I submit.

There it is. That word again. Eighteen months after sending a query to an agent, I heard back yesterday. She doesn’t want that book but would be willing to hear about my next project.

Not that I am complaining. A few agents I queried failed to make any sort of response. (I had assumed she was one of them.) This is ironic, I feel, since all my queries were online and a generic rejection or even a rejection with a send-me-your-next-project line is simple enough. click When I sent out queries and other submissions almost twenty years ago with paper and stamps, I always had a reply. Many of them, and several with a send-me-your-next-project line. Some sent tiny slips of rejection in my required self-addressed-stamped-envelope. These days most agents warn on their website that they “may not respond” to all queries.

Never mind. This agent apologized for taking so long and added the send-me-your-next-project line. So I sent her another query. And perhaps in 2021 I will receive a response? Or perhaps she has caught up and I will hear in a few weeks. Either way, I take it as a good sign, though she likely says this form response to many submitters.

We all submit.