Sunday, September 9, 2012

Random Thoughts for an Early Sunday Morning

I wonder if other writers ever wonder if perhaps the reason agents are shifting to a 'no response means no' reaction to query letters is because as a whole agents are sick of being the bearers of bad news - as well as the targets for all the potentially postal writers out there.  Or maybe it's just that as a culture we seem to shy away from saying anything that might hurt someone else's feelings - even if it helps them in the long run.  (Or at least one aspect of our culture.  In others, hurting other people almost seems to be in style- but that's a rant for another day.)

Yeah, my butt does look big in this.  Don't worry.  That's the one good thing about gaining weight.  I have a butt for the first time in my life.  My best friend - post HS - used to refer to me a 'B.E. Buttless'*.

The other day I was talking to my husband and came up with a really neat way to explain how he gets anything done at work.  "Slaloming Around Stupidity"

I became a great aunt for the third time last month.  My first great niece.  The early polls indicate she looks like my mother.  I totally see that.  However, I also catch myself seeing my mother when I look in the mirror - a lot, lately.  But the baby totally doesn't look like me.  What's up with that?

Last Thursday, I picked up a CD - Stone Sour - because it had a song I really liked: "Through Glass".  Unfortunately, that's the only song on the whole CD I like.  The rest sound like a weird mash up of Metallica and Pink Floyd with a twist of Tourette's Syndrome (the malady, not the band - if there is one named that.)  Whatever it is, it ain't my style.

If I stand next to my mailbox, I can watch my neighbor's super huge flat screen TV through his front picture window.  He really needs some drapes or something.  But he's way better than the guy I used to live behind.  I could stand on my back porch and see into his bathroom.  I'd be standing there, staring off into space as I enjoyed a cigarette and BAM, I'd want to scrape out my eyes with a putty knife.  That guy definitely needed drapes.

I'm not nosy, I'm just observant.  (I need to print that on a t-shirt.)

Got any random thoughts for me today?

*He used my real first name and not my initials. 

(The above pic's a closeup of my former puppy - Tutter.  Isn't he pretty?  And yeah, he had one blue eye and one brown.)

8 comments:

  1. I find the no response issue difficult. While I empathize with the agents, when I send a project out there it's after hours and hours of work, time I've sacrificed from spending with my family. So I want to at least know that they received or looked at it. That's why the first agents on my submission list are usually not ones that have a "no response means no" policy.

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  2. I think that even if there's an automatic response from the agent that comes back telling you you're submission has been received and if you don't hear from them on ??? weeks you can assume it's a 'no', is better than nothing. Obviously that would work for an electronic submission, but the postal one I'm not sure about. I would rather have a 'no' than nothing at all.

    Great picture.

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  3. I think that's how we all feel, Andrea. I still query them all, though. Never know when a non-responder to rejections could be the agent who would've sent you a yes. (This is me thinking positive.)

    I'd much rather know they received it, sure, Debs, but like you, I'd rather have a NO than silence. And the no-response thing kind of absolves them of having to actually say 'No'. No one likes to say that awful word - almost as much as no one likes to hear it. ;o)

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  4. Lol yer funneh.

    I agree--I'd prefer an actual NO rather than silence. It drives me crazy when they don't respond. I've actually not queried an agent because they had the no response means no policy.

    Congrats on being a great aunt!! That must be exciting =)

    You should have just bought the song on iTunes, that way you didn't have to buy the whole stinkin' CD, you goose =P

    And if you ever got that printed on a shirt, let me know, cause I'd want one too ;) I also need one that says, "I don't gossip, I just share vital information."

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  5. Awww, your pup was adorable!

    Congrats on being a great aunt!

    My random thought for the day:

    I obsess/worry/rage about the same issues over and over again....stupid of me.

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  6. No responses stink, I agree. Of course, it could also mean they're slow. I've had a response come back almost a year later (long after I wrote them off). And it was a request for the full. So... you NEVER KNOW!!!

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  7. Thanks, Nat. And I bought the CD thinking that since the one song was so awesome, the rest would be, too. Maybe we should just print up a bunch of t-shirts and open an Etsy. ;o)

    Yeah, Tutter was something special, JB. I hope the family that adopted him had many awesome years with him. Thanks for the congrats. And I'm the same way with the obsessing over the same issues. Not a damn thing we can do, but still we obsess.

    Yeah, Stacy, you never do know. Over the years, I've also gotten responses to queries I thought were long dead - all rejections, but I keep hoping.

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  8. I think you could have a point... but I also think they should just send a rejection so you have closure. And I almost LOL when you mentioned your neighbor's bathroom. Ha!

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