Writer non grata on date night

A query, the subject du jour of late, is a lot like an evening of speed dating.

We have to dress just right. Wear black and one guy goes Goth, wear red and another sits there popping Viagra. Wear beige and the only person who will talk to you is the bouncer and he’s married. Heals, flats, flip flops or Uggs some get turned on by ‘showing’ toes and some just want to talk about them. Wear your hair down, up, short, long, dyed, shaved or slick, how’s a girl to know?

Everybody gives you advice, be smart, cute, be truthful, mirthful or obtuse. Show don’t tell, be concise, be lean, but not too lean, show a little flesh but not too much.

Querying is like seeking a partner for life based on your own personal logo and a catch-phrase.

Ten years after I graduated from high school I received a letter from the alumni committee. They wanted me to fill out a questionnaire about what I had been doing for the past ten years. Then I would get a booklet with all the updates of my former classmates. So I filled out the questionnaire, padded it a little, but stayed true to who I was and what I had achieved, which wasn’t much at the time. Sure enough, in the mail came the booklet.

I graduated half a nation away from my fellow alums and there were over 1000 in my class. Because I had not seen even one, in ten years, I sat down with my yearbook and matched pictures with updates. I laughed, I cried, was surprised and even disappointed. Then I came to an update that said this, and I am quoting exactly, not because I have the booklet in front of me but because I have never forgotten it even three decades later. 

“You didn’t care about me then, you don’t care about me now, so why should I update you?”

I looked at the girl’s picture. I remembered her face as a ghost in the hallway. She was right, I did not know her and ten years later, though I felt sorry for her feelings of alienation, I did not feel compelled to reach out to someone who created barely a shadow in my memory.

Queries are like that. If I am not dynamic, with whitened teeth, flawless execution and perfectly dressed words I am shadowless.

Which makes me, “writer non grata” and leaves me sitting at the end of the bar in my beige dress, looking at pictures of the bouncer’s wife and kids on his cell phone.

Don’t ‘cha just hate speed dating?