Let the games BEGI---er...CONTINUE!

So I'm rewriting my query. AGAIN. Looking back, my other queries were too detailed, too long, then too short, too boring, and too vague. I've never had so many issues writing a letter before in my life. I feel like I'm advertising not my manuscript, but myself. And I know that that's partly true. I'm pitching my voice, my fluency, my ease of grammar and sentence structure...yeah. You get the point. Then it's on to selling my characters, but all the while not mentioning more than two characters' names (or else it's way too confusing for the agent). Then it's showing off my unique story line, my interesting plot twist, and a hook to keep an agent asking for more. Oh yeah, and this all has to be done in just a few sentences.

So, I'm off to work on the query again before I bring my kid to get some fresh air for her cold to forget about said query. But just before I go, I'll mention that I've become a huge fan off all the blogs I've been following, and their followers, too. I have been talking [corresponding] with many new authors, some published, some unpublished, that just want the same thing I have wanted all my life. And that's just for someone to enjoy the words I have on paper. Not for the money-I figured out VERY quickly in the game that if you're doing this for the money, you're a)out of your mind and b) need to find another job FAST, but really, just to have someone say, "Damn! I'm glad I read that! That was a good story!" Because isn't that what we all need right now? Just a good story? Mine even has a happy ending. (Okay, kind of.....not without some sacrifice, of course....) Anyway, I'm just thankful to have met some very cool people in the past few months.

I should say to Rosemary Harris and to Meredith Cole that I am extremely bummed I missed you at the New Canaan Library yesterday. I went and purchased an autographed copy of Harris' Pushing Up Daisies book to make up for it (I still need to get The Big Dirt Nap, but I need to get Cole's book still. I meant to get it yesterday before I met her, but my daughter was a handful. I try to catch Cole before she settles down to work on her next book after her Posed for Murder.

That's it for now. I'll be writing more next week because I've decided that my experience with rejections and queries now will be something to blog about. Not in a complaining way, though. (Although there certainly might be a leakage of it...) I'm just going to post what to do and what not to do. It'll serve as a reminder for not only myself when I look back on this crazy ride, but to anybody who just needs a blatant list of the shit you cannot pull with literary agents. They are a wild bunch. Very picky.