I’m sorry, but it’s time to go back to basics. I have been receiving the most cuckoo for cocoa puffs query letters lately. It’s like watching a person shoot himself in the head instead of pitching his book. I can see the blood spatter on the wall.
I’ve said a zillion times: the letter has to be professional, but should give a sense of the writer’s style or sensibility. The letter should be three paragraphs: 1) introduce the project; 2) expand on it in an interesting way via the themes or good comps or most salient details (no plot points please!); and 3) your credentials. Writers often ask me, what if I don’t have any credentials? I always answer: get some! What if we can’t, they cry? It’s strange to think that you can sell a book before you’ve ever sold a story or an article. THough stranger things have happened. Nothing is impossible, but you will look a lot more attractive with some writing credentials. Remember too: We’re not best friends, this isn’t a grant proposal, and I’m not your therapist. In other words, don’t act too chummy, don’t be flat, and don’t tell me your life story. Less is more when query letters are concerned. Oh, and have a memorable and selling title — this goes a long ways.
If you want to send in a query letter, I’ll critique it. And I will be brutal. 😉
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I’m being extremely promiscuous with my reading. Is it me or is them. Until very recently I was a monogamous reader. One book at a time. And I almost never put one down until I finished it. ANd I never skimmed. Now, I’ve gone wild. I’m in the middle of three books (William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, Adam Haslett’s novel Imagine me Gone, Lucia Berlin’s short stories A Manual for Cleaning Women). I actually feel like I’m cheating on one when I’m spending time with another. Is there something wrong with me?
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: I developed my voice on this blog and it carried forward into my book. For one year, I tried to write the Bridge Ladies as a kind of New Yorker essay. No first person writing at all. Everyone I shared it with told me (in polite terms) that is sucked. My husband kept saying, you have to use your blog voice. (My husband initially discouraged me from blogging because of certain impulse control problems I’m known for, eventually he saw that it was becoming something amazing in my life.) I kept resisting; I couldn’t see my “blog voice” as having anything to do with The BRidge Ladies. But when I finally shifted to first person, the pages started coming to life, my sense of humor got engaged, and more important, I was able to write more deeply than I had been.
I was defending my decision not to go back into therapy to my husband today. The time. The money. But mostly the agony. For the first time in my life I’m happy with my misery. Do you feel me? I always went to therapy to change. Then I realized (after 30 years) that I was never going to change and was happy for “awareness”. Happy to stop acting out at every family gathering. Then what? Please don’t get me wrong I think therapy is critical for many people and most writers. But I’m no longer willing or able to jump down the well and climb my way out with a spoon. I’m okay with crying at the dry cleaner for “no reason.” I understand that given the chance to imagine the best or worst in something I will always go for the latter. I’m okay with the voices in my head. Though they could be a little nicer.
Betsy Lerner 