Rest in Peace..maybe

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I'm in mourning. For a pair of hiking boots. It's 4AM and I'm trying to remember if the garbage man came yesterday because I'm seriously considering retrieving them from the trash.

They're Tecnica trekking boots and I bought them at Eastern Mountain Sports near Lincoln Center in 1990. I was going hiking in Utah for the first time and I needed the real deal - no sneakers, no workout shoes. I wore them on Columbus Avenue to break them in, but they didn't really need it. From the moment I put them on it was love. From the moment I saw them. They were gray, with a little turquoise and some red - sounds hideous, but they were beautiful. And they made me feel strong. Capable. And tall.

I wore them in dozens of national parks from Acadia to Yosemite and though I considered getting new ones eight years ago when I prepared to climb Mount Kilimanjiro, I trusted my old Tecnicas and - don't laugh - I wanted them to climb Kili with me! They deserved it.

It was inevitable that I'd need new boots and I searched all over the internet for the same boots - or anything close. I was convinced that a new pair existed in a warehouse somewhere (along with the Big John jeans which were my faves and you can't get anymore. One day I'll blog about what you get when you search "Big John.") Anyway,about five years ago I bought Lowas. Very nice. German. (They know hiking.) All gray, very tasteful. What's not to like?

My old boots stayed in the closet. I loved looking at them. They reminded me of all the great places I'd been in them (don't worry...they didn't actually speak to me..)
So I started wearing them to walk the dog in the arboretum near my house. Ninety acres of woods, some wetlands, a narrow boardwalk through a swampy bit. It was perfect for my old boots - hiking light!

But this week there was a problem. Had I developed a limp? No, the bottom fell off the right boot. I looked at it in disbelief. I looked at it for two days actually before I made the decision that they had to go.

And now it's 4AM and I'm wondering if the garbage man came yesterday BECAUSE I WANT THEM BACK.

What's the thing you wish you'd never thrown out??

ON Queries about Queries

Yeah, it's one of the things you don't find out til later.

You've written a wonderful book, a marvelous book, and you're getting ready to write the cool acknowledgment page and sign up for an author photo.

Waaaait a minit. First you've got to get an agent. THAT you know. And to snag your perfect agent, you suddenly find out need to write a query letter. A--sales pitch. That perfectly (but briefly) describes you and your book so irresisitibly that you'll have agent offers filling your email and mailbox.

The query letter. In the annals of writing, it goes down with the dreaded synopsis as the scourge.

But hey--we've snagged Wendy Burt Thomas. She has a new book that'll answer it all for us. It's called: The Writers Digest Guide to Query Letters.
(And its not just for novels--it's got info on non-fiction, and short stories, and magazines.)

And we're getting a sneak peek.

HANK: Query letters. We all cringe. How make-or-break is a query letter to an aspiring author's career?

WENDY: Breaking into the publishing world is hard enough right now. Unless you have a serious "in" of some kind, you really need a great query letter to impress an agent or acquisitions editor.

Essentially, your query letter is your first impression. If they like your idea (and voice and writing style and background), they'll either request a proposal, sample chapters, or the entire manuscript. If they don't like your query letter, you've got to pitch it to another agency/publisher. Unlike a manuscript, which can be edited or reworked if an editor thinks it has promise, you only get one shot with your query.

I see a lot of authors who spend months (or years) finishing their book, only to rush through the process of crafting a good, solid query letter. What a waste! If agents/editors turn you down based on a bad query letter, you've blown your chance of getting them to read your manuscript.

It could be the next bestseller, but they'll never see it. My advice is to put as much effort into your query as you did your book. If it's not fabulous, don't send it until it is.

HANK: You know, my first query letter, which I loved, got no no no no from every agent I sent it to. It focused on the main character. The second one--which was about exactly the same book--focused on the plot hook. I think I only changed the first paragraph. And everyone said yes. It was the same book! How do you know you've got it right?


WENDY: That's a tough one. There are a few things that will help your chances of landing an agent. First, make sure your book idea is a match for the agencies you're pitching. Research some of the most recent books the agency represented.


Were they action-oriented (e.g. plot-driven) or character-driven? Your query will need to whet the agent's appetite based on his/her taste - and what they think your book will be about. If your book is plot-driven but your query focuses on sketching out the character, they'll likely get the wrong idea.

Second, learn from the feedback you get. Even rejections can be helpful - and get you closer to an acceptance. If all the agents are saying they like the character but not the fact that you set it in the 1980s, you might need to change that in your query - and manuscript. If they all simply say, "no thanks" without any feedback, it's probably a sign that you need to revise your query (and/or manuscript).


Thirdly, if you get a lot of positive responses ("Great concept - just not a fit for our agency") then don't give up. I think my co-author and I queried 30 or 40 agencies before we got an offer of representation on our first book. I see too many authors give up after trying only 10 or 12 agents.




HANK: What's the biggest lesson you've learned as a full-time writer?

WENDY: Seize every opportunity - especially when you first start writing. I remember telling someone about a really high-paying writing gig I got and he said, "Wow. You have the best luck!" I thought, "Luck has nothing to do with it! I've worked hard to get where I am."




Later that week I read this great quote: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." It's absolutely true. And writing queries is only about luck in this sense. If you're prepared with a good query and/or manuscript, when the opportunity comes along you'll be successful.



HANK: Okay, who wrote the bad letters? Do tell.

WENDY: I did! And that was such fun. I've read - and written! - so many horrible ones over the years that it was a little too easy to craft them. But misery loves company and we ALL love to read really bad query letters, right?


HANK: But--there are all these rules.One page. Your own voice. Big hook. Your platform. And then the final rule is--be natural. Ahhhhh...what should writers know?


WENDY: I want them to remember that writing is fun. Sometimes new writers get so caught up in the procedures that they lose their original voice in a query. Don't bury your style under formalities and to-the-letter formatting.


HANK: Full disclosure--my query letter is in this book! And it was really fun to see it. (I didn't let Wendy get her hands on the one that tanked.)


Wendy graciously says she'll come chat and answer your questions! So maybe she can give you some guidance.


And Jungle Red is giving away two copies of TWDGTQL to commenters we'll choose at random.


So ask away--and maybe you'll win answers to ALL your questions!

And how does your query letter start? Published authors--we'd love to know! Yet-to-be-published--have you figured that out yet?

(Thanks to Epicurienne for the typewriter photo!)

On our visual world

JAN: At Illumination night on Martha's Vineyard, everyone in Oak Bluffs decorates their Gingerbread houses with candle or electric-illuminated paper lanterns. On the last note of a sing-along concert at the Tabernacle, all the houses light up at once. Its a beautiful event that transports you to back to earlier, more innocent days.

As usual, this year, the massive crowd strolls down the streets oo-ing and aw-ing. But what was different was bottlenecks in pedestrian traffic as every single person, it seemed, stopped and photograph each house.

Even me -- which is weird, because I'm not a visual person. But I've got a new digital camera that I finally understand, so I used the night-setting to capture every little detail. Even as I was doing this, I was wondering what the hell I was going to do with ALL these photographs -- aside from including a few in my blog, of course.

Still, I snapped and snapped, as if to give purpose to the experience. And then I realized what was going on. In the old days of photography, you had a 24 or 36 frame roll of film. You had to be judicious in what you decided to photograph. Now that there's no film involved, there's no discrimation. Everybody just photographs everything

Because I'm both non-visual and a Luddite, I take the photos and they sit in my camera for months until I finally upload them to my computer where, for the most part, they remain, useless.

But everyone else, it seems, is incorporating photos into the communication of even the most minor events. For example, last week, we were cooking crabs that my daughter and her boyfriend, Mike had caught. He grabbed his digital camera, snapped the crabs before boiling and immediately emailed the photo to his parents in Houston. So clearly digital photography is altering all our lives. For good mostly (see link below to Roberta's terrific video) but as writer, I naturally worry about its long term effects. Eventually will we no longer need words to describe the world because everything little thing is communicated visually and instantly? Or am I an alarmist to believe there has to be a verbal loss for all this visual gain?

RO: Whoa, that's a lot to chew on. Yes, every picture tells a story, don't it? There is this absolute conviction some of us have that everything we do should be in a reality tv show, or least memorialized digitally. Now that I have a blog and a website, I find myself snapping away and asking others to take my pic. I didn't even have a photographer at MY WEDDING I'm so averse to pix! But people are more likely to spend a few seconds looking at something than they are reading something. So I'm guilty too. Maybe when I've written a few more books I'll have fewer pix on my website!

To your point about a verbal loss, I would hope that the picture serves as a headline, not a substitute for content. I know that's naive. Anyone who remembers the pic of Michael Dukakis in the tank knows that, But I can hope.

JAN: And in the-picture-as-headline-department, let me rave about Roberta's video - her trailer for her new book, Deadly Advice. Being the non-visual type, I'm tough on book trailers. I usually think they are too long and purposeless, but Roberta is making me rethink. This video is brief and intriguing Of course, that goes for the very concept behind her books -- advice columnist protagonist. Who can pass over the advice column in the paper? Who can't be drawn to Roberta's mysteries?

CHECK OUT her trailer either by clicking below for a QuickTime version or at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdYZMWzdxy4

And give me your thoughts on this increasingly visual world. Has anyone else but me noticed that no moment goes unphotographed anymore?