I’d forgotten how obnoxious it is to have to stuff a 100,000 word novel into a couple hundred words for a query letter. I beat ♥My Book♥ to death last week, came up with a pitch I thought might work (and which Jason Black mightily improved) and then Ivy came back to me on Monday with, I don’t like this.
Monday night I got my first rejection, and Tuesday morning I got my second, neither one from my first-choice agent (so please, keep praying) and Tuesday mid-morning, I went online and started reading successful queries.
I’ve written successful queries before. I don’t know why I didn’t do this first, except that I’ve never really had a problem with the pitch. But after reading ten really good ones, I heard my new pitch.
Of course, it spoke itself to me while I was making lunch (don’t they all?) but right afterward I sat down and spit out the New Revised Awesome query. Awesome because it has what the other two didn’t have: the novel’s voice. It reads fast. And it’s funny in parts.
Meaning my first-choice agent is going to read the previous pitch, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. (Keep praying: maybe it got lost in the bit-bucket and I can resubmit.)
The other one wasn’t bad. But the new one sings.
At least, I’m flush with pleasure at it now (♥My Query♥) and will be delighted until Jason and Ivy return it to me looking like it’s been graffiti-tagged and is bleeding red ink.
That’s okay. Beating a manuscript (or a pitch) at this stage only makes it stronger.
Please pray that God leads me to the right agent, and the right agent to me.
