After receiving my kajillionth rejection letter the other day I decided to re-think my query letter (of course it’s entirely possible that agents just don’t like my first ten pages, but that’s a beast of another color). Wondering where to begin, it occurred to me that I never finished going over the archives at QueryShark (http://queryshark.blogspot.com/). I read over a lot of them but I’m pretty sure I never got to the end.
Reading over the archives is a requirement for submitting to the Shark, but that’s not why I’m doing it (the shark only bites for queries that contain something the blog hasn’t touched on, which I’m pretty sure mine doesn’t). I’m doing it just because it’s full of great advice.
If you’ve never visited the site, you should probably browse the archives as well, especially if you feel like your query letter is off, or strange, or just underwhelming. In all honesty, it’s one of those websites pretty much every prospective writer should frequent. And I realize that I have a lot of such sites in mind, from blogs to sites to twitter feeds.
So I’m thinking of putting up a new page on my blog. I try to give advice to writers, but my publishing history consists of two short stories, and one was a contest winner. This way, if you don’t believe me, you might find some use for my blog in a list of links to other, more credible sources of information.
Of course, having information won’t automatically make you the best writer ever, but it’s a nice first step. Probably a nice first hundred steps. The rest is up to you, but it helps to have something to go by.
What do you think? Should I make a page for writers’ resources? Have any sites or sources you think I should add? Where do you go when you need advice on writing? Leave me a comment.
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