I’ve had to abandon my plans to write about Barbie this evening (yes, that Barbie) in favor of a meditation on motherhood, one about that pivotal moment that turned our double-income-no-kid life into this one.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a childbirth story.

By definition, a query is a question, but a query letter sent to an agent contains no actual written questions. Rather, the letter's request is implicit: "Would you please consider helping me deliver to the world this beast I've been a creative slave to for eight years?" 

Reading old work is a lot like hearing a recording of your own voice. You cringe. You groan. That’s what I sound like? Make it stop. Don’t ever do that again.

For those new to the publishing process, which I was—am, really—the hard part is not actually writing the book. It's the wretched query letter.

In the era of Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, Jeepers, Hoodoo, Freetyme and Wheelie (I might have made some of those up), it seems like creating a personal site centered around a blog—particularly for someone who writes for a living—would be a natural progression.