Impatience!

I am an impatient person.  I've never been good at waiting for something to happen, waiting for people to do what they say they will do, waiting for the next step in a process.

Two things have helped my impatience: Motherhood and being an Author.

Everything in the publishing world works at a snail's pace.  Finding an agent, getting an offer from a publishing house, receiving the contract, and the actual publication of the book all generally take months and years.  As an indie author, I bypass a lot of this stuff, but I can't avoid certain aspects of the process.

I finished my new manuscript last week.  When I say finished, I mean, the first draft, plus my own first edit, are both done.  I've decided on a title -- The Place We Say Goodbye -- and I'm feeling good about it. The next steps are hearing from the beta readers and my editor's work.

I sent my manuscript off to three beta readers last week. Beta readers are the people you choose to ready an early version and then give you honest feedback about your manuscript to make sure it is working the way it's supposed to.  Who you choose as beta readers can change from manuscript to manuscript and indeed mine do. I try to find people who are heavy readers in my particular genre and who may have more than a passing knowledge of my topic.  Of course, none of my beta readers gets paid, and I'm so grateful to them for being willing to read for free; I know they all have other jobs and families and lives; they are doing me a huge favor. I expect that it will take them a while to read for me. Still, though, I get antsy the minute I send the manuscript out. Now I have nothing.  

I try hard to fill the time. I read more than usual. I try to sleep a little later. I bake. I work on the book's blurb -- those few paragraphs that will try to sell the book for me. I think, in the most general terms, about my next book. I should look at this time as special. My brain is getting a break from thinking about my characters and my plot and who is going to do what next and how I'm going to solve their problems.  But instead, I just feel, well, impatient.

I know two of my readers haven't even started the manuscript yet. I don't blame them. As I said, they are busy. But part of me wants to go to their houses (which would be hard to do since one lives several states away and the other lives on the other side of the country) and shake them and sit there and force them to read.  Of course, I am calm and cool and collected when they tell me it might be "awhile" until they start or they will get to it "soon." I smile and nod and say yes, of course I understand, take all the time you need.

Then I sigh and go try to entertain myself with something else.