Okay. Query letter, bio, source list, overview, outline, and manuscript all neat and tidy and bound solely with a rubber band.

Envelope addressed neatly.

Must go to post office on lunch break.

Okay. So even if I get rejected in the end, I'm going to be cool. I am not going to spiral into a melodramatic self-pity fest.

I am going to develop a callous to such things.

I am going to remember that the work is a thing, the work is not me.

Except for the part that this thing is me. But we'll ignore that for now! yessiree.

It'll all work out, and it'll get published, and someone will pay me enough to pay off my credit card, and then I'll be content for about three weeks.

(fistpump for Allyson)

Next time we're down there - should, hopefully, be September - you and ita to dinner again?

Allyson, the first submission is the hardest.

Writer's Digest has asked me to write a short article on spec, which I'm fine with doing, because it'd be a nice enough credit that I'm willing to take the risk of getting rejected after doing the work. (And hey, I do that all the time with novels, which are hundreds of pages. This is just hundreds of words.)

Anyway, while Annabel is taking her nap this afternoon, I need to get on the phone and call a couple of sources to ask for interesting quotes. I'm tempted to drop the whole idea because I so hate calling people I don't know on the phone to ask for things. It's just the phone, and just strangers. I'll call people I know. I'll email or write strangers. I'll even approach strangers in person when appropriate or speak up fearlessly at Q&A sessions. It's just a very specific phone fear.

Remind me that it's irrational and I should just buck up and make the calls.

Get on the stick, Susan. You are free to make faces while you are on the phone, and cringe all you like. Nobody can see. You can also hug a stuffed animal while you make the call. Not that I know anything about anything like that. I'm just...sayin'.

I'll have to try the stuffed animal, along with my old standby of having a script or notes in front of me. Still, I wish I could just do everything by email. So much easier.

I despise calling people, even people I know. I always feel like I'm intruding and htat if they wanted to talk to me they'd have already called. That said, if the sources are used to out-of-the-blue requests and this is for a legitimate business purpose, you've got the comfort of semi-formality.

Also, being asked for quotes is inherently flattering, as it implies your thoughts are important. That is a GOOD reason to be called.

I know. And I should be fine as long as I write out my introduction first. I'd say I don't know why I'm this way, but actually I do--I'm not scared of email or letters because I can rewrite until I'm satisfied before sending them out, and I'm not afraid of face-to-face interaction because I can pick up on nonverbal cues, but the phone offers neither advantage.

I made phone calls on the campaign, ok? In the course of that effort, I: -asked to talk to three dead guys
-got mistaken for one drunken ex
-got cursed soundly for daring to call a NeoCon house...maybe five times
None of this will happen to you, I swear. It'll be okay. I am now almost free of the Phone Anxiety, and I only say almost because I still don't want to call CG's house and get his gf, lest I spend the next month thinking how much better she sounds than I. Or vice versa. Other than that, I believe I could call about most things.