What do you say to an agent or editor when you don't have credentials?

First of all . . . we must have our priorities. Critter is in the Virgin Islands. He's traveling for the sake of St. Jude, so please follow him during his travels and let others know about Critter's cause. He'll be auctioned for St. Jude when his adventures are complete. Did you know that St. Jude operates mostly on donations alone. And that their DAILY operating costs are 1.5 million dollars per day!!!!! Yowza Yikesers!!!! So . . . spread the word about Critter and his cause so that we may be more likely to reach those who have the heart plus the resources to help the children of St. Jude.

In other writerly news . . . this is an awesome blog re: what to include in a query if you lack credentials. http://askaliteraryagent.blogspot.com/

A fly on the wall in the slush pile: Thoughts from agent, Elana Roth

Have you ever wished you could be a fly on the wall as a editor or agent goes through their query stash? Just to get a glimpse into what they are thinking . . . now that would be good info to possess. If only I had enough of this inside info I could be like . . . like a writing Jedi; enlightened, wise, and my likeness could be cloned into a pointy-eared action figure.

One nice thing about twitter is that you can "follow" agents and editors without looking like cRaZeD stalker. Sometimes you get a glimpse into what they are looking for or other nuggets of info that might make you a better writer or query-ster or you can get a better idea of what is going on in the world of publishing.

Yesterday Elana Roth, Agent at Caren Johnson Literary Agency, tweeted some of her "realizations" about her thoughts as she went through her query stash. I found them interesting, so I thought you might too. I've quoted a few of them, but you can head on over to the agency blog where she compiled her entire list. Click-ity, click right here to swoosh on over to Elana's post.

A few of Elana's Query Realization "Tweets"

• Slush Realization #1: I guess I'm just not a fan of non-human characters and narrators.
• Slush Realization #2: I really hate e-stationery.
• Slush Realization #3: If you hire someone to query on your behalf (don't), wouldn't you want them to have read my submission guidelines?
• Slush Realization #4: Sometimes people make up things so strange that classifying them as "fantasy" still doesn't help me understand them.
• Slush Realization #5: Apparently just saying "no thanks" can equal feeding the trolls. A rejection letter does not a dialogue opener make.
• Slush Realization #9: If an email doesn't LOOK cleanly formatted, I tend to think words-on-a-page might not be your thing.

A big thanks to Elana for allowing me to quote and link her tweets!

Why is a synposis harder to write than the whole dang book?

First, the good news. Over the weekend I finished the first round of revisions for the fast draft that I did as my NaNoWriMo project this past Nov. It's called Kiss The Frog. I love the story and I'm having fun with it. YaY! Now just a gazillion more revisions to go . . .and I can send it out. ;0)

Now that I'm done w/ that, I'm setting it aside for at least a couple of weeks and I decided to sparkle up the synopsis for my YA Fantasy titled UNSEEN. I just started sending it out. I have a synopsis, but I don't think it conveys enough of what makes the story unique. Unfortunately I have to do better than the doggie in above picture.

The synopsis is hard. It's really really hard. Why is that?

In my quest for a better synopsis/query, I found a great resource on Agent, Kristen Nelson's blog. She gives real queries that she received along with her reaction to them. These are all books/authors that she ended up representing. You'll find them a little ways down on her sidebar. There are about 9 queries from different authors. Very helpful. Thnx agent Kristen. U R dah BEST!

Anyone else have any good synopsis/query advice?