It's the first Wednesday of the month and time for IWSG. To ready more posts, click here.
I’ve been playing mind games with myself. Query letter, check. Synopsis, check . Edit by the AP English guru, check. Requisite waiting period before reading manuscript
again? Check. Another wait, this one
over-kill? Check.
In short, I inched my way toward ready.
I researched Publisher’s Market Place and Query Tracker, and
read submission guidelines. I built my
own spreadsheet so I could track who I queried…yes, I know I can do that on QT,
I just wanted my own. There wasn’t much
more I could to. The trigger finger was
itchy to press “send.” I knew though, that
it would be smarter to give it just a little more time.
Then I got this idea.
It may seem petty to some, but if you’ve been reading me for a while,
you may have recognized that I can be a tad sensitive. Like an elephant, it’s hard for me to forget
and as I write this on January 31, I’m coming up on an anniversary. On February
4, 2009, the pink slip from the 23 year job came sliding under the door. Although I wouldn’t trade my accomplishments
since for those heretofore hefty paychecks, I still get a touch grouchy around this
time of year. Damn it. When they tell you they can live without you,
it hurts.
Wouldn’t it be cool if I could get out from under that—if I
could turn the date into a positive?
What if I earmarked February 4, 2013 to send my very first submission to
an agent? Might there even be some poetic
justice involved? In my way, wouldn’t
that be like thumbing my nose at the former employer who dropped me on my
bottom four winters ago? I know it's petty, but I liked that
idea.
But then, I got nervous.
I read a glorious book and hated my writing. I reviewed my first ten
pages again. I could still make them
better. So I did. I re-read the first three chapters. I could make them better too. So I did. Did that mean I needed to make the rest of it
better? Yep, I could and I did. The cycle was about to repeat itself, yet again, when
my-wise-beyond-her-years daughter said, “Mom, you will ALWAYS find things to change, you could do
it forever. It’s time.” She was right.
But then, because I tend to be thorough when I worry, I had
a massive panic over my query letter.
Thank you to my lovely critique partner who talked me off the ledge on
that one. Right after that though, I got
superstitious. What if February 4th
is a bad day for me? Maybe I shouldn’t go
forward with something that means so much to me on that day. Maybe I should wait.
So here you are, reading this on or about February 6, thinking, enough already. Did she or didn’t she? She did!!!
