Newport2Newport,
Your query letter is excellent.
I read some other threads you started and I can tell you have already done much of the research I am just starting.
I started a query letter months ago and realized I wasn't saying what I really wanted to say. The thing is, my story has many traumatic events in it and I don't want it to seem as if I've written a book about any specific event, but if I mention any one of those events in the query it seems to shout "this is a book about rape, drugs, recovery, or abuse" when in actuality it isn't. It's a book about using the body as a landscape to discover my story, yes, but also the stories of other people.
Here's where I get hung up. My point is we each have a story to tell, but many have differing reasons for not being able to tell it. My inability to tell my story was different from my patients. They can't speak. I suffered memory loss from a trauma and then went on to live a life that was designed to help me forget (among other things). It wasn't until I learned to read my patients skin I learned to read my life, although I never remembered the first time my mind split, I found a way to reconcile the partial memory and move forward into a more meaningful way of living. Okay, that's the long of it, but that's all tell. How do I "show" that in a query without mentioning each patient and what I learned about myself from them? I'm sure I'm complicating this, but it does seem like a complex story to me.
Maybe I should post what I've written so far and let you all help me?
My next question has to do with the table of contents. I've written memoir, not a text book. How in the world do you formulate a t of c for memoir when the chapters are just numbers?
Oh boy, I do have many questions.
Your book, by the way, sounds fabulous. Have you had any luck shopping it?
Cheers,
Red Bird