Well, it seems that this editor found my blog from the SCBWI website and read a few of my posts and found out about this manuscript. She was highly interested in it. So, what's a girl to do?
I simply replied, "But, of course!" and sent it on it's merry way. Well, there was actually a longer reply and a separate query and submission email, but you get the drift.
And, what do you know? I got a reply thanking me for the manuscript and I should hear something back the next week.
Okay. Cool.
And the response actually arrived just a few days later, so there's some quick turnaround...
Unfortunately, the editor agreed that this manuscript is not quite ready to rock. But it was a very positive rejection and she invited me to resubmit when I had it polished. I was still very excited that she had discovered it on my blog, so what's my take-away? It's that an author blog really can be beneficial. Not only other writers read them. So that's encouraging.