A perfect explanation of why it takes time to get a YES

Tip of the Day: Do not carry fresh fruit around in your briefcase for more than a few hours.

I’m back in the waiting room at the moment. Oh how I have come to despise the waiting room. I try to keep myself busy by reading and writing and doing fun things with the family (which is easy this time of year). Still, the waiting room, for the most part, really stinks.

Most of you authors reading this know the room well. It doesn’t really change once you become published. Well, I suppose for big-name authors, it changes, because they are probably in and out in a matter of minutes. But for me, it’s pretty much the same as it always has been. I sit around, day in and day out, waiting and wishing for my phone to ring. I’m still waiting for a call from the 212 area code, even if it is the number of my agent rather than an editor, like it was in the earlier days.

And I imagine all kinds of crazy scenarios happening in that far away place called Please Publish Me Land. Here is one:

An editor takes my manuscript and tucks it in her briefcase to read on the subway on the way home. When she pulls it out later, she realizes she forgot about the nectarine that’s been in her briefcase for the past two weeks. “Oh great,” she says to herself. “Just what I wanted to read. A manuscript covered in moldy, sticky nectarine juice. Gawd, do I have to read this? Really? I mean, her agent told me it’s good. Still. I have a hundred more back at the office. And none of them are covered in moldy, sticky nectarine juice.” She looks around, making sure said agent doesn’t happen to be on the subway at precisely that same moment, and slips the moldy, sticky, stinky manuscript inside a newspaper sitting next to her. Weeks go by, and one day, she eats a nectarine, and remembers the manuscript. “Oh my gosh,” she says. “I need to get back to that agent. Tell her the manuscript wasn’t quite to my taste.”

Across town, on the subway, a bum discovers an old newspaper and picks it up. A manuscript falls out, and it doesn’t even phase him that it’s covered in moldy, sticky nectarine juice. Starving, he’s thankful for a couple of licks that remind him of being a kid, sitting on the front porch, eating a fresh nectarine right off the tree. Happy, he begins to read. “Dang,” he says to himself, “this is really good. I wonder why someone hasn’t published it?”

Yes, I’m quite sure there hasn’t been a "yes" yet because of all that fresh fruit editors are carrying around in their briefcases these days. Well, do you have a better explanation? Please, do share!

~Lisa, Miss Pinch Me I’m Pubbed