can’t tell you how many times I’ve posted Indigo out. It’s been launched at agents for about two years. At first, three would go out and as soon as two rejections came in, I’d launch another barrage. Then, as noted HERE, I realized it had been months. Inertia – just part of getting old.

What is confounding is how much pressure I put on myself about this. I actually worried. And worrying about submissions is like worrying about a trip to the corner grocery story (the what?).

I’ve got submissions down to a science. I’ve got different letters for different approaches, different synopsizes, even different packets to go out. All I gotta do is open the Writer’s Guide, pick three agents who aren’t focused on religion or lesbian fiction. Then I open the cover letter and swap the name and address (the date rolls over automatically). These are either printed to paper or pasted into emails. For the former, I can also knock out the SASE at the same time with a couple of easy C&Ps.

(A note on this – that used to be the biggest hassle, getting the envelopes through the printer feed. It would slip and jam and generally be more difficult than a longshoremen’s union. But now, with my new printer, it’s just feed and forget).

So I don’t know why I thought about it Saturday while running trains. And why, upon waking up Sunday, I through about it with a sense of dread. I’d even picked out my agents the night before.

I was going to do it after the wife and I had walked to breakfast, but since I had to wait for her, I started work on one. Then the next. And then the last. Two were eSubmissions – they went out then and there. The other was a paper submission – I could drop it off at the post office (they even have an automated machine to do this – it’s as close to drive through as you can get). Yes, I worried right up to the point of doing it, and felt an inner calm while doing it. It was all repetitive motions, just like an infantryman field-stripping his rifle.

I’m not sure why I fussed so much about this – this has gotten to be a problem as I’ve gotten older, dreading something insignificant. I think it’s why I let me submissions slide – that background tension. I’ve got to keep at it and follow my inner rule, to post once two submissions come in.

And that shouldn’t take that long – the first came in the next day. One to go.

Start worrying…

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