I got one once attached to absolutely terrible prose. It read as if the author had been writing with a thesaurus and a dictionary at his elbow, with the intention to stuff at least three extra words in where one would do. I told him thanks but no thanks, he demanded to know why. I told him it was faux literary, disjointed, and overwritten. He told me that was what editors were for, to use the mighty red pen to tease out the gold, questioned my parentage, morals, and work ethic, and lumped me with all of those other editors who couldn't be bothered to accept something that wasn't popular hackery.

Then he wrote three days later and apologized and said he hoped I would read his next submission. I said I would but have never heard from him again.

My former agent once had a guy query/submit to her with his proposal in the BODY of the email. About a hundred pages' worth. Mentioned in the query that it was his first novel, coming in at 800 pages, and essentially, that it was the Great American Novel.

When she rejected him-- a very nice, personal rejection, he wrote back that he hoped she tripped in an intersection and broke both her legs.

You say, briefly and to the point:

I'm writing to submit my novel, TITLE, for consideration. The story of a girl who wears tiaras 24/7 and tackles serial comma abuse with a sword, TITLE explores the search for identity in a world that cares too little about the issues of cilantro, hoyay, and the many meanings of Buffy's leather pants.

I've enclosed a synopsis and the first three chapters for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Your Name Here

And you never send the full manuscript unless it's been requested, and you don't even send the partial unless you know that the editor you've addresses accepts unsolicited queries.

That's about it, really. (Unless, say, you're a bestselling author already, in which case the editor will probably know it.)

Nonfiction is different, because editors want a platform they can use -- if you're writing about cilantro, they want to know if you have a degree in cilantro, or work for Cilantro Central!, or if you have a website/blog (and lots of cilantro-friendly readers, for that matter).

I do some editing work for a disability arts journal sometimes and we had a serial submitter like that. Whom I almost started a kerfuffle with by saying straight out that he is crazy and shouldn't write his name without being supervised. My editor caught it, but that would have been one rude thing I've done that I wouldn't regret, even a little bit. After reading the same dumb essay about the spleen six times what would you do?

When she rejected him-- a very nice, personal rejection, he wrote back that he hoped she tripped in an intersection and broke both her legs.

Ultimately, this is my problem with the capital-W-Writers. Why on earth would they imagine that people want to hear stories from people with so very little clue about how humanity works?

No, but they DO have insight in the Nature of Humanity! They have suffered for years in anonymity, enslaved to their Muses, contemplating the angst of mankind.

I wonder if CliffBurns family is happy to go camping and watch videos without him. I hope he washes a mean dish, because I'm trying to imagine another reason to put up with him in the house.

The thing that kills me about capital-W-Writers is that they're so arrogant about the process of the business, they have no idea how to properly go about it and those of us who do are sell-outs. Of course, they're the ones who desperately want to be published, but feel as if they should be, simply by sheer dint of their incomparable brilliance. That any editor with half a brain would prostate themselves at their feet in order to bring their genius to the unwashed masses.

Or some such.

Opinion? Just wrote this in one big rush and I'm trying to determine whether it evokes what I want or if it's just a lot of pretty words.

This is for the women's fic I'm working on, set in 1964.

• **

"No." Relaxing against the padded back of my chair I was able to return his smile. "For one, it's a Friday evening—I never have to tutor on a Friday." Allowed myself to exhale a lovely, slow breath. "And secondly, finals are over at Concord, so I'm at liberty, as they say, until the next semester. So I currently have nothing more pressing on my schedule beyond dinner and browsing bookstore shelves."

"Christmas shopping?"

It took more effort than I might have expected to keep the smile fixed. "Well, perhaps some." Jeannette wasn't much of a reader. Whatever the season brought, in whatever form, it would be a far cry from the endless rounds of parties leading up to the expansive Noche Buena celebrations of my childhood, the centerpiece of which was always the lechóns, their crispy brown skins glistening and fragrant with the garlic, cumin, and imported Spanish olive oil of the mojo, the counters in the kitchen groaning under the weight of the all the gastronomic accoutrements that constituted a proper Cuban Christmas Eve dinner.

Even now, I could still see all the tables, beautifully set in our blue and white-tiled courtyard. Not only was it a large space, more than large enough for the elaborate party my parents threw every year, but it was the loveliest ever. Towering palm trees and multi-hued hibiscus and gardenias and oaks and immaculately manicured hedges surrounding the perimeter and providing a lovely canopy overhead, while the multileveled flower-shaped fountain dominated the center, the happy sound of the gently cascading water almost disappearing beneath the equally happy sounds of conversation and the squeals of the little children as they were entertained in the smaller adjoining courtyard by the hired clowns and magicians. There would crystal chiming and fine silver tinkling against delicate china as breezes tinged with the fresh scent of the sea caressed shoulders and necks left bare because we could, in the deliciously balmy late-December air. No cold, numbing winds or harsh, stinging snow to contend with—not for us.

I still remember those Christmas cards Papi would receive from business acquaintances in the States with their snowy scenes in whites and pale blues and that to me, had always seemed so pallid. So… boring. My numerous cousins would pore over them, exclaiming over their beauty and exoticism, but this fascination for what was termed a "traditional" Christmas had always escaped me. How could Christmas be anything but warmth and color and vibrantly, shockingly alive? Those winter scenes, filled with snow and bare-limbed trees and length shadows—to me, the only thing they had appeared to represent was death. A pretty cover for a world that had to rejuvenate, whereas the paradise where I lived was constantly renewing itself, never allowing itself to fall into such a state.

The ignorance—and arrogance—of youth, I suppose. A dangerous, disheartening combination.

"Well, I won't keep you this time, however, I did want to extend an invitation on my wife's behalf before you left for the evening."

Half-lost in memories of ghosts of Christmases past, it took a moment for Greg Barnes' words to penetrate, another still, for my gaze to focus on and register that the stiff cream colored envelope he held was intended for me.

Really beautiful and evocative, Barb.

The only nitpick I have is this:

"the happy sound of the gently cascading water almost disappearing beneath the equally happy sounds of conversation"

Something about "sound" "disappearing" seems to clash, maybe because sound is auditory and disappearing is a visual term?

Maybe it's just me.

Thanks Wolfram-- I wasn't nuts about "disappearing" either, but I couldn't, in that moment, come up with the right word. I'm hoping a better one comes to me as I polish and tweak.