Waiting Patiently

Patience has never been my strong suit. I like things to happen right away. I wanted to grow up and be an adult, and then I wanted to be a mom, and then I wanted to retire and travel. So now I've done all those things and I want to have my stories published.

I've had two novellas published now, and after hearing about how long other people have to wait to see their books available, even in ebook form, I've been blown away by how quickly my novellas were put out. So it's been a puzzle as to why my third novella is taking so much longer.

I submitted the story in September and it was accepted right away. But I didn't get a cover design until December, and then the content edits finally arrived just before Christmas. I sent my revisions in a week ago, and am back to waiting. My head knows that this is not an unreasonable time line, but I'm still checking my email to see when the story is going to be finalized. My bookmarks and magnets have been ordered and I want to start handing them out!

In the meantime, I should be working on new projects. If I could get immersed in something else I wouldn't be obsessing over how long this other project is taking, right? Plus I'd have something else to submit. After three short stories, I should be polishing off my full-length novel. I should have an outline fleshed out for my local writing group's winter writing challenge. I should...well, you get the picture.

My point is the story will come out eventually. The bookmarks and magnets will keep until it's time to pass them out. I can't let the worry keep me from being productive. It's just not going to do me any good.

But I can't stop checking my email, just in case.

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My daughter and my mom love to wear scarves. I found some filmy scarf-like fabric in my stash that I originally planned to make some skirts out of. But I don't wear skirts that often, and I have trouble finding patterns for skirts that don't make me look like I'm as wide as I am tall. So I decided to cut the fabric into long scarves. All I had to do was stitch around the edges and I now have a set of three scarves for each of them! I'm thinking they'll make nice Mother's Day gifts. If I wrap them up now, hopefully I won't forget about them in May.

Today I'm participating in a Friday the 13th Blog Hop! There are prizes at each stop, and the prize for going through all the blogs is a brand new Kindle! Begin the hop by clicking here:

The Wait

Last week I shared the fabulous news that my short story, The Legacy, was accepted for publication by Astraea Press. Since then, I've been busy with the pre-publication stuff the company has sent me. I filled out a cover artist information form (listing details about the story so that the cover artist has an idea about what to put on the cover), an author information form (so I can get paid once the six month charity run is done), and I've re-formatted the entire manuscript according to a style sheet they sent me. That took the longest. It's kinda like being in college and finding out what each professor wants.

Fortunately, computers have wonderful tools to help me with a lot of the editing. I can "turn on paragraph marks" to find out where I've put extra spaces. I can do a "find" search to locate the words I've used too often, like "really" and "very". And when I decided to change a character's name, I just do a "find and replace". It couldn't be easier!

So now that I've submitted the "pre-edit", I wait. Patiently. Sort of. I check my mail at least six times a day looking for something from the publisher - more instructions, a cover for the book, or maybe another request for revisions. I check the publisher's website often, looking for other new books in the Japan Relief series. So far there are three. I wonder how many there will be?

It's always difficult to remain patient. It's not one of my strong suits. Fortunately I have a lot of other things to do - like finishing several other writing projects, craft projects (a friend got married last summer and I still don't have her wedding gift done!) and a house that really, really needs to be cleaned. I'm not sitting here, bored.

I'm really thankful for the words of encouragement, as well as the congrats that have been sent my way (not through this blog, but verbally and on facebook). They give me the ambition to go on and write more. So I'm going to open up one of my partially finished projects, polish it off and send it in. There are three novels, three essays, and a short story waiting to be sent off.

Guess I'd better get to work.