That was a great starting line. Thanks for posting the query. It is definitely a hard to resist hook. The fear/friend relationship between enforcer ‘Terrible’ and ‘Chess’ came out in the reviews which added the dimension that pulled me on board.

I just think there’s so much advice out there on writing as a craft–and I give a lot of it too, if you click the “For Writers” category and do some hunting around since I haven’t updated all my tags here yet–but very little of that advice is about the emotional/artistic aspects of writing. And this post really isn’t advice, of course, it’s just something I’m thinking about.

There’s a difference between compromising yourself, and working out a compromise in order to sell. Just keep that in mind.

That’s very true. It’s important not to place ourselves before the story; writing is about the writing, not about us, no matter how much of ourselves we put into it. (Obviously things like memoirs are different, but we’re not talking about memoirs.) Everything has to serve the story; this is why editors are so great, because they help us see where we haven’t best done that.

I agree on having other people see it; to me it’s not “real” until that happens. And congrats on your story! I really do think that when it’s something important to us, something that really matters, it’s obvious in the work; there’s a passion there that I don’t think can be faked.

Thanks! I love seeing other people’s takes on it!

This was my query:

Sometimes addictions are more trouble than they’re worth…

Owing money to drug lords is never a good idea, especially not if you’re Cesaria “Chess” Putnam, possibly the only woman in the punk-rock ghetto known as Downside who really has something to lose: her job as a Debunker for the omnipotent Church of Truth.

Chess’ dealer offers her a choice. She can catch the mastermind behind the fake haunting of an abandoned airport so he can smuggle drugs into it, or spend weeks in the hospital after his enforcer breaks her habit for her—along with most of her bones. Chess picks the airport, but when a rotting corpse turns up with a soul still trapped inside and it looks as if the person responsible is one of her co-workers, she realizes the airport’s ghosts are real and this case is far more dangerous than a beating. Hey, who said downer-addicted loners made good choices?

My dark urban fantasy UNHOLY GHOSTS is complete at 83,000 words. It is a stand-alone novel, but is planned as the first in a series.

My first urban fantasy, Personal Demons, will be an April 2008 release from Juno Books, and I have just been offered a contract for the sequel (but have not yet signed). As December Quinn I’ve sold six erotic romances to Ellora’s Cave. I am an American currently living in England and dreaming of driving on the right side of the road again.

Per your guidelines, I’ve pasted the first five pages below. I’d be happy to send the complete manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

&c

But “How the personal translates into the universal” is an excellent way to put it, and it is a really big question. And really, there’s no way of knowing how your work translates until it’s out there in the world; all you can do is hope it will resonate with someone else. So I think it’s something no one can really answer; we try to make the personal universal by reaching into our deepest experiences and our truest observations of human nature, and expressing them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. *shrug*

Thanks, I try! I figure, the fun posts are a lot of fun, but sometimes it’s nice to be serious and deep, too.

And that’s the part I didn’t expect, that by trying to be honest with myself and for creating a reaction and making a connection with readers, I’d also be opening myself up to criticism and their opinion of me as a person.

Totally. There’s no way to prepare for that, I don’t think, and it’s very scary.