Monday, May 11, 2009

I'm Back!

Hi, All,

I'm sorry I've been strangely absent both from this blog, and from QueryTracker lately. The husband and I have been busting some ass this past week on getting our house ship-shape for an appraisal and.... whew... yeah. Instead of blogging I crawled into bed each night panting and clutching my heart. (Okay, it wasn't all that bad, but I hate housework ;)... and there was LOTS of it.)

Anyway, I was back today, reading blogs and getting caught up in InternetLand, and came across this great post by Nathan Bransford, agent extraodinarre:

http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/05/hoops-vs-hints.html.

I know I've heard a lot of my fellow queriers getting discouraged or disgruntled because of all the so-called "hoops" we have to jump through, so I want to know:

What do you guys think?

Are the "hoops" a necessary evil, or helpful hints on how to get noticed?

I'm a rule follower by nature. I like plans laid out before me that say "if you do X and Y you will be noticed because of your hard work." I like working hard, and I like having clear cut guidelines.

However, I've recently come to realize I may be a freak.

Is there anyone else out there that says "Yay, guidelines! I'm going to kick some ass!" or do you think "Damn hoops! Why do we have to do these things?"

I can see both sides, and I'd love to know :).

Hoops or hints?

4 comments:

Danyelle L. said...

I love having guidelines. I think the danger of them though, is not being able to see beyond them sometimes.

Abby Annis said...

I'm a rule person too. How else am I going to gauge whether I'm doing everything precisely right :)

Just so you know, I've finished your partial and I'm dying to know how it ends. I'm hoping to have it all entered in the computer by tomorrow evening, and then I'll ship it out to you.

Rebecca Knight said...

Thanks, Abby! Just a couple more revisions on the end (did I mention I'm Anal with a Capitol A?), and the end is yours!

I totally agree with you, too, Danyelle. Sometimes I think we can worry so much about making our query perfect we forget that it's about us and the skill we show in our writing.

Anonymous said...

Hmm its hard to tell! I read the post to and I think they both have good points. I know I've read some blogs that people write a query with so much voice they don't care that they didn't follow the guidelines! I'm not that talented! lol!

Btw good to have you back :D