Patience Is A Virtue

And it is for a reason. In the writing biz, patience is a must have otherwise survival is limited. When I first started writing I had never heard of betas, alphas, cps, I didn't even know terms like WIP or MS. A total newbie, and completely unknowledgeable in all things publishing, I jumped the gun with querying (which I also hadn't heard of before). It totally backfired. Not only was my manuscript not ready to be seen by others and in need of intensive revising, but my query, in a word, sucked. It's been years since that took place and I've learned from my mistakes, but that doesn't mean I'm any less anxious to get the ball rolling after I finish a draft of a new MS. In fact, it hasn't erased that need, I was not miraculously given the gift of patience, but rather I learned that writing is a never ending process, editing is a necessary means to an end, we need each other in order to make our work shine (I could go on and on about how awesome the writing community is but we all already know that, but really, you guys rock). I'm fighting the urge to just send my manuscript off once I'm done with this round of edits, see, the patience thing is not my strong suit. But I'm containing myself, learning to be patient, learning to make my work stronger, better, working harder to reach my goal. What about you guys, do you ever find yourself struggling with the never ending writing process?