Saturday, May 28, 2011

Query Letter

I recently finished the first draft of my book and am ready to start the hard part: the Query Letter. A Query Letter is a mythical beast with four wings on either side of its face and cattails coming out of its back, but if you don't have one, you're allowed to substitute words.

As an illustration of the above point, I have included (below) my first Query Letter draft.

Dear Sir/Madam to Whom It Concerns:

Once upon a time, there was a blender. And an author, who put things in that blender. The blender was a metaphor. It wasn’t actually real. But the author put many things in it anyway, because that’s what the great authors have been doing since great authors first existed (about the 6th century BC). The things the author put in the blender were the Bible and a lot of blood that came out of someone’s eyes. That someone was named Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalin. Also Faiz Ahmed Faiz. And some other Urdu-speaking guys.
When the blender finished writing, it was beautiful. The author started bleeding out of his own eyes, because he was in love. But not with a woman. With his work, like Ghalib was. And that love was like lightning that incinerated his soul.
He smeared the ash of his soul on the outside glass of the blender (which was no longer a metaphor) and I copied it into my book. My book is 74,765 words. They were much smaller on the blender, so I’m not sure I copied them all right. But that’s what editors are for.
If you find me an editor, I will give you a share of the money. Which I WILL earn. I swear! Because it’s so (heart-breakingly) beautiful, people who read it will weep and hand their credit cards to whoever asks for them because that’s how lost they’ll be in the madness of love.

Sincerely,

[name withheld for privacy reasons]
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