I was raised to be modest and retiring. If something good happened to me, I waited until someone else brought it up before I talked about it. If someone offered me a compliment, my instinct was to downplay it: "Oh, that old essay? I'm glad the editor liked it, but I probably should have shredded it long ago."
I floated along that way through the early years of my writing career, taking whatever the content mills would pay me and occasionally surprising myself by placing pieces with other publications as well.
Then reality, which has a nasty way of hitting people in the face, flew up and bitch-slapped me silly. I realized that I didn't want writing to be my hobby. I wanted it to be my career.
All of a sudden, quiet and modest was out. Marketing myself was in, and boy, did I flounder.
My first efforts at a query letter read something like this: "Dear Editor, I realize I don't have much experience and that this is probably a silly idea, anyway, but would you be the least bit interested in...?" Not surprisingly, the editors I contacted were not the least bit interested.
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