PAMB and its quotes

[Sheryl Nantus]

woo-hoo!

ten thousand posts!

:D

and the beat goes on...

:(

[CaoPaux]

Mr. Rivera is "matching authors with agents" via his query-letter service: http://www.writers.net/forum/read/10/183295/183295

[stormie]

I enjoyed reading the responses in the above link. It's true about the query services. The agent could read this really great query (helped along by a service such as Mr.Rivera's), ask for the partial or full, and find the writer can't write.

[Marie Pacha]

I just read the post by Mr. Rivera on the site listed by CaoPaux.

Based on the number of spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors in that post I wouldn't ask him for help in writing a query letter even though that's my least favorite part of submitting a manuscript.

Like everyone else (or almost everyone else) I do make mistakes in my writing, but when I decided to focus my efforts on a writing career I went back to college and took every writing class I could to improve my skills. They weren't English classes. They were writing classes. I took everything from Technical Communications, Business Communications, Screenplay Writing, to Forms of Poetry and Literary NonFiction (and more), and I learned an incredible amount.

I have learned to be critical of my own work, and I make a lot more revisions now, even in casual posts such as this one. I want my words to be interpreted as I intended! I still make some mistakes, because I don't pull my reference books out to check every detail of my posts, but I have certainly tried to minimize them.

Although I can change the "voice" in my writing to suit a client or a project the voice and presented in my query letters matches the one I present in my manuscript and is indicative of me and my style of writing. Most publishers want those queries in an effort to save them time, and in part so they can avoid reading manuscripts which are too poorly written to be of interest.

It's nice that Mr. Rivera wants to help other writers with their query letters, but I think it's important that a professional writer be capable of introducing themselves competently in that manner.

[James D. Macdonald]

This thread continues here (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102161).