IWSG #7 – Waiting Game

It was some time back in late January when I submitted a request to my employers for a business interest i.e. to publish my writing.

Then February was pretty much a month of Hell, and I didn’t have time to think about it. Then in March, I took a couple of weeks to recover, and then I started chasing it up. I went on leave for a week, and I’d been hoping to have permission by then, but I didn’t. So I chased it up some more when I got back, hoping that I’d have permission by the long weekend. I didn’t. When I got back on Tuesday after the Easter bank holiday weekend, the email was waiting in my inbox. You’ve been approved, good luck!

It has been an exercise in dealing with frustration, all this waiting. On the one hand, it gave me time to plan and prepare, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to invest any time or money until I had that permission, just in case it wasn’t given. So I’ve been stalling and twiddling my thumbs for the better part of a month.

Which is what makes me glad I’ve decided to have a go at Self Publishing rather than traditional. Because really, three months to get permission – when I didn’t even have the energy to start chasing it for a whole month of that – is not very long at all. An agent might consider your work for six months before deciding to take it on. Then they have to submit to editors who might take the same amount of time. And once you have your deal it isn’t book on the shelves instantly. It can take two years to go from manuscript to published book. There are benefits, of course – the risk is taken on by the publisher, and you have the best professional help you can get.

But that waiting – it would be agonising.

I still have waiting to do. Currently, I’m waiting for a friend to set a website up for me. I’m fortunate to have kind friends with expertise in areas that are useful to my business venture, and I’m so glad that this particular friend has helped me decode the mystifying world of web hosting, and offered to get me started. But it’s another reminder that each of these things takes time, and there will always be waiting along the way.

At least now, with permission to go ahead, there’s always going to be something constructive I can do while I wait!