Waiting

Yesterday, I finally heard from my literary agent. I left a message for her last Friday wanting to know how the pimping of my book was progressing.
“We’ve had a couple nibbles,” she said, “but nothing definite yet. Don’t worry Mike, it’s only been a month, and we really haven’t gotten into the big push.”
Nibbles? Does that mean a publisher bit a noun but spit it out when he tasted the adjective attached to it? I’m worried; do I need to change bait?
“It is going to be fine,” she said, “You’ve got to have patience. The wheels of this business grind slow. I’ll talk to you next month, or sooner if I have any news.”
I am, of course, convinced my book, Pathetic Bob’s Self-Help Guide (Practical Advice From a Very Strange Dog), is probably the worst book ever written. I’m sure slush-pile readers are gathered at some New York bar shaking their heads at the audacity I had to pose as a writer.
The other manuscript—The Lunatic (My death and Life in a Bi-Polar World--is now in the hands of my editor. I anxiously await her phone call asking me if I have ever thought about as a mime.
Four submissions sent out to three magazines yesterday, weird magazines, my kind of magazines. Three notices of receipt by those magazines today. Electronic sniggering?
Writing is not as hard as waiting.