Worked on the query for An Empty Place yesterday. I can write poetry. Short stories. Novels. Song lyrics and songs. I can't write a satisfying query for the life of me. Here's what I'm working on now:

Dear Agent,

Holm is a terrorist. A magic adept engaged in a secret war against a faceless, tyrannical government exploiting the world's last remaining energy source. Every war requires sacrifice, and to protect the other adepts, he can never see the family he loves. Never touch his wife's face. Never see his son smile. He must remain invisible.

When the regime unleashes a supernatural plague on the world, and his son is among the first victims, he decides his loyalty is not as important as his boy's life. With the promise of a cure, he turns traitor and brings his son to the enemy. The cure is a lie. His son is abducted, and Holm is murdered. Before he dies he whispers a final spell, allowing his spirit to find a new body. A golem whose purpose is to undo the damage caused by Holm's betrayal.

His memory gone and his body imperfect, this "new" Holm needs help. Tad is a rebel whose people are threatened with annihilation by the plague. Darling is an adept who suspects Holm is a traitor. Together they can help him retrieve his memories and stop the plague, but he will have to sacrifice himself again, and the son who he still loves.

AN EMPTY PLACE is a dystopian thriller, complete at 72,500-words. I believe it will appeal to readers of Ursula K. LeGuin, Philip K. Dick, and Cormac McCarthy.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

and here's what I had before, which I've had rejected six times without requests for partials (granted some of them had a partial as part of the query pack):

Memory of light

Did a third outline for Stray Light, think its coming together really well. There are one or two problems I can see right now. The first is obviously due to complicated time travel plots, and the different methods of time travel. I have two primary time lines that are being jumped between, 2000 and 1982. I have to keep an accurate double time line, and this is more difficult because The Zone moves. Thus, I have to keep a three quadrant time line with the location of the "time-shifting" narrative device. It's boggling my mind just now. Additionally, I feel like the antagonist/s aren't fully formed yet, and their motives and desires are going to have to percolate for a while before I can start writing.

Stripped

Last night, I think I made the decision to temporarily trunk Still Tower and move on to editing All Shapes. I think I made as I was drunk and full of flame. How many times do the characters of Still Tower return in my dreams, or lurk in the figments of my imagination, or consume me in anger or fear? Never. All Shapes does all of those things. It is just better, and I want to edit something real good. So there we are.

It's done

I finished My Sleep Debt about twenty minutes ago, the last 1,300 words.

Updates on plans for the future and reflections coming.

1,600 words yesterday. bunch of asshole pps ppl bugging the shit out of me at work today. eat a dick and then I'll scan you fat hands. whoa, sorry. full of rage this morning.