Wednesday Again

As promised, this weeks stats.
Submissions sent this week: 8
Responses: 0
Total number of queries floating in cyberspace waiting for a response: 15

Yes, I haven't heard any news this week. However, I did go to the hospital yesterday for an EGD and the doctor found a big ol' bloody ulcer in my stomach.

Better luck next week, I suppose.

Query Guts

It takes guts to send out queries. No matter how thick your skin, rejection hurts. You’ve put your time, your SOUL into writing, and now you get one, maybe two lines of “not right for us.”

I’ve decided to put my guts out there, so to speak. I’ve started querying my first novel, FORBIDDEN, a young adult fantasy about a girl named Ivy Hines who has three days to find an ancient sword before a demon-man named Mr. White uses a magic ring to steal her soul.

Here are my stats:

# of queries sent: 14

# of rejections: 4

Request for pages: 1 (this amounted to a “no”)

I’ll try to post updated stats every Wednesday.

My goal is not to run down agents. I’d hate to be in their position to be honest. There are some great blogs out there to help the struggling author like myself.

Query shark is one. You can read her advice at queryshark.blogspot.com. Book Ends does workshop Wednesday’s where they critique a query letter every Wednesday. You can find them at bookendslitagency.blogspot.com.

And in keeping with the theme of spilling my guts, I will take the plunge and post my query. Feel free to rip it to shreds.

Dear Ms. Agent,

            Ivy Hines doesn’t regret stabbing Mr. White. Living in Texas in 1877, Ivy knows a knife in the heart isn’t a customary response to his marriage proposal. But if seventeen-year old Ivy had known Mr. White’s engagement ring would leech away her soul to give him immortality, she would have stabbed him sooner.

The only way to remove the ring is to destroy Mr. White. Ivy has three days to find the one weapon that will defeat him, the blade mentioned in Genesis to guard the Tree of Life: the flaming sword. Ivy trusts Christian, her closest friend, to help her find the blade. But Christian tells her secrets about the sons of Adam and Eve, two brothers who found the forbidden fruit and were reborn as immortals. Christian also tells her Mr. White’s true identity—the world’s first murderer.

            FORBIDDEN is a young-adult fantasy of 85,000 words. It is the first of a three-book saga. My manuscript has been professionally edited. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English and I attended the writer’s seminar taught by NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling author William Bernhardt.

My manuscript is available at your request. Thank you for your time and consideration.