In Which I Talk Like a Truckdriver (sort of ) about Added and Deleted Pools and Neglected Blog Posts

in my pool...

I refuse to look at the last time I blogged... it's not pretty.

I know I tossed a Friday Feedback about how to not write query letters up here completely pointlessly  not too long ago, but how did it get to be the end of October?

Forgive me. Life's been busy.

There's the boy we sent off to college.

this is me with said boy this weekend during Parents Weekend.

And the furry, 8-week old child we got for our other boy to replace help mask the daily loss of his brother in our household.

this is him. He's 16 weeks now. His name is Charlie.
He's a fucktonne of work, but we like him.

There's been the effort to soak in the last open water swims before the water freezes my metaphorical balls off turns way too cold...

Me last week, with my dear friend and "Polar Pod"
cohort, Annmarie.

and the effort to find a new yoga/Pilates studio, even though I effing hate struggle through yoga these days, because I know, just know, it is good for me and I should.

There's, of course, still my part-time "lawyer" work, plus the constant effort to just freaking finish it would you?!?! write a "right" next book that my editor might fricking-for-the-love-of-God-please-just-take love, now that THE SUMMER OF LETTING GO is on the verge of release.

Purdy, right?

(In case you haven't seen it starting to pop up around the web, there it is... well, in the Advance Review softcover version... the actual March release will be in hardcover. Btw, it's getting some Holy-balls! Amazing awesome early reviews. If you want to check them out, you can find them HERE. Also, my uber wonderful new publisher, Algonquin Young Readers, is looking for blogger and reviewer readers to provide feedback on the four of five Spring 2014 AYR books that are now up on NetGalley.

THE SUMMER OF LETTING GO is there by request.

Also, while you're here and in case you haven't, "like" the AYR facebook page and follow them on twitter!)

Anyway, that's some of what's going on... there's my other son's basketball and social life to work around, my husband's singing to listen to and support, and, and, and, and well, yeah, I'm just rattling off lame excuses.

Anyway, last night, after missing several days of open water swimming, I took my first plunge of the season back into the stupid effing  indoor pool. 

I was dreading it, but then ended up loving it. I'll grow bored with it soon enough, and pine for the open water (which I will still manage at least a few more ball-curdling swims in), but last night it was peaceful and soothing and, yet somehow, also invigorating.

As most of you know who follow me here, I do my best writing IN THE WATER. The trick being to remember what I wrote in my head while swimming, and make it translate as brilliantly when I ultimately make it back to dry land. Something that rarely happens.

Anyway, while I was swimming, I was thinking of all the story line fixes, character enhancements, and other writing keys that have come to me while swimming. The original germ of the idea for THE SUMMER OF LETTING GO came to me in the pool, and most my manuscripts have some element of story that revolves around the water.

Not a drop of water in THE PULL OF GRAVITY
but there almost was... ? 

BUT, THE PULL OF GRAVITY is different. It's my land book -- maybe partly because I wrote it back when I had just started to swim obsessively again. While swimming last night, I suddenly remembered that after the book sold, I decided to try to sneak a water scene in. Luckily, I thought better of it, and deleted it before I turned revisions in to my editor. But I decided to see if I could find it, dig it out and humiliate myself. So, here it is. This is in the hotel in Rochester after Jaycee has fallen deep into the fever. :) 

She falls back to sleep, and I pace the room, trying to come up with something useful, some sort of idea or plan. Then I think about what Jaycee said, about how useless plans usually are.  It makes me laugh to think of it.  I mean, look how right she was. I am pacing like this when Jaycee suddenly jumps up and starts to put on her shoes.

“Hey, where you going?” I call. She looks past me, walks with ghost eyes in a hurry. I know the look. It’s the look that will lead you to a water tower.

“I’m going to find him,” she says. “Before Scooter dies.”

It kills me. It makes me want to cry.

“It’s not time yet, Jaycee.” I put my hands on her shoulders and shake her a little. I can tell she’s cooled down some, that there’s been at least a little break in her fever. This alone sometimes sets off the hallucinations.

I shake her some more, but she’s caught in the delirium of it, yanks away from me and pulls her Converse on, tripping and stuff, as she heads out the hotel room door.

I race after her. At first I’m just worried, but then, honestly, I’m a little curious. Besides, I’m watching her, so I won’t let her get into too much trouble.

She takes the stairwell, two at a time, toward the lobby, and heads out. She blows past the closed gift shop and concierge desk which is still empty at this early hour, then turns and heads back through the lobby toward the exercise room and the pool. She yanks the door to the pool open and walks in. I run after her.

There’s a lifeguard behind a counter sorting and stacking a huge pile of white towels into a bin. He glances up and says, “Morning, early swim?” but you can tell he’s too tired and doesn’t really care.

“Yeah,” I call, picking up my pace because I’m pretty sure she’s going to jump in.

At the edge of the pool, she stops though, takes off her sneakers, and starts to wade down the steps of the shallow end. The water seeps up the bottom of her Marshall J. Freeman sweats, darkening the green to black as she makes her way down each step.

“Jaycee!” I yell. Then louder, “Jaycee!”

At the same time, the lifeguard dude sees and rushes over. “Hey, kid, you can’t go in there in your clothes!”

Jaycee must hear the strange voice or something, stops and turns, looks at me, then him, then me again. And then it registers, I can see it, her eyes scanning, finally taking the reality in.

See? It once existed but never saw the light of day. I promise you, it's not in there. 

Smart move deleting, right? 

Now if only I'd deleted this post.

xoxo gae

Friday Feedback: KISS those Queries

What life? We got a fucking puppy. 

So, I intended to do a monthly Friday Feedback on the first Friday of each month because that would've been nice and alliterative, but then we got this puppy and then my whole life turned into one big NOTHING BUT PUPPY.

FYI, if you think this is a good thing, think again.

I'm not exactly a dog person, as you may have read HERE.

Alas, my younger son is, and my older son has ditched us for college. So, there you have it. A pup was in the cards.

Do I want him? NO.

Do I love him? Sort of, kind of.

Okay, yes. Fine. Yes. (But he's driving me crazy!)

Am I happy for my kid?

Indeed.

At any rate, since most of you who may be reading at this point are probably Teachers Write! campers, many who spent the summer working on manuscripts, and because, in a moment of weakness** I offered to review a query for any Teachers Write camper who visited Friday Feedback more than twice, I've been, in fact, reviewing queries, most of which have been startling good for a first stab.

But some of you. . . well a few of you. . . ahem.

So, I thought I'd take five seconds (okay, maybe minutes***) to remind you what a query -- at least in fiction -- is and should be, and to the contrary, ISN'T and (dear god) shouldn't be.

What it is: THREE paragraphs. You heard me, THREE. If you need a fourth, so be it. If I see five, well, that's out of the question. The first: telling the particular agent why you're writing to them and what your manuscript is. The second: A compelling two or three sentence synopsis of your story - main characters, what the conflict is, what the gist of the resolution is. I know, I know: how am I supposed to do that in three sentences? That's part of the test. Part of letting an agent know you can encapsulate your story concisely, precisely and well. Just wait - oh, wait - until you have to help write jacket copy. And the third? That the manuscript is complete at ___ words, and one or two sentences about you THAT ARE PERTINENT. They don't really care if you blog, or tweet, or facebook -- EVERYONE does that now, though an editor may care ONCE you are agented and your manuscript is sold. They only care about some real and legit publication. I know that sounds harsh, but it's true.

Remember KISS? Keep It Simple Stupid? If KISS isn't in your brain from the moment you start writing your query to the time you finish, you're in trouble, I'm telling you now.

So, your query could look something like this (and I'm doing this off the top of my head in three minutes to make some points, so please don't hold me to polished -- understand concepts):

Dear ______,

I am writing to you about my manuscript THE PULL OF GRAVITY, because I read on Chuck Sambuchino's blog that you are particularly interested in contemporary YA fiction that tackles tough issues with a sense of humor.

THE PULL OF GRAVITY is narrated by 15-year-old Nick Gardner, an ordinary kid whose whose best friend, the Scoot, is dying of a freak disease. When Nick meets Jaycee Amato, a quirky new girl with Siberian Husky eyes and an odd affinity for Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, they set off on a secret whirlwind road trip to keep a promise to their dying friend. But when plans fall apart, will the pull of gravity be enough to keep everything together?

The Pull of Gravity is a poignant yet funny look at loss, family struggles, friendship and first love, complete at 52,000 words. When I'm not writing, I'm a divorce lawyer/mediator, which is why my stories often touch on the struggles of a family to stay together in a world that is often challenging. Pursuant to your information on Chuck Sambuchino's guide, I am pasting the first three pages below. I'd love the opportunity to share the entire manuscript.

Kindest regards,

Notice (if you've read my book) what my query leaves out: It leaves out setting (not important to my story in a huge way), it leaves out Jeremy (important to the story but not germane to the query!). It leaves out Rochester, Albany, The Doofus, that they play shuffleboard (one of my personally favorite scenes in the book), the fight with the spoon (yep, another favorite, but it doesn't go in a query, man!), the bus trip, the news station, the hotel, the fever, and so on, and so on, and so on. It even leaves out Nick's big, fat Dad and his quest to walk 200 miles to NYC! (way, WAY important to the story. And, maybe I'd try a second version leaving him in, but my point is, if you boil my story down to its essence in one paragraph, you've got Nick, the Scoot and Jaycee).

WHY am I leaving so many rich, important parts of my story out? Because agents DON'T HAVE TIME. They get hundreds of these a week. They need to know scrolling your query in ONE MINUTE what your book is about. They don't want to read seven paragraphs and then go, huh. So what is the book ABOUT?

What you shouldn't do then? DON'T:

• be chatty and familiar (oy! -- they'll be happy to be chatty and familiar with you when they take on your representation);
• tell them why these characters are your babies and how long you've worked on the book and how the world needs this story (let them be the judge of that, sorry);
• tell them minor details. Come on, writers, you can figure this out! 
• tell them all the things you've published that are anything but major stuff in mainstream media -- yes, Huffington Post can count, but every other minor online site, not so much;
• tell them your friends, family or BETA readers loved your book.

Am I being harsh? Maybe. But make no mistake: even though we are writers and writing is creative, it is a business, too. This is your first opportunity to show that you get it. That you understand where to be creative and rambling, and HOW to be objective, compelling and concise.

For other information on how to write a good query, check out:

Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents

Publishers Marketplace (Robert Lee Brewer)

http://www.agentquery.com/

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents

http://pred-ed.com/pubagent.htm

So, now you know. Good luck! And my offer still willingly stands. 

Oh, and, YES! It's Friday Feedback! So, if you want to post an excerpt between now and Sunday morning, please do! You know THE RULES!!! (and if you don't, please click on that link and read them before you post!). See you in the comments.

xox gae

** I am honestly completely happy to review your queries. It may be the lawyer in me, but it's rather an easy, enjoyable exercise for me to show you how to hone. But try first to Keep it Simple, okay?

*** okay, maybe an $)*&%$(*&%!! hour