Writing and the Art of Waiting

Photo by Malvestida on Unsplash

This past week I have been engaged in the favourite pastime of all writers, everywhere; waiting.

I had no idea when I started this journey (that of being a traditionally published author, I recognise it’s different for self-published authors) just how much waiting I would be doing, and just how little tolerance for waiting I would discover I have.

My usual way of dealing with waiting is my usual way of dealing with all stressful situations. I go into retreat, from life, people, activity. I am not a multi-tasker, I am a ‘fixate on this one thing until it is resolved’ person. I even find reading difficult, let alone writing anything new (which unfortunately is the number one thing people advise you do while waiting). But the creative part of my brain seems to power down in these moments and any extra creative energy is generally used to make up extreme worst-case scenarios (all of which end with me being a bag lady. I’m actually being truthful. It’s a thing. Probably a thing I should deal with, and the topic for an entirely different Substack).

As I’ve said on here before, why would a control freak like me choose a profession where so little is in my control, including timing?! It seems insane. And yet there is something almost spiritual (forgive me) in learning to wait gracefully. In accepting when there is no longer anything I can do to influence a situation, and in being with uncertainty - not trying to wrestle it into submission. It’s not just about writing, it’s about life. Living becomes an inherently more peaceful pastime when I’m not trying to bend everything to my will and timing.

So this time I decided to treat ‘the wait’ as an experiment. What if I turned all that energy I usually train and fixate on whatever outcome I am waiting for into all the things I need to get done, and all the annoying ‘life admin’ I’ve been avoiding?

At the beginning of the week I listed all the things I have neglected over the last few months while I’ve been busy with promotional activity:

Getting new windscreen wipers fitted

Opticians appointment

Recycling old pairs of glasses

Signing a load of tip-ins

Getting my car valeted

Organising a blood test…

(You get the picture)

And I did them all. I also didn’t cancel social activities. I made sure that every day I had a list of things to do, none of which required my creative brain but all of which I’d get a kick out of being able to tick off the list, and you know what? It worked. I managed to wait (almost) gracefully, with no meltdowns, no ‘end of the world’ scenarios, and hardly any chocolate being consumed. Something about focusing all my attention on the task in hand brought me fully into the moment.

Maybe the next stage of my evolution will be to be able to ‘create while I wait’ but for the moment I will take my win, and feel proud that I managed to wait with grace. Now I’ve just got to practise the same with the UK election results.