Well, good people, the manuscript is done! Again.

The “last” plot board – see what I did with the push pins? See?

I say ‘again’, because if you’re a writer, or have been following this crazy journey of mine for a while now, you’ll know as well as I do that the manuscript is never really “done”. But for me, the next stage is. A while back (here) I mentioned how I met Nicola O’Shea  and that we’d be working together on Shadows. And I mentioned she had a whole bunch of feedback and suggestions that required me to knuckle down and put in some pretty hard yards. Well, two weeks ago I hit send, hurling my “completed” MS through cyber space to land back in Nicola’s hands.

And now I wait. I hate waiting. Never have been patient. Never will be. I wait and I wonder. Wonder if she’s even opened it yet, wonder if she’s read it, wonder if she’s liking it, wonder if she’s disappointed, wonder if she’s going to come back and say, ‘wow, you’ve done an amazing job, you should start querying’ (unlikely), wonder if she’s going to come back say ‘wow, you’ve done an amazing job, BUT…’ (a big but and most likely). Wondering. Wondering. Wondering.

The only way to stop The Wondering is to keep busy… Oh who am I kidding? The Wondering never stops. But, keeping busy can (sometimes) take the edge off The Wondering, so I’ve spent the last two weeks packing my days with…

You thought I was going to say ‘writing’, didn’t you? Well, that is usually the case. Move on to the next story to take your mind off the one that’s ‘out there’. And I did that when querying The Point, and I will do it when I query Shadows, but I decided in this instance to have two weeks off writing! Gasp, shock, horror. I can hear all those “you-must-write-every-day-if-you-want-to-be-a-writer” devotees screaming at me. But ppfflltt to them. I took two weeks off. Sort of.

I did a lot of card making.

just some of them

A lot!

still not all of them

The Rock

And I went to the movies. Pitch Perfect 2 made me cry (can you believe that?!), and so did San Andreas (but looking at The Rock for 2 hours made up for it).

And…yep, you guessed it. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t stay away from the writing completely, so I scribbled down some ideas for some new stories and even when I was busy card making or staring at The Rock my mind kept wandering to which of those ideas I should follow through with. I also did some work on my synopsis, you know, just in case Nicola does come back and says I’m good to go.

So, what’s next while I’m still in The Wondering, waiting oh-so-not patiently? Well, I figure two weeks is a long enough break from writing, so I’d better get back to it today. Only trouble is I don’t know which story to pursue; which one is speaking to me loudest. When I was querying The Point I started on a story (Knowing Nora), but Alice kept talking to me (yes, we authors really do hear voices in our heads), and she just wouldn’t leave me alone, so I gave her some attention and Shadows was born. Perhaps this week I can play with Nora again and see if she takes flight, and if she doesn’t maybe one of those other ideas I sketched out will start shouting at me.

I guess this will be a week of playing with new and old friends (characters) and seeing what they have in store for me. And a lot more of The Wondering.

What do you do keep yourself distracted when you’re waiting on something important?

S

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