Writing Wrongs

April 04, 2006

Yesterday, I walked out to the mailbox and discovered a SASE. This wouldn�t be such an odd occurrence except for the fact I have zero submissions out there right now. Nada. Zilch. I�d closed out my submission spreadsheet for the time being.

And having had submissions out there for I don�t know how many years, it�s really hard to describe the relief I now have walking to the mailbox. No matter what�s in there, I know I won�t find a SASE.

Well, I was wrong.

And for the life of me, I couldn�t figure out where it came from, other than NYC. Oh, sure, I could�ve have opened it up right away, but it was kind of fun to speculate. Was it some ancient article submission I�d written off as rejected? Some bizarre practical joke that didn�t quite make its April first deadline? Well, there was one way to find out.

So I opened the letter. It began:

Dear Author:

Uh, oh. At least they didn�t address it: Dear Wannabe. Whatever it was, it was a sure thing it was a rejection. Right?

I was wrong.

No, it was a request. A form letter request, but a request nevertheless. For what? Well, for that contest �request� I blogged about here.

The infamous XYZ Pubs--four months to the day after I sent off the query--sent back a request for the full. I wasn�t hiding the rejection from anyone; it simply didn�t exist and since the three month mark had passed, I�d written them off--and completely out of my mind, as you can see.

So the manuscript that would not die goes once more into the breach. I�m still not sure it�s the right kind of story for them, but hey, they�re the ones making that decision, not me. The second to the last agent to review it said that the war portions of the story overshadowed the love story. The last agent to look at it said that while it wasn�t something she was looking to take on, it was definitely ready for prime time.

We�ll see. I�m not expecting much. But then again, I�ve been wrong before.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 9:22 a.m.

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