Month: August 2022

Some of my querying links.

Query Tracker: Database of agents with response times and filters. I keep a list of agents queried, along with responses. Small annual fee.

Absolute Write Forums / Share Your Work / Query Letter Hell: A writer forum with the chance to get feedback on your query letter from other writers. Put in your homework here and you’ll be able to write a passable query letter.

Twitter / #mswl fantasy: If you don’t know about #mswl, it’s short for Manuscript Wishlist, and agents and editors will put this on tweets to get author attention. If you’re querying a novel with those characteristics, they want to see it. Obviously, if you don’t write fantasy, use a different search phrase after #mswl.

Manuscript Wishlist: Likewise, this website catalogs agents and their specific requests (along with general areas of interest).

 

If you’ve ever considered the possibility that this is all a giant simulation — that you are a program trying to discern some answer to the life’s ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything (42) — I present ants.

Pretty sure that ants are not real. We’re all not real, but ants, if you glance at a collection of them, are more a scattering than actually individual ants. If you glance back at them, they’ll have the same general characteristics (density, mobility, direction, etc.) but they won’t be in the same positions. In fact, if you consider the speed they’re moving, it’s unlikely these were the same ants. They would have had to speed up while you weren’t looking, then slow back down when you noticed them — which no ant would do.

It makes perfect sense if it was a simulation. The ants are there, yes, but why bother tracking them individually if none of the subjects of the simulation are tracking them. Just give them general characteristics. If someone starts tracking them, insert the general characteristics as specific until they are not needed. Save processor time for more useful things.

Anyway, my two cents.