Success Story!

NOTE: The queries for this book have been taken down at the author's request.  The working title was ENEMIES OF TIME.  Thanks to all who make this site what it is; as the moderator, my role is minimal.  The commentors are the ones who bring the value, and those brave enough to share their work provide the platform.

Dear Rick,

Since my deal went public this morning, I wanted to write an official thank you letter for starting The Public Query Slushpile blog. I began reading queries on your blog sometime last May (2009) and it took me until the end of July (I think) to actually post one of my own.

After it posted, I was so nervous, waiting to see if anyone responded. At the time it was the hardest thing I had ever done with my writing.

But I survived both the good and the bad feedback and slowly, with each post, my skin got a little thicker and I really learned to  listen to what others were saying.

Right now, I probably hold the record for the most queries and sample pages posted on The Public Query Slushpile. Seriously, I've put up a ton. A few people even came back and put a second comment after I had written my thank you comment. One person said something like, "Dang Julie, this is your query. How many books have you written?"

Like most writers, amazing words and perfect prose didn't just fall onto the page for me. I had to write lots and lots of bad stuff before I got to something that made one agent and one editor say, "I think this could be a good book." This, of course, followed many rejections and rewrites.

But still, neither said I was done. Nor did they say it was perfect. Not even close. And if it weren't for all the people who gave honest critique and feedback on my queries and sample pages, I would probably be hiding under my bed now, never wanting to come out.

Instead, I listened to everything an editor told me was wrong with my book and then I started sending chapters that were better. Not perfect, but better. Then he got excited because I was so open to revisions and asked for more. Alas, a book was made! And there is still lots more editing to come.

Writing is just like the saying "It takes a town to raise a child." It takes a community like The Public Query Slushpile to make a an aspiring writer into an accomplished writer. At least this is what happened with a new writer like me. Maybe others can do it alone but I know I couldn't.

Thank you Rick and all your many followers!

Julie Cross

P.S. feel free to post this if you would like! I'm pasting my official PMP announcement below. It is a YA book but my editor wanted to call it Debut Fiction for some reason.
--
Julie Cross
wannabewriter2009@gmail.com
http://diaryofanunpublishedwannabewriter.blogspot.com/

Publishers Marketplace
New deals for June 23, 2010
FICTION
Debut

Julie Cross's TEMPEST, the first in a trilogy about a 19-year-old time traveler who witnesses his girlfriend's murder and inadvertently jumps back two years; stuck there, he's recruited by a shadowy government agency run by the man he thought was his father and vows to save his girlfriend no matter the cost, pitched as "Twilight" meets "The Time Traveler's Wife," to Brendan Deneen at Thomas Dunne Books, in a pre-empt, by Suzie Townsend at FinePrint Literary Management (World).