Drumming My Fingers

By Michael Seese

For a child, the longest night of the year is Christmas Eve -> Christmas Day. For me, it's...right now.

A few posts back, I mentioned my latest sprint. Agent Janet Reid offered up a new wrinkle to her really wonderful suite of ask-for-nothing-in-return services to aspiring writers. Called the "Chum Bucket," an homage to her "Query Shark" persona, she pledged that if you send a query to her on Saturdays between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00 p.m., she will respond. But, as she warned, "The queries need to be for real.  If I request something and you tell me it's not ready, or you were just kidding, I will come to your house and gnaw on you till you realize the error of your ways."

I had No Strings Attached close enough that I could taste the finish line, if I may horribly mix and mangle metaphors. So I dove in and finished it, then began the arduous task of proofreading. 118,580 words later, I was done. (No Strings is by far the longest piece I've written; for comparison sake, Dear Diary is 74,400 and Nightmares is 67,800.)

I was ready for Saturday night, and then she posted the following that morning:

ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!

Initially, she had said the experiment would run through August. Technically, Saturday is September. So I hope she extends it one more week.

So once again, I ask you, dear friends, to cross your fingers, burn some incense, and lob some good karma my way around 7:00 p.m. this Saturday.