Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Waiting Patiently

Of course, the average beginning writer would be overjoyed that a partial manuscript has been requested by a Real Live Agent. And believe me, we are.

But I also believe that the average beginning writer would immediately become oversensitive to incoming emails, and ringing telephones. And I also expect that our imaginary writer would find herself expending significant amounts of mental effort on NOT wondering whether her manuscript got lost in the ether, or triggered an immediate rejection or fell of a desk, or got deleted by a computer crash.

So far, it's been three weeks of not hearing anything. And I know that in the publishing world, three weeks is not even considered to be a measurable time period.

But, here in our world, it's long enough that we're getting polite questions from our friends. "Any news yet?" And I would explain to them the reality of the glacial speed of this business, but the truth is, that I'm still hoping we'll be the exception, and our process will be much faster. I know it happens.

And I know I should not be imagining that it will happen to us.

So we'll just keep on waiting patiently.

Waiting.