I have handed copies of my (finished??) manuscript to five people to do what they (we??) in the biz call beta readers. These kind, kind people -- friends and acquaintances, in this case -- will read through it for flow and clarity, and provide what feedback they may feel important for me to know. The overwhelming preference was for analog, printed copies, and these have been delivered or mailed.
I can't possibly ask people doing this big a favor for me to hurry up, so I am settling in for a long wait. It is excruciating, on the one hand, sending five copies of all your feels out into the world and then for weeks and weeks, at least, just....hope it's going well.
On the other hand, however, it's such a nice change of pace to not have to worry about this thing for the first time in years. (I do recall the 8-9 months of pretending it didn't exist, but that was not as relaxing as you might think.)
In any case, I have been enjoying a guilt free couple of weeks, watching youtube videos about pencil sketching or watercolors, working on my apartment, and otherwise staying busy while I most certainly do not think about how you-know-what is Being Received.
I will try to turn my attention to the cover design and interior layout options, etc. It's not like I'm quite there yet, anyway, since there will certainly need to be another pass once I get feedback. I did also learn the hard way, to my chagrin, that things are quite different on the printed page than on the computer screen. I noticed many a tweak I'd like to have made as I punched holes in all those sheets and set up the binders. Embarrassing, really. Alas.
One of my beta readers very kindly emailed me early on with favorable first impressions and I was so grateful, just to release the pressure valve a bit. I'm way too close to this to see it clearly, and I am truly looking forward to the feedback. But still...gah. Harrowing.