Most of my life over the last 10 years has been hurry up and wait.
Hurry to finish my degree, but wait to get a job until we're settled. Hurry to move and settle, but wait to really settle because we're moving again in a year. Hurry to write something well, but wait while the queries decide your fate.
It feels like I'm the bike riding kid in The Incredibles. Mr. Incredible asks him what he's waiting for and the kid says...
"I don't know. Something amazing, I guess."
The kid is a waiter. A writer...is patient.
There is a difference between the two.
A waiter looks around waiting for something to happen. They are the secondary characters in our stories who are forgotten as soon as the page turns or the frame ends. They are the people who spend their lives watching everybody else do something amazing.
Patience has a point. It is selected work on our stories and targeted queries to the right agent or publisher. It is smart choices about our work and our lives. And sometimes it's drinking three cups of coffee and forcing myself to sit still, to test if I can really do it:)
But most of all: It. Is. Work.
So I am tossing out my hurry up and wait life, and I'm trading it for one that is patient.
Which are you?
Love the example with the kid from the Incredibles, that boy is the everykid we all were as a child I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteMe though? I'm a hurrier. I hurried through Uni, to get a job, to write, through revisions - everything. It's a big flaw of mine that I always want to move on to the next thing.
I'm trying to fix it and take my time with my writing, but old habits sometimes die hard.
Good luck with that, but maybe that's your strength, too. Patience is sometimes overrated. Patience makes you write that post later. Makes you wait on those queries when you could be sending out more. Has you thinking instead of doing. Might be a good thing, but might not.
ReplyDeleteBalance. Now that is the ticket!
Oh, I'm hurrying up and waiting. I'm trying really hard to be patient, to let the things I can't control roll away, but it's hard. Every day, I think I'm doing a little better. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand. This patience thing is KILLING me! I've operated in hurry/wait mode for so long it's like learning to walk again.
ReplyDeleteHa. I am the hurrying type. But...the thing is... all the good things that have ever happened to me have been while I was waiting... no, not even waiting... contemplating. Taking a breath. Admiring the view.
ReplyDelete(a friend of mine once said, if you keep running, how is the mailman going to find you and deliver that check?)