Patience is a Real Bitch

Everyone knows the motto of publishing is "Hurry Up and Weight," but I'm finding lately that patience is something I'm still struggling with.

I'm impatient about how long it takes me to finish a project.  I'm impatient about keeping my day job.  I'm impatient about waiting the 48 hours for my short story to show up on Amazon...  It's ridiculous the things I'm impatient about!

Hell, I'm even impatient about how long it takes me to blog sometimes.  I want everything yesterday, but I know that to achieve my dreams, or even order my coffee, I must get better at waiting.

Just as I was pondering how to settle down and work on my patience, I received an email in my inbox from Freedomtomarry.org.  As some of you know, I'm very passionate about equality for the LGBT community, and try to help out fighting for the right to marry. 

The email showed an elderly male couple, and said the following: 

Richard and John ... just celebrated 61 years together as a couple, and they desperately want to marry in New York. After 61 years, haven't they waited long enough?

So here I am bitching about how long it's taking to achieve my dreams, and here is a sweet old couple who have waited 61 years for the right to marry and are still waiting today. 

It sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Even while we struggle with patience, there are those whose lives are constantly about waiting for the world to change for the better.

It's people like Richard and John that humble me and teach me patience by example. 

Here's there video if anyone is interested in spreading the word about this couple:  http://freedomtomarry.org/JohnRichard


My question to YOU is  How do you stay patient when chasing your dreams?

Work In Progress Wednesday!

Hello, Blog Friends!

We've come to another Work in Progress Wednesday, but I'm afraid there's not a lot going on other than me slowly reading through LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS, deleting a stray word here and there, moving commas around, and generally futzing about.

I feel like I'm playing the waiting game, but unfortunately while I am waiting for some fabulous critiques (I love you, beta reading friends!), I am also waiting on myself. I need to read faster, darn it! :P I'm my own slowest critique partner. Bad, me!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share this video I found on YouTube while procrastinating today. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aPCHwNaKGY

Also, I'd love to hear about your projects!

How are your weeks going, and what all have you been working on?

How Long is Too Long?

Taking some time apart.

On a break.

Seeing other manuscripts.

We talk about how sometimes manuscripts need time to "cure," and taking time apart does us good as writers, but is there a point where "time apart" becomes abandonment?

My husband asked this question last night: How long is too long? He knows what I do (leave it alone for a week or so then go back), but asked what other writers do. My response: "Uhhhh... I have no idea?" I think he's secretly asking this so he can keep me toeing the line with my editing. So sneaky!

However, today to sate both my husband's curiosity and my own: YOU TELL ME :)!

How long do you let your manuscripts sit/age like a fine wine/cure/percolate, and when does it become pure, unadulterated procrastination?

How do you know the difference when it happens?

Is it a horrible, horrible trap?? (Okay, probably not, but inquiring minds want to know!)

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Patience

"For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." --Romans 8:24-25.

Writers all have one thing in common, no matter how far along they are on their journey: waiting.

First we wait for ourselves as write our manuscript for months (or years). When the manuscript is done, we wait as we revise muliple times.

Then we wait for others to read the manuscript and advise us.

We wait as we revise again.

We wait for others to read it again and again, just to be sure.

More revising.

Then waiting as we query.

We wait for ourselves again as we busy ourselves writing a new story.

We wait for the fabulous agent we got to sell the story to an editor.

We wait for the launch date.

We wait for reviews, and good news or bad.

Then we start over again.

Sometimes it seems like a lot, doesn't it?

I like to spell this out for myself because I tend to be an ambitious, hasty individual. I like to get things done right, and get them done right now. How then, do I keep myself sane during all this waiting? And the future waiting?

I found a quote (I forget from whom) that reads "The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want the most for what you want now." Whenever I'm feeling impatient I think about that, and think "what do I really want the most?"

I want to be a writer, published or not. I want to write for the rest of my life, and hopefully, eventually, make enough of a living that I can quit my dayjob and live humbly. My end goal isn't to be rich. It isn't to be famous. It's to write.

I can do that.

The bottom line for me is it's worth the wait, because I'm not actually waiting, I'm doing. My goal is to just keep going. As long as I can.

I read a great post the other day, giving writers the advice to try to quit (http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/guest-blogger-dan-case.html)

If you're feeling down, I encourage you to do that--try to quit, and see if you can do it. If so, then you have some closure. If not, you have peace because you know what your goal is.

It's to keep going!

What do you guys do when you have the Waiting Blues? What motivates you to keep going?