The Literary Athlete

You've written the best book you can write. Your Trusted Readers love it, gave you feedback, you incorporated what struck true into the
manuscript and gracefully ignored the rest. You researched your markets/agents/editors BEFORE sending out the query letters. You queried.
You got responses. You now have an array of partials, fulls, outlines and synopses dotting the countryside.

Now what?

If you sit there and wait and worry, you will drive yourself into an early grave. The publishing business is difficult and heartbreaking, and
unlikely to get softer during this time of recession. The best thing you can do now is to take a deep breath and treat your book as though it's
your child heading off to college. You're there when the kid wants/needs to come home in between bouts of life lessons, but the kid has to make
his or her own mistakes.

Your novel will have to hit and miss with various agents, editors, assistants, etc. You can't control their response to your work. You have to let
them respond as best they can. The analogy I always make is that finding the right agent and/or publisher for your work is similar to finding
your soul mate. You have to date around for awhile before you find The One.

While you're searching, your life, especially your writing life cannot simply grind to a halt. The pressures of publishing have intensified over the
past few years. Writing at your own pace on your own schedule is a luxury you will only have as an unpublished author. Previously, authors were
expected to turn out a book a year, especially if they created a series. Now, I see authors regularly publishing at least two a year. A prime
example is Jackie Kessler, whose book The Road to Hell released earlier this year. The first book in the series, Hell's Belles, published last
year. The third book, Hotter Than Hell is coming out this August. Yasmine Galenorn's Darkling, the third in her Sisters of the Moon series,
came out in January. The fourth, Dragon Wytch releases this July. Sandra Worth's novel Lady of the Roses released in January, and The King's
Daughter releases in December. The pressure to produce, once one is on contract is intense.

That doesn't mean that now, while on submission, you can sit back and relax. You need to set up the structure so that when (and I mean "when",
not "if") your novel sells, you don't spiral into chaos and lose opportunities. You need to re-structure your life so that the writing is a regular part
of the schedule. Hopefully, you did this as you wrote the book now out on submission; however, often, especially with a first novel, the writing
is catch-as-catch-can.

Sit down and restructure things. If you still have a day job, figure out your writing schedule. If you're a stay-at-home parent, figure out a writing
schedule. There always must be room for flexibility, but if you plan on this being a career, writing when you "get around to it" won't cut it.

Part of that restructuring is setting up a regular writing schedule now, and writing during your scheduled sessions. Whether it's every day or
three times a week, get into the habit. If you're writing a series, plot out the next few books and start the second book, while the first book is
out on submission. Even if you're a pantser/blank pager, having an overall idea of the emotional arcs of your protagonists will help. When the
current novel on submission sells, you can say, "Oh, I'm halfway done with Book 2" and the agent or editor knows you're more than a one-shot
wonder. If you wrote a stand-alone, write whatever next book is kicking around in your brain. Also, if you're writing a series, think about
creating a few short stories with your protagonist or a favorite secondary character as the focus. These will help build your audience.

Research media outlets, reviewers, and bookstores. Start building your publicity list. Put together ideas for a newsletter. If you don't already
have one, build your website. If you wait to do all these things until the book sells, you'll be scrambling to handle everything along with the
demands of a book in production.

You don't have to over schedule your time right now, but setting up a firm foundation to support the rest of your career now will save you time,
energy, and, most importantly, sanity while your book is out on submission.