Blew the last week in a funk stewing about being in time out, wondering when some news might come back about the manuscript, before I realized the sentence was self-imposed and unnecessary. Blame a personality defect, I guess. In general, I’m all right at waiting for long periods, but have a much harder time wandering blindly with no cues — and no mechanism to glean cues — about what someone might think.

Tired of watching me toss and turn, The Wife made an interesting offer: keep writing just as before, only hand off manuscripts to her and she’ll deal with the aftermath. I’ll have no idea what agents she targets, when or where she submits them, and what they say, etc. One hundred percent of my writing time would be spent writing, revising or implementing feedback, zero percent canvassing markets. Very reminiscent of Dean Koontz, who I believe works this way, a proxy submission method spares me the part of the process I dislike the most.

I have no problem going over a manuscript again and again, no issue soliciting and implementing feedback from readers. The thousands of hours alone at the keyboard? Heaven. Pitching a concept to someone, even cold, works for me; I’ve done it before. Allowing someone space and time to respond, I can handle. I can sit tight. Really, it’s all lots of fun to that point. What snares me up is the tendency in business of passive answers. That is, those uninterested in a project tend to answer by not answering at all, a rejection in disguise. At that juncture hearing the no is really irrelevant, I just like closure. “Pass” or “Nope” scrawled on the first page is sufficient.

Understand that I do not personalize reactions like that; it’s fairly common in any business to avoid contact that could get ugly. The tendency might be a little more acute among literary agents whose livelihood stems from creating and maintaining relationships. When the world is full of possible gems in the sea, every second is critical to them, and time spent saying no takes away from time spent searching for the writer to say yes to, or actually doing the job of negotiating good deals for their clients.

So I understand the response, or non-response, that is. Why invest time in discussion that is its own end? There’s people I haven’t spoken to for years because we last parted on an odd note. I probably would speak to them, should I run into them, and they might share a similar thought, but neither of us are seeking out the other. And perhaps we never shall.

At its heart, my want reflects a control issue. Spazzing out about a non-answer is no better than getting pissed about an outright rejection. Which is why the Wife’s offer is so appealing. If there is a way to smooth out an obstacle, albeit one I created, I should consider the possibility seriously.

And that’s about where I am…looking forward to another writing session, pretending not to count the days until May 21.