Dear Editor or Agent or whomever I just submitted to:
Write back. Write back now. Now. Tell me how much you love my stuff and that it would pain you to the depths of your soul not to send me a contract and a check. Tell me how my piece brightened your life and you long to share it with the world.
Accept it. Now. Write back to me. Now.
I mean, come on: you’ve already had the thing for a whole hour! How long could it possibly take?
Sincerely,
Philangelus, who knows darn well better than to SEND this email to anyone.
(For the record, my technique when I want to bug an editor is to, in fact, bug an editor. But go searching the markets and bug a different editor than the one who already has your stuff. This creates a self-sustaining cascade of submissions and prevents a writer from keeping all her hopes pinned to one market.)
I feel that way just sending stuff to family and friends (and they’ll never send a check for it). Arg!