Public Query Slushpile

I need your help promoting a new project I've started. It's a blog for a Public Query Slushpile:

http://openquery.blogspot.com/

Here's the pitch: Aspiring writers submit their queries with 3-4 sample pages as a comment to the main post (link is at the top-right of the blog). I will create a new post for each query received, posting as-is. Then the reader community (which is currently just me...I need your help!) can comment on them.

Aside from peer reviews and feedback, this may also give us writers insight into the world of an agent, sifting through a daily deluge of queries, trying to find a needle in the haystack. Of course, this all depends on how many writers know about this new blog and choose to submit queries for public viewing. Hence the plea for help...

I would hope that at some point this gains enough momentum that some agents/editors may take interest and occasionally go trolling through this slushpile to see what's out there. It gives them the chance to find a talented writer that didn't query them.

Check it out when you get a chance, and tell all your writer friends!

FATE'S GUARDIAN got a Face-Lift

Ok, I asked for it! I submitted a query and synopsis to the Evil Editor, and he and his minions had at it over the weekend. The results went up this morning. It has a guess the plot, some funny comments in the query, and some questions and advice on how to better sell the story.

Click here to see what they did to me!

This was from a query I sent before I "won" a critique on Nathan Bransford's blog, so I think I have made some great improvements to the query since I first submitted for this lashing...

.

BREAKING NEWS! AGENT REQUESTS PARTIAL!

I queried an agent over the weekend, and yesterday that agent requested a partial manuscript of Fate's Guardian!

Being the gifted writer I am, I think I can sum up my resulting emotions in one word: hell yeah that is totally kick ass awesome. (That's more than one word? So what. I'm a writer, not a mathematician).

Now, to sit and wait for a response...

No time but the present

I mean that literally. I have no time but the present. If the earth's rotation ever slows, and our days extend to 30 hours, I'll rejoice. After the tidal waves and earthquakes subside, that is. But what the hell. There's always a small price to pay for convenience.

I've been doing a good job of waking up early to write. My body no longer threatens to kill my alarm clock. The main drawback is that its getting harder to sleep in on the weekends.

I signed up for a website called "the Next Big Writer" and I like it so far. It's a quid pro quo post and review site...you post your material for others to review, but to post more material you need to review others' works. I posted Fate's Guardian a few evenings ago (the first 4,500 words, there is a 5,000 word cap per post). The next morning I had three reviews, and the end of the day I had 4. They were mainly favorable, and there was some great feedback, from minor plausibility for one sequence, to typos that I didn't find, even through multiple rounds of revising.

I've reviewed a couple pieces, too, and that's quite an eye-opening experience, especially when you hit a good premise, but poorly constructed sentences. It gives you a feel for what an agent might go through when they received some queries and manuscripts. Another piece I read made me laugh out loud, which is good because it was in the humor category.

Speaking of queries, I got a new rejection yesterday. Same theme as the other recent rejects: "your material is not right for us, but that's just our taste."

I guess that's better than a Simon Cowell-ish "You're a nice person, but please, don't ever write another word again."

And yes, the reference to Simon Cowell does mean that I have something to say about American Idol. Or rather, the contestants.

Last night we let our boys watch the episode from Wednesday. It was cached on the DVR...LOST won the coin toss for Wednesday night viewing. The kids are only seven and four, but they know talent; or rather, the lack thereof. They laugh just as hard at the first notes of a crappy singer as they do at a solid nut-shot on America's Funniest Home Videos.

There was one singer, who was very, very good, whose intro said that "she struggled with poverty..." That's so cliche. Why don't we ever hear about anyone who struggled with prosperity?

Oh wait, we do. Paris Hilton. Never mind. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...