Yay, I don't have to spam to get an agent!

I got a huge boost out of the meeting, especially a fresh burst of enthusiasm (she said, using cliche's to describe her experience.)  My favorite was the caution about sending out too many queries at once, because you may get feedback from the rejections that will change your query.  Four or five a month makes so much more sense to me, not only because of the feedback thing but because frankly, I don't think I could put together a large number of queries without making them the equivalent of spam--generic, annoying advertising with the appropriate or sometimes inappropriate names pasted in.    

This put a certain self-published author's experience into crystalline perspective.  She said that she sent out 295 queries to agents and got back nothing.  Well, if she'd sent out that many in a very short time, they couldn't possibly all follow individual submission guidelines, or even have had anything but the right email address on them.  

I think I'm bad in the exact opposite way. I've been wrestling with my first query since December was in the single digit days.  It's now December 17th and I still don't have it put together.  Total length?  Probably around 200 words, maybe less, including a bio.  I should be faster than this, but I'm cutting myself a little slack because it's my first one.  Hopefully each one will be easier to write, and I'll have things to cut and paste as I progress--teasers, full length synopses (thank you internet for finally providing me with a plural of synopsis, assuming it's correct,) bios of various lengths, a website that's professional enough in appearance that I won't be embarrassed to include a link, etc.  

Agent queries aside, I got a huge amount of help for my ailing website (thank you Steve, you're a god!) and great support from my fellow INKers and a sense that yes, this is possible.  I can become a published author.  And Jay, you're beautiful.  Thanks for everything.  See you at Radcon!