Step Right Up and Buy Your Ticket - Win the Big Prize

So now I have to write a synopsis for Swords of Fire: Traitor. Oh, joy! That's if I wish to submit a query to the agency I found to replace the latest agency which wants nothing to do with me. Don't people realize how difficult it was just to write the d*mned query letter? Now I have to write a synopsis! You know, I don't really know how to do that.

I mean, how many words should a synopsis be before it's long enough - without being too long? Traitor has 22 chapters and 4 interludes. Technically, each of those should get their own paragraph, right? That's 26 paragraphs. Okay. But how many sentences am I allowed/required to devote to each chapter? Sometimes I think Lucy Van Pelt had it right.

Linus wanted her to read him a story. She wasn't keen on it, but her mother ordered her to. So she picked up the book and read: "There was a man. He was born, he lived, and then he died. The end."

Linus responded with awe: "Almost makes one feel like they knew the man."

Probably my biggest problem with the entire thing is the mathematics of the thing. Statistically, no matter who I send the query to next (with or without a synopsis) I'm going to get another rejection. That's just the way it is. Some very great books have been rejected by some very brilliant agents and editors. And while more than a few people (in and out of the writing business) remind me how this writer or that was rejected such and such number of times, I don't exactly find it to be cheery news. All that does is fuel my suspicions that getting published isn't much different than winning the lottery. There seems to be an inordinate amount of luck involved. Yes, I know. Statements like that are an affront, and we're not supposed to admit they might actually be true. It's all supposed to be skill and genius, so that when (if) we finally do become published we can pat ourselves on the back and remind ourselves that we now have proof of our brilliance and genius.

Right.

It's this luck factor piece which keeps me confused about knowing whether anything is good or not. I've read books that are complete cr*p. Yet that author was published. Someone read the thing and cried out, "Hey! We can make some money off this." And they did. Meanwhile, better works (such as mine) are given the standard heave ho. "Sorry, but this doesn't meet our needs at this time." Well, I'm sorry, too, but I just can't be there to kick you in your a*s, slap you alongside your head and yell, "Hello? Anybody in there?"

Sorry. Couldn't resist. You know you've felt like that, too, after your own rejections.

I'm just daunted by the prospect of another writing exercise in which the consequences are extremely high. I have to do it, though. It's the rules of the game, and if I don't buy a ticket I can't win the lottery. Right?

I just wish I knew how to write the d*mned thing.