Wednesday, May 1, 2019

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode IWSG the 4th

IWSG
Girl howdy and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where no good deed goes unpunished and bad deeds are rewarded handsomely.

Besides today being May Day, it's also the 1st Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means (no, not this). YES! It's time for our monthly coffee klatch. aka the IWSG, where writers from all the blogsphere get completely wired out on caffeine and talk a mile a half-minute on all things writing related.

For the past few months, my head has been emptier than a person suffering from TDS (if you're from the states, you know who I'm talking about). This time though, I think I got a writing related topic that we all have gone through, or are currently going through, at one time or another.

Waiting.

In between bouts of writing, we've all suffered from the dreaded waiting malady. Whether it's waiting for you story to come back from your beta readers, waiting to hear back from your graphic designer (if you use one), waiting to hear if your manuscript has jumped through all the necessary hoops in order for you to hit the "publish" button, or even just waiting around for your muse to show its pretty little face, we faced it with every possible combination of emotion.

For me, it's been an especially tough process to go through. For those who know me, I am legendary for blowing my top when it comes to waiting longer than 3 commercial breaks for any entertainment medium. It has taken me many, many years decades to learn the value of patience. This newfound skill has been put to the severest test that I know, when I decided to pursue this side hustle of being a writer.

Let me tell you, it's incredibly tough not to develop the reputation of being a twit when it comes to writing. We've all heard (or experienced) the horror stories of writers behaving extremely bad, and that was the one thing that I did not want to happen to me. I value my hard earned rep as a person who knows how play nice with all the various peoples that I deal with on a daily basis, so the last thing I want to do is ruin that by acting like a twit when it comes to writing.

Presently, the 2nd book of my trilogy, The Friendship Has Continued, is with my editor of choice, being sliced/diced/julienned/dissected. She has constructed a very good time line for the project (9 weeks) and has been very solid in all aspects of it. However, the waiting aspect, while 100% necessary, is really testing my resolve not to act like a twit. I refrain from sending e-mails or nagging on socialized media (we share the same groups and writer friends), simply because I know my book isn't the only thing on her plate and I completely respect that.

So I bide my time, practice my writing skills by blogging and fry out my brain while watching YouTube. All the while waiting for the squeaky wheel to move on to the next stop on the editing journey. Because after all, when you write, waiting is the one part of the journey that separates the adults from the toddlers.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

4 comments:

  1. And the twits. Sounds like you need to work on something else to keep you occupied.

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    Replies
    1. True. If I'm not blogging, I'm usually doing hardcore walking (7-10 miles) on the weekends and 1/2 mile walks during lunch, both while listening to podcasts.

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    2. Waiting is a special skill! Time to kill.... Wasted time is what always kills my mood tho. At least the wait ends eventually, if not fortuitously.

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    3. I agree, it's a special skill to have. i usually don't mind if I'm somewhere where waiting is absolutely essential, like at a clothiers. At other places, i do mind and will not hesitate to walk right back out the door.

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Lay it on me, because unlike others, I can handle it.