Hostage

My phone says ding-a-ling-a

I stare, my heart, it skips a beat

In its frantic tarantella

I wonder what my captor

The reason for my hearts erratic rhythm

Will ask me to do now

Shall I answer?

What will I do? Lie? Act Normally?

What will he decide after the brief ponder?

He gestures with his armed hand.

Oh, terrifying firearm!

for me to stand.

I scramble to my feet

So I shall pick up

I walk with heavy feet

As I reach with my hand, I realize

One word, one frightened breath on the receiver

It will bring my certain demise.

This thought caused the plastic handle

To weigh a million pounds

My lips feel like wax from a candle.

How can I speak,

when I can’t taken in a breath of life?

Will my life be taken by this creep?

The worst was I could have done more,

To prevent this end

Why didn’t I lock the damned door!?

Query Letters (Part 1)

I received a question from a fellow aspiring writer, it was about query letters. As you may know I hardly consider myself an expert on the subject, but as I began to think about it I realized that I know a whole lot more now than I did when I first began. My nature of over-studying and trying to ask more questions than I think I need to ask has taught me a lot about writing a query letter, and the delivery of that query letter.

  First off my advice to newer writers is study!! Read books on how to write query letters, on what to do and what not to do. Then find your prospect agents or publishers and then you need to study more!! I know right about now you would say that being told to study is not what you want to hear, you want me to tell you exactly what you need to do, well unfortunately every genre requires a different approach, fiction, non-fiction; what level you’re writing, child, middle school, young adult, adult and it’s sub category, college level, average intelligence, or a specific field. Which is why there are so many reference books on the subject, and the rules keep changing every year. What I tell you now may be different by the time you read this. So what am I blogging about? Well, I’m going to tell you how I get ready to write a query letter, I am not saying this is the only way to go about it, or even if this is the best way to do it, this is just what I do.

  Let me set up the situation. Let’s say that I have a story called “Understandable” (I have no such book, this is just for an example) it’s an urban fantasy (aka. a fantasy story that takes place in our world as to opposed a fantasy that take place in its own world, like Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) The main character is…a dwarf named…White, (hey, I’m making this up as I go, so stop snickering.) White works in the mines when he returns home to see a lovely lady dressed as a traveling apple sales woman, (wait for it) she’s a powerful sorceress in disguise, and she has come to the dwarf for shelter. This is an unusual occurrence as you may expect, but White lets her in, and that night she explains that she just caught wind of a plot to kill the queen, so she was on her way to stop them, hence the disguise. White offers his help as a….guide (I guess), she says thanks but no thanks, the sorceress refuses the food White offers her, saying she can only eat the apples she has with her, for they are the key to her strength. The next morning however, White and the sorceress find the basket with the fruit has been stolen, and the sorceress will die if they are not found, and the day for the planned murder of the queen is drawing near, and they need to do all of this while keeping themselves hidden from the other people of this world: the Ordinaries (that’s us)….White goes to his seven cousins for help and together they save the sorceress.

  So what do I do first after the story is written and edited?

I go and find agents and publishers that might be interested in this kind of thing. I write out an index card for each company or agent with all their important information.

Side One:

                (1)White (2)great    other project okay                         

       

        (3) 1.16.10                 11.12.07 (4) NO

(5) Fantasy Agency

(6)Aurora Kingly

(7)Fantasy@Imadeitup.com

or Aurorafantasy@Imadeitup.com  

(8) Fantasy Agency

212 I Make It Up St.

New York, MY 99999

Explanation

(1)    I list the books I am currently searching for agent for; usually I am looking for more than one book at a time.

(2)    I make a note at how well I think my project fits the agency or publishing house in question.

(3)    I note the date that I sent the agency the query letter.

(4)    I write down “NO” when I get a refusal or no response so that I can avoid sending a query to the same place twice.

(5)    Next I list the agency name.

(6)    I list the name of the person I wish to contact; there may be more than one noted person in the company, if possible I narrow it down so that I send it directly to my desired agent or publisher.

(7)    I write down the company email and/or the specific email of the person I wish to contact.

(8)    The final thing on this page is usually the physical address of the agency or publishing house.

Side 2

(1)    Picture books, fantasy, Short Stories

(2)    Q letter Snail Mail with 1^st 5 pages & synopsis along with SASE.

(3)    Q letter with QUERY & work title in email subject with 1^st 5 pgs and synopsis of work NO attachments. WILL REPLY, if none, email again.

Explanation:

(1)    I list the preferred genres of the company, or specific person I’m going to be sending the query to, in some cases, they list only what they don’t want sent to them in which case I list those instead with NO at the beginning of the list.

(2)     I note how they wish the query letter to be sent by mail. Since I am pressed for space I use a mix of my own shorthand, and the generally accepted slang of the writing world. Q letter, meaning they want a standard query letter, which is only one page long. Snail mail, which is regular mail; a lot of agencies will not accept UPS, or other deliveries and will not even let it in through the door. Some will ask for the first few pages from your work, it can be anywhere from the first five to the first fifty pages of the work, depending on the genre. They could also ask for a synopsis, which is basically a summary of the entire book condensed to around three pages for a “Short Synopsis” or around ten pages a “Long Synopsis” they may or may not specify what kind of synopsis they want and you’re left to guess. A SASE is a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope, a lot of companies will not pay for postage to send you a rejection or an acceptance, so you need to send an envelope addressed to yourself with a stamp, even then some do not guarantee a response.

(3)    This is where I note the recommended mode of sending the query by email. Most agencies and publishing companies get a lot of spam, so even if they don’t require it, it’s best to put QUERY in the subject line of your email, with your book title. Most of them are paranoid of viruses, and do not open attachments, so anything that they ask you to send along with the query you should paste to the email, they will most often request it but even if they don’t, you should do it anyways. Some will guarantee a response and will ask you to email another query after a given period of time, because if you didn’t get a response, they accidentally deleted it, or it got lost. Most are not so kind. Most of them will give you a time span of days to expect a reply, and then if they exceed it, you are to assume it to be a refusal.

So, this is how I start my query letter adventure, I think this post is long enough for one day, I’ll be posting more on this subject another time.

Friday - Again

Today my first Avon order arrived, YAY! I’m so happy, and today I went to an audition. Everything is so exciting! I guess I have trust issues with the internet. Since all of these things, the rehearsal and the Avon order were all on-line, I had this bad feeling in my gut, like it all wasn’t real. I mean come on, this is the same internet that we play video games, and keep up with friends on facebook, it seems to go against logic that you can use it for serious things too. I’m always really pleased when something works out that started on the internet. While I do print out directions from the internet, they usually get something wrong, which is probably why I have distrust for things posted on the internet in general. The whole thing could be a hoax after all, my brother would have had gotten a job by now if the internet was reliable the way people like to pretend that it is, yet here I am working my job through the internet, sending query letters for my book on-line, finding auditions, and keeping up with my favorite bands on their websites, because we all know how important that is to me. Now that I have gone to the audition, spoken to real people and received my Avon order, I’m feeling so much more relaxed with the whole idea of the internet… getting directions still sucks though.

My Puppy

Whenever I’m feeling like the entire world doesn’t understand me, or I think there is something wrong with me, I confide in my dog. He always makes me feel better. He still wiggles and waggles the same way he did when he was a puppy, which is really comical because he’s so big now.
He still loves to rub up against me; it almost makes me fall down. I keep telling him not to do that, one of these days he’s going to land me on my ass, but he doesn’t care, he just wants to be close to me. It’s sooo sweet!!
I still adore him just as much as I did when he was smaller than our little dog: Tippy; now if he stands on his hind legs he can kiss me on the mouth, though I’ve told him not to do that, ‘cause he’s a dog and that’s grows. I love, love, love, love him!
He likes to sleep beneath my bedroom window, so if the window is open and I’m listening to songs on my computer I can hear him sigh. These sighs are superbly timed, they always occur every time an angry rock song ends, then I play something softer, and I don’t get any comments from the doggy peanut gallery. I guess he doesn’t care for screaming and guitar solos.
So, I love him, he loves me, and all is right with the world!

Merlin, my puppy!

Traitor

Dolorous held the crystal goblet up to the light, which caused the dark liquid within to shine burgundy. Reaching across her work table she filled a small syringe with dragon’s blood and began to slowly add the blood to the concoction. Dragon’s blood has multiple functions; most of them are for healing. However, that’s not what she needed it for this time. Her mother had been a healer for the king before he was overthrown by a rival kingdom bringing her family down to the level of peasantry. After the fall of the true king, ignorance and fear took the place of knowledge and exploration of the natural world and its properties. Now, the act of healing, once a revered art, now was seen of nothing short of magic, people grew to fear healers and one night during Dolores’s thirteenth year, her mother was seized by some villagers and dragged behind a chariot until she breathed no more. The reason behind it was some of the crops had failed due to a drought and they had blamed her mother.
Ever since then Dolorous had dreamed of fighting the establishment, and hopefully restoring peace and learning to her homeland. She knew things were going to get worse before it got better, and she had been right, a civil war brought out more fear and panic, but at least someone was trying to do something. She had joined the rebelling forces, willingly. She was not the only healer in the cause; in fact most of the rebel forces were descended from well-educated people and had learned how to read before it became a mortal sin to do so. They were not the barbaric and brutish force who rapped women and ate small children as the establishment would have like all their subjects to believe.
Dolorous added the dragon’s blood until the liquid turned a dark purple against the light. Filling a new syringe with the poison, she then poured wine into two more crystal goblets, and then began to add the poison to one of the glasses, until she knew it was fatal. Then holding the regular glass of wine and the poisoned one up to the light she carefully scrutinized it. There was no noticeable difference in appearance. Then she carefully smelled both of them, they both were the same. Then dipping her fingers in each she tasted both of them. Perfect. It was absolutely undetectable. She had been working on perfecting this poison for over four years. Now she was confident it was ready.
That was when she heard the distinct sound of a boot heel behind her.
She cursed beneath her breath just as someone seized her around the middle, then she felt a sharp object against her throat. She had thought she had been followed, earlier today, but she had felt sure she had shaken them off before she returned to her workshop.
She cursed again.
“For a lady, you sure do use a lot of foul language,” the intruder observed.
“Well, you would know all about being foul,” she retorted wrinkling her nose, his breath smelled like rotten everything.
There was a sound of an arrow and she felt the man gasp before he fell dead at her feet, nearly taking her down with him.
Turning around she saw her bodyguard holding a bow in hand.
“That was awfully close,” she said to him.
“You’re alive aren’t you?” He replied coolly.
Rolling her eyes, she went back to work as the bodyguard dragged the corpse out of the room.