Whew!

[Elektra]

Friday Night: Spent hours making query packets to go out to about 30 different agents (for some reason, about 75% of MG agents want to see 50 pages or so).

Saturday Afternoon: Bring query packets to UPS store. Buy lots of Forever stamps.

A few hours ago: Remember that forgot to do a find-and-replace on the work 'insert'. Consequently, all query packets may as well have NITWIT on the front in large, red letters.

Indeterminate time that felt like roughly 20 years of fretting, but was in actuality probably only an hour: Remember that did not actually send queries out, as UPS charges 300% the price of USPS. WHEW!!!

Anybody else ever done this?

[scully931]

Oh, no! I felt really sorry for you until I saw you hadn't sent them. Thank goodness! The worst I ever did was get a requested partial sealed then, as I'm standing at the post office around Christmas time with a huge line behind me, realize I hadn't put in an SASE. The woman gave me back my packet with a prepaid envelope and I handwrote my name and address on it, carefully tore open the packet, put in the envelope, taped it back up (it looked like heck) and sadly sent it away. About a week ago I got the envelope back in the mail and didn't recognize my handwriting it was so messy. They requested a full.

[Carrie in PA]

Hooray! I'm glad you caught them before they were sent!

I do lots of stupid things myself, so I'll sit next to you. LOL

[Judg]

Well no, I haven't. Although I have been working my way through the comprehensive list of stupid mistakes one can make in a lifetime, so there's a good chance I'll get to it one of these days.

[Sage]

They requested a full.This is very nice hope you offer us absent-minded people ;)

[Shady Lane]

The first query I ever sent was all packed up in my mailbox, ready to be picked up the next morning, when I realized in a panic in the middle of the night that I'd forgotten to sign my name. It just said Sincerely, and that line of space underneath, and then my printed name.

I ended up running out to my mailbox before school, ripping open the envelope, signing the letter, and shoving it all back into a new envelope.

Rejection, anyway.

[Novelhistorian]

So nerve-wracking is the submission process for me sometimes that I've messed up even though I never send out more than four at a time. I've read and reread my query on-screen until my eyes glaze over, then, as soon as it comes out of the printer, notice a stray comma or period and have to fix it. Or I've left out a SASE and have to tear up a perfectly good envelope, already with stamps on it. In fact, if I run off what seems like four good letters, with everything in proper order, I worry that I've made a mistake I failed to catch. I keep waiting for the time when I send the wrong letter in the wrong envelope, but I haven't done that yet.