Query, Query, Quite Contrary!

Alright, honestly now, I know I haven’t written anything for the blog in four days. Don’t rub it in… I’ve been really trying to focus my attention on writing a query letter for Wilson Mooney. HARDER THAN I THOUGHT! I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but every turn I’m taking just doesn’t seem capture the whole picture.

How do I write about a seventeen year old girl stuck in a boarding school, who is so in love with her twenty-three year old, government teacher that she willing to lose her virginity to him? How do I get the fact across that he wants her just as bad, but not until she’s over eighteen? I can’t forget the tension of her narcissistic roommate. I have to make sure I push the blade of the knife deeper in the wound of Wilson’s non-existent family, while she cascades deeper in love with Max’s. All while keeping their relationship a secret… Whew! It’s tough to wrap a 91K word novel in 250 words or less. Trust me, nobody said it was easy.

There is something my dad used to say when I was a kid. “If it was easy, than everyone would do it.” Actually he used to say, “If it was easy, he’d get Trinity to do it.” (She was the neighbor down the street that was about 5 years younger than me.) When I wanted to give up or do a half-ass job, my dad would nudge me with the words of his parable wisdom. As much as I bitched about getting the job done, in the end, I knew he was right. (Thanks dad)

But you know what? That’s how life is. We get challenged because if we weren’t, what would drive us to get better? Walls exist for us fall from, attempt to climb and scale until we get over them. How else do we learn how far we are willing to go? If I spend my entire life trying to dig under it, or find a shortcut around it, one day I will look back and regret not trying. I don’t have time for regrets like that.

Writing a query is a speed bump on the road to being published. I know that, but now I need to decide if I want to slowly roll over it, or punch the gas. I wonder what Trinity would do?