Walking the Patience Tightrope
Melinda Palacio -- November 4, 2005
In this business, writers must be patient. I ask myself, is patience always a virtue? Or is patience sometimes an excuse for complacency and laziness?
Patience As a Writer's Virtue
I try my best to convince people that I'm patient, but there are, at least, two ways in which I'm impatient: emails and Christmas. First, Email. You will always find me on email. I keep the alarm bell on loud in case I should receive an important notice. I also check my gmail notifier in case I didn't hear the email bell. Second, Christmas. When I was younger I used to tear mouse-size holes in my gifts, shake them, and sometimes I'd open and rewrap them. If the gift was from a far away relative, then I considered it fair game to open the gift well before Christmas.
I've found that thanks to the twelve plus years that I've been practicing yoga, I can fool myself, and others, into believing I'm patient because I fear bad Karma. For example, knowing that certain relatives don't reciprocate with Christmas gifts has not forced me to stop hoping they will someday.
Lack of patience has led me to send out my work in both multiple and simultaneous submissions. I often immerse myself in an endless juggle of writing projects. Although many publications specifically ask that you not send a simultaneous submissions, I know my espresso-colored hair will be pigeon-poop white before I hear from certain publishers. As I perservere, I tell myself that one of these days I will get it right.
I've had enough experience working at publishing houses and publications to know that asking an editor about the status of my submission is something to be avoided at all costs. Inquiries often lead to a longer wait and no news is sometimes good news.
What truly helps is finding a good way to keep track of your submissions (such as Ink Byte's forthcoming Tracker); alternatively, you can just forget about them. I like to imagine Tony Soprano's voice giving me the imperative, "Fughetaboutit!" The one submission I managed to forget about was accepted a month ago. Does this mean I'm learning patience or fooling myself?
Busy editors have more on their minds than the angst or inconvenience they cause writers. What's ironic is that I welcome the feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I wait, and wait, for a response. Earlier this week, I thought I was being sly by checking the status of my submissions on Glimmer Train. Every day, or so, I'd look and check to see if my "in view" status had changed to "complete" or "accepted." It so happened that I did beat them to the mass email notification. I found out that my submission was "complete" a day before I received the formal email thanking me for letting their editors read my work. The excitement was no longer there. Perhaps, in being too eager to check, I squashed my chance of winning the fiction contest?
In the end, as long as there is an outside chance at publication, I'm grateful for the lesson in patience.