“The more Caroline waited, the more the doorbell didn't ring. Or the phone.”

Replace Caroline with Susan and you'd have it - a quote from Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

 Yes...waiting...and the little girl in the photo looks spookily like me at the same age.

 I'm referring to the sort of waiting I'm doing a lot of at the moment - waiting to hear back from editors, animators, directors, production companies all of whom have pieces of my work.

I'm not very good at waiting. Or rather, I start off being very good at it, all full of gung-ho hope and optimism. Then, as time goes by that little voice in my head gets louder.

By Glenn McCleary

It's strange how the little voice in my head never says anything ENCOURAGING...

Mostly, at the moment, it's saying - "They think your work is crap and they're just taking their time formulating the right words in order to tell you this."

So how I cope with this waiting process is by blocking it out, by composing a mind-bogglingly impossible To Do List and thrashing my way through it at a hundred miles an hour so I don't ever have time to

THINK

when if I DID let myself think, I'd realise that the little voice in my head is...

crazy as a soup sandwich.

Time is too slow for those who wait...

...said Henry Van Dyke, no relation to Dick, as far as I know. At least he didn't make a habit of speaking in an execrable Cockney accent while dancing around the chimney pots. As far as I know.

A more interesting picture than the one of Henry Van Dyke

My job as a freelance writer seems to involve a lot of waiting...

...waiting for brief clarification, waiting for feedback, waiting for sign offs, waiting to be paid...

And then SUDDENLY...everything needs to be done YESTERDAY even though I've been twiddling my thumbs for most of the day. Waiting...

There you are, you see. Twiddling my thumbs. It's what I'm good at. Or rather, it's what I'm BAD at. I find it very difficult to concentrate on something else when I'm waiting...

I don't like it fine.

Could do better.