Dear Ms. Editor-in-Bitchiness...

As I mentioned before I have been getting plenty of rejection letters from publishers whom I queried about my manuscript for Behind the Walls. And now I have used "queried" in a sentence because that, kiddies, is the word of the day. Now you try it!

Anyway, yesterday I made it to my parents' house to find yet another rejection waiting for me. I had them forwarded here because some publishers say it takes them up to six months to reply to a query and since I had been harboring plans to move out of my podunk little town soon, I figured it would be safer to let my parents field the incoming letters. My point being, most of the publishers I've heard back from have said my book sounds fantastic but the economy has kicked them in the junk and they can't afford to take on any new manuscripts. One publisher even hand wrote a message about how cool my book sounded but he couldn't afford to market it properly.

But this last letter... WOW. I opened it up and it was a page long so I thought, "SCORE!" Yeah, not so much. This woman ripped into me because apparently she only publishes fiction. Whoops. She starts going on about how not only was my letter misdirected, but I wasted her and my time. Ms. Hoity Toity Editor Pants goes on to say how it's obvious that I'm "spraying around a bunch of query bullets, hoping to hit a target". Um, yeah. Duh. I want a publisher. But I'm also thinking in my head, "Hey lady, you try getting together over 80 query letters at 4:00 in the afternoon after teaching special ed all day AND staying after with two of the most energetic, yet simultaneously lazy kids in the universe and see if you can manage it without making ONE LOUSY MISTAKE!" Then I'd slap her. And pinch her.

The second paragraph of her letter starts preaching to me about how I should look into New England based presses and historical presses. Look, I may have sent out one misdirected query letter but that doesn't mean I have the functional IQ of a wet sponge. I've already sent out queries to those presses and guess what? Those are the presses that are writing back and saying that the Bush administration has sapped them of their will to live and therefore they can't consider my project.

In conclusion, let me just thank Ms. Holier than Though Editor Lady for giving me such sage, and fabulous advice. Next time I want to publish something I've written, maybe I'll just take it to Staples and have them make 5 bajillion copies and I'll sell them out in front of Starbucks. At least that way I can get a latte with my criticism.