Friday, March 20, 2015

The Waiting Game

20th March 2015

My aim from the get-go of this blog has been to let readers follow along the path from a writer who had been scribbling away for years, nay decades, and then suddenly was offered a contract with a major publisher. So I have chronicled the stages of editing, the waiting, the cheques in the mail, the waiting, the book launch, the waiting, the tally of comments on Amazon, the dread of negative comments of Goodreads (which they seem to specialise in), and, oh, did I mention the waiting?
As anyone knows who has travelled this road, there is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait.
Most of the space on this blog has not been about events on the publishing path but about what it means to write or create art of any kind. That's because I have been waiting. It's perhaps not by accident that my book Veil Of Time is about time distortion, because that's what happens to you along this road - each step takes so long, you begin to feel as though you're moving in slowmo. (Did I mention the book has now been out for a year now?)
This is not a road for the faint of heart.


I need to get one of these signs for my office. Writers steal away into their little corners and commit harikiri each day onto the page. And then as the blood dries, there is the coming out, there is the networking and the infernal waiting. Right now I am waiting for the word on whether my sequel will pass the publishing tribunal and see the light of day. Right now I am waiting while my agent reads my new novel about the theft of the Lewis Chessmen.


I have been sweating blood these past months bringing this story to life. I finished the last pass over it this morning and sent it off. I collected all my notes into one pile and shoved them into a file. It felt liberating. But now comes the waiting. It might be the best book I have written, but then I always feel that about the last book I have written. It's like the last drink to an alcoholic. What can I say - I am a bloody addict.

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