My bipolar BFF

my toxic Inner Critic

Today I read an excellent post about writers dumping their Inner Critics. I could definitely relate to parts of the post by author Nina Badzin.

However, my Inner Critic has a different nature than Nina's. She's not merely a toxic friend. She's bipolar, too. One minute she hates what I'm writing, tells me my work isn't any good, that it will never be any good, and that I should stop wasting time writing and sew Christmas stockings for felines instead, which are at least cute and marketable and might make some money.

my exuberant Inner BFF

But the next minute, she high fives me because of a new opening to a book which felt great while I was writing it, like I was absolutely headed in the right direction, thanks to my exuberant Inner BFF. Until I showed it to others--like gatekeepers and beta readers--no one besides me appreciated the new story start.

One minute my Inner BFF goads me to query a book that's not ready because anybody will be able to see its glorious potential. The next minute, she's kicking me for sending out something that wasn't ready, not by a long shot.

How about your Inner BFF? Up one minute? Down the next? Do you have great writing days and writing days that stink like offal and barely anything in between?

I know I do. For me, one of the ways that I discount my Inner Bipolar BFF is blogging. Blogging allows me to contribute something to the discourse about writing and publishing. My posts aren't going to revolutionize the publishing world but neither can they be faulted for not having value. They have value to someone--if not a handful of readers, than only to me because they offer a chance to practice writing and articulate what I'm feeling.

(Those of you who feel so inclined may insert the threadbare cliche here: "And I'm SOMEBODY-- because God don't make no junk.")

I think the key to success is to level out--to hide the toxic friend's posts from your brain feed until you have acquired enough critical success as defined by others to unfriend your Bipolar Inner BFF. Or put the Inner Critic and the Inner Exuberant Cheerleader in a padded room and let them duke it out.

What do you think?

There's no substitute for confidence

At a friend's request, I helped her ready a query letter for her police procedural. I offered to send her some sample queries I collected in the past couple years that helped me improve my ability to write a query letter. I suggested she read query letter for The Notebook written by Nicholas Sparks that made quite the impression on me when I first read it.

Now I know that The Notebook is the last book my querying friend would pick up and read. Me, I loved the book and cried my head off during the movie (but that's another story but not for this blog). I referred her to Sparks' query letter because it is the best example of a query letter I've ever read that says, "I am very confident about my work and this book and my ability as a writer. I believe in this book!" without ever using those words.

He shares some research

Sparks knows what his book is about. Without being arrogant, he tells the potential agent why his book is special. And he did his homework regarding its marketability. He mentions that there aren't many commercial books that have grappled Alzheimers as a theme.

He added a P.S.

He even adds a postscript that says the following:

"P.S. Because 22% of the people in this country (40+ million) are over 52 years old and 4.5 million people suffer from Alzheimer's, this book is unique and marketable to a wide audience. In addition, at 52,000 words, it is short enough not to be cost-prohibitive to most publishing houses."

He added a P.S.? Who has ever seen that before? Not me. I've never heard anyone say, "Never add a P.S. to your query." But I've never added one either.

He broke with convention

But I have heard experts advise: The query letter should NEVER exceed one page. His query letter was more than a page. I've always tried to keep my query letter to one page. Why? Because I didn't want to flout convention. See, I was more interested in being seen as one who makes nicey-nice than one who whose goal is foremost to sell her book.

Because I'm not Nicholas Sparks, I'm not intending to write a two-page query anytime soon. I'm not suggesting that you dash the rules either. What I'm suggesting is that you consider selling your book, your premise, yourself--unabashedly and unapologetically.

Confident not arrogant

Whether you like his work or not is immaterial. What matters is the confident tone of his query. There's a world of difference between confidence and arrogance. Nicholas Sparks couldn't have been more confident about the product he was selling. Is it any wonder he's a bestselling author.

No apologies

So, whatever you do. Please don't apologize in your query letter; don't even give off a whiff of apology about the book you just spent untold hours researching, writing, editing, revising, writing a synposis for, etc. You owe it to yourself to present your book as the jewel you believe it to be, that you want it to be. Your integrity as a writer demands it.