The No News is No News Purgatory Thread, Vol. 7

Well, let's hope so. Especially given that she got mine right, I feel like a big fat jackass. And I did it TWICE! Egads.

But I did say I was sorry, so as long as that doesn't annoy her (and gets through her spam filter with a subject line "apology," which I thought at first would at least let on that I'm not going to email her eleventy thousand times a day about my book, but now wonder at the stupidity of) then I'll stay quiet and do my revisions and send them back and hope she likes them enough to overlook it if she thinks I'm crazy.

Oy. I swear I'm not usually this spazzy. This business is hell on your nerves.

lwalker, if it helps, agents realize authors get spazzy (especially authors who know said agent has some interest in them).

Hi purgies! Welcome to Volume 7!



lwalker, I love your story. It sounds very promising! Don't worry about the misspelling. It's easy to blow it out of proportion, but apologizing covers it, and now move on to the revisions! Yay!! I love that we have good news in the first few posts of the new volume.

Elisabetta, love the Turkish book fort!!

See you all tomorrow!

LWalker, I think I win the prize for "dumbest agent/editor mistakes". Once, in a query letter, I wrote:

Dear Mr. XXX

...Too bad the agent's name was Ms. YYY.

I managed to both misspell her name and call her a man in the same query. What do I win?

You know, thinking back, I never did get a response from that agent...

Gosh, you guys posted a lot while I slept. Hi, new thread.

Oooo, B&N sent me coupons.

Hoping since there's nothing to do tonight I can get D. to work on the office, but since his first words were he worked through his breaks today and he's tired, slim chance. It's like he knows when I think of it and makes himself useless on purpose....

MysteryRiter said:

LWalker, I think I win the prize for "dumbest agent/editor mistakes". Once, in a query letter, I wrote:

Dear Mr. XXX

...Too bad the agent's name was Ms. YYY.

I managed to both misspell her name and call her a man in the same query. What do I win?

You know, thinking back, I never did get a response from that agent...

Click to expand...

When I was querying, I got a request for a full, hit "forward" and sent the email to my husband proceeded by a note to him telling him exactly how I felt about that agent . . . and instead of "forward" I hit "reply" and sent it to the agent.

When I realized what I had done, I wrote immediately and said, "I hope you have a sense of humor."

She did.

Nothing beats my cousin when he was in high school and had two girlfriends and wrote them both letters from a summer vacation . . . and put the letters in the wrong envelopes. Ooops.

Teriann said:

When I was querying, I got a request for a full, hit "forward" and sent the email to my husband proceeded by a note to him telling him exactly how I felt about that agent . . . and instead of "forward" I hit "reply" and sent it to the agent.

When I realized what I had done, I wrote immediately and said, "I hope you have a sense of humor."

She did.

Nothing beats my cousin when he was in high school and had two girlfriends and wrote them both letters from a summer vacation . . . and put the letters in the wrong envelopes. Ooops.

Click to expand...

So I have to ask... were these things that you said about the agent good or bad?

Oh, and here comes my idea for the next purgy poll:

What are your funniest agent or editor stories?

Go!

What fresh hell is this?

Never mind, it's just another fresh Purgatory thread.

Carry on.

Mystery, I wish I had funny stories. Mine are all grim.

It's not mine, but my BF cut/pasted an email into her email client and fired it off.
She got a nice rejection pretty quickly, but when she scrolled down to see what she'd written -- she realized that the email client borked the font up to like 24 point, the color was bright blue and the font was like comic sans. Bf is still mortified, years later.

So yeah... be careful with that. lol

Put agents name, requirements, and the personalization tidbit I dug up online in an email. I was totally *supposed* to hit "save as draft" So I could actually put the query in later.


Hit send

Yeah.

MysteryRiter said:

So I have to ask... were these things that you said about the agent good or bad?

Click to expand...

I can't remember specifics. It was several years ago. I did start by saying, "Another one!" and then said something about the agent, but it wasn't bad. The note was addressed to my husband by name, so she knew right away it wasn't intended for her.

Email is dangerous. The perfect email program would say, "Are you sure you want to hit send" each time.

I've sent emails to dead or fired/moved agents more than once. I guess the only things that could qualify as funny are I got an email from an agent where the subject line was "I wish it would rain," then the body was just a fairly standard rejection. And I got someone else's rejection once, with their original query included (I would have read that book) and emailed them to let them know to close out, and ask if they got mine. Never heard back.

Whoa! I miss a day and BAM new thread! (With David Bowie no less???)

lwalker, congrats on the R&R!

*sniffs new thread smell*

*pees*

Cricket18 said:

*sniffs new thread smell*

*pees*

Click to expand...

This totally wins the best 'new thread' post ever.

One of my best friends is having her little boy tomorrow! First kid. She's in Greece, so I have to wait for time difference and e-mail for news. We're all hoping her hubby can figure out 'reply to all'.

TheCaleb said:

Nah not ordinary. Just good gardening. I try to balance edible perennial gardening with my annual gardening. I'm also big on mixing wild with domestic varieties to increase genetic diversity because I've repeatedly read how of vegetable plants there is only about a 1/3 of the varieties of seeds in seed catalogues that there use to be from say a hundred years ago.

I guess it's my way of hoping that after I'm gone someone will find my mixed and hybrid selections and use it for their own benefit

Click to expand...

You should make a map of the property with plant locations and save it for future generations in a hidden compartment in the house... would totally freak someone out lol


So yeah... it's 3 am and I am wide awake... *sigh* It wouldn't be so bad if I actually had the spark of brilliance to write some... alas I don't

In good news pub has finally given me an actual *maybe* date for release. June 12th! I am hoping to work on the cover this weekend once she sends me the template... I'm excited. I don't have my boys this weekend so I will actually have time (and quiet) to focus on it...

Ok, gonna try to get some writing done or go back to sleep... either one will work for me...

Cricket18 said:

*sniffs new thread smell*

*pees*

Click to expand...

firedrake said:

This totally wins the best 'new thread' post ever.

Click to expand...

Over breakfast, I was just thinking the very same thing.

No funny email stories here, since that would actually require me to start querying. *wusses out*

I am totally caught up on all 3 pages of this thread!

Caleb, your plant situation sounds awesome. And NIYRAK, I actually really like the plant-map idea.

Also, I agree about cricket18's post being the best new thread post ever.

Agent/editor stories: Someone I know who is a pretty successful sic-fi writer just told me that a slush reader at a (pretty minor) short story magazine sent him back a snarky rejection that started with something like, "Who writes this stuff anymore!?"or "Why does anyone write this stuff anymore?" Sheesh!

Kris, ouch.

The only sound coming from our little cottage this morning in the frantic taptaptap of fingers on keyboards.

In other news, this thread needs some padding for comfort. It's not properly broken in until the first 50+ pages.

dystophil said:

Kris, ouch.

The only sound coming from our little cottage this morning in the frantic taptaptap of fingers on keyboards.

In other news, this thread needs some padding for comfort. It's not properly broken in until the first 50+ pages.

Click to expand...

I know, it doesn't even have that little "Last page" button yet!

Aw, widdle baby thread was just born...

Let's give it some cake so it will grow up big and strong.