Schroëdinger’s Book

I’m terrible at waiting. I find it rapidly depletes my already low levels of energy. Waiting for responses from publishers, agents and competitions, magazines and art galleries, is even worse than normal waiting (like for Mr Sainsbury and his beepy van). It’s worse because my whole self is invested in the work and consequently in the process, as well as in the result of other people's deliberations.

Deliberations is, in most cases, rather too grand a word for the five seconds it takes to give my proposal or portfolio a cursory glance and fire off a rejection email, but just occasionally, there is a glimmer of hope that makes the potential outcome even more stressful.

Right now, for instance, I’m waiting to hear back from a publisher who used the heart-stopping words, “I’m interested.” And so now they have my ms and my endorsements, the next part of the waiting process begins. And I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted from the effort of not checking my emails constantly, and the effort of giving in and looking. I’m exhausted from the daydreams about book covers and how it might feel to hold the real solid thing in my hands.

I’m weary too, of wondering about how success might look and feel, how it might make other people, and other writers especially, react to me. And most especially, I’m tired from trying to gear myself up for the very real possibility that this too might be a dead end, and that it may all come to nothing.  Is it a book or isn’t it? When will I know? Even if it gets published, will people like it?

And the only thing, really that I can do with my stress and my waiting and my dreams, is give them to God. It’s work that I have done for him, after all. It’s his book more than it is mine. Whatever happens (or doesn’t), I’ll take as from his hands, and trust his timing. If it is a yes, I’ll be relieved and grateful, maybe even excited (if I can remember how), and if it is a no, then at least I shall be encouraged that this piece of my heart must have merit, and that there is hope of finding a home where it can finally become a reality. I am not going to deny that the latter outcome may also involve tears and consumption of chocolate whilst I recover what I laughingly call my strength.

In the mean time, my book wavers in and out of existence. Here on my hard drive, held in my imagination, and only time will tell if I’ll ever hear purring coming from inside that box….

Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a disabled writer and artist with a passion for poetry, mysticism, story and colour. Her writing features regularly on spiritual blogs and in literary journals. Her full-length publications include Garden of God’s Heart and Whale Song: Choosing Life with Jonah. She lives in South East England and is mainly housebound by her illness.

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