Let me 'splain. No, there is to much. Let me sum up... (with goals updates!)

I have so much blog fodder that it almost hurts to blow it all at once. But, here goes:

First, I just finished sending out four email queries. Yay! I still have six snail mail queries to send, but those shall wait until Monday. How did this come about since you've been avoiding actually sending queries for months now, you ask?

Well... last weekend when I went to the mountains, I took my draft of WIP on a USB key (my laptop screen broke so I was using JP's laptop). Of course, on day 1 I realized the file on the USB was corrupt. So much for a weekend of working on WIP! So I decided that I'd just man up and make the final changes in hard copy. And as soon as I thought those words, my chest seemed to tighten.

Because once I made those last pesky changes, I was done. I had to send out WIP.

So I spent the rest of the weekend avoiding anything having to do with WIP.** And I realized that I've seriously been dragging my feet for fear of submitting. Which is strange because I have NEVER been afraid of submitting before.

Still I had my plan: I would be submitting by Labor Day. Why Labor Day? Because I quit my job a week ago!*** This means that not only have I had a ton of free time recently, but also that I would have a full 1.5 weeks of time off before starting the new job (the day after Labor Day). What better time to play at being a full time writer and taking my time polishing revisions, sending queries?

Then the wrench. I got a fish-slap email mid-week that basically told me to please please please get on with it. And JP echoed the sentiment. And I thought, "they're right." JP pointed out that while I'd zoomed through revisions 1 and 2, I was seriously dragging feet on this round. He also pointed out how ironic this was seeing as how I'd queried, and sent a partial, of my last book to an agent when it wasn't even close to being written, much less revised. He pointed out that I'd swung too far to the other end of the spectrum.

How true. So I decided I'd send all my queries on Friday (today). I reasoned that I would still have at least a week before any requests came in, and during that time I could finish up the revisions. Especially since the majority of work was typing in changes I'd made on the hard copy.

I set to work. I made notecards of each agent with pertinent information.**** I wrote pithy personalized intro paragraphs for each agent (and again got fish-slapped for letting those hinder my forward movement).

And then, a truly amazing thing happened: I got a request for the full manuscript!

So, in addition to getting the query stuff together, I now had to get cracking on typing in those revisions -- I did not want to keep this agent waiting! Still, I was pretty certain I could get all queries out on Friday.

As always happens, a thing or two came up at the end of the week, something that took top priority (and was my pleasure to do). So I didn't get the synopsis revised quite the way I want it to, and I didn't buy envelopes. For that reason, I'm not *quite* ready to send out to a few agents.

But that's ok. What's an extra day when I get to take the time to make sure I'm totally happy with my submission package? So many people made fun of me for the insane way I fretted over my query letter, but in the end, I love it. It's been tweaked just the way I want it. Sure, no one else will notice the difference between the last draft and the final draft, but I do. And it gives me that little bit of extra confidence.

Hence, I have big goals for this weekend:

1. celebrate the start of submissions
2. finish typing in revisions on WIP
3. re-write a scene on WIP; layer in a thing or two
   
4. send full of WIP to agent (hurrah!)
5. finish revising synopsis
6. obsessively check email since one agent I queried has a very very very fast turn-around
   
7. send partial to agent who requested on Saturday!
   
8. send rest of queries (6 queries left to send)
9. um... more celebration?!

So there you have it. The longest summation ever :) When I look back on it, it's been a very full but very very wonderful week. It will also be a full weekend. Wish me luck!

PS: Ack, and squeee on starting submissions!!!!!!!!
__________________

* Nevertheless, amazing weekend!

** We even stayed an extra day, deciding on Saturday to ditch work on Monday. How great is that?

*** Yes, I have a new one - going from litigation to trusts & estates, which I've always loved.

**** In case you're curious: name, agency info, contact info, what they want (query, synopsis, pages, etc), and anything helpful to know (who they rep, if they hate rhetorical questions at the beginning of a query, their response time, their blog address, etc.)