Oh, I love this board!
I finished a fantasy novel last year, but no agent wanted to look at it. I don't think I nailed the query down. Now, I'm in the middle of a Christian fiction novel, thus my increased lurking in this forum. I have twenty or so undeveloped ideas covering several genres with progress on a few. I'm really into this current one and just need to make sure I write every day amid the full work schedule and full family schedule with four kids.
While I have no experience in querying (yet, leastways) I would give you the advice which I have learned through the rummaging of jetsam... okay, articles online (I just thought jetsam would sound more exciting): keep trying. Keep working on new material. Clever chap -- you are! Yup. My best advice: keep writing. Through scores of poetry, short stories, and other such tidbits that serve my fancy, I have found my "voice." I am ever improving (although I'm not sure if that's saying much, as I wasn't superb to begin with). Okay... started to derail there. *coughs* Anyway. I bet you'll do fantastic! Just keep going! Everyone always compares it to running a marathon.. and they're correct! Only, it is your characters that suffer sapped legs.
I think it's awesome that you finished your fantasy novel -- what an accomplishment! So just keep going. Oh, and a cup of tea and bar of dark chocolate never hurt!
Yep. I do a little sci-fi, but mostly traditional and urban fantasy.
Ah, another fantasy lover! I say as much because I assume that if you write fantasy you must love it. . . Yet there have come to pass days when I look at my ms and think, "Oh goodness, I hate fantasy!" (I have violent mood swings towards my work.
) The first thing you must know about me is that I hate inconsistencies, and yet I am whimsical and ever-changing! (And I speak in a british accent half the time. Everything sounds much more profound!) Ah, but in regards to why I occasionally recoil from my ms... Writing is like running. You love it. You hate it. But there exists no happy medium. (Though if anyone ever hears of the formula for such a wonder let me know!)
Oh, and a big WELCOME is in order, I believe.
I hope you stay awhile. I bring with me tidings of tea and crumpets!
Dear goodness, I talk way too much... What a chatty little blighter I am! Just hit the mute button when I've hit the point between chatty and obnoxious.