I was listening to the radio today and a writer, Lynne Ried Banks , said that her advice to people who want to write is to look at what’s happening around you and then notice what’s different.  Pay attention to unusual moments – things that are out of place.  Wonder why or how they happened or happened to be there.  From that you’ll find stories and inspiration.

At some point you’ll be ready to send your work out to be read by an editor – maybe at a magazine or maybe, if you’ve completed a novel, at a publishing house.  Or perhaps you’re sending work to an agent.  Make sure every single thing you can do to make your piece as strong as possible is done.  Don’t think an editor is going to do that for you: their job is to help you improve what you can’t on your own, not to correct typos and come up with suggestions you’ve already thought of.

Make sure you have a perfect cover letter.  Have a look in my tips section for my ideas on cover letters.  And then send the work out according to the editor’s submission guidelines which you’ve read.  You read those, right?

Then comes the hardest bit.  Waiting.  Swinging wildly from thinking you’ve just written then best thing ever to knowing it’s the worst piece of writing in the world.  Ever.  All writers feel like this.  It’s part of the job.  And then waiting a little longer.  Publishers and editors and agents receive a huge amount of stuff to read.  They need time. 

If you haven’t heard back within three months, you could always drop a polite email to them.  But other than that you have to wait.  You have to let go. 

And write something new.

I remember reading somewhere an essay all about book publication day.  The writer, whose name I can’t remember, tells of spending the entire day feeling like something HUGE might happen.  Toward the end of the day, another writer friend of hers who also has a book out on the same day phones and the two of them laugh like crazy. They’ve both been anticipating this huge event and not a single thing has changed.  The essay is very funny and wise – it reminds you as a writer not to be too attached to end results.  BUT it also gives you as a writer the excuse to feel that weird anticipation – the feeling I have today.  My second book is published today.  Surely something HUGE should happen in my life to mark this momentous occasion!

Nothing huge will happen.  Of course the sky won’t split in two, the world won’t sway on its hinges.  But I am a little changed by today – I feel pleased and proud and nervous and excited and worried, like you will when you get your stories and books published.  

The strange anticipation of today will be with me until bedtime tonight, I imagine, and then I’ll get on with writing the next book.  After all, writing is the best way for a writer to spend their time.  And the pleasure and pain of book publication day will be over until the next time…