Form Follow-Up Letter

letter by Ro Daniels

Covering all levels of formality, desperation, and implied breach of implied emotional contract.

Good morning, or Good afternoon, or Good evening, depending on where I am in the world and what time of day I think would sing "Reconsider" the loudest and the softest.

Hope you're well! as an exclamation because if I were you I'd care about the small gestures to humanity on my part that might seem, on my part, to index that I've not become bitter, that I'm not bitter, despite anything you might or more likely might not have done. I wish you well.

Hope you're well! and maybe a soft clause about how I am well. Maybe about how, actually, I'm thriving. I'm jubilant, actually, actually never better, and this follow-up comes from an overflow of the goldenness of my spirit. And not from a place of bitterness. And certainly not from any sense of recrimination, as I hasten to clarify in my next: I'm sure you've been really busy,.

And, really, I am sure you have, because, really, haven't we all been busy? And if we haven't, hasn't the being aware of that been busyness enough? And if it hasn't, hasn't the noticing the awareness and its perhaps surprising emptiness been in itself a kind of fullness? We're all busy. We are all busy.

COMMA. A more and better rounded person would let the sureness of the busyness stand alone. NO is a complete sentence and so is I'M SURE YOU'VE BEEN BUSY. But not here. And, frankly, in the absence of your NO, I splice my I'M SURE YOU'VE BEEN BUSY into its relationship, COMMA, with me.

but I'm just writing or I'm just getting in touch, little me, I'm no bother and I'd be no bother as a client, to check, or to ask whether you've had a chance or a moment or an opportunity (because I know you've been really busy) to consider my manuscript, comma, Title of My Life's Work in Italics question mark not in italics? As if to imply it's already existing. It might be a manuscript but I follow MHRA referencing guidelines as if it's a book. So think on that.

Link to my work on my Google Drive and website. Attachment of ten low-res PDFs. As if I've not been monitoring the downloads from my website and know you accessed my manuscript forty five minutes after my first email, as if I didn't spend three hours imagining I was you reading it for the first time. We’re all busy. I’ve been wearing your shoes.

Hope the weather, say, is better where you are than it is in Sheffield!, or wherever I happen to be at time of writing. To try and claw back a sense that I am fine, actually, that I exist beyond the parameters of this email, of your attention, or, more likely, lack of it. To imply, obliquely, that I've plenty of irons in fires and fingers in pies. That I do not have my fingers in the fucking fire.

And maybe, here, an emoji, such as 🤠, to index that I was born just, just past the boundary of Gen Z, so I'm one of the kids, technically, thus cutting edge, thus — perhaps you didn't notice my genius at once. But your kids are going to love it.

Anyway,

Yours with a big heart, Ro

🤠