Waiting for responses on submissions is tough work. The anticipation, the hope, the fear, the fearing to hope! What’s a writer to do in the weeks or months when the inbox or mailbox is filled with nothing but chirping crickets?

Don’t Wait, Write
The best thing you can do to keep from worrying about when you’ll get a response on a submitted piece is to forget about it. Easier said than done, right? But getting your mind off of your submission really is easy if you start focusing on a new story (or poem or article). It’s all about putting your extra time and energy towards something besides hitting refresh on your inbox a hundred times a day.

If you’re working on a new story you also get the added bonus of having another piece to submit. The more you write, the better your writing becomes. And the more pieces you have making the submissions rounds, the more likely you are to have something accepted!

Edit… Something Else
Editing is another avenue to a win-win situation for the waiting writer. Just make sure you’re editing a piece you don’t have out on submission! Suddenly you’ll notice all the flaws in your story. If it’s out on submission… oh no! The editor will obviously notice every little issue and reject it! Or, worse, they’ll decide to publish it as-is before you can add more polish!

Avoid adding more waiting anxiety to your plate by working on making another story shine instead. Like writing, editing well takes practice.

Be Prepared
As every hyena Boy Scout knows, it pays to be prepared. Sometimes quite literally! And the worst things that can happen to a submission are loss and rejection. Loss is usually out of the writer’s control, so I’ll focus on rejection.

Rejection happens to every writer, both published and unpublished. So it’s not a bad idea to brace yourself for it. It’s not a fun thing, but it’s not the end of the world either. Market research is your friend in the face of rejection, both potential and realized. In case the current market doesn’t work out, go ahead and find the next one. Or the next five while you’re at it.

The best places I’ve found on the web for detailed market listings are Duotrope’s Digest and Ralan’s Webstravaganza. Ralan’s specializes in speculative fiction and humor markets, while Duotrope includes everything from non-fiction to poetry to fiction markets. Duotrope’s new “saved search” function has been incredibly helpful. They also have a free submission tracker, which has already saved me the embarrassment of accidentally simultaneously submitting!

And then…?
I’ve only mentioned a few writing related ways to deal with the waiting game, but I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to get your mind off your circulating submissions. What have you done to distract yourself while waiting?

This article previously appeared in Violet Hilton’s blog.

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Violet Hilton spends much of her time weaving words into worlds for the characters living in her head. When she’s not spinning tales, she spends her free time knitting and crocheting an ever-growing stash of yarn into submission. You can find more about her writing at http://www.violethilton.com