Friday, September 7, 2007

life's little lessons

One does not have to know me well to know that God chose me to be John's humbling agent. Anything my hubby does is error free. In contrast, a motto I embraced early in life is "It's okay to be wrong as long as you are consistently wrong." That way, folks can often be fooled into thinking you may be right.



For example, two days ago, I sent a query letter to an agent for Jessie. This agent is one I have watched with interest because not only does he accept email but he also is reputed to answer queries within five minutes. For those who may not know, most letters of rejection don't arrive for agonizing weeks and by pony express or US postal service. Not only do I not know what an acceptance letter looks like,I do not even know anyone who does. Okey...okey...back to my original thought.



Well, without revealing this man's name for fear he could be inundated with manuscripts let me just continue. I wrote my letter in "Microsoft Word" and copied and transferred it to be emailed. It had been checked carefully for any possible problem, and (trust me) it was error free....until last night. Just as I was heading for bed, I decided to read this masterpiece one more time, to savor something done correctly. Just as my eyes grazed past the date, "What is this? Those computer gremlins have been working overtime!"



The agent's name was not spelled the same in the email address as in my greeting! Well, like a scab that is almost healed, this could not be left alone. I quickly removed the blatant letter of error and repaired his name to be the same as in the address. That was when I noticed a possible lifesaving error. Tucked in the left-hand margin of the space allotted for email addresses was a teeny, tiny dot (') that may have saved my skin. I can hope against hope that the first letter I sent is still searching for an agent whose address begins with an '. Meanwhile, I still await a reply.



My Mother had lots of wise sayings, one of which was "Two wrongs don't make a right." I am hoping, this time, that she was wrong.



Happy Birthday, Sam.

3 comments:

Papa John said...

Actually I am consistently wrong. That is why ou just think I am right. Right?

the hubby

Anonymous said...

Note to Hubby:
I didn't want to wake you at 5 a.m. to see if you purposely did not proofread your comment just to make me feel good.

:)

Anonymous said...

Humbling agent......I like that! I always wondered if my job had an official title!