Query letters are hard to write because...

<< Hope Roberson recently wrote a "Best of the Best" post which focused on the art of writing pitches and loglines. In that post she talked about how whenever somebody asks her what her story's about, she gets all incoherent and "um, blah" (I paraphrased). Her point was that, surely since she wrote the story, she should be the one who knows it best, and should be able to easily summarise what it's about. But she has troubles with doing so.

I think many of us can relate to that! For me, reading her post reminded me that I've always struggled with writing queries. Maybe her post wasn't really about queries, but still, for me it's a similar deal. I wrote a successful logline once, and it garnered some serious agent interest. But queries are a different matter altogether. Sometimes it's like you've got too much space in which to ramble on, and so you end up doing just that - rambling.

But one thing I realised back when I was attempting to write queries was that...I don't actually understand my own story as well as I thought I did. The example was DAPHNE, which is the first novel I ever started other than my epic fantasy of doom that shall not be named (except it's called RAGEWATER). As I was attempting to write queries for DAPHNE, and getting seriously in-depth critique at Absolute Write, I realised I don't even know the core of what my story's about! I'd really thought I did, but the more I tried to summarise the story, the more obvious it became that I didn't.

Suffice it to say, I've stopped attempting to write queries for the time being. My novels need to actually become what they're meant to be before I can try to write a summary of what they are.

Have you mastered the art of the pitch/logline/query?

When I Actually Write A Book, You Will Be Acknowledged Blogfest

Before I get onto the actual Blogfest, I want to mention that I have another query, this time for SQUEAKY, featured on Evil Editor right now. Check it out.

Now...onto the business at hand!

Oh my GOSH. The last blogfest of the month is here! It's been a completely crazy month, and I'm sort of relieved it's over. But it's been heaps of fun participating in all these cool blogfests and meeting new people along the way. And maybe it'll make A-Z seem like peanuts! :D

By March 30 (which is in 12) days, write an acknowledgement blurb for 12 people, with 12 reasons. But not just ANY twelve people:

• 3 people you know IRL.
• 3 people you know online.
• 1 person who has died.
• 1 person you never met.
• 1 person you met once.
• 1 couple (so, 2 people).
• 1 author.

The Blue Lipstick Samurai

So, here is my acknowledgement (for all the writing I've done so far):

I wish to acknowledge...

• My mother, Leigh, who is totally awesome and has always encouraged me in all of my creative endeavours
• My father, Lester, whose quirky creativity has inspired me in my life, and whose individuality makes him the most interesting person in my life
• My former colleague Julia who helped me come up with more and more ridiculous ideas for Squeaky, and was in fact present when Squeaky first came to life
• My dear friend Kelly, who enthusiastically read my rock star romance and, like a good and biased friend would, told me all the things I wanted to hear
• My critiquing partners Jenn and Winter for their enthusiasm and their help with making my works better
• My mother's mother, who I never met, but who has my name - Patricia - and helped to make my mother the amazing person she is, and therefore had an indirect influence on me too
• That Dutch guy I met while backpacking - man he was sexy! He gave me great quotes to use in my travel memoirs, and made me laugh at the time too
• Bill and Joni, my dear friends who always give me a place to stay when I'm in L.A., and are highly encouraging of all my creative endeavours
• And finally, author Ian Livingstone (and is co-author Carl Sargent, and their little Zagor series) for inspiring me to start my first ever fantasy novel, which grew into a huge monster and is still not finished.

Okay, all done. :D

Now I am going to run around screaming in excitement that March is over. Heh.

P.S. Prompt #13 is up on Chrysalis, and we have two new members!! I plan on doing a shoutout post for all our participants here sometime soon. :) Maybe for C in the A-Z!

Race to 200 Blogfest!

Before I get onto the actual blogfest, I want to mention that my query for NAUSICAA was featured in Evil Editor's blog, HERE...and by "featured", I of course mean put through the Evil Editor and cronies blender. ;)

I also want to mention this great recap of the latest WriteOnCon chat, written up by L.J. Boldyrev at Sisters in Scribe!

Okay, now onto the actual point of this entry!

It's time for the Race to 200 Blogfest (click on the image to find out more), and here is what's required:

"Write a story/excerpt (no more than 750 words long) about a race of some sort. It could be an actual race. Or a race for survival. Even a race against time. Be creative!" - J.C. Martin

And without further ado, here is my entry! :D According to Word, it's 649 words!

Pansy

Brendan was a dick. Everybody knew it, but it seemed he wasn't satisfied with everybody knowing—he wanted to show them.

Not that he hadn’t done so plenty of times before. But this time was different.

John was sitting in his car in the left lane, staring fixedly at the glowing red traffic light. It cast its warm light across the intersection. He saw the faint hue of the green light for the crossing street, but he saw no more than that. It didn’t have much impact on the red. Beyond the lights was a t-junction.

He was trying his best to ignore Brendan and his absolutely dicky friends in the next lane, their lime green Ford Falcon chugging away like a race car. But it was hard to ignore their booming voices. And their stinking exhaust. They’d turned their music down, presumably so they could hear themselves better. Or maybe so John could hear them. How considerate. Usually John would have turned his music way up, to drown it all out. But his speakers were messed up and silence was preferable to the painful buzz-crackle they emitted.

Usually, it was preferable.

He was wondering if time to embrace it, just so he could drown in noise and pretend Brendan didn’t exist. It was always nice when he could pretend that.

“Oy, pansy, what’s it gonna be?!”

Brendan’s voice rang through the night. John clenched his jaw and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, willing that red traffic light to turn eerie green. The red seemed to mock him, saying, Nah, we’re gonna sit on this a while, see how much you can take.

“I think he’s deaf, ay!” Brendan’s cousin Larry hooted. “Or wait, I know what it is—he’s got a crush on you mate!” And the laughter was deafening.

John swore to himself he was getting his stereo fixed first thing in the morning. He’d been putting it off, saving for a new car, but he wouldn’t be ready for that for months—and he couldn’t stand another night like this. The kind of night you couldn’t drown out in music.

“PANSY, PANSY, PANSY...!” The chant wore on, and John daydreamed of running the red light.

And then that red light was green. Both cars sat in their lanes, not moving.

John had been here before. It was better to let Brendan tear off, so you weren’t in danger of getting in his way. Getting in his way could mean being run off the road. John had been here before. But Brendan wasn’t moving.

“What, you don’t wanna race me?!”

John gave no answer.

“Hey dude,” Brendan said to somebody else in his car, “why don’t you get out and hop in the pansy’s car? He can show you a good time!”

Much more hooting laughter, and John imagined that maybe Brendan’s car was rocking with it. Then one of the doors opened, and John knew it was time to act. The light was still green, but it could turn amber at any moment. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, hearing a door slam and a bunch of dicks shouting. He was rounding the corner, resisting the urge to start speeding. Then he heard squealing tyres and the lime green beast flashed past, cutting in front of him.

He leaped on the brakes and his car shuddered to a stop, giving himself mini-whiplash. Then he looked up, through the windscreen, and saw Brendan’s car half stuck into the embankment of the t-junction. Steam rose from the bonnet, hissing in the night.

With zombie-like motions John took out his mobile phone and dialled triple zero.

“Emergency, how may I direct your call?”

“Um... Yeah. Some dicks just had a car crash.”

“All right then. What is your location?”

One-sentence mission statements, and Chrysalis

With the Chrysalis Experiment, this week was my turn to post a story for the Friday feature (link here). Before the time came to post my story, I had already written most of it, except the last section. But I already had the ending planned, and as I was comparing notes with other participants, this is what I told them they could expect:

unrequited love, false sympathy, and a stalled execution leading to a suicide

Technically though, we don't actually see that ending happen. It's simply implied.

We also have a running joke about villains called Susan - a few of us have written stories with evil characters named Susan. So this week one of the participants asked me if my villain this time was called Susan too (I didn't name her in the story). My answer was that I don't know her name, but I know it's not Susan. ;)

Anyway...at AW this week I've been getting help with my SUNDOWN synopsis, and I was advised to come up with a one-sentence summary of my novel - a "mission statement" of sorts. I didn't think I could do it easily, and apparently the person who suggested it didn't think I could either. Haha. But here is my first attempt (which actually is the result of many other attempts made prior to posting):

A rocker chick determined never to love again meets her muso kindred spirit, and must choose between risking her heart in the future and staying safely hidden in the past.

So there you go. That about sums up SUNDOWN.

I'm sure I can make it more sparkly and pretty in future, but it's good to at least have a line I can return to when trying to hone my query/synopsis, and even the novel itself, to make sure I'm sticking to the point.

P.S. I want to mention the SECOND WRITERS' PLATFORM-BUILDING CRUSADE, which I am signing up for and which looks pretty cool! If you are interested in getting more active in the writers' blogging community, networking more and having fun, looks like you and I have something in common. And you should sign up too! Hurry though, the deadline is fast approaching! Oh, and Rachael Harrie is the one who came up with this. Cool idea, eh?!

Query letter #1: Sundown

No, I'm not going to share it, because I'm not quite done with it yet. Seriously though, I am feeling pretty good about how this one's shaping up. After probably 50 revisions following advice on the AW forums, I think I'm really getting near to the finished, prettied-up product.

I don't know why it took me so long to figure out the best plot point to end the query on - the one where Louise has just risked her heart once again, and gets rejected...and then the reader's waiting to see what will happen next. Naturally since it's a romance, you've gotta figure it'll end well. But it's the getting there that's the fun part.

Anyway...I'm pretty happy with it as it is right now. I'm hoping that sometime soon, nobody will have anything to complain about. If you can post a query and get NO complaints about any part of it at AW, you know you've done a stellar job. :D

But as for the other two queries I've put up for the AW squirrels so far...well, let's not even go there. Sometimes you just have to scream at the sky and walk away. Which is what I did with those. But I did that with the Sundown query too, and have since moved onto much greener pastures! That are actually greener.

How is everyone going with their queries, if you're at that stage?!