A-Z Challenge: Q is for Queries

Q is for Queries

I bet this is going to be a popular subject today!

There are lots of posts out there that can help you write a better query letter (my agent, Kat Salazar, has one, and Nathan Bransford offers a great how-to on his blog), so that's not what this post is going to be about.

Instead, I wanted to share with my first query with you. It's a doozy.

The novel that finally landed me an agent is my FIFTH completed novel. I queried three of the other ones, and learned a lot each time.

The first query letter I ever wrote was in 2010. It's for a novel that I completed in NaNo 2008. I posted this to Evil Editor for brutal feedback, and it helped me learn. Follow the link to read the really, really bad query (plus flames of feedback!) This is the query, basically, that I then sent out in a halfhearted attempt to find an agent before I was ready.

I've learned a lot since then. Each time I queried, I revised, and each conference I went to, I received critical feedback about my queries. I'd love to post the progression of queries for my current novel, and plan to someday in the future once it's moving further on its way.

Stop by the challenge blog and catch up with the other participants!


What experiences have you had with querying? Is too much or too little information worse to include in a query? Any tips you can offer?

Post Conference

I'm home.

It was...overwhelmingly amazing. I need to digest everything before I have much to say here.

But I did want to share one thing:

based on my two critiques, I am going to start querying Book One this week. **Fingers crossed!**

Quiet Query Sunday

While I got almost 2,000 words of the YA modern fantasy written while I was traveling, it's good to be home at my desktop working again.

I've spent the morning re-working my query for the historical novel in verse, and I've sent it out to a few more agents. We'll see what comes of it. One thing I can say: my confidence in query writing has grown in the past year, due to all the reading and learning I've been pursuing.

The sun is throwing rainbows on the walls of my writing room, and I am struck once again by how lucky I am to have the physical space to ply my emotional craft. A writer really does need a room of one's own.

I've been reading a biography of one of my favorite authors, Louisa May Alcott, and it's interesting to me that even in the poverty that typified her youth, she understood the need for private space to do her work. In her teen years, her mother created a room for Louisa to use as an office, and it was then that she really began her writing career.

Reading about other writers, both modern and past, helps me to maintain belief. It is comforting to realize that I share enthusiasm with writers who, one day, achieved publication. I know I've got poetry publication credits to my name, not to mention three years of book reviews for VOYA, but right now my goal is to obtain publication of my fiction. I write to fill my heart, make no mistake, but I also dream of being heard.

What do you dream of for your writing?

Query Year

Yesterday I sent off a query letter for my YA historical novel-in-verse. Fingers are crossed!

Now that I have put that out in the universe, it's time for me to decide which project needs 2nd draft attention first. I have been think a lot about my retelling of Ruth, so maybe in another week when I have a break from school, I'll dive in to that.

Goal: to have agent representation and a publishing deal by the end of 2011.
Goal: to have at least two more poems accepted for publication in 2011.
Goal: to achieve and maintain balance between writing and life.

I feel tingly. I think this will be a positive year.

Some good advice to sort through...

I follow this blog, and I recently took a leap of faith that my writing isn't total crap and sent off a draft of my query letter to be shredded.

This is the novel I am focusing on for the conference in October, and I think the Evil Editor and the comments included will help me to find a more concise and worthwhile focus...

Based on this crappy query, would you want to read this novel? Any suggestions from my lovely readers on how to improve?

I really believe this is woman's fiction before being a mystery, but I guess I didn't convey that well enough in the query. There is the element of mystery, but at the root of it the MC reinvents herself and establishes a more tangible identity than she has at the start.

Clearly, I can't be wounded...please offer any negative or positive feedback on this query!

Thanks, all.