So, I promised I would only post twice the same day if I got published. Well, I did. My short story, ‘The Toe,’ will appear in the Spring issue of Greensilk Journal.  http://www.thegsj.com/home2.html

This is my first installment in a number of insightful, emotionally charged, yet sometimes fanciful, posts about query letters.   I hate ’em.

The very best advice I ever got about writing came from the late Oscar Hijuelos. Don’t expect anything cute or funny in this post. His early death was a terrible loss. He was talking to me about studying writing at City U. Some of his former classmates couldn’t understand why he had become successful, when they hadn’t. He said, “The answer is, I write.”

If you want excellent advice from an agent, you should go to https://www.facebook.com/agentkristin, which is where much of Kristin Nelson’s excellent advice resides. I stopped visiting it for awhile, because early on I sent her one of the most mortifyingly stupid query letters ever written, and I was terrified she might quote it. It featured a small portion of a manuscript that was seriously not completed, despite my unwavering conviction that it was. At times like that, I wish my name were Carol Swenson, because she would forget it sooner. BTW, she was very kind and the form rejection letter did not contain the words ‘mortifyingly stupid.’

Anybody who says they are looking for fiction that is ‘socially relevant,’ or ‘pushes the boundaries of fiction.’ 1. I save ‘social relevance’ for my op ed pieces and letters to the editor (Google me. I gotta bunch of ’em). 2. I don’t want to push any boundaries. I just want to tell a good story.  

From here on out I will only submit my short stories to publications that pay at least the semi-pro rate. That would be between 1 and 4.9 cents per word. I am not quitting my day job, which pays slightly less.

Before you give me a list of all the fabulous novelists who were also fabulous actors, I am, of course, referring to MY writing. Though, it is worth noting that when I Googled ‘famous authors who were also actors,’ the fifth result was ‘List of people from Staten Island.’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Staten_Island Honest. Try it. My wonderful, teacher, Lori Devoti (not giving you a link this time. You can look that up, too), once said to me “You have a theatre background, don’t you?” She did not mean that as a compliment. The thing is, the actor gets set designers and costumers who tell the audience what the play looks like, a playwright to give them the dialogue, and a director who tells them where to go and sometimes even how to say their lines. Note to directors: Please don’t do that. We really, really hate it. So writers have to do all the work themselves, which isn’t fair, but life isn’t fair. The improvisor doesn’t get any of that either, but nobody cares. Fast! Funny! This is more or less true, unless you are doing a Harold. Please don’t.

I left out the word ‘is’ after ‘I think this.’ It might be acceptable if I were writing in the 16th Century (note correct use of ‘if’ and ‘were’), but I’m not, and I’m glad. I rest my case.

Do not submit a manuscript until you are certain there are no spelling, grammar or punctuation errors. An agent may reject it on that basis. I think this absolutely correct, goal-wise, and absolutely unlikely to be achieved. First, does anyone honestly believe that an agent would say “This novel has great commercial potential. Wait, what? A misplaced comma on page 100? Into the trash!” And let us also remember the opening line of Bubbles, Beverly Sill’s autobiography. “When I was only three, and still named Belle Miriam Silverman, I sang my first aria in pubic.” Can you find the mistake? It’s a seriously awful one, and no editor caught it.

THEORETICALLY GOOD, BUT NOT ESPECIALLY PRACTICAL, THINGS WRITING TEACHERS SAY.