Wordsmithing: Query letters and commas.

Tuesday, 14 April 2009

Literary Agent for the day ... in a night!

I'm shattered!
I have just completed the seven hour stint over the slush pile - and my brain has turned to mush. I started working at 23:30 and this is now 06:11 but I did my 'agenting' in a day.
Obviously, the fact that I also drove 250 miles home, in stop/start traffic, before starting my day as a Literary Agent, probably contributed to the brain strain.
WAS IT REALLY WORTH IT?
Oh, yes!
I have learned that the query letter is more important than the book!
Infact, judging from my stint as a Literary Agent, I'd say the first paragraph of the query letter is make or break (as far as the 'wanna-be' author's career goes).

To anyone who commented on the book - thank you.

I am 'all over' the editing!
(It should give me something to do, as I appear to have missed the window of opportunity for sleep... for last night. However, I think it is time for a nice 'cuppa' tea and a re-write of the query letter first!!)

RETURN: YA Paranormal Romance

I was running late. But, it was nothing I couldn’t make up with a bit of effort. I shook my head. Confident and happy? I smiled. Increasing my stride, I pushed until the muscles in my legs burned. I kept up the pace even when the hill grew steeper.

Magpie Lane was hardly wider than a ribbon that edged the woods but that didn’t stop traffic using it to get to the motorway quicker. Large trucks and fast cars loved Magpie Lane. They sent vibrations running through me rising from the soles of my trainers. I felt the disturbance in the ground, even before the air pressure tried to knock me off balance. I hunched my shoulders as the cab hauling a container spat stones up at me.

Jogging on the spot, at the entrance to woodland, I ached to leave the road and go inside. My Mum was probably still asleep but I could hear her you-never-know-what might-be-in-there lecture buzzing on repeat inside my head. I should run safe. Not even I would argue that running through the woods on my own was the best definition of safe but I wanted to run-wild and the woodland offered me that. This early, I should be safe from axe murderers or perverts in the trees and besides, I was fast.

I jogged down the slope into the trees. From two paces in, I felt different. Freer. It felt so right. Running in the woods did great things for my style. Avoiding the roots and dodging branches forced my stride longer, I had to step higher. The woodland, The Weald, was only a sliver of ancient woodland that the developers forgot to build on but it felt like it could have been anywhere. Everywhere. At any time. The oaks and beech trees dominated the space and the skinny, silver-birches squeezed up beside them. I laughed. For a second, the woods reminded me of school and I needed to run a lot faster.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2009

Literary Agent for the day ... in a night!