Monday, August 23, 2010

Suggested Activities for the Waiting Period

Many of us have been there. You've finished your latest round of revisions (for me, it's round five...maybe six? Possibly seven? Who can keep track anymore.) and have fired off emails to some readers to get that all-important feedback. Is your WIP awesome? Does it suck? Does it make any sense AT ALL? Will you have to rewrite that make-out scene YET AGAIN? (Are you intentionally failing miserably at writing it in the first place because you love writing make-out scenes so much? Hm...)

Of course, your readers have lives (stupid them) and they won't be able to get back to you overnight. I mean, sure, it should be quick and painless to provide feedback on a 60,000 word document, but not everyone has perfected the art of speed reading. So while you sit on tenderhooks waiting for the feedback so you can dive back into revisions, here are some activities you can participate in that might be more enjoyable then waiting for those crit comments (I also believe these activities will work well when you're waiting to hear back about MS requests from agents.)
  1. Deep-sea fishing. OK, so you don't know anything about fishing. And you get a little bit seasick. But there's no email in the ocean, so it will prevent you from obsessively checking your email while you wait for those all-important comments. Also, you might just catch dinner! And then you can cook it! Deboning fish is hard and messy, cooking it can be time consuming if you want it to be, and eating it is yummy. Sounds like a great, time-wasting way to spend an evening!
  2. Ostrich riding. Apparently, this is a real activity. One which you must train for vigorously, then fly to Africa to compete in. Sounds like the perfect time-killer to me!
  3.  Wallow in self-doubt and loathing. This seems to be the perfect activity of choice for writers (and, indeed, any artist) waiting to get feedback or news of any kind. Sister activities include binge drinking, not bathing, not eating (see also: binge eating), and collapsing in on oneself like a dying star. 
  4. Start a Twitter account dedicated to Bieber. Because there aren't enough of them already, and because paying him his due homage will obviously take up all of your time.
  5. Bungee jumping and/or sky-diving. While neither of these activities will last longer than an afternoon, they're both moderately dangerous and may even result in injury that could lay you up for a few weeks - just enough time to get the feedback you've been waiting for. Will you take the risk?
OK, chances are good that you might not be interested in those activities. So you might opt to just do some CP reading of your own, read a book (For example, it's really convenient if you time the sending of your WIP with the most highly anticipated book release since Deathly Hallows....yeah, I didn't get into Twilight until after Breaking Dawn came out, and I'm kind of glad because I would have been disappointed by that conclusion.), or watch Veronica Mars. But really, are any of those as exciting/awesome as riding an ostrich?

I think not.

Alright, I admit this post was kind of silly/pointless. But no one's really reading it anyway, and my mind is so NOT on the blog today. We're all too consumed with MOCKINGJAY FEVER that we can hardly stand it. THE ANTICIPATION, PEOPLE. IT KILLS.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know. Veronica Mars is pretty awesome. I think I'd rather do that than ride an ostrich.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ostrich riding sounds like a once in a lifetime achievement.

    HAPPY MOCKINGJAY DAY!

    ReplyDelete

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