Ten Ways To Pass The Time Between Manuscript Edits
Especially for debut authors, the wait for that first professional critique of your year’s (or multi-year’s) work can be excruciating. I mean, what’s taking so long anyway? Story coach and editor Lisa Poisso tries to give us some peace of mind in her post Progress Reports: What’s happening during your edit?, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get restless. Here are ten suggestions for how you can pass the time.
(1) Eat an entire bag of Cheetos and the rest of the last year’s stale Halloween candy while incessantly refreshing your email screen.
(2) Open TurboTax and get halfway through the Has anything changed? screen before deciding the whole tax prep thing is just far too left-brained and process-y for the creative genius that you’ve become.
(3) Jump onto Amazon and scroll through brown corduroy jackets to wear for your interview on Oprah. Consider adding a Gandalf-style pipe to your look.
(4) Sit silently, and stare vacantly at the ceiling until you think you’ve heard a noise in the attic. Walk over to the attic door and listen carefully for movement. Yes, there’s something in there. It’s most likely a hatchet murderer waiting for the right moment to come down and begin his bloody attack. It will probably happen at any moment. Go get the baseball bat from your son’s room, practice a few swings at head level, and set it next to your work station.
(5) Pace through the house, pausing at every mirror to check out your profile. Squeeze the blubber around your midsection and berate yourself for eating the bag of Cheetos.
(6) Delete the You’re off to a great start! Would you like to continue? email that TurboTax just sent. Scowl at your inbox when you don’t see an email from your editor.
(7) Hop onto Fresh Direct and see if they deliver Cheetos. Do a little in-chair happy dance when you realize they do, but then wonder how Cheetos could have possibly qualified as “fresh.” Start typing the word Hershey into the search box and then delete it. Pause a moment to pat yourself on the back for your remarkable will power.
(8) Lie on the floor and do fifty crunches. Re-evaluate your midsection blubber situation, note that it’s improved already, then cancel your corduroy jacket order from Amazon. You’ll be much thinner in a couple weeks, and you’ll need a smaller size. Keep the pipe, though.
(9) Reconsider your strategy for the hatchet murderer, who you’ve by now named Gunther. Devise and implement an elaborate booby trap made with string and a diet coke can filled with pennies.
(10) Inform your half-dozen Twitter followers that you’ve had yet another productive day as a (nearly) Published Author.