The Wildly Eclectic Me

I think I've got my query letter pretty well perfected now. :-D Thanks so much to everyone who offered me feedback. You guys rock!

I was playing with Nathan Bransford's formula for writing queries as a way to get myself started and came up with this. Let me know what you think. Dear Mr. Bransford: I first learned of you through your blog. It’s one of the most amusing publishing blogs I’ve read. I chose to submit to you because of your interest in a wide variety of genres and your fantastic sense of humor. Blood and Violets is a 66,000 word paranormal romance laced with both action and sharp wit. It not only delves into the romance of Marie and Alexander, but chronicles the birth of a group of dark magicians in an internet chat room called Carpe Sanguis who are out to - yes, that's right- "seize the blood" of vampires for their rituals, and their target is Alexander. Alexander is a vampire who wants to make Marie his protégé. Marie is a snarky Southern girl, who just wants him to let her go home and get back to her normal life. When things heat up between the two of them, it becomes obvious t...

A vampire looking for a protégé finds more than he bargains for in a snarky, butt-kicking southern girl. Hmm... He wants a protégé, and she wants for him to let her go home, but neither of them are going to get exactly what they think they want. Hmm...

All of these are not actually Lean Cuisines. Some of them are smart ones. Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan - This one wasn't something to write home to Mom about. There wasn't a lot of flavor and what their was wasn't that great. I like that there are more veggies in the dinnertime selections, but these were lacking a great deal of flavor. I really wish they'd get some more dinnertime selections because they don't have many and what they do have aren't that exciting. Lean Cuisine Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Panini - I couldn't find this one on their site so there isn't a link. I had high hopes for it, but it fell short. The bread had a kind of sweet cinnamony flavor to it. I didn't like that combined with the egg and sausage flavors. Smart Ones Orange Sesame Chicken - This one could have used some saltiness to balance out the sweet of the orange sauce. All and all it was Delicious though. I just saw that Lean Cuisine is selling an orang...

Not at sale at all of course, but Arianna passed the first step at Elora's Cave/Cerridwen Press!!!! It's been sent on to an acquiring editor for review. Yay!!! I'm like shakey with glee. hehehe Oh and yesterday I ran a mile in 10 minutes!!!! I then almost passed right out, but hey at least I did it. ;) I'm feeling very accomplished today!

*fingers crossed* Ugh I hate submitting! It makes my tummy ache!

Well when you've tried everything else with your query letters...why not? Okay, I'm not seriously going to send this to anyone, but this program is so fun to play with I had to do this too.

Help! I'm working on getting my stuff submitted instead of letting it just sit on my computer. I would LOVE your opinions and desperately need your help to make it the best possible query letter. So let me have it! Tear it apart. Don't be shy. I can take it! If you hear sobbing in the background as you tell me how bad it is, just ignore that...it's only the wind. Really, the wind! ;-D Feel free to email me if you don't want to leave a comment. :-D You'll have my undying gratitude should you decide to help me in this. :-D And you'll be saving me from the horrific embarrassment of ending up as #queryfail fodder! So here it is! My Query Letter in Progress for Arianna Penndragon ... When the future adviser to the dragon king and a cross-dressing vampire warrior must work together to save a stolen princess, there’s nothing that can stop them, unless it’s the fact that vampires and dragons have hated each other for centuries. It is the mid-twelfth century, an...

How long should one wait after the submission of a full, before you start worrying that perhaps it got lost in the shuffle somehow? The company website does not give an indication on fulls but says 12 weeks for queries. I worry that my email, which was being rather tumultuous recently, might have lost it. I'm sure it is just that they are very busy, but I'm a worrier. I certainly don't want to get labeled one of THOSE writers. So what do y'all think? How long should I wait before sending a polite inquiry? Thanks for your opinions!!!

Does anyone know anything about this company? I haven't heard anything about them from anyone who has had dealings with them, so I thought I'd pose the question in case anyone who happens across my blog has. Their covers are HEAVENLY! I know I shouldn't judge a publisher by its covers, but click on the link! They are beautiful.

Oh well, I guess I won't be getting a three book deal for my birthday. Just got a rejection from Samhain. I'm off to sulk now. :-( I am getting pink hair though! I just bought a kit that is guaranteed on even the darkest hair. It's fuchsia. I'm very excited.

Waiting for replies to submissions is so hard!!! Yes, I know I only submitted to Samhain last week. Yes, I know it says 8-10 weeks. *Goes back to clicking*

I just had a submission returned that did not have any correspondence in it whatsoever. I am not asking for a commentary, but in the very least a photocopied form letter would have been nice. Heck, a post it note with "You suck!" written on it would have at least been something... I can only assume that this was the submission I sent to an agent who had requested a partial. I just emailed said agent after waiting six months for a reply. In the email they sent back, there was a form letter saying they weren't interested. Now that's fine. At least I got a response. Still this returned submission could have at least had a little scrap of paper saying where it had been returned from. The original letter that I included was no longer with it so it could have been any number of submissions had it not come so soon after the email. Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but I found it a bit rude.

I just submitted a new zombie story to Strange Horizons. They declined The Shadow in the Glass Zombie Slaying 101 has got a little sick, twisted humor going for it. I hope they find it amusing as well! I think I'll put the story they declined and my fairy tale up on my websites free page. It needs more stuff!

Jeez, I'm a blogging fiend today! I just submitted a dragon short-story called "Fire and Water" by query to Echelon Press. Let's see what happens. *crosses fingers*

I submitted a short story to Strange Horizons Friday evening. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I wish everyone accepted web submissions like they do. It would make life so much easier and save so many trees. Surely the big publishing houses will figure out soon that the best way to deal with things is through email or other kinds of uploads. Let's say you build a program where you can have authors that would like to submit come in and upload a piece in whatever format you've asked them to. Then the program shoots off an email to the editors that need to review it and one to the author confirming that they have received the submission. Then the editor could go in and review it when they have time and either choose to ask for more of the work or it could generate a nice polite no thank you. That way nothing would get lost in the shuffle. I'm sure it would cut down on time by a lot too. Actually this is pretty similar to something we've been working on where I w...

I sent an e-query to BookEnds , LLC about a week ago and guess what??? They want to see more! I was so excited I actually squealed aloud at work! Jay, my cubicle neighbor, was a little concerned about me! I've been walking on a cloud all day. Not even the dentist visit and the promise of three fillings could bring me down! Okay, maybe it brought me down a little... Okay, it's not a sale by any means. It's not even a guarantee of representation, but at least its not a rejection!!! I am so excited!!!

Okay so Nelson Agency was not interested. On to greener pastures... What I'd really like is for some nice Fairy God(dess) Agent to flit down from the sky and hand me a three book deal. *wishes really really hard* Okay that didn't work. *hates writing hooks* I think I have now written about 200 hooks for Dana of the Whispering Wood and I hate them all! *Off to pout and work on queries*

Okay, I decided the way to go with publishing is finding a good agent, and so I went exploring on my good friend the internet and found Nelson Literary Agency . I really liked what the agent had to say so I sent a query letter. That was approximately two minutes ago and my heart is still racing. Let's hope it slows down enough that I can fall asleep sometime tonight! So here is to hoping, that she likes my query letter and loves my novel and finds a publisher within the month... What??? If we're hoping we can hope big, right??? My little Nicholai is snoozing beside me. He decided his bed was no place for him tonight and demanded a cuddle so, of course, I obliged. *heart still racing* Perhaps I should consider a night cap and some yoga! I just noticed something...At the bottom of blogger it offers me some suggestions for Labels for this post. Scooters is one of them. I wonder if it knows I like scooters or if it just picked random words. Speaking of scooters! I absolute...