Waiting

Publishing is full of waiting: waiting for beta reader or CP feedback, waiting for query responses, waiting for submission responses, waiting for editor notes, waiting for cover reveals, waiting for emails, waiting for release day! And in the midst of all this waiting, it’s really easy to feel behind.

As writers, we love supporting our friends’ journeys, and we are so excited when they share good news:
“I started drafting a new book!” Yay!
“I started querying another book!” Wahoo!
”I got a (new) agent!” I knew you would!
”I went on submission!” Congratulations!
”I sold (another) book!” Fantastic!
”I have another cover!” It’s beautiful!
”I have this other really exciting thing!” AHHHH!

I truly love sharing in this joy with friends. Except…except sometimes, when I least expect it (and often with people I don’t have a close relationship with), I start playing the comparison game and feel stuck.

That sounds absurd. I have an agent, a book deal, and a second book deal. I have made it, right?

My brain knows I have already accomplished my dream, but, of course, the goal post keeps moving. Now, I see friends releasing a second book when I don’t even know what year mine will come out and others getting a third book deal before publishing their first, and my brain starts to whisper, “You’re falling behind.”

This is, unsurprisingly, a double standard. It’s weird because I NEVER look at my friends who don’t have agents or don’t have a book deal and think, “they’re behind.” I see them as right next to me, still on this journey, excited to see what their future holds because I am so confident it will hold something incredible. But it’s not as easy to view myself in the same light.

It occurred to me the other night that I am coming up on the two-year anniversary of sending materials for my second book. For some context, because I have a two-book deal, Delacorte Press will publish my next YA thriller, and my editor was excited about a pitch I’d given her when she first bought Silent Sister. While waiting for edits, I “wrote the wait” and worked on a detailed outline and skinny draft of that book…except, when I submitted the outline, my editor wasn’t sure the direction was exactly right, so I sent more pitches until we were both excited about one, and after a few months of emails, we nailed it down, and I began drafting in summer of 2023.

That means that for over two years, I have been brainstorming and drafting and revising a second book (or two second books, as the case may be). While I started out “ahead” of some others, I have stalled out. I’m standing in the hallway waiting for my next door to open, while they’re flinging doors open right and left.

Because my brain always examines the counterpoints, I have to acknowledge I have other friends who are still in the trenches or friends who left and agent and are still waiting to secure a second, or friends who are still waiting on sub. I’m not the only one waiting. And those flinging doors open now might meet a stone wall next week. They might feel as trapped as I do and it’s only my perception making them seem farther along. Publishing paths and their effects on us are entirely unpredictable.

Logically, I know publishing journeys are not linear, all of our journeys are different and we are not on the same track. We’re not even in a race at all! But knowing that in my head doesn’t always stop my heart from sinking when I look around the empty hallway.

Still, I believe everything happens at exactly the time it is meant to happen. I repeat these words to myself over and over on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis because it is so easy to feel “behind,” to realize I can’t get another YA book deal until this book goes to copy edits, that this book was supposed to be released in summer of 2025 and now might not even make winter 2026…it’s so easy to feel stuck and shut out.

I had a wise friend tell me that the most growth happens in the hallways when we’re waiting for a door to open. And growth isn’t fast or noticeable. We often only see it by looking backward and comparing to where we’ve been.

Perhaps that’s what I need to do more of, rather than comparing myself to where I think I should be now.