I want it NOW!
Today’s focus: Patience
In this edition:
The Quote
Update: waiting, waiting, waiting
Motivate: Discussing patience in life (A pause from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
New Onyx podcast available: Red-Tailed Hawks and Other Poems by Kimberly Thornton
“There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.”
- Jean de la Bruyere
I don’t like waiting. I want everything yesterday. When I decided I wanted to publish a book, I wanted to write the book and get it published right away. (Commence tear-inducing belly laughter.)
Surely you’ve experienced something like that in your life, book related or otherwise. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t always match up with my plans, and I’ve come to realize that writing/publishing, along with a lot of other things in life, requires patience.
Yeah, yeah patience; how long will that take?
I’ve experienced a lot of impatient moments in my writing career, and honestly, it’s really set me back. When I wrote the manuscript I’m currently pitching to agents, I decided to be “patient,” something I hadn’t necessarily done with the 2 other manuscripts I queried.
This time, I:
Wrote the book.
Got multiple people to read it.
Revised the book based on feedback.
Got more people to read the revised version.
More edits based on feedback
It’s AGENT time, baby! Because I. Had. Put. In. The. Work.
I gave the heavily-edited manuscript to my critique group again. BUT, I expected to hear, “Go forth, Melissa. Find your agent. For your manuscript is glorious and worthy of the bestseller list.” (Exaggerating a little for fun here.)
Back in June 2021, I was so itchy to start the process, I didn’t wait for anymore feedback. I sent out 30-40 emails to agents who I thought would be a good fit for my work. And finally, I started getting requests, not a ton, but a solid handful. That was a huge accomplishment.
“I’d love to see the whole book.”
“I enjoyed your first few chapters, send me the whole thing!”
Commence dancing around the house!
In the meantime, I got feedback from those readers, and one in particular had a lot to say. She told me to…get ready: STOP QUERYING.
WHAAAAAAATTTT??
She said my manuscript, my baby, needed more work.
Not what I expected.
BUT, I trust her, she has my best interest at heart, and she gives solid feedback. Inside, I sighed deeply. I’d sent my book out to 30-40 agents already. <Grimacing face emoji>
This same writer friend told me that agents were looking for an excuse to move on to the next manuscript. She gave me a list of things she thought would make my manuscript better. By this time, 3 agents already had my full!!! I’d impatiently sent it out my pitches and potentially shot myself in the foot because I didn’t wait to get the feedback.
I jumped on editing my manuscript AGAIN, hoping I’d be able to edit the thing before those 3 agents had a chance to read it. (They take a long time to get through a complete work. 1-6 months!).
The very day I finished the edits based on the feedback of my writer/reader friend, I heard from an agent, the one who requested the revise and resubmit. She loved the book, but suggested a page of improvements, ½ of which were the ones my friend suggested and I’d already done. And the process began again. I edited my work once again and gave my work to be read by my 3 readers once again. (Because I didn’t want to send my work out prematurely this time.) And finally got the green light.
I say all that to say: sometimes, getting where you want to go takes a lot of patience. Not just waiting, but taking your time to get the job done right. Had I waited to query, would I have received more requests? Probably not. My query letter is pretty good. But would I have captured the heart of an agent before now? Maybe! And that maybe is a tough pill to swallow.
I’ve been thinking a lot about patience over the last couple of weeks. As most of you know, I’ve been diving into the 7 habits of highly effective people, a book designed to inspire personal growth and dynamic change to achieve your goals and maintain momentum. I’m loving it so far, so I’ve been sharing these concepts and practical applications in this newsletter, but I’m pausing to discuss patience this week.
As of today (2/7), 4 agents have my full novel, and every time my email chimes, I wonder: is it an agent? There’s nothing I can do to speed this process along. So, I wait. But do you think I’m sitting on my hands? No.
Patience isn’t about passive waiting; it’s about how you wait, what we do while we wait. I’m not going to stress the process. I’m going to enjoy the fact that 4 agents are reading words that I wrote, and in the meantime, I’m going to keep querying, and I’m writing that next book. (I have nearly 3,000 words of my next novel with plans to at least double that this week.)
So when I get an agent and she asks me what I’m working on next, I’ll be ready. She will not hear that I’ve been sitting on my hands.
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
-Leo Tolstoy
More on Patience:
When we were at Disney World last week, my patience was really tested. That place is magical, but it’s also a lot of waiting and walking. I wasn’t quite prepared for how much waiting (or walking) there would be. We purchased this thing called genie + that allows you to enter a “lightening lane” for a ride because…I don’t like to wait. It was amazing. We skipped a lot of those long, long lines. But there are limits to the genie, and there was one point in one of our days where we could either wait in an HOUR long line or wander around. We decided to wait.
IT WAS HORRIBLE.
I honestly don’t know how people do it. How do they wait in those long lines for a 5 minute ride?
It really bothered me that I seemed to be having more trouble standing in that line than even my children did. I was miserable.
I occasionally get this way when I’m driving and the lights aren’t cooperating. My anxiety starts ratcheting up. The thing is, we can’t change how long it will take, but we can change how we react during the waiting. That’s patience. NOT the ability to wait, but HOW you wait.
I think there are 3 parts to patience:
1. Your attitude when you have to wait.
2. Your actions while you wait.
3. Taking the time to do it right.
People who are highly effective have patience. They not only take the time to do what it takes to get where they want to be, but they remain positive during the waiting and use their waiting time wisely.
Do you get bent out of shape, start cursing, or get in a bad mood when you have to wait in traffic? Do you get worked up when the people around you take too long to do something? While you’re waiting for that thing you really want but that doesn’t seem to be happening, what does your “wait” look like?
I’m guilty.
I can’t change how long I sit in traffic. My anxiety won’t get me to my location faster, so why not remain chill and listen to some music or a podcast and enhance my life rather than seethe and cause damage to my body?
Finally, patience with people is invaluable. Patience with your parent who’s talking too long on the phone or the person who’s not understanding the task you want them to complete, can make or break a relationship. Patience can be kindness, just the thing needed to make the process more efficient. Patience actually increases retention speed for someone learning. I know this firsthand.
New Onyx podcast now available!
Red-Tailed Hawks and Other Poems by
Kimberly Thornton
It was an honor for me to narrate five poems written by the very kind and intriguing Kimberly Thornton. Her works take you from soaring skies and intimate connections to dark places where death worms its way into your being. So full of emotion and raw feelings.
After the poems, JW and I talk with Kimberly about how relationships are key to her writing and the importance of observation in understanding others and ourselves.
Final thoughts:
Have patience and do what it takes to get the job done right. It’ll save you in the end and likely will get you to your goal faster.
Have patience with the people in your life and with yourself; it may just be the kindness someone else needs today.
Have patience when the unexpected/unavoidable happens. It can foster a better overall attitude and improve your outlook on life.
Remember that patience takes work. You aren’t going to immediately change your habit of impatience if you’re not a patient person. But patience is necessary, worth working on.
While I wait, I’m going to use my time wisely and effectively.
Have a great day!
Much glitter,
Melissa
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