While I wait

Hi there. It's been a while, I know. What have I been doing, you ask?

Well, I've been writing my next novel. I've also been sick, as has most of the family during the past week. I'm also gearing up for my yearly mission trip to the Yucatan. I leave a week from Saturday, and already I'm feeling harried and ill-prepared. In other words, the same old, same old.

But mostly, I've been waiting. You know the feeling, right? At the Writers Digest Conference a few weeks ago, I had four requests by agents to read The Devil You Don't Know -- three partials and a full.

I got a rejection on one of the partials fairly quickly. It was a very helpful one and she said she really liked my writing, so I didn't feel too badly about it. But I've heard nothing yet from the others, nor have I heard anything from the handful of queries I sent out in a rush of anxiety upon returning home.

So, I am writing like a fiend (when I'm not too sick to sit here at my keyboard, that is).

I'm still loving the new book, Empty Spaces. It keeps taking one dark turn after another, sometimes without my permission. I'm mostly a "pantser," meaning I write organically without benefit of a full-blown outline. I do sketch out where I'm going with the book, along with some key scenes and bits of dialogue that come to me.

But mostly, I wait. If nothing else, this whole "trying to get published" scene is teaching me patience, which I sorely lack.

So, how do you guys handle the waiting? Are you able to wade into a new manuscript, or do you agonize and keep hitting refresh on gmail? (Not that I would do that, or course.)