The road to publication is an exercise in patience.
Ever feel like this? Waiting on a response on your most recent submission to agents or editors?
What do you do to stop yourself from checking your in-box like a mad man/woman?
It's hard, when you anticipate something good. It's human nature to want instant gratification. You could sit there, clicking away on your email's send/receive button, like Mr. Skelly.
Or
You can find ways to pass the time.
Some of the best advice out there tells us, to get cracking on that second book. Don't sit around waiting for your first book to do anything. Get out there and create something new.
Writing will help get your mind off of the waiting game and it will also help you in your journey to publication.
The more you write, the better at it you will be. It's a fact.
Most of our first attempts at writing will probably go the way of the shoe-box under the bed. Many of us already have those dusty manuscripts. If you are among those that have this, you know what I am saying. Compare your writing now with what you have written in the past.
No doubt you are a better writer today compared to, back then.
I have many, many, stories and drafts of old work sitting on my hard drive. I go back to them from time to time and see how different my writing is.
So the more we write the more we improve our writing. So taking time to write, while waiting serves duel purposes. It takes your mind off of the long wait that is the submissions process, and helps you learn how to create more and potentially better things for your next venture in publishing.
So, taking my own advice (and the advice of many people out there who are much smarter than me), I'm going to get back to work on book 2. I've got a partial out that I am hoping to hear back on. I need to break myself away from checking my email. I'm still holding to my end of August deadline, and if I get my butt back to work on it, I might hit that mark.