Posting the Submission

'No, please, I'll put the stamps on,' I smile plaintively at my local postmaster as we both reach for the disassembled parts of my submission lying on the post office scales.

Last week I watched in suppressed horror as he'd plucked my manuscript through the window and then forced it into the envelope, I'm sure wrinkling the covering letter in the process.

My postmaster, Frank, takes pride in his job and is very good at what he does. He's knowledgeable of postal regulations and attentive to my queries. Handling my carefully prepared submissions, however, is not on his remit.

This is my manuscript: it's taken years to write, during which people have died, societies have collapsed and my son has grown out of nappies and figured out how to operate the dvd player. Several species of Amazon primate have been rendered extinct - their habitat wiped out by the felling of trees in order to keep my hungry printer supplied with fresh A4. Now, on my finest and most expensive 100g Bright Wove paper, the first three chapters of my book are being sent out to agents.

Every word of the synopsis and covering letter has been scrutinised, and I'm finally letting go, sending the proverbial Dove, if you will, out from my ark in search of dry land, or better yet, an agent who will secure me a good deal for some dry land - lots of dry land, which will enable me to leave my job on the Ark and concentrate on ... sending out more doves, so to speak.

My future depends on this mailout, as does the sanity of my wife, who is presently at work with a cold and is relying on me to do something more profitable with my life than make online Ark metaphors.

Frank, the postmaster, wants me to be a success too, because it means I'll stop hassling him with awkward parcels containing SAEs that need extra postage and little post cards that get paper-clipped inside so that agents can acknowledge receipt of my work. We both know that one of them, one of them somewhere, will absolutely love An Englishman in Rocket City, and my quest will momentarily end, sparing Frank the sight of me. But right now, Frank just wants me out of the way so he can deal with the queue of pensioners building up behind me waiting to cash their giros, and the line of unemployed waiting at the till for their lotto cards.

Bemused, Frank surrenders the stamps to me, which I affix to the envelope. My neighbour appears and strikes up a conversation with me, thus distracting me.
'You've put them on crooked,' Frank says. 'I could have done better.'
I smile peakedly, trying to shove my manuscript into the envelope without wrinkling the front page. Frank watches smugly.

My neighbour continues talking; 'was that your boy I saw playing down our way last week?'
I try to hold the conversation while taking care of the second submission. The jobless stare back at me, unaware that I'm one of them.

Postage sorted, I try to lick the flaps down, unsuccessfully. Frank drums his fingers. 'I guess you'll have to let me sellotape them,' Frank says as I hand him the envelopes.

As I thank him and say goodbye, the queue heaves forward. I step outside, relieved. The cold air hits my face and stops me in my tracks: I'm certain that while talking to my neighbour, I may have put Conville and Walsh's letter into Felicity Bryan's envelope. All that careful preparation for nothing, ruined by a moment of civility.

I turn and re-enter the shop, waiting for all giro and scratch card requests to be dealt with. After the last customer from the morning rush has departed, I approach the Post Office window.

Frank looks at me coldly.

'I'm awfully sorry to ask you this, Frank, I'm a complete idiot, but could you possibly get one of my envelopes out of the bag? I'm afraid I may have put the wrong letter in.'

His lip quivers. With a trembling hand, he reaches for his knife. He steps out from behind the window, letter in his other hand, ready to plunge the knife through it and plant it in my chest. He opens the letter along the tape - not as neatly as I would have liked - and hands me the package for inspection. Everything's in order. My relief is overshadowed by embarrassment.

'Obsessive compulsive - that's the best thing I can think to call you,' Frank says, and I'm not sure he's joking.

The Synopsis

I've just spent weeks getting the synopsis for An Englishman in Rocket City in a state suitable to send out.
The punchy, one page outline I started with began to feel too much like the teaser-style atrocity so many agents warn against in their submission guidelines. It expanded to three pages after misreading one agent's requirements, and has since been pared down to two succinct, punchy pages.

The covering letter is also 'go', having pondered over the final closing sentence: do I thank the recipient, when they haven't yet done anything? Do I state the obvious, that I'll be happy to forward the complete manuscript upon request? The whole thing begins to feel like a magic spell, where the precise word combination will unleash the powers of AGENT upon me and lead the manuscript to the far-away land of PUBLICATION. A misplaced word will get me nothing. It will turn me into a frog and my manuscript into the lining of an agent's kitty litter box.

These people are looking for any excuse not to read my sample - the incorrect number of returns between the inside address and the date on my letter could give them just cause to bin my query, or perhaps the additional SAE required by one agent, 'for our response', is the wrong size (I've already included an SAE for the return of my submission, what's this other one for?).

Here's a useful link for anyone considering submitting their work to an agent. I especially like the animation with the bears:
www.jmtohline.com/2010/12/biggest-mistakes-writers-make-when.html