A Wait Too Heavy to Bear? Nah....

I spent Friday evening and a few hours on Saturday morning reading through the partial MS for The Demon Chaser. I thought I'd be burning the midnight oil to get it off to the agent by Monday AM before I left for work. (I'm a registered nurse by day).

But alas, it was a breeze. I had forgotten I'd sent it through my very competent critique group and so it needed only minor adjustments. Hooray.

I e-mailed it off to the agent with a note that invited him to let me know if there was anything I could do to make his job easier.

And now, once again, time to wait. It may be months before I hear a thing. The most frustrating part of this business, in my opinion, is the endless waiting.

I send a query to an editor or agent and wait 3 months.

They like the query and request a proposal. Fantastic. I send it off and wait another 3 months.

They liked the proposal, please send the full ms. How exciting! I send it off and wait another 3 months.

They reject the ms. Back to "Go". And the process is repeated again and again, and yup, again.

It may be by the time I hear back from the editor on this MS that it is nearly finished. And that's the goal. I'm moving forward and going to treat this like it's a sale. I'm not a procrastinator and it scares me more than a little that I might get a contract and not meet a dead-line. I HATE to be late. Makes me absolutely freaky. I'm one of those people that needs to be at least 5 minutes early no matter what.

So, if I get a contract that states I've got 6 months to complete 300 more pages or so, that makes me nervous. I work full-time and have 2 small children. What if someone gets sick? What if I get writer's block? Yikes! So, starting today, time to move on with the next chapter.

It will be good to focus on something besides THE WAIT. After all, the longer it takes for the editor to make a decision, the longer I have to finish this book and make it sing.