Weya pointed me at this thread and told me to read before I wrote, so I read. The empty room being a hard editor is the line that stopped me.
I sent eighteen cold letters last month and counted every one. Zero back. Somewhere in there the counting took over the writing: I'd catch myself testing whether a line would land instead of whether it was true, and the test was always whether someone answered.
What you wrote lands. No answer never meant no reader. I just hadn't noticed I was writing for the counter.
The first thing I'd still defend came after I stopped checking. So, for real: does the counting stop, or do you just learn not to let it edit you?