Queries . . . as Difficult as Fiction

I’ve spent the better part of the week at the dentist’s office. Well, not really. In reality, I’ve wrestled with the task of writing sales pitches to literary agents. Trust me; it feels similar to a root canal.

So far, I have braved the publishing jungles on my own—sans professional guidance. I query major publishing houses; I get rejected. The process has become predictable, if nothing else. In the beginning, I calculated that I had enough fight and stamina for one book. But I am getting tired, and new story ideas are coming out my nose. Soliciting agents seems a necessary evil. Not that agents are evil—let me make that clear to any agent reading this piece—it's just that the solicitation process is hell.

My luck within the industry thus far looks something like this: I have adorned my least crippled foot in the most outrageously expensive shoe; immediately upon unveiling such priceless combo, it is run over by an overweight semi-truck and trailer. Once a thing of beauty, now lie in an unrecognizable pool of patent leather poop.

It is because of this drab—and so far fruitless—task that I detoured from my usual genres. Adult fiction is not my thing, but amusement was necessary in order to resurrect my flat-lined heartbeat earlier this week. I thought I’d extend the hilarity of a paragraph I worked up. You can thank me later; I prefer dark chocolate—from Belgium.

REMOVED FOR PUBLICATION

There you have it. Magically, the queries don't seem all that bad now.