The Ever-Loving Query Letter, Revised

After I posted my original query letter, I had a feeling of embarrassment about it.  I kind of didn't want people to read it, and I thought that was weird, since it's supposed to get people excited about reading my writing.  I brushed it off at the time as another example of me judging myself too harshly and kept it up (it's still here, by the way, if you want to look at an example of a truly atrocious query letter).  But, being me, I couldn't just leave it at that.  I kept reading about query letters, and eventually, I found the Query Shark.  Suddenly, it became clear why I was so embarrassed about my query letter.  It just didn't do its job.  So I scrapped the old one and wrote this new one, of which I am much more proud.

All the terrible drafts.

Dear Agent, 

Thirteen-year-old Virginia has never seen a dead body before.  That is, not until she and her best friend Amelia are the only witnesses to the death of their friend Jeremiah.  Terrified of being blamed for the accident, Amelia convinces Virgina that they should hide Jeremiah's body and return to their lives as though nothing happened.

Lies don't come easy to Virginia, but she learns.  She longs to talk to someone about Jeremiah, but Amelia keeps a close watch on her, threatening to pin Jeremiah's death on Virginia if she tells anyone what she knows.  And there's a persistent voice in the back of Virginia's head, insisting that if she ignores the truth about Jeremiah long enough, her life will go back to normal. 

When Jonah, the dead boy's older brother, calls Virginia to talk about Jeremiah's disappearance, she can't resist.  She needs someone to talk to and Amelia's gone off the deep end.  Virginia doesn't tell Jonah her secret, but through their friendship, she does see the damage her lies inflict.  Jonah's family is collapsing under the strain of Jeremiah's disappearance.  He loses sleep worrying about what happened to the little brother he was supposed to protect. Virginia can't help wondering if the truth would help her new friend or drive him further into depression.

Virginia's lies grow more desperate as suspicions surrounding the girls stack up.  She worries that the end may be near, but she doesn't know how to prepare for it.  Will she find the courage to tell the truth?  Or will Jeremiah's death remain a secret forever?

Wasteland, 91K words, is my first novel. 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

Sincerely,

Rachel Wright 

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For sample pages, visit: rachelwritesabook.blogspot.com

"Write Drunk, Edit Sober": Ernest Hemingway's Writing Philosophy

Ernest Hemingway was famous for two things: writing and drinking.  So perhaps it's no surprise that his writing philosophy combines the two great constants in his life.  It's definitely no surprise to anyone who's ever read any of his books, except maybe The Old Man and the Sea.  Maybe.

Typing with one hand, holding a drink with the other.

While I the first book of his that I ever read was that very book, the first time I read and loved him was A Farewell to Arms.  Perhaps I felt a sort of kindredness with the protagonist in the story because we were both expatriates.   I was living in France at the time, in Dijon, and there was a rumor that the great writer had studied French in the same program that I was in.  While I hadn't really enjoyed The Old Man and the Sea (I was barely out of high school the first time I read it, and I think that I was just too inexperienced to really understand the book at that point in my life), I decided to give Old Hem another shot.  He did, after all, love Paris, so he couldn't be all bad.  I bought A Farewell to Arms in the Gare de Lyon while I was waiting for a train (I sort of think I was headed toward Berlin, oddly enough, because I was on my own, but I really could have been going anywhere, I suppose).  After I put the book down, I had changed my mind about Ernie.

In the following years, my love affair with Hemingway deepened.  I've read most of his books while living in various European cities, and I think that a big part of my connection to Hemingway draws from the fact that he was writing about expatriate life at the same time as I was experiencing it.  He so perfectly captured the loneliness and the excitement and the pureness of friendships between expats.  The Sun Also Rises.  A Moveable Feast.  These books were my expat bibles.

People who have read my work are always shocked to hear that I have been influenced by Ernest Hemingway.  His tight, concise style seems in direct conflict with my own style, which tends toward the verbose, often waxing emotional and quasi-poetic.  I think that people just roll their eyes and say, "You're probably influenced by Shakespeare and Stephen King too."  And it's true, when I'm writing, I totally ignore Ernie's spare voice.  But when I'm editing?  He is the heavy bird-of-prey on my shoulder saying, "Cut it.  Throw it to me."

Which leads me nicely to my point.  Hemingway once (supposedly) said, "Write drunk.  Edit sober."  And while I have no doubt that he meant the statement (at least partly) literally, that's not how I read it.  Personally, I'm a horrible writer when I'm tipsy, and if I ever gave it a shot when I was flat out drunk, I'm pretty sure it would be a horrible, rambling mess.

But what I think that Hem was getting at was this: the time to censor yourself is not when you are writing.  When you are writing, you should let yourself go, put on the page (or the screen) whatever comes into your mind, whether it makes logical sense or not.  We're talking stream-of-consciousness, wild and crazy stuff.  As though you are the drunk dude at the bar at the end of the night, hugging everybody and telling them how nobody loves him like his mother and it's been three years since the last time he got laid and he really hates his job because his office smells terrible.  Nobody is really interested in what he has to say, but HE is interested.  It means something to him.  And when he wakes up the next afternoon, he will wonder what the hell he was talking about.  He will wish he hadn't said certain things.  He will edit.

See what I'm saying?  More importantly, see what Ernie's saying?  He's telling you to let yourself go when you put pen to paper.  Follow your imagination wherever it takes you.  Enjoy yourself.  Make stupid jokes.  Bring in characters who don't belong.  Make up indiscriminate love affairs and ill-conceived antics and senseless crimes.   Fall in love with every word you write.  Become drunk with the power of creating your own universe, being the god of that universe.  If you censor yourself from the very beginning, you'll never get anywhere.

And then, when you've written the last word, get yourself a strong cup of coffee.  You're going to need it.  Now you've got to edit this mess.

Writing is fun.

Writing is fun!

I am working on a new short story.  I started writing it (or outlining it, I guess) before I finished editing my novel, but I was distracted.  Editing is sort of the opposite of writing.  It's all about restraint and a critical eye (I am working on another blog post about this very subject, so look for that soon).  Writing is about letting yourself go, openness and appreciation for every idea that flits through your mind.

Which is why I am so excited now.  When I was editing, I was frustrated.  My creative instincts felt stifled, and I had to force myself to keep going.  But now I remember why I love this job.  It's letting my imagination go nuts, creating something totally new, something that came out of my brain, through my hand, onto the page (or the screen).  It didn't exist before, and now it does, solely because of me.  I made it, and only I could have made it.

And that is exciting.

Onward!!

This book is riding into the sunset. It's been a really, really long day.

Ah, dear readers, today I am truly content.  Because today -- only moments ago, in fact, I finished the final draft of my novel.
Yes, I am aware that I have made this claim before.  I am aware, too, that in the event of acquisition by an agent/publisher, more edits will be made to this piece of work.  But those are edits to be made in another time, and more importantly, at least in part, by another person.  As for me, I am finished.
I am sure that the novel is not yet perfect.  I know for a fact that if I were to look at it again tomorrow, I would find a hundred new problems to fix.  I could edit this novel for the rest of my life and never be completely satisfied.  Because as I grow as a writer, and as a person, my goals for my work will also shift, my expectations grow, my red pen (actually, I use a hot pink pen for editing) scribble liberally.  I would be like that director in the movie "Synecdoche, NY," every day saying to myself, "NOW I know what to do!  Now I can make my novel perfect!"
It will never be perfect.  And while I'm trying to make it perfect, I'm losing precious time I could be using to write something new, something that excites me, something that obsesses me, something that I'm not sick to death of the sight of.  So that's what I intend to do.
Expect new stories soon, reader.  Expect rants about how much I hate having writer's block.  Or about how many different choices I have for what to write next.  Or about not knowing what I want to communicate with my new novel.
Yes, friends.  The best part about being done with the old novel is getting to write a new one!