Querying and How Come There Are No Reality Shows About Aspiring Writers?

So last night I took a small break from the manuscript to work on my query letter. I figured that I'd start it by the time I finished the manuscript--in other words, I was avoiding doing it at any cost.

For a writer aspiring to be published, you can't NOT see 'Query Query QUEREEEH!' everywhere you turn. It's a daunting task, but necessary because that's your BEST shot at snagging a good agent. It's not like you can be discovered in the mall or anything. No agent is going to come up to you randomly in the street and say "Hey, you look like you're an awesome writer! Let's do lunch" unless they are REALLY intuitive--or just plain out of their minds.

We'll save stuff like that for America's Next Top Model.

Out of my fabulous skills of deduction (and being able to surf the intarw3bs) I figure that there are three main components to the query letter.

1. The Hook
2. A condensed synopsis
3.Writer's biography

I've got 1 and 3 down. It was pretty easy to get the hook down pat--took me maybe five minutes because I knew what the book is about.

Biography...simple. I haven't won any awards, but I've been writing all my life and when I was in the 12th grade, kids would go late to their classes to find me in the computer lab to get the next chapter of this vampire story I was writing. That was possibly one of the coolest experiences in my life. Of course I don't think I'll be mentioning that...but you get the idea.

Everyone bemoans how difficult the Ebil Query Letter is, but I figure if I approach it honestly, respectfully and with some knowledge of who I am and what I'm doing, I'll be alright.

So I've been practicing writing Query letters and I'm considering sending it query shark so I can totally get my arse pwned on the intarw3bs.


Alright, so the other thing that made the title of this blog, and this sentence really long:

Why hasn't someone come up with a reality show for writers? America's got Writers? American Writer, America's Next Top Author, The Writer, The Writette (yeah, not a word. I know) or Real Writer's of Orange County--you get the picture.

That'd be awesome. Well...for me it'd be awesome and they'd have weird competitions that have nothing to do with writing like, eating 'book worms' or swimming through a pile of books, or seeing how many times you can take getting stabbed with a pen or freshly sharpened pencil...oh yeah, I got a million of 'em!

I don't think America on a whole would be interested in that unless the writer's were some really hot girls with big boobs and the obligatory black framed glasses--mixed in with just enough 'angst' to keep them 'real'. They'd say things like : "In miasma of my cluttered soul" (whatever the HELL that means) just to sound credible and for someone to say "Oh..she's so deep".

Or if it were a guy, he'd were pants from Abercrombie & Fitch and have that little faux mowhawk thing on his head with some faded jeans, just loose enough not to be weird, but fitting enough to say "I will not conform!", he'll also wear those dark framed glasses to look smart AND trendy and he'll write things like "The blackbird dies and there is nothing but a puddle of miasmatic relief." And no one will know what it means, but in the fear of appearing stupid they'll just say "oh that was deep. He's so hot and sensitive." And then big boobed weird chick and Abercrombie & Fitch dude will hook up and...


wow...see what I meant about going off on a tangent?

Man, I'm already hating this imaginary show.