Nine weeks ago I was told, "Thank you for your submission to Avon Impulse. You can expect to hear back from us within eight to twelve weeks, however, due to the amount of submissions we receive, we are unable to respond personally to each query. Thank you again for your interest in Avon Impulse."
Eight to 12 weeks. Two to three months.
I told myself I wasn't going to start checking my email like a person with a very bad case of OCD.
I wasn't going to stay awake at night thinking of all the ways I would prepare for the inevitable rejection that's bound to come.
And yet, here I am. Counting weeks, and addicted to checking my email, and lying awake at night while my six month old sleeps peacefully through the night. I'm a new mother. I should be sleeping when he sleeps.
But it's hard. Writing something and then putting it out there for others to read, to judge, to determine its worth is nerve-wracking.
Little known fact. 11 years ago I wrote a novel and sent it away to Harlequin. Yup. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Those were the days when you printed off your manuscript, stuffed it into a huge brown envelope, and sent it off with a bunch of stamps. I sent it in March. I got the rejection in September. Six months of waiting. When that big envelope came back with all the pages.... which in all honestly looked at if they hadn't been touched... and a little one page letter that basically said, "Nice story but not enough sex", well I wasn't surprised. It was a contemporary romance. I prefer historicals. And it was light on the sex. And I'd written it quickly. I wasn't shocked. And not even overly disappointed.
You would think I'd have learned a thing or two. After all, I'm a thesis away from a masters in History. I know to look to the past. And yet, here I am repeating myself. Because what have I done ? Written another contemporary romance in a very short period of time that has a little bit more sex than that first one... but not much.
So perhaps what I should do, instead of obsessively checking my email, is get back to work on the regency that this blog was created to document. If I'm going to be keeping myself awake at night, might as well do something productive with the brain.