The manuscript has been professionally edited. My query letter treated to one final tune-up. I’ve created three different versions of the synopsis (1-page, 2-page, 3-page), sent out the first round of emails to publishers, and dropped the hard copies off at the Post Office. Now there’s only one thing left for me to do.
Wait.
And wait.
Then wait some more.
Until the waiting becomes so unbearable you do the unthinkable…continue waiting!
You become an exaggerated version of the expectant father, pacing back and forth in the lonely corridor just outside the delivery room, waiting for the doctor to appear and announce that your baby has been delivered into the world. The difference being that the labor is internalized in your own mind and each contraction – the excruciating pain that yields nothing - comes in the form of a rejection letter.
And while all this is going on you attempt to keep your mind occupied by working on a different manuscript. But here’s the thing. It’s really hard to work on anything else while that cancerous thought continues to grow in the back of your consciousness. Call it a feeling, a hunch, or if you grew up in the 60’s or 70’s and experienced some of the hippy lifestyle, negative energy. It’s a thought you’ve struggled with since the very beginning. Am I good enough? Ironically, one of the elements it feeds on is…time. The longer you go without an encouraging, and significant, response, the more the thought gorges on your confidence. So working on the outline for another book or writing the sequel to the novel you’ve just submitted, as time stretches, loses its momentum and becomes - what’s the point?
But this isn’t a boo-hoo post predicting my eventual failure to see my book published. On the contrary, I am 100% confident that PRICK will see the light of day in bookstores (both brick and virtual) soon. I am simply doing what every published author who also blogs have done, document the both the process and at the same time relay my emotions as it progresses. That thought I spoke of earlier – Am I good enough? – has planted itself in the mind of every aspiring writer since the first Stone Age man contemplated scribbling on his cave wall. You simply cannot give into it.
Instead, I wait.
And wait.
Tick…tick…tick.