Christina the Absent

I've been pretty absent lately. I'm sorry about that. I feel kinda like a slacker and that sucks. So, what have I been doing? (1.) I went to visit and help out my twin sis because she just had another baby, and then (2.)summer school started and I'm teaching that, and (3.) I've been patiently (coughgoingcrazycough) waiting to hear from agents that have my ms, and (4.) I've started a new WiP.

1.-It was awesome to see my sister and her kids. They are so cute. It's also strange to have an identical twin with kids b/c her little toddler reacted differently to me than to his grandma (who came down w/ me also). He trusted me more b/c I looked like her. Weird and awesome. :)

2. Summer school is less hours of work, but still soooo tiring. But I love my students.

3. I might be developing an eye twitch while waiting to hear back from agents (and that might only slightly be a joke). I'm so excited and so nervous cuz these agents are awesome and obviously getting agented is something I'm hoping for. Plus the ms they have I love so so SO much and want to share with the world someday. But yeah, *eye twitch*

4. I started a new WiP, and I love it and it's terrifying. It's a contemporary that's got snark, a hot boy, a broken girl, a cute little brother with autism, Japanese candies, and insects. (And of course, so much more too.)

To wrap up, I miss my sister and her kids, summer school is tiring, and to keep my eye from twitching out of its socket while waiting to hear from agents, I've started a new WiP that I'm in love with.

What about you guys? How are all of your summers going? What do you do when querying and waiting for agent responses? (Because really, that is like 97.4% of my life right now)

Query Perfection

Okay, so you've written a novel. You've revised said novel. And you've probably rewritten and revised some more. Maybe you have done this multiple times and you've finally, finally gotten to that point that your manuscript is .... *gasp* .... perfect. Or as perfect as you can make it anyway. You probably look at lot like this:

Your next step is query agents. Should be pretty simple. All you have to do is take the last few months (or years in my case) of your life and summarize it in a few brief paragraphs.

Sounds easy, right?

Pffft. As if anything is easy when it comes to writing and publishing a book. So what do you do now? You think about it and you mull it over and you brainstorm some more. You write bits down. You erase and start over. You show it to crit partners and they suggest changes. It's an awful lot like the manuscript writing process. It's a lot of second guessing and reading and rereading. It's challenging, but when you do it right, when it's just about perfect, it can be so worth it.

Maybe you're just so excited at this point because you've written such a great manuscript that you're not worried about your query letter. Maybe it comes easily to you and you're not plagued by the perfectionistic gene that hovered over you the whole time you were drafting. If this is you, I'm happy -- so happy for you!

But if you're more like me, you started writing your query MONTHS in advance. You've researched and bookmarked and saved all of your dream agents in a folder on your computer for when that magical moment comes and you finally hit SEND. And maybe you have over twenty versions of the letter saved on your computer and maybe you lost sleep over just the right wording. After all, you only get one chance to impress. Your dream agent can read that  query and be so wowed that they ask for the full immediately. Or your dream agent could send you a form rejection within the hour of sending off the letter.

There are hundreds if not thousands of websites and posts out there dedicated to writing the perfect query letter. I have over thirty bookmarked on my own computer. Here are a few of my favorites:

Formula for a Query Letter 

How to Write a Query Letter

The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make When Querying

It's overwhelming, this need to be perfect. It's frightening to know that someone can reject you after only reading 250 words. But it's also exhilarating. This is your chance to shine. Your chance to show off the world and the characters you've created.

Be proud. You've finished that novel. You can handle the query letter. Maybe it's not a perfect process, but like we've been saying all along, perfection is never really attainable. Let your query letter say what it needs to say and make sure you know who you're querying. Then, even as scary as it is, let that baby fly. See what happens. Maybe it doesn't work out this time around, but you know what they say about practice....It makes perfect.  :-)