And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
Or at least the moment I’ve been waiting for.
Disclaimer: These are the scrambled thoughts of a man who is simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted, triumphant and tired, dauntless and overwhelmed.
My writer’s group gathered last night around the incomparable Gail Martin last night for our monthly meeting to discuss publishing, marketing and other facets of this writing business. The talk surrounded such things as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads, Shelfari, Reddit, and others, but as always we started our gathering with announcements, and this month, boy did I have an announcement to make.
On 28 Feb 2014, Lisa Gus at Curiosity Quills Press contacted my agent, Stacey Donaghy, with an offer to publish The Mussorgsky Riddle. On 13 Mar 2014, we accepted her kind offer. It’s been a long haul, this hike from novice writer to not so novice writer, unagented to agented, unpublished to contracted with a traditional publisher, but at every step, it’s been the same mantra.
Patience, Darin. Patience.
Don’t get me wrong. I am beyond thrilled and can’t wait to hold this book that took me over two years to complete in my hand, but having had a week for it to sink in, I’ve had many thoughts about the experience. I fully expected to sit down tonight and turn out a full on Kool and the Gang, Celebrate Good Times blog post, but as I sit here and listen to the 80′s shuffle echoing from my AppleTV, I became a little nostalgic–I know… that never happens–and this is what came out.
I’ve read stories of all the “overnight” successes who have been working at their craft for years, and though I have done anything but “arrive,” I get it. I’ve been writing for almost exactly ten years now, having written the first word of Pawn’s Gambit as I sat in a MIG hangar in northern Iraq and stared at Mars and it’s baleful red eye every night back in 2004 on the back end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Since that time I’ve written two complete novels, am currently on the last chapter of a third, have written half of a fourth (the sequel to PG), written and published 19 short stories among six small publishers as well as Chess Life magazine, attended half a dozen writer’s conference, met countless authors in local and national writers groups, participated in (and ran for two years) a writers group that critiques four writer’s works per month, and led a successful small critique group out of my home for last few years. And all this with a full time job and still needing to sleep and eat occasionally.
The constant along the entire way: waiting.
There is counterproductive waiting. Waiting till I had time to write. (honestly, med school and residency had a lot to do with that) Waiting till I felt like writing before sitting down at the computer. Waiting till I had everything all worked out in a story.
As a dyed in the wool procrastinator, I know all about that kind of waiting.
And have I been impatience at times? Maybe. But I digress.
There is productive waiting. Keeping your eye on the ball. Being patient. Waiting for the right story idea. The right word. The right ending. The right agent. The right publisher.
There’s a lot to be said for patience, as I have no doubt that the waiting has just begun. As I start the editing process to get my manuscript up to speed for CQ standards, I know that more is on the way. Waiting for first edits. For second edits. For the cover. ARCs. First reviews. First sales. First royalties.
These are all good things to wait for, but as I sit here and take a deep breath, I realized one important thing.
You have to enjoy the waiting.
Mountain top experiences are just that. Brief views of breathtaking beauty punctuating miles of often brutal hiking. But despite the blisters and leg cramps, there is joy not only in the vistas from the mountaintops, but from the water of a valley stream, the green of the forest, the camaraderie of your fellow hikers.
A few quick thank yous to my fellow hikers, because you can never say thank you enough.
To Lisa Gus at CQ for giving me a chance.
To my Captain, Stacey Donaghy, for being the absolute best advocate for my work I could have imagined.
To my friends among Charlotte Writers, for being my Charlotte family. You all are the best. Don’t ever forget it.
To other friends, both near and far, for a million things, many of which neither of us may even remember anymore.
To my family, for their LITERALLY never ending support. You are on every page.
To God, for giving me at least my fair share of patience.
And lastly, to one of my favorite movies, for teaching me five simple words: Never give up. Never surrender.
On another night, I will type my “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” post, but for tonight, thoughtful introspection is the order of the evening.
Good night! And remember, if your dreams don’t scare you, you’re not dreaming big enough.
