Filter Thyself, or Don't

"Does it get any better than getting paid to enjoy yourself? That sounded dirty."

I wrote it, deleted it, wrote it again. Then one more time, because apparently three drafts of a query letter isn't punishment enough for one week.

Here's how the newest one opens:

“I see that your agency is drawn to offbeat memoir, and mine feels like a black sheep in many ways. I realize I am not Oprah, so why would a person give two craps? Well, because it's funny and there is never a dull moment.

I closed the biggest deal of my career from a bathroom in the bowels of a hospital, SPANX around my ankles, pitching a C-suite mid-shimmy back into my pants. That's the moment I realized I was too much for corporate, too alive to stop at the dream, and too far in to quit.”

Too alive to stop. Cute. Poetic, even. More accurate translation: too f'in stubborn.

Got a form rejection this week. No surprise there, this whole process is subjective enough that rejection barely registers as information anymore, it's just weather. Vetted the next agent on the list and passed, this time on purpose — she wanted a full book proposal instead of a query, and cranking one out just to hit send on a deadline I invented in my own head felt like a bad trade. So I held. Sent the query to someone else instead, an agent who's said flat out she's drawn to offbeat memoir. Felt like the right fit for a black sheep book.

And then I went back through the letter and the manuscript both, smoothing, trimming, tightening. Guess what. The edits didn't make either one better. They made them safer. Filtering thyself should be a sin, and you'd think by now I'd have learned that lesson permanently instead of relearning it every time I get nervous.

The rest of the week was fabulous, in the specific way where you're tired because you spent it swimming and sunning at the lake instead of because life ran you over.

Had a client in town and it was the best kind of instant-friend, the kind where you meet someone in person for the first time and your body already knows them because you've been on seventy-plus Zoom calls together. Diamond in the rough. Rare human, refreshing, genuinely a beautiful soul, and also — does it get any better than getting paid to enjoy yourself? That sounded dirty. It wasn't. Mostly.

She's obsessed with getting a good photo, same as me. Every street sign, every neon light, every good angle, we both see the post before it exists. I'm always the one interrupting the flow to make someone stop walking so I can get the shot. Josey even joined us one night for a sushi boat, which was crazy fun.

This morning was the first real exhale I'd had all week, and naturally the universe used it to remind me it was time to send another query into the world. So I opened Query Tracker, found someone promising, and sent it. Wrote, deleted, rewrote until all the Beccaness was back in.

I have a vision for where this goes. Maybe it happens exactly the way I want. More likely it's going to be a rude bitch about it, I'll have a lot to learn, and I'll embarrass myself shamelessly somewhere along the way.

Either way. I’m totally cool. At least I think.

Sitting in my Starbucks corner right now with a good orange cream cold foam I got talked into trying, and it's a decent reminder — try the thing even when it sounds foreign, even when you're sure it won't work.

Sigh. Send.

MANUSCRIPT STATS

📝 Query sent to an agent who says she loves offbeat memoir

✅ One agent vetted, and passed on, they wanted a full proposal (which I don’t have)

❌ One form rejection. Three pending still.

🔄 Query letter rewritten three times until the Beccaness came back

👀 Next: waiting, and probably writing another one (maybe creating a proposal)