Contrary to what I thought would happen, my world did not magically transform to perfection when I got the call. (I know, weird, huh? I can’t quite figure out why.) The Gremlins still fight, they still expect me to chauffeur them around, cook their meals and tie their shoes (okay, the five-year old still expects the shoe thing. Thank goodness the three-year old is happy with his Velcro Spiderman shoes). The toilets still need scrubbing, the dogs continue to bark despite my telling them over and over that because I’m going to be a published author now, I can’t continue to cater to their every whim, and laundry still has that weird habit of continuing to pile up. I still have to balance the checkbook and find my tax statements…and on top of all of that, I’m still waiting.

What’s up with that?!

In all seriousness, the waiting thing is the one part I thought would get easier. (The Gremlins themselves could care less about the fact mommy sold – it’s irrelevant in their world – and the dogs? Don’t even get me started.) Of course, as most of you already know (stop laughing at me), the waiting never gets easier. I’m still waiting for release dates, for concrete deadlines, for possible title changes, to hear if book #2 is accepted the way it is or if it’ll need revisions. The list goes on and on. And what does a smart person do in this waiting period? No clue. But I can tell you what you shouldn’t do…

1. You shouldn’t let everything go until you finally decide to come back down from the clouds and resettle in reality. Remember that laundry I told you about? Ack. Miles high. I’m still nowhere close to being caught up.

2. You shouldn’t decide to feed your impatience neurosis by eating leftover birthday cake near your laptop while hitting refresh on your email because all those sticky crumbs will get wedged into your keyboard and then cause major problems.

3. You shouldn’t expect the muse to magically show up for work on Monday morning, bright and early, because odds are she’s off in Linda‘s basement with a bag of Cheetos laughing her ass off at your new predicament.

4. And you definitely shouldn’t stay up until all hours of the night on IM with your writer friends (because said muse has left you high and dry) and then decide to finally get busy and write at midnight. Not your best hour to start fresh.

So now that I know the rules, hopefully things will change. The washer’s going, the keyboard’s clean and for once, the house is quiet. I even updated Lisa‘s nifty novel-tracker with my new book info. Granted, I’m already behind, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

So what do you do to keep from stressing while you’re waiting?