Kate Evangelista, my awesome critique partner, asked me to write a Guest Post about query letters for her blog: Reads, Reviews, Recommends (if you haven’t checked out her blog, please do. It’s fantastic ‘cause she’s a blogging wizard, kinda like a female Harry Potter, so I guess she’d be Hermione).
Sorry, I'm still a little giddy. Refocusing.
At first I thought, NO WAY! I’m not an expert. How can I write a post about something that I’m still learning about myself?
I still remember how confused I was when I wrote my first query, oh so long ago, in a galaxy far, far away--called Clueless. I wrote a rambling two page letter that broke all the query rules: No hook, the book was 104,000 words and not complete, bah, I’m embarrassed to admit that I sent that piece of offal out to agents. At the time, I thought it was awesome. Then I found agentquery.com and learned how to properly format a query letter.
I learned because of the other members who gave their time to critique my query and show me where I went wrong. Most of the people who helped me weren’t query experts either. They passed along the information they learned to a newbie, and now I have a responsibility to pay it forward. Sharing and collaborating with others is the only way to learn and grow as a writer (my thanks to my awesome critique group for all your help with my queries).
Kate is one of the people who helped me out. I couldn’t say no to her request even though it filled me with nail biting terror. This morning, I open an email from Kate. All it said was, SURPRISE! And had the link to my post: The Anatomy of a Query Letter, da, da, duh, by Angie Sandro.
Thank you for such an amazing honor, Kate Evangelista, and for making me peek outside of my turtle shell and give back to our wonderful writing community.
Sorry, I'm still a little giddy. Refocusing.
At first I thought, NO WAY! I’m not an expert. How can I write a post about something that I’m still learning about myself?
I still remember how confused I was when I wrote my first query, oh so long ago, in a galaxy far, far away--called Clueless. I wrote a rambling two page letter that broke all the query rules: No hook, the book was 104,000 words and not complete, bah, I’m embarrassed to admit that I sent that piece of offal out to agents. At the time, I thought it was awesome. Then I found agentquery.com and learned how to properly format a query letter.
I learned because of the other members who gave their time to critique my query and show me where I went wrong. Most of the people who helped me weren’t query experts either. They passed along the information they learned to a newbie, and now I have a responsibility to pay it forward. Sharing and collaborating with others is the only way to learn and grow as a writer (my thanks to my awesome critique group for all your help with my queries).
Kate is one of the people who helped me out. I couldn’t say no to her request even though it filled me with nail biting terror. This morning, I open an email from Kate. All it said was, SURPRISE! And had the link to my post: The Anatomy of a Query Letter, da, da, duh, by Angie Sandro.
Thank you for such an amazing honor, Kate Evangelista, and for making me peek outside of my turtle shell and give back to our wonderful writing community.
You did great, Angie! ;)
ReplyDelete*snort laugh* Thank you Cherie, I'm still feeling nervous about the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteYou did awesome, Angie. I love how you show Mala's voice in the query. That really is a shining example of a query letter.
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome and then some! It's a pleasure having you on. :-)
ReplyDelete