Count up vs. Countdown

I have mentioned it before — I hate waiting.  I am bad at it.  Twitchy, impatient, obsessive.  I currently find myself doing two different types of waiting.

First, I am waiting for responses on stories.  Yes, yes, this waiting is perpetual in this business.  It’s been years since I had no stories out on submission, so I’ve been waiting for about three years this way.  Call me masochist.  My most recent submission went out three weeks (21 days) ago.  Not that long, I know, but I haven’t received any responses in those three weeks.  My other stories have been waiting longer: 31, 40, 46, 50, 51, and 74 days, though two of these (50 & 74) have brought in hold requests in that time.  My average is a little under two months.  Two months is not so long a wait, but two months times seven gets tough for me, especially when some of those two months could turn into four or six months.  That’s the first type of waiting, the open-ended waiting, the kind that could end tomorrow or a year from tomorrow.

The other type of waiting is what I’m doing with the WotF workshop: waiting for a target date.  I have 54 days left before I leave for LA.  I’ve already waited since…when did I find out I won, February?  It’s like waiting for Christmas; the days get longer the closer you get to the target.

So which waiting is worse?  I think the combination is melting my brain.