How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Writing query letters suck, okay? They do. I admit it. I spent, like, forever on every query letter I've ever written, and at some point in that process I've inevitably thought to myself "this is bulls***! I write stories not paragraphs about stories." I don't know of a single writer who's all "you know what my favorite part of writing is? The query letter!!!"* But you have to do them. Or, I should say, if you want to submit your writing to an agent or editor you have to do them. You can hate them all you want, but until an agent can read your mindwaves about what your book's about, she's going to ask you to write a query letter, so stop tilting at windmills and get it done. Here are some of the blog posts I've seen lately that talk about query letters: 1. Here's one from Jessica over at BookEnds that gives the two reasons your query is being rejected. Basically it boils down to either your query sucks or your book sucks.