Man's Best Friend

These are my "puppies". Daphne on the left. Gonzo on the right. 

They may look intimidating, but I believe just before this picture was shot my mother asked if they wanted a "cookie". Yep, those are doggy smiles, people!

As you can kind of tell if you've read any of my recent blog posts, I'm not immune to the query process craziness. I think it's natural to let yourself get a little nervous when asking agents to like your work. But it dawned on me earlier tonight, when I was playing with my dogs in the yard, that it might do me good to take a couple lessons from them.

Gonzo --that's him in my bed with MY Scooby-- loves to play fetch. If you can throw it, he'll chase it down (it's been 8 years and we've officially given up on the "catch" idea) . All he cares about is retrieving the ball/ frisbee, etc. and getting it back to you as quickly as possible so you can throw it again.

It doesn't matter to him that I have my sadistic moments where I pretend to throw the ball and chuckle as he takes off and spins in a circle trying to locate where it went. It takes a minute, but he eventually figures out I did him wrong. Yet, he doesn't care.

He comes back and woofs at me, encouraging me to throw it again. Gonzo's not deterred by a minor setback (the setback being a sadistic mom who enjoys his momentary bouts of confusion). He knows eventually I'm gonna throw that ball. The time I didn't throw it is completely gone and forgotten. It's not important, so he moves on.

Gonzo doesn't sit there and think... "Gee, my mom must not think I'm a good dog, otherwise she would have totally thrown that ball. I suck. I'm such a terrible dog for thinking I could get someone to throw the ball. Maybe I'm not really cut out to be a dog after all."

I can tell by the look in his eyes as he's sitting there -- actually his butt hovers an inch or so above the ground because he's too excited to sit-- but I can tell he's thinking ...  "Sooner or later she's going to throw the ball... and when she does IT'S ON!!"

So from here on out, no matter what happens with this round of querying, I'm going to strive to be more like Gonzo. I'm gonna let the potential bad stuff roll away and focus on woofing at the agent who's gonna throw the ball for me.

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