Self-Addressed Stamped Enigma
This afternoon’s mail:
“Thank you for thinking of __ & __ in connection with your writing. Your query has been read and reviewed. But I’m afraid I am currently overwhelmed with commitments to my present clients and am able to take on very little if any new material. I find your proposal quite interesting, but I’m afraid I just would not be able to give your work the time and attention it deserves.
Thank you again for giving me this opportunity. I wish you the best of luck in placing your work elsewhere. I’m so sorry I can’t help at this point.”
Okay…Get the point. Taking very few new projects right now, unless it’s something completely up her alley…Totally appreciate the note and nicety…Expected the form letter and rejection…but how do I know if she finds my proposal “quite interesting” if it’s a form letter? And why take the time to say my query’s been read and reviewed, let alone do it?
Am I wrong to be a little annoyed? Am I wrong to feel guilty at being annoyed at a genuine extension of courtesy? Have I finally become jaded – finally gotten in touch with my inner New Yorker (although this office is in NYC and I’m a dozen states off…) or am I just looking for a reason to complain?
Call it what you will. I guess what bothers me is when people say anything they don’t really mean. Maybe this is a “dedicated” form letter for ideas she thought promising, but I’d rather not hear what I don’t know how to interpret.
I can interpret “no”, however, which I guess should be enough for me.
This was the ninth of nine queries that I submitted in a last-ditch attempt to force myself to wrap up the last of my manuscript. Later I realized that there were certain aspects of my pitch letter was not really the most effective approach. So I don’t know if I’ve turned off agents who would otherwise be interested had I been more effective in summarizing my manuscript in those critical 2-3 paragraphs.
My current goal: wrap the manuscript up by September 1. We’ll see.
Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.
The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.
The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.
The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.
It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.
Preectjem
November 16, 2007