My ingredients for a chill outlook on writing a new novel while you query another:
- Two ounces of joy. Write for the joy of writing. Relish the words. Cherish the stories and the characters. Don't worry about anything else while you write, and don't think about it as a means to an end. Just words, lovely words, one after the other.
- One ounce of living in the moment. Publishing and/or finding an agent is not validation. The grass is not necessarily greener over there on that side. Validation comes every time you sit down at the computer and type and enjoy yourself.
- One ounce of sharpening your skill. Remember that writing is a learning process. Embrace the fact that you don't know everything. Learn all you can. Every critique and every scrap of praise can teach you something about how to become better.
- A splash of mistakes. Make loud, fumbling, embarrassing mistakes. Experiment. Toss the dice and see how it all falls without a plan. Give yourself permission to fail and permission to find the right thing by trying some wrong things first.
- A garnish of guilty pleasure. Every once in a while, have a glass of red wine. Or chocolate. Or watch sitcoms. Or listen to cheesy love songs from the 70s. Do something that makes you happy. Do something that relaxes you. No one can write well with tense shoulders and a stiff back. Or an ulcer.
- Shake while dancing to this:
- Pour over ice into a pretty glass and VOILA! Love yourself, love your writing.
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