A few weeks back, I got a text,
“Coopers hurt. Can you check him out when you get home?”
Cooper had a deep and dangerous puncture, high up inside his back leg. It tracked into his groin and was only a breath away from puncturing his abdomen. It could have been life threatening. Considering our walking track and their playground is our zig-zagging forested trails through our maple sugar bush, I surmised Cooper must have snagged a branch in the wrong spot, at the wrong moment.
Then, the other night, walking with my husband, our younger golden, Carlita, cried out in pain. My husband explored her yelping location and found, hidden in the forest, an old, decrepit barbed-wire fence marking the property line. The remnants of the fence, grown into the trees, was at the perfect height to snag our romping canine companions.
In the adventure to right this danger, I couldn’t help noticing the parallels to my querying journey.
I’m about to embark on a fresh query adventure with my latest manuscript. Thankfully, there are experts in query writing that writers can employ, like a tool, to focus and polish their pitch. With the challenge of finding and following single wires of barbed wire, rusted to the same colour as the leaf littered forest floor, I recognized I would need a tool for this job as well—a metal detector!
To find a metal detector and a query expert, I did what any loving pet owner and hopeful author would do… and turned to social media. I put out a call for anyone who might be able to lend me a beeping contraption to find the metal wires and I called out to my writerly connections for their references to courses, blogs, podcasts and the like offering query crafting services.
Here are a few of the highly recommended resources;
Asking for a metal detector through Facebook generated lovely conversations. I’m pleased to report how generous and gracious my friends and neighbours are. I’m sure it didn’t hurt to share the altruistic motive of preventing injury to our dogs. I don’t think we would have had quite the same response if we were digging for treasure.
Once I had my hands on the tool required to find the nefarious wires, then, all I needed was the time and dedication to dive into the work. It’s the same with committing to query. I’ve compiled my dream agent wish list, researched their manuscript desires, and attended a course to test my query letter. All I need now is the commitment and time to begin.
Finding the wires as they exited the tree and tracing them through the forest was logical and yet deceiving. Once the trees, in line with the former fence, with scabs bulging from the buried wires were discovered, we could track the wires down to the leaf litter, but then the wire would break, and the remnants were once again hidden under inches of dirt and sod.
Yanking on the wire, to see it pop up through the ground, and then cutting it and twisting it into piles, was rewarding work.
Similar, in researching for an agent who is looking for what I have to offer, I’ll find a thread and pull. Some queries reveal promise, unearthing potential, and future partnerships I hadn’t imagined, while other yanks resist and then I fall back as the wire breaks as I discover my perfect agent is closed to queries.
Every lead doesn’t generate a good match. However, the connection to a single agent, even if they are not the perfect agent, usually presents an entire agency full of possible dream partners.
I’m pleased to report we’ve had no more canine injuries since clearing the bush of the dangerous fence wire and after the research, and the courses, and the crafting… my very first official query has resulted in a full manuscript request!
Congratulations!