J is for Janet Reid

So there's probably a 99% chance you guys already know about Janet Reid and her blogs. But just in case, I've chosen them to represent the letter J, because I value that 1% enough to direct you the right way.

Janet's daily blog - A behind-the-scenes look into the head of an agent, where Janet answers your questions and questions you didn't know you had about getting an agent, querying, and getting published. She also does incredibly fun 100 word story challenges some weekends, and her talented readers step up to the plate with gusto.

Query Shark - The best site for someone getting ready to start their query, Janet accepts queries for review and tears into them with sharkish enthusiasm, giving her thoughts and advice to batter the query to perfection. Up-and-coming query writers can learn a lot just by reading the ones she's workshopped. With 275 queries posted, it's an incredible reference for anyone about to dive into the shark pit themselves.

If you write with the desire to be published, you probably already know about the hell that is queries. I'm in it right now, trying to condense the entirety of The Business of Being Dead down to 250 words that'll entice someone to read more. It's actually not going too insanely bad, and that's mostly thanks to Janet and Query Shark (and the many incredible posters in AW's Query Letter Hell). Perhaps I'll share what I have so far when Q comes up next week.