Waiting... waiting...

How long is long enough? (How long is a piece of string?) And in case your thoughts are sliding in a slightly grubby direction, bring them back here this instant!

I’m talking about waiting for publication. In my case I was extremely lucky. The publisher I targeted so keenly never quite wanted to buy my books. They liked my voice. They asked for revisions. They gave me tips and pointers. They asked for the full manuscripts from the three-chapter partials and query letters authors have to send. They entirely lost two full-length books. I have a lovely apology letter from a senior editor after I yet again queried progress on one of these - having patiently waited a year. I was told that the person in charge of my submission ‘no longer works for this company’, and I got some PDQ service as a result of that. And I still had the book turned down because it was considered not quite suitable for the line they were buying for.

Just like these sparrows waiting for dinner on one of our trees, I was left waiting...waiting.

 Eventually I’d had enough.

So why do I say I’m lucky? Well, all of this frustrating process gave me a great deal of practice and improved the various stories quite a lot. It meant I learned a heap. And I built up a body of work.

Language
English