I Have To Be...Patient?

I think Rachel Weisz said it best in The Mummy: Patience is a virtue.

It may be a virtue, but that doesn't make it any easier to practice!

As I wait for my beta readers to give me feedback on my manuscript, I am not surprised that I have ants in my pants (figuratively, not literally!). I want progress! I want things done quickly! Now, now, now!

But, this is not realistic. Good things take time, and I'm learning that lesson with my first eBook. It took me hours to format my text. It also took me weeks to edit the entire manuscript before it was even worthy of being shown to any of my betas. If I'd given it to them beforehand (sorry to anyone who I actually did give it to - you know who you are!) it would have been a wreck. I simply needed the time to go through the document line-by-line and be sure that there weren't any glaring errors, and that the prose was as good as I could get it without external help.

Nothing happens overnight. Even the people who experience "overnight success" had to do a ton of work before they got to that point. It takes time to make a product - especially one as intricate as a 50,000 word piece of fiction - and polish it enough for the eyes of anyone outside your family. Those times when I want to rush something through, I have to stop and take a deep breath and tell myself that the extra time will be worth it.

I truly believe it will. We just have to keep in mind the long term while we work in the present.