When describing what it’s like to make money from creativity, I often like to refer to the TV show Mad Men because of the way it depicted resident creative genius Don Draper. In a nutshell, Draper was often shown napping in his office, sneaking out to a movie (or a date) in the afternoons, drinking excessively, and otherwise goofing off.
In short, there’s a lot of blank space in a creative life. When 90% of the work is mental, it can be hard for other folks to understand what you’re doing if you’re not madly typing constantly.
If that blank space is mystifying to other people, it can be downright terrifying to a writer; it usually follows months or years of intense effort, and then you send off your project—to a magazine, web site, publisher, agent, or beta reader—and enter into the Blank Space portion of your writing life. In short, one of the most difficult aspects of a writing career (as opposed to actually just doing the writing) is the waiting game that ensues after you submit something. You can drive yourself crazy interpreting silence. The best thing to do, in my experience, is to not think about submissions at all.
Set It and Forget It
I send off a lot of submissions every year, both on my own (short stories and novellas to contests, anthologies, and magazines) and to or via my agent. And it’s always the same: There’s a ton of work that goes into thew writing, revising, and preparation of the story or book, and then there’s a ton of work that goes into preparing the submission itself—cover letters, synopses, proposals, etc.
And then: Nothing. The Blank Space.
The only thing to do is put it out of your mind. Forget all about it. Jump to the next project or take some time off, whatever you prefer, but don’t waste time thinking about what you just sent off. You can’t affect the odds now, what’s done is done. And the universe is not taking note of the amount of mental energy you’re pouring into the submission, so there’s nothing to be gained by going over it in your head, or worrying over what the delay or speed of a response means. Put it out of your mind and move on to the next thing so that the rejection or acceptance that comes down the pike will be a surprise, pleasant or otherwise.
Of course, there’s a downside to this: I often completely forget about submissions altogether, and thirteen months later I suddenly notice an open sub in my records and then realize I’ve accidentally simultaneously-submitted that story a dozen times. Or forgotten to follow up at all. Because when you’ve got a sieve-like memory, sometimes Blank Space is all you have.