Learning to Wait Well: A Pragmatist’s Guide to Easing the Ugh
By Annie Neugebauer | September 20, 2017 |
photo by Martijn van den Bemt
I want to talk today about waiting, and not just because I’m yet again standing on the shore of A Long Wait. (Okay, partially because I’m standing on the shore of A Long Wait.) Over a decade plus, I’ve found that waiting is a staple of writing. It’s inherent in almost every phase of the process, and it’s unavoidable. The most prolific, confident writer in the world must still learn to wait. In fact, it might be harder for the busiest to accept that productivity doesn’t necessarily affect waiting.
We wait for inspiration to strike. For our idea to blossom into a book. For the right time. For courage. For our WIP to “sit” before we revise. For our beta readers and critique partners to do their thing and send us feedback. And again. When we query agents, get manuscript requests, revise and resubmit. When we go on submission. When we sell a project. To get the contract. To announce. To see the cover, or illustrations. To get paid. Or to get formatting, for stores to upload our publications. To see our publication hit listings. For ARC reviews. For release day. For reader reviews. To see if we made the lists. To find out if we’ve been nominated for any awards, and then again if we’ve won. For that next idea. For a second book contract, and a third…
I’m certainly not claiming to be the waiting master, but I have figured out some tactics that have helped me weather the wait better. If they work for me, maybe some of them will work for some of you, too. (And if you’re at the shore of A Long Wait or two yourself, chances are you have the time to test them out.)
Learn to Sit
I’m going to open with the most difficult – and most important – advice I have in regard to waiting. You need to learn to sit with the discomfort. This might sound contrary to all of the advice you’ve heard about it. (Work on your next project, keep yourself busy, etc., and we’ll get to those.) But I think it’s the most fundamental element to maintaining mental health in what’s generally a high-anxiety practice. No matter how good you are at the other techniques, if what’s simmering behind them is an unsupportable level of angst or discomfort, then you’re going to break down over time.
We don’t want to break down eventually. It seems very obvious, but how many of us head straight in that direction? I think that’s often because we tell ourselves, “If I can just…” and assume that after that ‘just’ comes a better, more comfortable place to be. One of the hardest lessons to learn is that that’s rarely the case. Usually the thing after that ‘just’ is equally hard or harder. So you can’t tough it out through the current wait and expect to be fine after. You really have to learn to wait right so that you aren’t toughing it out at all, but rather living sustainably within this life.
The first step to doing this, I believe, is learning to be okay with being uncomfortable, nervous, stressed, anxious, miserable, or otherwise in limbo. Odd, right? How can we be okay with something inherently negative? We’re taught to avoid the negative, which is generally smart, except that sometimes – like waiting for writers – the negative is unavoidable. So when we try to avoid something that’s there no matter what, we end up simply not addressing it instead. No good.
How do you learn to sit with discomfort? Try this if you want: Pinch your arm really hard. I’m not kidding. (Don’t do this if you don’t want to, obviously, but it teaches the lesson quite well. Physical pain and emotional pain aren’t all that different.) Do it harder than you think you need to, and then when you think that’s all you can bear, squeeze and twist a little more. Our instinct is to gasp and let go, rub the spot, right? Avoid. But what’s the worst that can happen from a pinch – even a really hard one? A bruise, probably. So what? Bruises heal.
Hold that pinch. Use your judgement here, but try to challenge yourself. Hold it harder and longer than you want to, and don’t try to think about something else or distract yourself in any way. Don’t just ‘tough it out.’ Focus in on the pain until your brain stops panicking. Realize that nothing happens even though it hurts. Sit a little longer with that. Nothing happens even though it hurts. It’s okay.
It’s exactly the same with waiting (and rejection, and doubt…). The next time you’re overwhelmed by it, don’t immediately run from it or try to shove it down. Sit with it. Go somewhere quiet you can be alone and just sit with the feeling for a while. It’s okay if you cry or get mad or whatever. That’s normal. Just sit there with the discomfort until it’s not quite so scary. Now you’re ready for the other tactics.
Complain
One more emotion-level truth: shouldering the suck all on your own doesn’t help. It doesn’t make you brave, or strong, or anything but tired. Let that stuff out. Vent! Again, we’re told to avoid the negative and to avoid being negative, but sometimes life is freaking negative. This is hard. Tell someone! Vent privately to a trusted confidant, preferably another writer who understands what you’re going through. Cry or rant or whine or whatever you need to do to get it out of your system for now. Go to someone who will tell you that “You’re Amazing and You Can Do This.” No one does this alone. It’s not sustainable.
Play the Games
Now that the slightly daunting stuff is out of the way, here’s a surprisingly easy one. Play all those little mental games. I know, people probably usually tell you that “what if” does no good, but I disagree. I think playing “what if” is very helpful – once. Not over and over in an endless cycle in our minds. But once, in a controlled way, such as writing things down in a list or journal. It’s a natural human inclination, so rather than battling it, just put it down on paper and move on. What if all of the agents I queried offer me representation at once? What if I never get any responses at all? What if my last choice offers but no one else? What if I work on my next project and get a book deal on the old one halfway through the new one? What if the book I published on Amazon never gets a single download? Go ahead and chase those rabbits down their holes to their logical ends. It won’t change anything, but it’ll make you feel more prepared and allow you to move on to the next tactic.
Preoccupy Productively
The one I hear most often is still great: preoccupy yourself with other things! Write your next book, send out more short stories, catch up on emails, draft some blog posts, edit an old project, work on your poetry or nonfiction or picture books or various side projects. It doesn’t really matter how you work, just that you do something that’s consuming enough to take your mind off the wait you’re in right now. Nothing you do will change how long this particular wait lasts, so don’t just sit around. Get stuff done! Take your mind off it. Not only will you be less miserable, but by the time you hear whatever answers you’re waiting for you’ll likely be invested enough in something new for rejections to matter a little less and successes to feel like pleasant surprises. Regardless, you’ll be closer to having your next thing ready, and you are always going to want a next thing.
Distract Productively
Okay, let’s just say that you’ve tried all of the above. You’ve learned to sit with discomfort, vented to your writing friends, chased the what-ifs down the rabbit hole, and tried to move on to your next big project. What do you do if it’s still not working? What if you can’t get into a new project or can’t find that sustainable peace?
If all else fails, do something else. Something totally non-writing-related. Remember those? Clean your house. Send cards to your family members. Call your grandma. Brush the cat. Start a new exercise routine. Take a meditation course. Hang out with friends. Catch up on your dental cleanings and yearly physicals. Go out with your significant other. Plan a trip with your kids. Party, play, whatever. Reenter your life; expand your life!
We get so caught up in our writing world sometimes that we let it consume us. I think that’s part of making art, and I think that’s okay. But sometimes we need to remember that there’s a whole world out there beyond the ones we put on paper, and that we should be a part of them. So if the writing part gets to be too much, it’s okay to put it on the back burner for a while. Take a little break while you wait and turn your energy elsewhere. Chances are the wait will go faster, the nerves will shrink in proportion to how your life expands, and when you finally do get back into it you’ll have a new wealth of experiences to pull from. Waiting might seem endless, but it’s actually cyclical – just like art, and life. When one gets to be too much, dive right into the other. Thank goodness we have both, eh?
Do you struggle with waiting? What tactics have you found most natural, and which the most useful? Commiseration and tips welcome below!
[coffee]
Annie Neugebauer is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author with work appearing and forthcoming in more than a hundred publications, including magazines such as Cemetery Dance, Apex, and Black Static, as well as anthologies such as Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 3 & 4 and #1 Amazon bestsellers Killing It Softly & Fire. She’s a member of the Horror Writers Association and a columnist for Writer Unboxed and LitReactor. She’s represented by Alec Shane of Writers House. She lives in Texas with two crazy cute cats and a husband who’s exceptionally well-prepared for the zombie apocalypse. You can visit her at www.AnnieNeugebauer.com for news, poems, organizational tools for writers, and more.
Annie-
Waiting is a drag, why pretend otherwise?
On the other hand, to twist and angst is to concede power to those upon whom we wait. Why do that? True power belongs to those of us upon whom the industry depends and whom the industry cannot do without.
Storytellers. Us.
The antidote to waiting, ask me, is living life. And writing. Waiting saps time but no where is it written that while you wait you must stop growing as a human being or as a writer.
For me waiting time is productive time. It’s a gift. Growing is my revenge. Those who may reject me after a long wait are the ones missing out. They’re not taking into account how much better my writing is getting.
Put another way, are we the ones waiting or are they?
Good post, Annie.
I agree re: life, writing, growing, productivity. Thanks, Benjamin!
Love this. It’s the best way to wait.
Annie, good essay. Thank you.
Thanks!
Thank you, Annie, for starting this discussion and for articulating the varieties of frustrations generated by waiting.
Thank you, Benjamin, for your excellent point. They are waiting for us–they just don’t know it. But we do.
My pleasure– thanks!
It’s like you’re sitting right across from me giving me the pep talk I need. Thank you, Annie!
I’m so glad! Thank you!
Oh yes, the waiting game. We know its coming. It’s hidden just over that hill. We can feel the rumble. The earth shakes. Our toes curl. Our eyes widen and still…..we are always surprised when it arrives. Our reactions are about as ridiculous as another character dying in a Games of Thrones episode.
Over time I have learned to immediately jump into the next project. The creative juices overtake all of that bad stuff allowing my mind to forget about time.
Overall that is how most of us deal with wait: Find something that helps us forget about time.
Excellent article. Thank you!
Getting lost in a new project really is the best option when we can swing it, isn’t it? It feels so good to turn our passion to something new. Thanks, Bryan!
I think you’re a freaking GENIUS. Everything you said was spot on. Writing–especially writing to keep a roof over your head–is one big suck sandwich of “hurry up and wait.”
Right now, I’m waiting for my book release, waiting for that glorious future fulfillment of typing THE END on my WIP, waiting for deadlines to eat me, and truth be told, waiting for months and months of writing 12-15 hours a day to get the better of me.
Resisting makes it so much harder. You’re right–we just have to live with the discomfort. Accept it as a new normal and get on down the road.
I’ll be sharing your brilliant article. Thank you.
Oh wow, thank you, Stacey! That means a lot. Yes, you really get what I’m saying here: accept don’t dodge, and then move on. I feel for you on all your current waits. (It REALLy is ‘hurry up and wait’ almost all the time!) I hope that you’re able to weather them in a positive, productive way. <3
I love everything you say here, Annie, and I concur with Stacey; resistance makes things harder. But as you say, running from discomfort is what we’re hard-wired to do. I was squirming around trying to live through a wait recently and the title of a book flashed into my brain. “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron. It felt like things were falling apart so I got it out of the library. Chodron talks about not resisting pain,or at least refraining from resisting it, and about developing compassion by sitting in the discomfort. I forget to do these things of course, so having that book nearby is like having a tank of air to breathe. Also, commiserating with other writers is a lifesaver for me. Thank you for this, and for everyone’s comments .
Thank you, Susan! It sounds like I need to check out Pema Chodron’s book. Yes, we are hard-wired for it, absolutely. That’s why it’s so sneaky! It’s really not a bad tendency until what we’re avoiding becomes such a prominent and permanent feature of our life, and then we really need to turn and face it (I think). Having the book that reminds you on your desk seems like a really great way. I imagine little affirmative sticky notes and the like might help some people too.
Good stuff, Annie. On the complaint front, one of its fine adjuncts is cursing. Particularly since it’s evident that it’s good for you (and me):
https://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/9-reasons-swearing-is-good-for-you
So, in those stressful writing times, #$!!@%&%!! (and throw in a few mofos for spice).
I haven’t read the Chodron book, but I also like reading a chapter or two in Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones—there’s a lot about dealing with discomfort, frustration and stress in there, that’s centered around writing, as well as about trying to make things happen, or waiting and watching them. And these are bite-sized lessons, so easily digestible.
This made me laugh. :) It’s true; I am a big fan of cursing. I haven’t read Writing Down the Bones, either, but I’ll look it up too. Thanks, Tom!
All waiting is not the same. There’s the kind that depends on other people doing something (waiting for the response to a submission, waiting for your Amazon ads to DO something).
And there’s the kind that is part of the process. For me, this involves getting all the pieces from my various sources together to create a scene – and then letting my subconscious suggest a path out of the chaos to an almost short-story-like scene.
Over the first kind – other people – you have little control.
But over the second, you have lots of control, and many things get added to the process, and you can allow false starts, and re-reading your sources, and thinking about the next scene, and…
You really have to figure out a way not to do the first kind: there is nothing more useless and a waste of time than waiting for an agent to get back to you after you’ve sent something in. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t even teach you patience; only despair.
The second kind is organic, necessary, subject to mood (which you can change), interrupted by Life but going on deep inside your brain during Life Events. Good stuff.
That’s very true, about the different kinds of waiting. I personally have learned a lot about patience from the second (versus despair), but I definitely understand the sentiment. It’s much harder when our waiting is dependent on things we have no control over than when we’re, essentially, waiting on ourselves.
Thank you for this empowering article, Annie. And for giving permission.
I think life has a way of teaching you lessons. The lesson I’m learning most recently is that I am more than a writer and I should actively celebrate that fact. And I have a feeling, if I learn this lesson, I’ll be a more rounded, happier writer.
Thank you, Leanne! That is such an important lesson — one I’ve struggled with too. We are all so much more than any single thing. Passion is wonderful, but we all need to be reminded that no one passion is our definition. We can choose our passion(s) again and again; we can have many; we can change them and appreciate all facets of ourselves and of our life. It’s really pretty wonderful. <3
Great post, as always, Annie. So encouraging and honest. Thank you for the pep talk!
Thank you, Ashley! <3
An excellent post, Annie. I’m reminded of Jon Kabat-Zin’s Full Catastrophe Living. It’s a book I adore, and that describes a science-based program he invented for helping people thrive despite chronic pain. One of the pillars of the program involves mindfulness–learning to watch the pain and notice how it isn’t a monolithic, constant companion but ebbs and flows. The approach invites curiosity and diminishes fear. In turn, though the pain itself might not be altered, it loses some of its grip on the sufferer.
Thank you so much, Jan! That doesn’t surprise me; my meditation practices are based on the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zin. I can’t say I’ve ever read him directly, but maybe some of the lessons have trickled down through my life. (Or maybe his methods work for me because I’m like-minded.) The phrase “invites curiosity and diminishes fear” is really perfect. Thank you for sharing that with me, and for reminding me to put him on my to-read list! I’m past due.
How did you know this is exactly what I’m struggling with right now? I feel better knowing I’m not the only one. Thanks for the tips. Sitting with the discomfort and becoming more inured to it is something I hadn’t thought of before. I’ve definitely been doing a lot of venting to friends. And my house is cleaner than it’s been in awhile :)
I love to hear that the timing was right! You’re *definitely* not the only one. I hope you find it useful if you try it out. And lol to the clean house — I’ve been there too many times! Thanks, Rebecca.
Thank you so much! Very wise words. This applies to many other things besides writing. I found this article from a google search… I am not a writer in any form; I just need to be more patient. Your perspective has been very helpful. I think it is exactly what I needed. Thanks for sharing!