Most writers in waiting have one of two things in common: We either try to tell you that we are learning to be patient, or we really are patient. The first set of writers are probably lying, the second set of writers are merely abnormal.
The problems begins after the book is written. First you send it off to a couple of friends, who either read it right away, or who don’t read it at all. When the criticisms and thoughts finally start rolling in, you’re back in the driver’s seat. Life is good. Then you finish the initial round and repeat with a second group of readers. Wait. Re-write. Then send it off to find an agent. Wait a long time here. Rejections arrive. You re-write and fuss and send it back in to other agents. You finally find an agent and you celebrate, thinking you’ve finally made it, only to discover that you are in for another round or two of major edits. This takes a lot of time. Finally the book is ready to submit to editors. Cautiously, you buy cheap champagne to celebrate, because you’re starting to understand that this whole thing takes time. It takes a lot of time. Years, sometimes.
So you tell yourself that you are acquiring patience. This is, of course a lie. You don’t have patience. (Unless you’re abnormal…this could be a good thing.) You’re lying. Join the club. We’re all lying. None of us is patient. Most of us leap into the next project as a means of survival. Write the next book, repeat waiting process. Continue to smile and act like we’re cool with it. Lie. Lie. Lie.
It makes sense, if you think about it. Who are the biggest liars on earth? Who actually hope to get paid to lie? Fiction writers of course. We aren’t trying to be bad… We don’t want to cause harm. We write lies and tall tales and the characters we create feel real and important to us. We actually spend an enormous amount of time immersed in and believing our own lies…and we hope you will too.
I recently discovered an excellent writer, Paul Crilley who has a wonderful new fantasy series, called The Invisible Order. This series features a young girl in Victorian England who in the process of trying to eek a meager living on the rough London streets, gets caught in the middle of a war between fairies. Compound her problems with an evil, fairy hunting human and a nine year old brother who at first glance seems to be kind of a punk, and you have a story rich in tension and drama. Of course I’ve only read the first three chapters of the book which you can find at Paul’s web site, www.paulcrilley.com The reason I’ve only read the first three chapters is because Paul is a writer in waiting. He waited through the process of writing, re-writing, editing and submissions…and he’s still waiting, this time for the book’s release in September. Paul says he’s learning patience. I know what that means. Either he’s abnormal or he’s a really good liar.
Judging by the tall tale he spins in his excellent book, I’d happily judge him to be a really great liar.
Tags: Paul Crilley, tall tales, The Invisible Order, Writers in waiting
