THE HOOK - PART II

It's been way too long since I've been on the blog. I've been busy sending in more manuscripts. It's nothing like an ACCEPTANCE to get the old juices flowing again.

And, I mean the old ones. I decided to enter some more contests. I send three of my REJECTS into Writer's Digest for their annual contest. Of course, I dusted them off and did editing and revising before I posted them. I figure if they don't place in the contest, I might as well deep 6 them.

I did, however, send two fresh stories to Children's Writer for their contest. I think I blah, blah, blogged about them a while ago. The challenge was to come up with emergent readers for kindergarten. I didn't think I could do it, but the muse tickled my ear and I managed to punch out a couple. We will see where that leads.

Now the biggie - the HOOK. Oh, how I hate the HOOK. I just sent in the first three chapters of my middle grade novel to a MAJOR publishing house -- I could do this because I attended an SCBWI conference and that is one of the bennies. It took me days and days and days just to write that one small paragraph -- the HOOK -- in the cover letter. I don't understand how I can write pages and pages of text, but when it comes to a cover letter I panic. And, I mean PANIC. I read and re-read until my eye balls fall out. I google all the "sample query" letter sites and read and re-read them until eye balls hurt. And, I still second guess every word I write. But, I realize I must eventually let it go...and so I do.

Maybe I should google OCD sites. Perhaps they can advise me about letting go of the dreaded HOOK.