Thursday, September 27, 2007

Query 20: Walloped by Mutton

When I was young and couldn’t sleep, my mom suggested I count sheep. In my 830-word story titled “If You Can’t Sleep…”, Abby’s mom does, too. Abby thinks it’s a silly idea and refuses to do it. While tossing and turning, and still not sleeping, some things land on her bed. They're walking all over her legs. One of them crawls onto her tummy and she's very afraid. Monsters? No, the counting sheep have arrived!

Sounds cute.
The problem is, Abby won't count them. Woolly, the youngest counting sheep, befriends Abby in spite of the fact that he ends up smooshed into the blankets... more than once.

Funny.
Woolly eventually learns that Abby can’t count very well and that’s why she doesn’t want to count sheep. I show young children that it’s okay if you can’t count well, as long as you try.

Oh, crap, a moral. Remember what I said earlier about ducking?
Woolly admits he can’t jump fences very well either because he’s still little but that he’s getting better with practice. I also believe if young children sometimes have trouble sleeping, counting fluffy little sheep can’t hurt.
I’m a recent graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. I’m a member of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta and SCBWI. I’ve recently received acceptances from Stories For Children for a fiction piece to be published in their January 2008 edition and from Once Upon A Time for an article, publishing date yet to be determined. If you are interested in reviewing my manuscript, I would be happy to submit it for your consideration.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

At 830 words, should one always just include the manuscript?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your input, EA. However, I'm fuzzy on why this story line would be considered a moral. (Must be all that wool, lol)
All I intended was for kids to feel better about themselves about the learning process.

Anonymous said...

You know, Wendy, I think I'd just leave out (of your query) any mention about what characters learn and what you want to show them... Those things are there, in the story, but I'm not sure there's a way to mention them in the query without sounding a bit didactic. I've read one of your versions of this story, and it wasn't moralistic or didactic at all--it was light and funny and sweet, with a charming voice.

Kate

Anonymous said...

Kate,
Thank you so much for saying that. You've read one of my versions? Now I'm intrigued. If it's from where I think, I definitely have done much revision since then. The input I received was wonderful.

Hopefully I can find a home for it. Somewhere I don't have to send a query. I suck at queries.

Sigh.

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