Submitters Jitters
I’ve developed a strange ailment. I didn’t catch it from my critique group. It isn’t a virus I got through Facebook apps. I came down with it awhile ago. At first the symptoms were so slight that I barely noticed. Over time, though, they’ve developed. The thing is the spread was so subtle, I didn’t notice it until it was so bad I actually think I might lose my mind over it.
Submitters Jitters.
This sneaky illness started back in December when my old laptop flickered and died. It is an illness of the mind, masked by quippy status updates and regular blog posts. An illness that wormed its way through my confidence, breaking strand after tenuous strand of self assurance until finally I realized that I can no longer prepare a submission.
I bet your brow is furrowed as you read. You’re wondering how a dead laptop can create a serious mind-melting illness like Submitters Jitters. You are even concerned it might be contagious after all…aren’t you?
I had forethought. I was a visionary. I emailed all of my stories to myself in Yahoo so that when the old laptop died with no warning (okay, I admit, Beelzebub did tell me something exactly like that would most likely happen), all I had to do was buy a new computer, log onto Yahoo and save all my stories into newly created folders on my shiny new laptop. It was awesome. A choir of angels hummed in my ear while I did it.
I created new material which I saved to my very organized new folders. I sold my middle grade novel a couple months later. Everything was good. Except…
Each time I thought of submitting a short to a magazine or querying an agent on my other mg’s, I wondered, “Have I already subbed this story to them?” See, the visionary forgot to send her Excel spreadsheet, titled Submissions, to Yahoo. So I have NO record to whom I’ve submitted what. I was able to recreate a little through my sent mail folder but I empty it out periodically, so there was only so far back it helped.
It is very sad to me that five years of submission information is sitting on that hard drive waiting for me to get to it. It is safe. It is still there. It is only the laptop that doesn’t work, it didn’t fry the drive.
In the mean time, I’ve allowed this ridiculous fear of double submission to rule my life. Will an agent really never, ever consider anything from me ever again if I sub a story twice because I no longer have the record that I subbed it before? If that is the case, is that really the end of my world? There are certain agents I would hate to lose a chance with over such a silly little problem, but logically I don’t think I can allow this unusual excuse to rule my actions any longer.
It’s time to take a gamble and submit! But fair warning, agents and editors, if you think you’ve seen the same thing from me before, it just might be true. And please know, I apologize ahead of time.