waiting for something. (Actually, that's not so different from any other walk of life, is it? We sometimes like to think we writers are special—that we are the only ones waiting around for things to happen. How silly is that?)
Right now, I'm counting the days until Calling Me Home is published in the United States (February 12, 2013: 146!). It's incredibly nice that I have an answer to "How many days?" and that I can even put the date into an online computer application that figures that out for me.
So many times, we are waiting for an uncertain. Right now, I have friends who are at so many stages in their writing wait. Waiting for edits. Waiting for copy edits. Waiting to hear back from agent queries. Waiting for books to sell. Waiting for someone to get interested in foreign rights. Waiting for reviews to appear. Waiting for sales to pick up.
So much waiting …
And the one thing we have control over? Writing the book?
So many of us are waiting to do that, too. Even those of us who have already sold a book. We're waiting to start the next one. Or finish it.
Sometimes, the waiting is necessary. I feel I must wait a certain amount of time, until the characters and settings and plot are somewhat gelled in my mind, before I can start the "real writing."
But at some point, you just have to say, "Ready, set, go!"
What are YOU waiting for?
This song by Celine Dion and Jean-Jacques Goldman is about waiting for your true love to show up, but sometimes it feels like that when you're writing a book, doesn't it? Enjoy!
When we will recognise each other
I will tell him how long I've been waiting
No, I will certainly not tell him
While waiting for him, I live, I dream, I only breathe for that
While waiting for a meaning to all this
To all this…"
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