In The Demon's Head #4

In The Demon's Head #4

March 2, 2012

Hello again everyone, and I hope that your day is going well so far. Here's it's cloudy as all get out and to be honest I expect it to rain like hell and I hope it does. Today's writing environment is far more favorable over last weeks. Last week, I wrote this from inside of a McDonald's lobby at 7 in the morning and this week I'm back at home.

It's been a wild week for me and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I've learned that if you keep your head up you will always continue forward. No matter how shitty the situation looks there's always a brighter side on the horizon.

Either way, again this week I still have no messages. This makes me sad no one wants to ask me anything. I know you can't see it but I'm kind of pouty right now. HA... speaking of messages, I didn't know this but I learned that there is a message feature on the new page set up. You guys can send a message directly to the Facebook page, which means asking questions, if you ever have the urge, is a lot easier.

Also on another impressive note, I'm up to 31 people as opposed to 26 a week ago. 5 new people which to me is awesome and I want to say thank you to everyone. Our next goal is 50. Once we reach 50 I will release another free writing, Once we hit 100 I'll start doing one or two a month depending. So let's get 19 more and rock and roll.

Onto this weeks message, I'm going to talk about something that quite honestly I don't have a lot of knowledge about but every aspiring writer who reads this will likely know what I'm talking about in Query letters.

Now officially I've never written one of these but even I think I could spot where NOT to say certain things. It's like taking someone whose never washed a dish, and handing them a dish that is FILTHY after being washed... don't you think they would be able to point out the dirt?

I say this because a couple weeks ago I read a packet of information that was part of stuff I printed out of learning materials. One of these things was entitled “Query Letter Clinic” and this packet pretty much tried to show you how to write an effective query letter depending on what type of book your writing.

One of the “bad” letters I read included someone saying that they were in this for the money and that if they were signed to a deal they could turn around and make their publisher a ton of cash. This is an empty promise for one and something that no one can predict.

The second “bad” letter I read included someone who had told the publisher that he had a great story with a surprising twist. That surprising twist was that the story wasn't even written.

I'm not a genius by any stretch of the imagination but there are 3 things I know for sure when it comes to the writing game.

1. The publisher is usually the most powerful entity in terms of publisher/author relationship. If you want to impress you don't say you have a great story that hasn't even seen paper.

2. Your story is only as powerful as you the writer can make it. I've learned the hard
way that no amount of editing no matter how wonderful the editor in question is
you will never have a great story if you don't start out with a great story idea at
least.

3. Finally, BELIEVING the words that you write are what helps you to write with
conviction and emotion if you don't believe what your writing how can you expect
a reader to believe it?

I point these out because in my opinion the “bad” letters that I read in my research lead me to believe that none of the writers who were pitching their ideas followed any of these rules. They weren't ready to be published, and it could be because of a number of things but I think one of the three above at least applied to all of them.

I hope now you understand and believe as well as I do when it comes to the writing thing. That will about do it for me this week...

Until next time you go through the gates of hell and into the Demon's Head,

I'm Kyle Robinson wishing you a safe trip back to the surface