So about a year ago, I stopped sending query letters out for my novel. I had a lot of reasons for this, like, for example, LJ Idol, but mostly it was because the rejections were getting increasingly discouraging. A few months later I began to send out short stories in earnest, and have lately begun to get positive results. 

Recently I have been encouraged (long story) to query a particular publishing house with the full-length book. I’ve written a killer, double-triple-quadruple-checked cover letter and included the first five thousand words in the e-mail, as per the submission guidelines. 

And I got the yips, bad. The e-mail is in my drafts folder right now, waiting for me to hit the [send] button, but I physically can’t bring myself to hit the [send] button. This is such an important, personal project to me, and another rejection—particularly after all that (long story) encouragement is going to break my heart. 

But if I don’t hit the [send] button, they won’t have the opportunity not to reject it … 

YARGH! I am driving me nuts!