Second Queries

I'm no longer suffering from the neurotic fantasy of a sophisticated literary agent bitchily rejecting me. But before you congratulate me for conquering my fear of caustic mocking, you should know that I've merely replaced one neurotic fantasy for another. Hector Rejector is taking a whole different form now.

I just put together a submission for a literary agency that was quite specific about their requirements for submission. I appreciate their detail about how to submit.

So, why, with their kind specificity, have I decided that these literary agents are not thin and sophisticated? Oh, I don't know. They might be. But as part of this submission, I had to put my first three chapters behind my query letter which meant, of course, that I re-read my first three chapters and fiddled and teased what was there, which means, of course, I've decided it's just terrible.

This is what you do when you write. It's a universal thing, I'm pretty sure. Everything you wrote is shit. Sure, I imagine there's some writer somewhere who reads what they've written again and again and, every time, claps hands delightedly saying out loud "oh, that's good!" But that writer is probably George Will and I think he's a total asshole.

So, since what I've decided that what I submitted is shit, I no longer require a thin, sophisticated and spectacularly bitchy literary editor to reject me. Now, she can be maternal, kind and good-natured. This literary agent probably wears cardigans and has a dog and makes pleasant chit chat with check out people in grocery stores. She'll read my first three chapters and think, "Oh, well, bless her heart. She tried, the dear thing."

And then she'll reject me.

Remind me again, why do I want to be a writer?