Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Waiting

I have two subs out, which means the waiting game has begun. It's not a fun game to play, but it's a biggie in this field. Waiting. Patience. Resisting the urge to check the email every fifteen seconds or so.

In the case of Submission #1 - the wait will last another few weeks. In the case of sub #2, it shouldn't be quite as long. Either way, if I still bit my nails (a habit long since broken), I'd have chewed them into nubs by now. I'm not a patient person by nature, and this only makes it worse.

While I'm waiting, I'm working on the outline for the book I mentioned a couple of posts back - the Western. I've got a basic skeleton of an outline from beginning to end. It isn't anything terribly detailed, just notes like: Hero and heroine meet. Or, heroine has a secret that will be revealed in later chapter (followed later by, heroine reveals secret) and I'm not really sure what that secret is yet, but it will impact the story, for better or for worse.

I tend to think of it as a basic pencil sketch - and as I revise it, I'll add the details in as I learn them. Right now, I don't know much about the hero and heroine, so as I get to know them, those details will come to light. It's been a while since I've written something where I didn't know the h/h already (After the Storm, Devil in Disguise, Dance with the Devil, and Tiger Eyes are follow ups to other novels, so even though they focus on what had been secondary characters, I still knew something about them when I began each book.) And it's a change I've really needed, as I've grown a bit weary of dealing with the same families (Montgomery, Montgomery, Radcliffe, Sebastiano - in that order) over and over.

So I'll be putting my waiting time to good use. I hope.

And now, it's time to see if I have any mail. You never know...

No comments: