Dying slowly

Miss Snark's Crapometer rolls on, crushing writers' hopes and dreams beneath her stiletto heels. As of this writing, she has posted 54 queries-n-excerpts. Of those, only five have been worthy of requesting a partial.

Please note that cruel word, "partial." An agent reads your query and your first pages and says, "Sure, send me a partial." You send a fraction of your manuscript. The agent then can read the partial and reject the whole of the project on that bit alone. It must take forever to get an agent to actually request the whole manuscript, read it, and decide to represent it.

Writing is the most masochistic practice in the world. I can't stop writing. I keep wishing someone would read my writing. But dang, waiting for the feedback is excruciating.

Theatre is much nicer. You audition, you get a part, you practice, you perform, and then someone gives you applause. It's so much more immediate and satisfying.

But I haven't done a play in -- three years? I think? I write every single day.

Something about this equation is all wrong.

Anyway, about the Crapometer. Of the five partials Miss Snark has said she would request, none were mine. My query hasn't made it onto the page yet. I'm both immensely relieved and dreading the moment it does appear. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that what I wrote is absolute garbage, and I cannot believe my hubris at sending the thing in for bludgeoning.