It’s true. I’m a waiter. But don’t go placing your order or telling me you want fries with that.
Maybe more accurately—I’m patient. I’m accustomed to waiting. I’m good at it, and I don’t mind! Don’t mistake this for complacency. I care a lot. I make lists about the things I need to do, people I want to see. I fill my thoughts and days with a lot of activities to get myself through waiting periods. I wonder and I ponder. But I don’t really mind. I revel in the slow passage of time. I’m not in a hurry.
Many people are.
We live in a get-it-all-in economy. The cheaper the better because the more you can have. And, the faster you can get it. I purport that slowing down, just a little bit, waiting for something allows you the opportunity to fill in the gaps with other things. Things that can give a lot of meaning to the minutes in between the big stuff. The time spent waiting is valuable time, not just passable time. Make sense?
If you’re a writer (and I bet you are) you spend a lot of time waiting and you hate it. Some writers wait for ideas to hit them (I go out and clobber ideas and drag them home with me). All writers wait for feedback, answers, research, editing. We wait for agents, editors, publishers, readers. We wait a long time. We kvetch and complain and tap our watches. We check due dates and schedules and timelines.
What if stopped focusing on the waiting?
Counter to logical thinking, impatience doesn’t make anything happen faster. It creates angst. Writers even have websites where they rank how fast agents reply to their queries. Now waiting five months for a “no” on a partial (happened to me!) might be absurd, but it happened. And nothing else can happen OTHER than the waiting if a writer is anxiety-ridden from waiting. I set alarms on my phone to remind me when I should get an answer/find out about something. Then I can tuck the waiting to the side, and get down to the business of writing and life. Because I can’t do one without the other. Can you?
This is such a great outlook, Amy. Like you, I try to spend the “waiting hours” focusing on the next project – and when I do that, it makes the waiting go much faster. It also helped, when I was still trying to get to “yes” because by the time I’d exhausted the queries I wanted to write on one project, the next one was ready to go!
Yep. I’m a waiter, too. There’s SO MUCH waiting in this industry and it can drive me mad at times. It seems the top three best ways for me to deal with it are 1.) work on another project 2.) exercise away the anxiety 3.)eat junk & drink wine. LOL. Anyone have any better ideas? None of mine actually make it easier!
You are a genius, Amy. This is a terrific post, one I’ve bookmarked for solace in the waiting moments.