Making it Yours

There is nothing quite like the high you feel after finishing a draft. The draft. The one that agents and editors have requested to see. Thirty thousand words that shoot you flying high in a cloud because people other than your family can read it. And then...

The query.

250 words.

250 words that will suck you into a hole faster than mud.

250 words that will force you to use the other side of your brain, which has slowly shriveled away as you etched out thirty thousand.

I don't have a prescriptive formula. I don't have worksheets. There are plenty of other people on the net who have great resources, like Elana Johnson.

But after twelve hours of staring at the computer and multiple drafts of drivelous puke, the query that worked had something different than the others. It stood out above them.

Because I made it my own.

Much to the surprise of both sides of my brain, I wrote my query the same way I wrote my book. Draft after draft. After draft. After draft. Draft. Draftdraftdraft.

No formula. No worksheets. Just me, showing them what they need to know.

So now I can go fly high again. Until I have to send them out this week. But that's another story...

How is your query process going? Are you ready to? Or thankfully done with it?