Click on over and check it out! And don't forget that we have a Mystery Editor Contest coming up Dec. 1!
Showing posts with label query. Show all posts
Showing posts with label query. Show all posts
I'm on Operation Awesome today, with a successful query example and a call for queries to critique!
Click on over and check it out! And don't forget that we have a Mystery Editor Contest coming up Dec. 1!
Click on over and check it out! And don't forget that we have a Mystery Editor Contest coming up Dec. 1!
I'm over on Operation Awesome today with our latest query critique! Please go check it out and offer some support for our brave volunteer, Maribeth Graham!
On September 16, we put out a call on Operation Awesome for brave souls who would like to have their query critiqued, and today (September 23) is the last day to enter! The winner will be emailed and tweeted with the news on the 24th, and the query with comments will go up on September 30.
If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, go enter! And good luck!
If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, go enter! And good luck!
Our second query critique is up on Operation Awesome today if you'd like to check it out! After you read this riveting blog post here, of course.
My husband and I went to Westercon over the weekend, and although he refused to dress up like Commander Ryker (hey, I was willing to try for Deanna Troy) we had a good time.
This was the first fan con that I've been to; I generally do writers' conferences and then I did a storytelling conference years ago. I only found out about Westercon because my friend Karen Sandler posted on Facebook that she was going to be on some panels there. And good thing she did, because otherwise I would have missed out on getting her to sign my book (yes, we do see each other outside of conferences, but I don't always carry a copy of her book around with me, lol).
Awakening is the second book in Karen's YA trilogy, which started with Tankborn, and now I'm re-reading Tankborn to refresh my memory before diving into book two.
I attended most of the panels to do with writing and publishing (found out about Westercon too late to sign up for the writer's workshop), many of which were concentrated on self-publishing, e-pubbing, and small presses. Got some great links and resources out of it, but I'd like to add some resources of my own here . . .
One of the panels was on using sf/fantasy in the classroom and they talked about K-12, but I noticed that most of the books they were talking about for the high school level were titles like Farenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World. Valid books, all, but I must've not been the only one who noticed that the most recent book they mentioned was written 25 years ago because another audience member asked for more recent YA sf titles.
And the panel was stumped (they said they don't deal with YA as much). It was as they were wrapping and I didn't have a chance to speak up, but I did go up to the person who had asked the question and provided some YA sf titles that I'd read:
Beth Revis's series (starts with Across the Universe)
Veronica Roth's series (starts with Divergent)
James Dashner's Maze Runners series
Mike Mullin's Ashfall series
Paolo Bacigalupi's series (starts with Ship Breakers)
Scott Westerfield's Uglies series and Leviathin books
Marie Lu's series (starts with Legend)
Marissa Meyer's series (starts with Cinder)
Feed by M.T. Anderson (this one's actually on my TBR list)
There are so many more, of course, but these are the ones that occurred to me during the panel or right afterwards. If there was a Westercon in Sacramento in the near future (it moves to different cities), I'd definitely be proposing a panel on YA sf and fantasy!
Saturday was the masquerade but we left well before it started. I did manage to catch a few cool costumes with my camera phone though:
Would like to have seen what else people came up with, but I was tired from only two days of this! Kudos to the people who stuck it out for all four days. Since it's only about a 40 minute drive from our place, we opted to do the day trip thing.
So who would you have dressed up as, if you had unlimited time and money to make a costume?
My husband and I went to Westercon over the weekend, and although he refused to dress up like Commander Ryker (hey, I was willing to try for Deanna Troy) we had a good time.
This was the first fan con that I've been to; I generally do writers' conferences and then I did a storytelling conference years ago. I only found out about Westercon because my friend Karen Sandler posted on Facebook that she was going to be on some panels there. And good thing she did, because otherwise I would have missed out on getting her to sign my book (yes, we do see each other outside of conferences, but I don't always carry a copy of her book around with me, lol).
Awakening is the second book in Karen's YA trilogy, which started with Tankborn, and now I'm re-reading Tankborn to refresh my memory before diving into book two.
I attended most of the panels to do with writing and publishing (found out about Westercon too late to sign up for the writer's workshop), many of which were concentrated on self-publishing, e-pubbing, and small presses. Got some great links and resources out of it, but I'd like to add some resources of my own here . . .
One of the panels was on using sf/fantasy in the classroom and they talked about K-12, but I noticed that most of the books they were talking about for the high school level were titles like Farenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World. Valid books, all, but I must've not been the only one who noticed that the most recent book they mentioned was written 25 years ago because another audience member asked for more recent YA sf titles.
And the panel was stumped (they said they don't deal with YA as much). It was as they were wrapping and I didn't have a chance to speak up, but I did go up to the person who had asked the question and provided some YA sf titles that I'd read:
Beth Revis's series (starts with Across the Universe)
Veronica Roth's series (starts with Divergent)
James Dashner's Maze Runners series
Mike Mullin's Ashfall series
Paolo Bacigalupi's series (starts with Ship Breakers)
Scott Westerfield's Uglies series and Leviathin books
Marie Lu's series (starts with Legend)
Marissa Meyer's series (starts with Cinder)
Feed by M.T. Anderson (this one's actually on my TBR list)
There are so many more, of course, but these are the ones that occurred to me during the panel or right afterwards. If there was a Westercon in Sacramento in the near future (it moves to different cities), I'd definitely be proposing a panel on YA sf and fantasy!
Saturday was the masquerade but we left well before it started. I did manage to catch a few cool costumes with my camera phone though:
So who would you have dressed up as, if you had unlimited time and money to make a costume?
Labels:
awakening,
costume,
critique,
fantasy,
karen sandler,
oa today,
query,
sci-fi,
science fiction,
tankborn,
Westercon,
YA,
young adult
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comments
If you'd like your query critiqued by Yours Truly, head on over to Operation Awesome by June 30 and enter the Rafflecopter. One name will be randomly chosen to have their query critiqued on the OA site!
Amazon will open soon for entries for the 2012 Breakthrough Novel Award--are you ready? Here are the quick details from their website:
"The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award brings together talented writers, reviewers, and publishing experts to find and develop new voices in fiction. The 2012 international contest will award two grand prizes: one for General Fiction and one for Young Adult Fiction. Each winner will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $15,000 advance.
Open submissions for manuscripts will begin on January 23, 2012 and run through February 5, 2012."
One of the most important components of your entry is the pitch, and I thought I'd round up some web pages with useful advice on pitches, and the related query summary:
Have to start out with Pitch University; so much good stuff squirreled away in the articles and case studies!
Nathan Bransford has many concise, helpful blog posts on crafting a pitch, but his post on "The One Sentence, One Paragraph, and Two Paragraph Pitch" handily combines his advice in one place.
The Absolute Write Water Cooler forum has a Query Letter Hell section in Show Your Work, and it is a crash course in what works and what doesn't in a query.
And see that blogroll I have in the sidebar? Hit all those blogs and do a search for "queries" and "pitches", and you'll find a gold mine of information from agents, editors, and writers. Even doing a search on Google will yield some worthwhile sources.
Good luck to those who enter--and even if you don't enter, it's a great excuse to polish your pitch!
(clip art source)
without posting something to the blog! I was sick over the weekend and am still getting caught up on things, but I have been playing around with a video book pitch. It's hard to condense an entire book, and I was looking around for examples. Stumbled on this video, which has 50 ultra-condensed book summaries:
Okay, technically they're spoilers, but it's a really quick way to get a feel for the important bits of a book. And I loved their comment on Breaking Dawn, hee hee.
Okay, technically they're spoilers, but it's a really quick way to get a feel for the important bits of a book. And I loved their comment on Breaking Dawn, hee hee.
I sent out my queries for Spirits from the Vasty Deep today; everybody cross their fingers for me!
Here's the "meat" of the query I sent out:
As a child, Olivia Herald encounters a malevolent spirit that is beyond any that she has perceived before—one that is so strong it can take physical form and harm the living. After that traumatic experience, she turns her back on her powers to communicate with the dead, fearing any contact with the spirits will expose her to further peril.
Years later, Olivia inadvertently creates an entire ship's worth of sinister spirits by causing the destruction of the Empyreal and its crew. The men are not entirely blameless; after all, they raped and murdered her companions, and intended to do the same to Olivia. An escape attempt is her only option, and she couldn't foresee that the fire she starts as a diversion will doom the Empyreal and its crew.
But now the ghostly crew wants retribution, and so do the authorities. While the prospect of a death sentence hangs over her, Olivia must rekindle her abilities to speak with the dead for the final reckoning with the vengeful Empyreal's crew.
Here's the "meat" of the query I sent out:
As a child, Olivia Herald encounters a malevolent spirit that is beyond any that she has perceived before—one that is so strong it can take physical form and harm the living. After that traumatic experience, she turns her back on her powers to communicate with the dead, fearing any contact with the spirits will expose her to further peril.
Years later, Olivia inadvertently creates an entire ship's worth of sinister spirits by causing the destruction of the Empyreal and its crew. The men are not entirely blameless; after all, they raped and murdered her companions, and intended to do the same to Olivia. An escape attempt is her only option, and she couldn't foresee that the fire she starts as a diversion will doom the Empyreal and its crew.
But now the ghostly crew wants retribution, and so do the authorities. While the prospect of a death sentence hangs over her, Olivia must rekindle her abilities to speak with the dead for the final reckoning with the vengeful Empyreal's crew.
So I have emerged from days of query hell with the following blurb:
As a child, Olivia Herald encountered a malevolent spirit that was beyond any that she had perceived before—one that was so strong that it could take physical form and harm the living. The traumatic experience led her to turn her back on her powers to communicate with the dead, fearing that any contact with the spirits would eventually expose her to the same kind of peril.
Now, years later, Olivia has inadvertently created the same kind of sinister spirits—an entire ship's worth. Her actions leading up to their deaths were justified in her mind; after all, the crew had just raped, tortured, and murdered her companions, and meant to do the same to her. Her only option was escape, and she couldn't have known that the fire she started as a diversion would doom the Empyreal and its crew.
But the ghostly crew feels differently about her role—and unfortunately so do the authorities—and now Olivia will have to face up to the consequences of her actions. That will mean a trial, with a hanging if she's convicted, and taking up her powers once again for the final reckoning with the vengeful Empyreal's crew.
I think this one is a winner--but then each of the stinkers before this one also had a point where I thought they would do the job. Comments welcome!
As a child, Olivia Herald encountered a malevolent spirit that was beyond any that she had perceived before—one that was so strong that it could take physical form and harm the living. The traumatic experience led her to turn her back on her powers to communicate with the dead, fearing that any contact with the spirits would eventually expose her to the same kind of peril.
Now, years later, Olivia has inadvertently created the same kind of sinister spirits—an entire ship's worth. Her actions leading up to their deaths were justified in her mind; after all, the crew had just raped, tortured, and murdered her companions, and meant to do the same to her. Her only option was escape, and she couldn't have known that the fire she started as a diversion would doom the Empyreal and its crew.
But the ghostly crew feels differently about her role—and unfortunately so do the authorities—and now Olivia will have to face up to the consequences of her actions. That will mean a trial, with a hanging if she's convicted, and taking up her powers once again for the final reckoning with the vengeful Empyreal's crew.
I think this one is a winner--but then each of the stinkers before this one also had a point where I thought they would do the job. Comments welcome!
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