Saturday, October 3, 2015

First follow up letter to editor









Dear Editor:



I submitted a series of short essays for your consideration. I was pretty confident you would like them because several acquaintances had mentioned them to me in passing in a way that suggested they might have read them even though they didn't have to. I'd also received over a hundred views on one of these essays, posted online, by spambots from a place in Russia called Samara, and though I know those aren't real readers, I'm starting to get a sense for when spambots are responding to my work, like the way yeasts bubble in the presence of sugars. I'm just saying I had a good feeling. So as soon as I mailed this work off to you I immediately began to monitor my mailbox for your response. The first few hours were difficult but rich with excited anticipation. My career as a famous writer was about to begin!


After five hours I strove to keep my spirits up. I jotted a few optimistic notes towards my Nobel Prize speech. But as day turned into night I began to worry.

Are you okay? You weren't in an accident or anything were you? Because 26 hours have now passed since I sent you my carefully written letter of introduction, complete with spambot stimulating prose, and I still haven't heard back from you. I am extremely concerned at this point and, my mind racing, I have been struggling to come up with a sensible reason for this bizarre delay.

Fortunately I have come up with three plausible explanations:

1. The accident (alluded to above). I'm thinking maybe you read my work and were literally "bowled" over. Your head bammed into your office desk and when you came to you could remember nothing. Amnesia! If that's the case I am hoping this letter will stir your memory back into action. You are an important editor who usually responds swiftly to exciting submissions like mine, but you fell. You are very fond of Gruyere cheeses and find plaid soothing.

2. Treachery! Not to get all vain or anything, but I know the publishing world enough to understand that an exciting new find like me doesn't come along every day. Perhaps one of your associates has been long sneaking looks at your mail, waiting for the right work they can steal off with to use to start their own magazine. I'm not naming names, but has anyone gone to lunch today and not returned?

3. Office management breakdown. I've worked with many institutions and understand that no matter how great an organization is, it's always going to have at least a few people who are pretty terrible at their jobs, usually even most of them. Perhaps you have an earnest but dense intern? A doddering VP? A scatterbrained mail room clerk you think it would be churlish to let go because he's an old friend of the family and how much can he mess up in a mail room? You might want to look through your non urgent mail pile, maybe in the bills or even the recycling bin. See if that mail room clerk stuffed a few things in his pockets planning to deliver them later. No, there is no need to fire anyone, even though you feel like doing so. Yes I had a rough night during my 26 hours of worry, yes you temporarily lost your memory and had to get three stitches on your amnesia inducing head wound, yes you work with a conniving opportunist who is never coming back from that lunch, and yes, worst of all, I had to buy another stamp for this letter, but finally these impediments between us are swept away. The future is ours once again!


I have found these explanations immensely reassuring and am so excited about our upcoming work together. I look forward to officially hearing from you soon, but I safely figure that we have a contract together at this point already. There are only the details to iron out from here.

What fun!


With warmest regards,



F. Calypso












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