Today, for the first time, I sent an email to an editor to ask if I’d lost his reply to a submission I’d made.
Editors are busy people so I don’t want to query, but it’s been 74 days, and the guidelines said to please query after 60. So I did. I expected to find out that a rejection had gone missing (I have searched through my spam folder, but you never know) but got more cheerful news.
No, I haven’t made a sale. But I might. The editor said the story is on his to read list because the second round comment was that he had to buy it. I’ll find out if he agrees sometime this week.
I might still get a rejection but I am over the moon. Not only did the story get through the first sift, but the second sift really liked it. Whatever happens, I know that someone other than me enjoyed it.
Someone told me recently that writers have huge egos but low self-esteem. I think that’s probably true for many artists – and many people – and it is certainly true for me. So I grab every kind word, every grain of positive feedback and clasp it to my chest as a kind of confidence-boosting floatation device. Of course, I get bad feedback too, but I try to let go of that after studying it closely. The trick is to let the good buoy me up and try not to let the bad drag me down. Today, that was easy.
Thank you, kind editor, and second-round reader with the positive comment, for giving me a boost.