(Im)patience

I sometimes wonder why I gave up the fast-paced world of journalism for the publishing industry. That thought usually only lasts for a few seconds because I got very burnt out of doing things so quickly. But there was one aspect I loved of writing stories for the newspaper: you got it written in a matter of hours and your readership had it in their hands the next day.

Books, though. Oh, books. They are the love of my life, but they take so long to produce.When I was a child, and even a teen (really up until I started writing my first book in college), I never thought I'd have the patience and stamina to write a full-length book. Even a short 200-page one. Hah. I've written about 300 pages in one book, 200 in another, and am still going on others.

Gladly, I proved myself wrong, but the base worry there wasn't that I couldn't do it. It was that I wouldn't want to do it repeatedly. I thought poems, short stories, newspaper articles were the thing because I could see the accomplishment almost immediately.

So why would this be a problem? Because every time I walk into a bookstore, I pine, I crave to see my books on the shelf. No, that isn't strong enough to express what I feel. In Spanish there's a phrase—tengo ganas—almost like I need to see my book on the shelf. The reason? To see something that I've accomplished, something tangible, something I can hold. For all the hours I've spent thinking about my characters, writing and rewriting and editing, I want something to show for it.

Now, I know it's not going to kill me to wait for publication of my books. I'll keep moving forward and working on my latest project. But if you tell me that it's going to take 3 long years at the soonest before I see one of my books in print, then I may very well have to strangle you. And I would probably give up.

Here's the thing, though. Even though agents, editors, other writers, and just about everyone else will tell you that it will probably take a long time before I get my lucky break, in my heart I don't believe them. I really think I will be published sooner rather than later. And that—that—is what keeps me going. If I didn't feel that way, if I knew this was going to be a long, laborious process before I saw some fruits of my labors, I probably wouldn't do it.

So if you think you need to tell me that it's going to take 5 years before I ever get an agent, I'm going to politely ignore you and believe what I want. It's the only way I'll keep myself going, and with my spirits up.

It will happen for me, and soon. I believe it, and so it must be true.