Happy Birthday Mom

Today my mom turns 81.  We were talking the other day and she said, "You have to get a book published before I die." 

Seriously, could she not have mentioned this before she was 81?  Think of the guilt I will have if I can't get published before she keels over.  She is healthy though.  So perhaps I can do it. 

Okay now I have to quit talking about her like she isn't in the room.  Have a great day mom.  I will do the best I can.  

Last week my sister Doris and I took her on a birthday trip.  We went to Skagit, Wash to see the tulip fields, ferried out to Orcas Island in Puget Sound, enjoyed the Space Needle and a Mariners game, toured Seattle's underground block, went to Pike's fish market, and drove some weird little mo-ped things around the Island.   Oh--and most importantly we ate chocolate.  

I promise the next post will actually be about writing.

Query

To actually get an agent's attention, you have to write a good query.  Okay, that is sometimes harder that writing a book.  Or so I hear.

A query is a short note (not much longer than three paragraphs) submitted to an agent or editor from a writer hoping to get accepted as a client.  So here is my query, and since I have been rejected so far, it is obvious that it needs a bit of work.   Hope you enjoy and if you know an agent (whose child you saved from drowning and he or she owes you a favor) send them my way.

Dry Bones -Query:

Pastor’s wife, Jamie Lake, is pulled into a world of intrigue when given the horrible news that a dear friend from high school has been murdered. Before she has time to process her feelings, she learns that she inherits her friend’s estate and is catapulted into the number one suspect to the murder.

Jamie’s hunt for the murderer stretches Jamie’s skill set as a pastor’s wife to the brink. In a matter of days she faces two very dangerous enemies who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe.

As she closes in on the killer, the killer closes in on her.

Dry Bones is a completed 72,000 word mystery thriller with a Christian protagonist in a secular world. It is not a lock-step Christian mystery, but a book that deals with real issues where the world is not always colored in pastels.

I am a pastor’s wife with a love for gritty mysteries that deal with real life issues. I look forward to hearing from you.   Sincerely

Writing is the least of it.

No, this is not a religious blog.  But I really like this verse out of Ez. so I had to add it.  It's sort of creepy and if you like murder mysteries you have to like it.  And it matches the name of my book so what are you going to do. 

There is an interesting thing I am finding out about writing a book.  Writing is the easy part.  The hard part is getting someone interested in reading it.  Well, you can get a lot of people interested, they just aren't the ones you need to be interested.  You need an agent or a publisher that just can't put it down, then you need them to think a bunch of people will want to pay for it, then you need to be a prolific self promoter.

For those of you who know me well, you know I don't really match the last part.  I like to write, I like to read, I don't so much like a microphone.   So while zooming around the web trying to see how writers promote their work, I notice almost all of them have blogs promoting their projects as well as web-sites.  I am looking into the web-site business but for now I will blog and see how it goes.

You will probably have to read about some of my rejections, you will probably see my query and the synopsis of Dry Bones.  You will find out much more than you want to know, but think of it this way, you are my guinea pigs.  It is like a science project.   Welcome to the classroom.