Hitting Send

I just sent an info-packed query off to one of my favorite publications. I've never tried to write for the magazine before, but I decided there's no time like the present to give it a shot.

As any freelance writer can attest, there's a moment of indecision when your cursor is poised above the "send" button, just before you launch that query email into oblivion and hope it reaches the intended target.

Am I sure this story idea is good? Maybe I should have done more research. Did I remember to attach my resume? I wonder if I should have included different clips. Should I have proofread my work one more time?

It's easy to get paralyzed by the questions and second-guessing. But at some point, you have to do it. You just have to hit send and see what happens.

I haven't decided yet whether it's possible to overanalyze a query letter, whether it's possible to spend too much time agonizing over every word. But my hunch is that there's a point at which you can do no more, when you just have to submit it and leave the query in the editors' hands to do with it what they will.

This doesn't mean you have to be passive. You don't have to sit back in your chair and twiddle your thumbs or check your email every two minutes just in case. As I mentioned yesterday, it means going about your business. Finding other work. Enjoying yourself. And then, when the time is right—in a couple weeks, maybe in a month—you follow up. I'll shoot another email to the editor just to check in, to make sure she received my query and to see if she has any writing work for me.

And maybe, just maybe, if I'm lucky, before that can happen her name will appear in my inbox and she'll say, "Yes, please! We want you to write for us."

That, my friends, is the freelance writer's dream.

Photo: visualdensity