What to Do While Waiting for the Results of a Submission

Hint: There are smarter ways to pass the time than hitting refresh

You’ve done your best work, caused your copy to shine, and submitted it to the proper channels. Now, you’re anxious and waiting to see the results. It’s difficult, especially when you can see whether the numbers are going up or not.

That’s the place I was in this past weekend. I submitted to an online journal to get a link from the website for my writing portfolio. On Friday I got a short e-mail that it was accepted and posted on the magazine part of the website (and not just the instant submission). I was informed that I needed 500 views. I shared a few times to my personal social media platforms and waited to see what played out. I also started checking repeatedly, even after hitting 500 on Sunday. It was a weekend filled with stress and wasted time.

This experience makes me sound like a newbie and in a sense I am. I wrote mainly poetry for eight years before deciding to blog last November. In March, I made the decision that I wanted to write in the trifecta of mental health, self development, and self care. I wanted to freelance.

In my past life of poetry, I got published a total of five times. However, the process was relatively cut and dry. It was the process of e-mailing my work to the editor, moving on with life. Finding out a few months later was a reward.

This was a different beast entirely. The ability to follow the train of an article’s impact until full stop made it hard to think of anything else. However, there were a million ways to pass the time. A lot of these other options would have been more enjoyable and less stressful. Not to mention productive

So today, I’d like to focus on a few of them.

Write the next piece or work on something different

As writers, we always have something to say. There’s always more ground we want to cover. There’s always a passion project to work on or a deadline to meet. Use the momentum from your last submission to work on something different.

Put the phone down and walk away

If it’s really a craving to check, put the phone down. There are millions of moments of life that are missed daily because a phone is glued to our hands. Part of being a writer is experiencing life more fully. It’s in those moments that life gives us the greatest story or article material. So be a collector of moments, including these ones.

Work on a Side Hustle

Regardless of what that side hustle is, there always seems to be less time in the day than we actually need to get everything done. This seems especially key if we’re not yet making money from writing. Spend a few hours making some extra money. The stats will be there when you’re done.

Read

Reading makes us better writers, especially reading widely. What’s on your TBR list? Spend some time killing off that novel you’ve been eyeing for years. Reading on the craft is also extremely beneficial. Reading Stephen King always makes me feel refreshed and inspired. Plus, if he needed a spike in the wall to hold rejection slips in his early days, it’s going to make sense that I might need to put one up too.

Realize that the results will be the results.

I’m not trying to sound cold here. Yes, you can promote your piece. However, at the same time, you are not in control of the outcome. It’s up to the audience to view, like, share and comment. More important to remember is that you are greater than the results of your work. If you’re a good writer, you have all the skill in the world regardless of what the results will tell you. Accepting this harsh truth might also set you free to enjoy your weekend.

The key here is to just get out of your head, keep working and challenging yourself. The piece that you’ve submitted is one piece of everything that you will submit. Don’t overstress yourself about the results. You have more galaxies inside you to explore.