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Hmm -- this has to be the stuff of great story -- a pointy-shoed whip cracker, anxious author, a calculator weilding agent and semi-sober, exhausted editor climbing over a kitchen of slush desperate to find the last of the dry vermouth. She can't get to it because the stacks of paper won't allow the door to open. She cries, is whipped, the calculator is thrown at her and the author stands back, wringing her hands, saying, "But me. What about me?"

Thank you, thank you for persisting in playing out your role in this tragic tale.

Your posts always confirm my suspicions about the "glamourous" world of publishing:

That it's like working in an administrative office at a university, only MUCH MUCH WORSE.

Which is why, whenever my SASE is returned unstuffed, or something gets lost, or someone takes to long to reply, I think of all those times that I made those EXACT SAME MISTAKES with malice towards none.....

(Actually, I've recently decided I don't mind the "No SASE. don't call us, we'll call you" rules...

It saves me time, money and worry..... If I don't hear back in the time stated, I just assume my submission never made it out of the slush, fill in the appropriate box on my spreadsheet, and send it somewhere else!

It's a lot easier than follow-up calls and paying return postage to get a dull (though often nicely watermarked) rejection slip that will just end up in my kids' scrap paper pile anyway.....

(Though the three-year-old is upset about the decrease in interesting bits of scrap paper....)

Well, I kind of feel the same way (about not needing to include a SASE) EXCEPT some of those editors at those publishing houses are still responding if you include one. And sometimes they say interesting/helpful things, so I still include one anyway.

The image of the leather clad Managing Editor standing atop the kitchen slush pile has completely distracted me for most likely the rest of the day. Thanks for the visual ear worm.

Is the leather clad managing editor with a whip...cute?

She has red hair, a nice figure, and the face of ultimate despair. "Cute" doesn't enter into it.

"...semi-sober, exhausted editor climbing over a kitchen of slush desperate to find the last of the dry vermouth...(etc)"
God, I love you guys.

So, This is a stupid question and yes, I have queried the piece to death, but I still can't sleep at night.

A full of my MG has been with 5 different editors at 5 different houses (and 1 agent has a full) for several months with NO RESPONSE.

I am not hallucinating as I still have all of the requests in writing. Yes, my email is working, but at this point, the postage rates have changed on the SASE.

WTF?

Is my manuscript in a corner somewhere? Has it been riding around in the trunk of a car. Is it holding up a desk? Has it even been opened? Is an assistant using it as a coaster? Did the editor post my book on the bulletin board as an example of what not to do? Did it go to acquisition, editorial or whatever they call the meetings? Are they working on a P&L and talking it over?

What is taking so long?

WTF?

And, I must say, you are taking over the void left by Miss Snark! Thank you.

No, no, no, don't give editors the wrong idea. The land of the missing SASE is a lonely landscape of phantoms and maybe's...Maybe my manuscript never arrived there in the first place, maybe it got misplaced in the kitchen slush, maybe it got washed down the garbage disposal BY MISTAKE.
There is something worse than a rejection -- the rejection that never was. At least when the SASE arrives back at the SA, you have closure. You know it's time to stop checking the mailbox everyday for that particular MS. And there's nothing better to soften the blow of rejection than a nice note -- we like your writing style but this is not what we're looking for right now. Or -- We really liked a) b) and c) but d) needed work.
No please don't give editors the wrong idea about doing away with the SASE. A large number of us writers LOVE them. Life as a writer is lonely enough without that little bit of communication from the LAND OF THE EDITOR.

Yes, but it's SUCH a lovely book--and have you read the flap copy? ;)

I know, I know. I'm just saying that there's a certain stripe of reader out there for whom this represents all that is wrong in the world.

welcome back, ysa! And thanks for letting me play in your sandbox whilst you and pig were away!

Maybe Batdtz-Maru is a little tiny wee bit evil after he drinks too much vodka and gets on the roof and plays around with his Armalite semi-automatic rifle with bayonet attachment. But he's not Evil like, say, Phil Spector. Or General Pace who apparently believes that gay people are immoral but war is righteous. Now that's Evil.

I am not evil:
http://home.att.net/~slugbutter/evil/neutral.jpg

No question that Bad Badtz Maru trumps them all, for he has the most awesome kind of Evilness of all--the Cute Kind. None can stand before that.

Aw, man! I only rated "twisted." That was one biased test!