This is being posted with more than a bit of irony and I will attempt to laugh at myself tomorrow. Or actually today after I finally get to bed. This past year since I first began to navigate bulletin boards, newsgroups, and chatrooms for the first time, I have made it a habit to encourage new writers to get their stuff into submission. And when I hear from my agent that I had gotten another rejection, I put on a good front and a stiff upper lip to show the youngsters how it's done.

But having an agent gives me a measure of distance from the rejection. That's the most important reason to me for having one. Well, there are a lot of others, but I'm talking deep down in my heart. My first story was published in 79 in an award winning anthology, I've worked as an editor.... I should really know better... I really, really should know better... I've got a bad case of submission fright and I mean intense enough to keep me from being able to sleep tonight.

I haven't gone out and submitted anything directly myself since the late 1980s. All those little speeches I've been giving about not letting it get to you has crumbled. The last short story I sold was by invitation in 94, so that doesn't count. The books being submitted by my agent doesn't count. The collection I sold doesn't count, because the editor had read most of the stories when they were originally published, so they don't count.

The editor who bought the collection wants more books from me and I had already agreed to do two for him based upon some partials I suggested to him. That halfway counts, because one of those was featuring the same character from the collection. And the other, well, it's a different kind of tale.... And all I had to do was mention what I was writing. But he hasn't seen them yet. I now start to wonder if I'm going to go through this again when they're finished. Hoo booy.

Yes, I know I'm still talking around the edges here, trying to work my way past the case of nerves and jitters. Makes me wonder why I can't apply the same wisdom to myself that I'm so great at dispensing to others. Any way, I have a novel that has already gone through a couple of drafts, its still rough around the edges because I slashed two hundred pages out of it. And then in the chatroom listening to my editor woo a sweet young poetess to submit a novel to him, I blurted out, "would you like to see this one" and what shape it was in at this point. He said he would take a look and consider it. It's 40k longer than what he usually likes. So I emailed it to him while the chat continued. Gradually as the hours grew later I grew more nervous and then downright frightened. All at once I wanted to say, "give it back, don't look at it, it's not good enough to consider... etc." But if I start that the editor will eventually decide I'm a loony for certain and he may already have cause to suspect it.

Jeez, how did I get myself into this mess? How could I be so impulsive? And how am I to face those new writers in my chatroom and convincingly provide encouragement, when I'm damn well terrified? Maybe tomorrow after I get some sleep, I'll feel more certain about it. And then I'll have to make certain that terror of my impulsive actions doesn't make me stress out and block for a few days or longer. Maybe I should have runaway when the editor arrived in the chatroom? Yeah! Next time I'll just run away. I'll post sticky notes on everything "Do not feed the editors." errr, offer them manuscripts without due consideration. I mean.... What do I mean?


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