Querying agents, Part II

I was wondering whether any other you had an useful suggestions on how to pique a potential agent's interest in representing me. Yeah, I know. Write something interesting and worthy of being read. All that goes without saying. I need some help in attracting them in the first place.

I always read up as much as possible on an agent before I query them. I visit their website, read anything I can find of their writing if it is relevant, read comments on them by others. But is there something I'm missing?

Agents mention different things about what catches their eye in a query letter. But even that can be random.

One agent who blogs alot states repeatedly about the three rules she needs to see in a query letter. But she also shows a query letter that she loved -- she went on to request a full manuscript -- that broke all those rules.

That makes it hard to discern what an agent may ultimately want.

So, as I am completing a list of agents to query, any advice from any of you would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

And thanks for reading.

300th Blog posting

This is a somewhat special day. This is my 300th blog posting since I started this blog, today is my birthday and this month I have had the second highest number of views on my blog -- and the month isn't finished yet. While I doubt I will break my personal best blog views, it's possible.

I planned to say something profound today but I have been so busy I haven't had the chance to think of something. I just want to say that while it has taken me a long time to reach 300 postings, I don't intend for it to be nearly as long before I reach 400.

My critique group meets tomorrow and I am handing in a short story for consideration in two weeks. Also in the next two weeks I plan to finish my currently untitled short story for my Sisters in Crime anthology.

I plan to register for the Midwest Writers Workshop seminar in July. I'm checking The Last Tontine Survivor for possible mistakes and still compiling a list of agents to query.

So, I have been busy.

I am planning to discuss agents and query letters again soon. But for now, I think I will go have some more birthday cake.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Music

Not much to say today. It's been raining and I have been inside most of the day attending to some freelance work. (I did take my mom to a viewing of a woman who attended my mom's church. We mostly got in, signed the book, sat for a few minutes and got out, though I did say a few words to the poor woman's grieving husband.)

Since it has been gloomy outside all day and I didn't have any sunlight through the window to brighten my day, playing music while I work has been very important. I have been going between One of a Kind, a CD by Dave Grusin, and a recording of The Planets by Gustav Holst, with two selections by John Williams tacked on at the end.

I am especially fond of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter on Grusin's CD. It is probably my favorite music. It lifts my spirits when I am happy or, if I'm sad, leaves me feeling melancholy. It's such a great melody for either end of my emotional scale. (I also love the book of the same name, which was made into a film with that name in 1967. Grusin wrote music for the film.)

The Planets is a seven-movement composition and perhaps the Brit's most famous work. I particularly like Jupiter: the Bringer of Jollity, and Neptune: the Mystic. But it is one of the two pieces tacked on at the end of the CD that I listen to the most. It is a full orchestral suite for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It is great, uplifting music that I can play in the background as company and that I can enjoy without it distracting me.

So, what do you listen to when you write? Whatever it is, keep listening to it and keep writing.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.

Query News, Part III

Since last fall, I have concentrated on writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month (then changing my mind), doing a final re-write and edit of The Last Tontine Survivor for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, starting a short story for an anthology, re-writing another short story for a Writer's Digest contest and, finally, doing a final read-through and edit of An Untidy Affair for a contest with a publisher. Sounds like I have been busy, and I have been.


But as I sit and think about it, all that work had another purpose -- distracting me from doing something I need to focus on but generally don't enjoy doing -- sending out query letters for my novel.


I now have two really good works I feel comfortable with querying in their current forms. And I have queried Affair before. Since it is under consideration with a publisher, I will hold off on querying it for now.


Which brings me to Tontine. It's Tontine's time.


A month ago, back on Feb. 22, my blog posting titled "Nervous Nellie" included the pitch I used for Tontine for ABNA. Though I was eliminated from the contest based on that pitch, I still will use it as the basis for my query letter for the novel. I think it conveys the story well. But in case I'm wrong, I will only send out a limited number of queries with that letter. If I don't get any bites after sending five to seven letters, I will strap it and start with an entirely different letter for Tontine.

I truly don't know what it's going to take to pique an agent's interest but I know it won't happen as long as I stall trying. I can keep busy with contests but unless I win, it won't get me closer to publication. So it's Query Letter Time.

This evening I will put in some serious effort in compiling an agent list. By the weekend, the letters should start heading out. Rejections, and the accompanying depression, will probably start next week.

Just wanted to prepare you.

Thanks for reading and keep writing (and querying).

ABNA: A quickie

Tomorrow is the day the guardians at the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award announce the winners in the second round of this year's contest. A select 500 -- 250 each in general fiction and young adult fiction -- will move on to the quarterfinal round.

I was on pins and needles last year at this moment hoping against hope that I would advance. I know the tiny nerves that support ones hopes and dreams. And last year I made the cut, advancing to the quarters, though I was cut after that.

I don't have such worries this year, having been cut in the first round about a month ago. (And with an even better entry this year than I had last year.) But I still truly support this contest and congratulate all the brave souls who enter it each year.

This year in particular, I have a couple of friends I am pulling for -- Jeff, an online friend from Kansas City, and Marianne, whose a member of my critique group. Both are in the YA category.

Jeff keeps coming back to the contest year after heartbreaking year, always funny and cheerfully honest. He has played it cool this year, not venturing onto the ABNA threads to comment very much. He is a good guy and it would be nice to see him advance. I'm not sure if her has ever made it to the quarters before.

And Marianne. What can I say about Marianne? She's a lawyer and a suburban mom. Not very scary, really. But as a writer, she is truly creepy. And she loves writing that sort of stuff. Her brand, which she has printed on her author business cards says, "Wake up and smell the creepy." That's excellent. And so is she.

Her writing is crisp and clean and compelling. Though her YA novel in ABNA this year isn't creepy, which is a surprise, the story is interesting and original. I can see her going far this year on talent alone. But as always, she will also need some luck.

So good luck Jeff and Marianne . . . and everyone else in the contest this year. I'll see you on the other side.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Editor: One friend made the cut and one did not. Well done, Marianne! And best of luck in the next round. mbd

Who's Looking, Part II

I don't think I have posted anything on this subject in 18 months but it's about time. Who's reading me?

I still don't have a good answer to that question but I do have numbers and this month has been a great month. Not half the month is over and yet I already have the fourth highest monthly totals since I started this blog more than four years ago. At the current rate, this could be my highest month after October 2009. And with a little luck, I could top even that month.

Posts from last month are very popular. Hits from February 2012 make up six of my Top 10 posts this month. But still, the three most read posts so far this momth are oldies but goodies. They are: Being a picker at Amazon, from Dec. 20, 2010; What's in a name?, a four-year-old post from Jan. 4, 2008; and Querying agents, from Jan. 8, also in 2008.

I am still trending heavily in the United States, which isn't surprising. I'm an American writer.

This month, 48 percent of my page views are from the U.S., with The Netherlands coming in second with 24 percent. That is trending well with my all-time hits, where U.S. views make up slightly more than 50 percent of total views, followed by Germany and France.

There is lots more information from the stats section on my blog and in the weeks ahead I am going to try to better understand what readers are looking from (other than posts from 2008 and 2009). And I will let you know what I find.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and keep writing.

One final read through

It's taking much longer than I expected to do one final read through of An Untidy Affair before I ship it off to an contest. A lot is riding on the contest but there is always a lot riding on a contest. So that isn't what is slowing me down.

I am tweaking it here and there, tightening the writing and spotting problems that I should have seen months ago. But the novel itself is still strong. I guess I just want to put the best foot forward. Yet at some point you have to conclude you have done the best you can do at the moment and let it go. Not there yet but am probably close.

Once I completely finish the read of Affair and send it in, I will concentrate re-writing the query letter for The Last Tontine Survivor, and compile the list of agents to send it to. That means lots and lots of reading -- on query letters and on the interests of particular agents. I am tired of doing that but I have no other choice. It is the nature of the industry.

So, I wanted to give you an update. You will also notice I have changed styles once again on book titles. I will boldface and italicize them. Perhaps it will make them jump off the page.

It's a beautiful day outside and I'm going to enjoy some more of it.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Black on Black in Black

I entered the 81st Annual Writer's Digest competition today with a short mystery story called Black on Black in Black. (If you don't understand the title, I'm sorry. It's a black-thang.)

A friend at The Philadelphia Tribune asked me a couple of years ago to write a mystery with her as the main character and we actually came up with the name for the protagonist together. But that was the extent of her contribution.

It's a murder mystery that I started two years ago but didn't get around to finishing it until last fall. It's not long -- just over 2,000 words -- but has a nice feel to it.

I had forgotten about this competition, which costs to enter but has really nice prizes. There are 10 categories, including magazine feature articles, rhyming and non-rhyming poems, movie scripts, and short stories. The maximum word word is about 4,000 words.

They offer cash prizes for first through 10th place in each of the categories and a $3,000 cash prize and a trip to New York for the Grand Prize winner, who is selected from all entries. Hard to see how I could win that but you can never tell. And you can't win if you don't enter. Since I entered, I could possibly win.

I haven't entered this contest in several years. But in 2007, a got an honorable mention in the television/movie script category for my screenplay, Loss of Consortium. But I decided to enter this year as part of my goal of entering more contests, and writing more short fiction. This is the second contest I have entered this year, after ABNA, and I am working on one final edit of my novel, An Untidy Affair, for a competition next month. No final decision on other competitions or contests but I'm looking around. There are lots to choose from. I just have to find the ones that are a good fit for me and for them.

So that's it for today. I have to get back to editing. But thanks for reading and I will see you next time.

Smash -- a new show on television

I discovered a new show on television this week. It's called SMASH and airs on NBC, I think on Monday nights. I remember seeing lots of ads for it several weeks ago before its premiere but I missed seeing it and the show fell out of my mind. And I don't remember seeing any ads for it recently.

But my daughter was watching in On Demand one morning this week as I was passing through the family room and I sat down for a moment and was quickly hooked.

That is what good writing and an interesting story can do.

There were several storylines introduced in the first episode -- I think four episodes have aired so far. At least that is how many I have now watched -- but they didn't seem crowded. The characters were interesting, though not always likeable, and the plots and sub-plots were believeable and fun. The writing was crisp and enjoyable. And the songs, both lyrics and music, were wonderful.

(Made me wish I had studied drama when I first went to college, which what I wanted to do in the first place. But I ultimately studied history, which, fortunately, I do love. But being on stage would have been wonderful, too.)

I really enjoy this show and plan catch it at its original time next week. And despite the great performances, it is the writing that pulls me it. It is so good, I rarely venture outside the universe the writers have created. It is crisp, which I said before, and moves at a good pace so that the viewer never gets bored. That is a real gift -- it put everything needed in a scene into that scene without extraneous material. It was well done.

Good writing always inspires me to work harder. It may not lead me to getting published any sooner but it truly doesn't hurt.

Gotta run. I'm reading through AN UNTIDY AFFAIR once more before I submit it to a contest. But in the meantime, thanks for reading.