Ok, I just had the urge to write this and threw in some names.
The hospital room smelled like sickness. And hot dogs. Steph lay beneath a twisting mass of neon colored cables, her dinosaur print gown exposing the cast that encircled her left leg. When I'd left, she'd been asleep, with a line of...
It doesn't happen to me as much anymore, but it used to. My suggestion is think to yourself "ok, if I was reading this, what would I want to hear?" and more often than not, the awkwardness goes away.
You do it like anyone else. You find an agent who represents genres like yours and find out what they want from you. A query letter, a synopsis, samply pages, whatever. You send it to them. They will either say yes or no, if it's yes, they'll find you a publisher, if no, try again with a...