Waiting.

I’ve been doing a lot of it. And when I say waiting, I don’t mean “waiting while I’m hard at work on the next thing,” but really waiting while I’m not working on anything in particular. There are times when you’re just waiting on other people, and you can’t really move forward without feedback or input. When you're an author while you’re in the querying trenches, the most common advice is to jump straight into the next project once the first is out (if a book dies while you try to find a literary agent, you have something fresh and exciting to query), but I honestly believe that advice becomes harder to apply at different stages of the publishing journey.

Sometimes you truly can’t move forward without an agent or editor greenlighting your pitch or sending notes on a proposal or manuscript. And sometimes you technically can move forward—but you actually can’t, because we aren’t robots. Our brains stay hooked on the incomplete work that’s still in progress; they won’t fully release it, won’t free up the attention needed to give a new project what it deserves. Sure, in an ideal world we’d rewire ourselves to handle that better and cycle between worlds and characters like we would change outfits… but we’re human (and I’m still not convinced that churning out manuscript after manuscript without proper rest in between is a good idea… but that veers into craft advice, and really—what do I know).

What I do know is how to deal with waiting. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. Sometimes I’m wildly impatient because I’ve wanted this so badly since I was eight years old that the slow drip of time feels like pure torture. Other times, life intervenes—work, family obligations, just particularly busy seasons—and I get these blissful pockets of time where I’m not obsessing over publishing, where my brain can actually focus on something else.

It’s hard. It’s really hard!

Like so many other things about productivity, though I didn’t find a way to rewire my brain, I did find a few ways to trick it into healthier, more positive mindsets. Some of these might sound ridiculous, but in my particular experience, they allow me to look at these waiting periods under a different light. So, let’s get into it.

The mindset: treating the waiting periods like preparing for birth

Back in 2023, when I was heavily pregnant with my son and getting ready for about six months of not working (at least we have maternity leave in Portugal, and I’m very aware of how fortunate that is compared to other realities), I remember spending the last three months of my pregnancy preparing for what was coming. I call this “helping future Mariana”—basically doing whatever I can to make future hard times a little easier. This was a particularly busy period in my life because not only was I working full-time as a legal advisor, I was also working full-time as a content creator and coach. While I was pregnant, I had to prepare six months’ worth of weekly videos to publish when I was on maternity leave, along with the social media content to promote them, and still arrange coaching sessions in the little time I had available while nursing. I was still working with a few clients, and I didn’t want to drop them during my leave. It was hard—really hard. But it was worth it.

In a way, this type of structured mindset is the same I use to prepare for busy writing periods. When I get into a drafting or editing phase—especially when I’m on deadline—the rest of the world tends to fall away. I still have to work full-time while editing, and I still have family responsibilities, so everything else needs to be sorted beforehand.

So what do I do while I wait for a new round of edits, or for a stretch when I know I’ll be writing intensively?

I try to get my work life as organised as possible. I give a heads-up to anyone I can that I won’t be as available, and I aim to be on top of everything before things ramp up. My job is reactive 80% of the time, so there’s only so much I can control—but there arethings I can do while I wait. The lingering tasks that sit on the back burner, clearing out my inbox, preparing for projects that might only kick off months from now. It all adds up. When you realise it, your schedule is packed.

This also leads us to:

Doing the things you never want to do while you wait​
​If I’m doing something while I’m waiting, I don’t have to think about publishing. And I realised this last year: if I deliberately schedule all the dreaded tasks for those waiting periods, it becomes a surprisingly good way to pass the time, clear my to-do list, and even feel a kind of gratitude, like—hey, I’m so glad I’m not on deadline right now, because honestly, I wouldn’t be able to do this in a relaxed way if I were juggling edits/drafting at the same time.

Examples of dreaded tasks I’ve either completed recently or have lined up for these waiting periods:

• Doing a full medical check-up, including all the awful exams—blood tests, eye exams, the whole thing.
• Going to the bank, waiting in line, and finally closing that damned account.
• Completely reorganizing my financial spreadsheets, tracking my expenses on my home banking app for the past six months (including those ridiculous €0.01 transfer taxes), and now being able to scroll through everything and feel that deeply satisfying sense of order.
• Organising cabinets and shelves I’ve been putting off for years. I’m talking batteries, spare parts, random bricolage things I have no idea how to use, medication that’s been sitting there for a year and is probably past its expiration date. My house has never been this clean or this organised. Truly. Publishing is a miracle. Every time I’m bored, I grab my label maker. Every time I’m frustrated, I grab the vacuum.
• Actually read the non-fiction book that’s been gathering dust on your shelf.

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The Brick

I’ve talked about this little device so many times I could probably be a brand ambassador by now (actually, I hope not. I’ve had enough of that over the years. Let me be free in my consumerism). The Brick is a device that, when scanned, blocks selected apps on your phone. You choose which ones—social media, your email app, whatever tends to pull you in. The trick is to keep the device somewhere inconvenient. Mine lives in the kitchen because I’m just lazy enough not to get up and walk there once my phone is blocked. But I know people who keep it in their car, or even outside the house or office, just to make it physically impossible to scan it back on a whim.

Publishing-related waiting/obsession is 50% thinking about something on a loop, and 50% scrolling and refreshing your phone. And the Brick helps with the latter. I wish, I wish I’d had one a year ago—I definitely spent way too much time constantly refreshing my email for updates, which is inherently nonsensical, because emails don’t arrive faster just because you refresh, BUT WE JUST DO IT ANYWAY.

Is it a bit childish? Yes. Does it work? Also yes.

Keeping a side-project

This one will vary from person to person, and it’s something I’ve been leaning into recently. I have pretty intense FOMO, so part of me feels almost horrified at the idea of letting life pass me by while I’m waiting—especially when I know the wait might be long. So why wouldn’t I be doing something fun in the meantime?

Some authors pick up a creative hobby on the side—knitting, bookbinding, gaming, sports. I’ve personally been getting back into piano and music lessons, where I can pour my heart out into completely depressing requiems whenever I feel mildly inconvenienced. Others learn a new language (there are so many free tools nowadays, and it’s easy to set ambitious milestones to look forward to while you’re playing the waiting game—and hey, you never know what might end up being useful). Or they focus on something related to craft—there are so many craft books out there, not to mention free writing courses on everything from building compelling character arcs to worldbuilding.

I think the “novelty” of engaging in something completely different (something that doesn’t follow the same milestones as writing) can really help you detach from it in a healthier way.

Social media galore

This one is tricky, and I also believe it can be more or less useful depending on where you are in your publishing journey. I’m not going to get into the debate about whether social media is “necessary” for debut or previously published authors. I’d love to stamp my foot and say “no! you don’t need a platform!” but unfortunately, recent signals suggest it’s not that simple. On the other hand, you might genuinely enjoy sharing things about your work on your platform of choice.

So, the waiting period can actually be a good time for this. A bit like posting in batches while you’re waiting, and then “getting back to your cave” and disappearing in a graceful, author-like way when deadlines or news cycles kick back in.

If you’re in a situation where posting might not be the best strategy (I include myself in this group, given my very vague circumstances), you can still use this time to plan your social media calendar and compile ideas for future posts—either content you can create now and schedule later, or just notes and inspiration to develop down the line. You can also use it to observe what other authors or creators are doing and notice what resonates with you.

Either way, whether you’re social-media savvy or not, if this is something that sparks your curiosity, I’d argue it’s generally better to do than not do—especially in a context where actively promoting your book might naturally reinforce your presence online anyway.

It may not meaningfully move the needle in terms of sales (and I’ll leave that conversation to people who know the numbers better than I do), but regardless of the goal, batching these kinds of posts in advance is usually a good idea. It’s simply a difficult thing to do when you’re juggling a deadline.

Uff, this was a long one. I hope you got something useful out of it, and let me know what you usually do when you’re in waiting mode.