First rejection at 21 for a screenplay - got a script request from query letter from robert kosberg - sent it snail mail - rejected immediately for being like 200 pages long (shouldve been 80) even though I read Save the Cat by Blake Snyder prior.

Second, third > dozens rejection(s) for some short stories I wrote and sent to every magazine on the planet - sent 3rd draft out - didn’t know i was supposed to wait until the 7th or 13th draft.

Ghosted on all the queries (rightfully so) when i followed some shoddy stephen king: on writing (not providing a link – i do not recommend) anecdote where some guy got really lucky sending off a query for an unfinished manuscript and landing a deal - look i was poor, living in manhattan, working for pennies in sketchy conditions as a film and tv extra. I had some weird, delirious mutation of desperation and optimism - but hey you can catch me for a second in the way back of some Law and Order scenes.

What was NOT shoddy advice though was when I read a conversation between Hemmingway and Fitzgerald where they discussed a technique to title their work - picking a random page then a random verse from the Bible. I highly recommend this. My title was the only good page of that story.

Most recent rejection - a picture book - currently querying/revising - to be continued - but this is where I started to notice the cracks in the literary fortress marble - agents and authors were afflicted by the same thing - the oppressively monolithic Rings of Query Hell

But rejection was the easy part relative to the path toward it.

I paused my query journey to help bring down our common wall - or at least poke author-sized holes in it. Here’s why:

Yes, I’ve written all my life. Not enough. Definitely not well enough. But I persist. I thought, what happens when I’ve published nothing, met little success after the end of my last chapter? I will have given the world and our craft nothing. What can I give to this sacred craft outside of my poor writing?

Aside from writing words, I also write code (don’t cringe too hard). I built Write Query Hook at first to solve my own problems - finding opportunities and finding agents. When it worked, I realized how powerful it could be for all of us.

So, I am slowly launching it publicly. But, really I just want it to be known that I am a really human writer person (and a dad, husband, artist, engineer), trying to build something that I see is missing and fix what many agree is broken and in the worst cases predatory. 

Our mission is to be your champion. One single resource. Your comrade in the query trenches.

That’s all. Yes, this is original human content.