WAITING (Guest Post by Luke Romyn)

Here's what you need to know about Luke Romyn:  He lives in Cairns, Australia, between the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. He's an extremely talented writer (I read The Dark Path and slept with the lights on for two weeks).  He spent 15 years in the security business only to jump into the most insecure business available--publishing.  Below are his thoughts on the subject of WAITING: 


Waiting….


Every writer who has tried to get their work published in any way, shape or form knows what I’m talking about.

Waiting….

Aspiring authors, prepare yourself for the wondrous world of limbo which exists between completing your work, polishing it to perfection, submitting it to whatever or whoever you have chosen will be honored with receiving such a wondrous gift of imagination and skill and –

Waiting….

Waiting….

Waiting….

Sometimes you’ll get that letter. You know the one. It’s the stamped, self addressed envelope you sent away with your submission, which you yearn to open and yet dread to see what it’ll say. We always open it, hoping it’ll say our dreams are about to come true.

Wrong!

Your world crashes down around you and you never, ever want to write another thing ever again, but being the eternal optimist you are you send off another submission the next day… and the next time… and every time you get that rejection. Because you’re a writer.

Writers are not only people born with perfect diction, nor are they always fantastical wordsmiths who can create vistas beyond the imaginings of mere mortals by threading their multi-syllable words together in such ways to break through new barriers in the art of articulation.

No.

A writer is something else entirely. A writer wakes each day yearning to express themselves through words, their mind and imagination screaming for release through the power of strikes on a keyboard or the scribbling of pen on paper. Other skills which they may require can be learned, but the heart of a writer remains the same, regardless of their background, ethnicity, education or religion.

Because they are the ones who will fight through those rejections, battling self doubt and endure the endless –

Waiting….

– forever with the hope that one day, just one time, that letter will contain the one word which will have made all the pain and stress worthwhile. Three letters each and every writer universally yearn to hear:

Y-E-S.