The Patience Game

Stay in the moment. Regulate your breathing. Use a mindfulness technique.

In my life as a clinical mental health counselor, I use some version of these ideas every single day.

In my life as an aspiring author (actually, let me modify that; I am an author waiting to be published), I find myself struggling to use these ideas.

It has been a year since I signed a contract with a small publishing company to publish my novel Unwrapping, and at that time, we’d already been through what I imagined to be the most difficult part of the process—editing the story. In actuality, that may have been the most difficult, but only for me. And though I’d been told the book would be ready for sale by the 2023 holiday season, it turns out that was, at best, an incredibly hopeful guess.

The real struggle has been twofold: first, it took far more months of work than my publisher and I expected to get the book fully designed and ready for print; second, though Unwrapping has been “ready” since April, my publisher has struggled to connect with different print services she has used in the past.

The upshot is that, as of now, I still have no firm publication date. That makes me and Unwrapping, to quote the late singer Meat Loaf, “all revved up with no place to go.”

Hence, my struggle with patience.

The ironic part is that I deliberately chose the small publisher route because I felt it would be simpler once I persuaded someone to take a chance on a first-time author. I had heard from friends who’d been fortunate enough to work with a traditional publisher that that process can take two to three years between finding an agent, acquiring a publisher, having rounds of editing, rewriting, etc.).

I’ve been working on the patience angle by trying to embrace a concept I use with most of my clients—acting from within my own “circle of control,” the space in which thoughts and actions are mine to take. And letting go of everything else.

One action within my circle is writing this blog post. Perhaps my words will resonate with you and your struggle to be published, and perhaps you’d be willing to share your story. After all, another piece of wisdom I share with clients is to find a support group of those with a shared experience.

But for now, please pardon me while I focus on my breathing.