I think I’m going to be sick!

August 23, 2006 at 2:14 pm | Category: blog

Andromeda’s Tear has been revised, polished, and…shipped. Gah!

That’s right, folks. It’s official. I have sent the full ms to Esi Sogah’s attention at HarperCollins-Avon.

Now, here’s the thing. I took the file to Kinkos/FedEx to have it printed. All 360 pages, 361 if you count the title page. While there, I decided to step on over to the FedEx part of Kinkos/FedEx and do a little one stop shopping.

Where to start…First of all, I got Mr. Grumpy as my shipping associate. He points behind me and says. “You need to fill out the purple form.”

“Ok,” I say with a smile, and turn to look for said purple form. Hmmm. I see green…and white. Is that a purple form tucked way back–uh, nope. “Excuse me, there aren’t any purple forms here.”

Grumpy looks at the display. Obviously, he thinks I’m color blind. After a slight pause, he goes and digs for a package of purple forms. He pulls one out and gets this look–the one that makes me sure he’s going to ask me to take one and put the rest in the little slot–but he seems to think better of it because he just hands me one sheet and walks away.

As I fill out said-purple-form, Grumpy takes my ms–the 360 pages I’ve toiled and fretted over for the past year–and plops it on the scale. This, I watch–while completing said-purple-form–and cringe. Hey! Grumpy! Take care of that, would ya!? Sheesh!

Ok, said-purple-form is complete. I hand it to Grumpy who, I now notice, has placed my ms into this HUGE plastic bag. Not the bubble envelope I requested, but a way-too-big plastic bag. I want to tell him not to bother, but I’m not sure if he will get even grumpier (I never got into what he did when I told him not to box the thing. Let’s just say I thought I might have grown a second head.)

Anyway, I don’t say anything about the “garbage bag” he has just put my ms in. I figure at least it’ll be safe if a monsoon should suddenly rise out of nowhere up here in the northeast. Pesky monsoons.

Once the package is ready, I take a black sharpie and write the coveted “Requested Material” in big letters across the front. Grumpy takes the package and tosses it into the “out” bin. Cringe. I immediately want to retrieve my creation. Instead, I shudder in silence and leave Kinkos/FedEx.

My fate is in the hands of Grumpy. Sigh. At least I have a tracking number. *bg*

Sandy

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