is the loooooooooooooooooooong wait between finishing a manuscript and getting it accepted for publication. In that fraught interval, a constant buzz of frustration grinds away at body and soul like a low-grade toothache. If one is lucky (and I am) friends will volunteer to read your manuscript and respond to it. This generosity makes the waiting a little more endurable, for otherwise one is apt to think (as I often do) that no one else may enjoy what one had great pleasure writing. And yes, writing IS a great pleasure, but that doesn’t mean it is its own reward; not for a professional writer. That’s like expecting a chef to be satisfied by their own cooking or a musician to be satisfied playing to an empty room.
Still, despite the momentary reassurance that people you respect like what you wrote, it is still agonizing to send stuff out to publishers and then hear nothing
nothing
nothing
month after month after month after month …
(cricket)