Today, I finally got my query
letter to the place it needs to be. For anyone else who’s had to write a query
letter, you know what a great (and elusive) feeling this is. How great? This
great:
Success Kid, how I envy your
everlasting sense of victory.
Because I know that in a few days,
I’m going to look at this query letter that I feel so proud of right now and
think, “Really? That’s the best you can do?” At first, it’s disheartening to
think that these feelings of inadequacy are an ingrained part of a writer’s
life. But then I think, what if it wasn’t? Would that make me happy with the
subpar? I don’t want that. I’ll take the feelings of inadequacy if it means I
get to feel like Success Kid some days.
Critiques are a good example of
this. Every day I walk into a workshop for my creative writing classes, I want
to pee my pants get really nervous.
I’m anxious about what people might say about my writing. I’m anxious about
coming across too harsh about other people’s writing. But mostly, I’m anxious
about not getting that harsh feedback or not being too critical about someone
else’s piece. If I went into workshop expecting nothing but compliments and
giving nothing but smiles in return, I’d get nowhere.
I don’t want someone to tell me
that what I have is perfect. Because nothing is perfect and I don’t want to
settle. As writers, it’s our job not to take the easy way out and say, “It’s
not getting any better.” So with this in mind, I’m going to enjoy this feeling
of success today and then I’ll come back to the letter later and see what can
be done. And I hope you do too!
If you want to check out the query
letter for my WIP, you can find it under “The Writing Desk” up top. Have
comments about how it can be better? Please, leave them in the comments! Want
me to look at yours? E-mail me! Then we can all be Success Kids.
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