I need help with a query letter. I am doing it right know because for working in my book in my writing class first I have to send them a query letter.

As you know writing in English is sometimes difficult for me but this query letter is giving me a headache. I can't get it right.

I will paste you here a example, so you can see it:

Muriel Blythe moved to Madrid to study psychology. She needed to get away from everything and everyone to learn how to control her gift. The gift of seeing and conveying emotions.

What she didn’t knew was that being there shadows will start to attack her for a reason unknown for her.

Some strange lights will start to help her, particularly a light between bright and dark. A light that inevitably attracted her.

Now she had to discover who where her attackers, who her defenders and why. Something not easy when nobody wanted to reveal anything. The discovery of a new gift will help her in her quest.

Amid of all this mystery Muriel discovers she has strong feelings for her defender of which she knows nothing. Hence she is torn between her mind and her feelings.

After a shocking revelation she discovers that nothing was as she thought, that in life you must be brave and never give up what you love most.

Glowing shadow is my debut new adult novel, a paranormal romance complete at 85,000 words.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


I will appreciate every tip, comment or suggestion you can make. Thank you!!

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Now with some changes you suggested. Thank you!

Dear Agent/Editor:

[An opening line about why you want to work with this particular agent or editor / why they'd be perfect for this project.] ( I will leave this to complete it when I have the name of the agents)

Glowing Shadow is my debut new-adult novel, a paranormal romance complete at 85,000 words.

Muriel Blythe moved to Madrid to study psychology. She needed to get away from everything and everyone to learn how to control her gift: the supernatural gift of feeling what everyone felt around her and make them feel whatever she felt.

But in Madrid, mysterious shadows began to attack her, while strange lights helped her. Muriel struggled to discover what this eerie battle was all about, and why she had been drawn into the center of it. The discovery of being able to make astral trips helped her in her quest.

At the same time, Muriel developed strong feelings for her defender. One of the lights that in reality was a man. A man that make her feel love; something she never felt before. She loved him even when she didn’t knew who or what he really was but she was certain that he wasn’t totally a light, he was between light and shadow.

After founding why she had her supernatural gifts and that her love was forbidden, she also discovered that nothing was as she thought, that in life you must be brave and never give up what you love most.

Today I want to give thanks for having a wonderful husband that knows me so weel and gave me this beautiful orchid to make my days brighter.

I know I haven't posted these days and I wanted to share with all of you what happened to me.

Well first Alex still doesn't sleep so I'm very, very tired. I called the doctor and told him that we tried everything and that he doesn't gets well. So he sent him new analysis for his reflux and we found out that his reflux was worse when we thought it was getting better. He stopped to through up so we thought he was better and gave him normal formula. But the burn continued inside, he even has his esofagus sore. We went back to the soy milk and medicines. I felt so bad , my poor baby having so much pain and I thought he was teething or he wasn't able to sleep alone.

I was tired mentally and physically , I wasn't able to write, translate or revise. I needed a rest so I did. I spent my free time reading and relaxing.

I think also depression wanted to hit me, thank god I take anti depressive pills if not my family would be miserable. I inherited it.

Anyway that made me not want to share my problems I usually don't speak when I'm depressed . Now I feel better or at least I think so.

We have to give Alex a month with this treatment to see how it works and I rested a little this weekend.

I am joining an online writing class and I am excited. I wanted to do this since I started writing and now that Alex will be in day care a few hours till summer I have to take advantage of the time.

I am rying to get back to my routine of revising-translating. It is hard , is like when you stop doing exercise for a few days and you can't start over agian the only thing you want is sit on the couch. Well I am in that stage but I am trying to start again, to do a few pages a day.

I think I rambled a lot in this post, I hope I didn't bored you!
Happy day!

And I don't like it! For the last two years I had this little baby by my side everywhere I went. Now I am alone and I miss him terribly

Let me explain to you. Alex today started day care. He is going there 3 hours a day. I didn't want to but my husband talk to me about he was going to start the official preschool next autumn and that he was going to be there almost six hours, that he needed to have a little time away from me, be with other children ( beside his brother) and be independent. I know he is right and I could certainly use the time to write. But I don't work and I could take care of him (that's what my guilty mind says).

Uff I hope with the days he likes the day care and I feel a little less guilty, although I know we both will be more happy having time apart. He doesn't sleep very well so we were together 24 hours a day.

Talking about other things i had to change the name of my book, between light and shadow existed already for many books, so I choose glowing shadow. I thought the meaning of glowing was perfect for this story and no one has used it.

Well, since I am very nervous looking to the clock for the time I have to go to pick him up I know I wont be able to revise or translate so I am going to order my office. Right now the papers, bills, etc are everywhere and I feel like even my ideas can't flow with such a mess.

Have a beautiful day!

I was considering whether to upload this post or not. But then I thought you would understand me better than anyone. You are also writers.

I'm in the process of translating my book while I'm revising. I know what are the things I have to change, the things I should avoid, but I am not able to do it.

It's so hard to accept that you know what you have to do but can’t do it! Sometimes I can’t find a stronger verb to replace an adverb. It sometimes seems impossible to me to know if I am showing or telling, I know the things that identify it but it is difficult to know when it’s appropriate to use each one of them. I know all writers battle with this.

There is also the dialogue, I know I should not explain much in dialogue but what if the narrator is a person who thinks and analyzes everything? I don’t want to bore the reader but my narrator is a person who feels what other people feel, so she constantly perceives things in the midst of situations and conversations, and she gets conclusions in the middle of them about what is happening. I avoid her to think or talk to herself through the dialogues?

Surely at some point I'll find the solution and is only a process but now I feel useless as a writer. I know that most likely this is also a problem of English not being my native language and it’s harder for me to find new words. That I must continue trying and that eventually it will be easier but right now I’m in a hole.

Really it has been a very difficult day with my writing, so much so that my SIL called from Spain and as soon as she heard me she knew I was depressed. She argued with me for half an hour for not having the Messenger of AOL which is what connects to the internal messengers of many companies and that way I could have talked to her about it when it was happening. Yes, i am a stubborn I have MSN, yahoo and Skype so I could have AIM. So I’m installing it also, another messenger to the pile ( is what you need when everybody is far away) I would love to talk more with my SIL and my phone service only gives free calls to Mexico, United States and Canada, so this is the solution.

Well finally talking about what matters I'm depressed and I do not know what to do with it but deep down I know I'll go out of this hole, that this is something I must do if I want to write in English. Probably tomorrow I will get up with a better attitude.

For now I feel relieved to have taken it out of me, to express what I really feel. I told my SIL, but she doesn’t understand because she isn’t a writer, so sometimes I can imagine her face of: are you really depressed about that?

I hope you understand me and not get bored with this post; I assure you that tomorrow I will return again to be me...

 

Before starting with this post I want to share with you that I already read Matched. If you want to read my review go here: www.goodreads.com/review/show/137244579

With all these holidays, I didn't work on the translation, but I did work on the revision, so I don't need to ask for your help with new words.

In exchange I am going to tell you something more about me. You have been so friendly and so good with me that I thought that the better way to thank you was with a little bit of me.

I am going to talk about my love story. Today my husband and I remembered all we lived through, and I thought that was a good thing for sharing.

It all starts in March of the year 2000. I was 18 years old, lived in Mexico City and was in my last year of high school but I already had the acceptance for the university I wanted.

One day, a friend from high school and I were working together on homework using Yahoo messenger, when suddenly mine stopped working.  My friend called me and told me to enter a chat she knew from Spain where no one will know us and that we could chat via private chat.

So, I did it. I entered the chat and suddenly a message from pin28 appeared on my screen. We started to chat, he told me he was from Madrid and was 28 years old. We chatted while I did my homework for almost 2 hours. When I was closing the chat my best friend arrived to my house, in that moment an email from pin28 arrived. He wrote me about how much he enjoyed talking with me and that he would like to do it again.

I turned to look at my friend, who was obviously reading over my shoulder, and saw that she was pale.
"What's wrong" I say to her.
"I don't like this"
"Why you don't like this? It's not like I am going to meet the guy. He is in Madrid!"
"That's what I don't like!"
"I don't want to fall in love and you know it. relax!"

But my friend knew what she was talking about, day after day we chatted or spoke on the phone for hours. He spoke to me in the late night of Madrid that was my afternoon because of the time difference.(7 hours)

One day he started sending me emails every hour and we spoke all day. I knew everything he liked and didn't like. I knew he didn't want to fall in love because of a bad relationship, just like me. I knew were he was, I knew his friends. (They were on the phone many times when I talked to him.)

On March 10th, an email arrived. An email from him. In it, he told me that he was in love with me, that he can't understand why since we had never met, but that he wanted to have an exclusive relationship. (He denies this but I have the email ha!) I was in love with him even if it sounds strange. I felt that I knew every one of his thoughts or feelings. I felt more connected to this man on the other side of the Atlantic than to anyone else nearby.

The months kept going with our love growing, by that time even my parents knew about him and that I was having a relationship with him.

One day my father came to speak to me. He was worried that I was falling in love with someone I had never seen before. He reminded me that every summer we went to Galicia, Spain, to see my grandparents, and he suggested that I go a week early with my mother to Madrid. There, I could meet him and also see the city. Of course he told me that my mother would have to be present when I met him for the first time.
I was so happy!! My father was giving me the best opportunity to see if this was for real or a game. (Although I never thought it was a game.)

I called Carlos (my husband's name) and told him the news. He was so so happy! We cried together on the phone.

The next day an email arrived. In it, he asked me to listen to song number 8 of the "Musica Es" CD, by Eros Ramazotti, our favorite singer. I went into the living room and put on the song. When it started and I heard the first words, big tears fell down my cheeks. My father was pale and my mother was excited. The song started: "For you I will marry". Now you know why my father was pale! The whole song said all of the things he liked about me and that he will marry me. I got the phone and called him, asking what he was trying to tell me with that song.

"You really don't know what I am trying to say to you?", he says.
"I think I do but I am not sure."
"I am asking you to marry me, I love you. If when we see each other we see that this is real, that we are really in love, I want you to marry me. I don't want to wait a year to see you again. I don't want to risk what we have."
"Yes, I want to marry you, but only if both of us feel the same in Madrid." 

So the days went by. I was excited. My friend cried all day telling me that I wasn't going to come back and I deep in my heart knew she was right.

June 14th came and I was in Madrid, waiting for him to come meet me and my mother. The moment I saw him I knew it was him, the love of my life. I felt the butterflies in my stomach and I knew that he was real. We spent the whole day together and my mother, by the end of the day, let us go to a restaurant alone. There he asked me again if I wanted to marry him and I said yes.

That very June 14th, after 3 months in a relationship, I knew I wanted to marry him. I don't have to tell you that our first dance was to that song. (Every body cried while he sang to me.) We married the 4th of November of that same year and I moved to Madrid. Yes I moved at 19 years old, leaving behind the university I chose and my whole life. I wasn't afraid, I knew this was what I needed to do. We lived there for 5 years and now we are in Mexico City. We have been married for 10 years now.

I know we had luck, that many stories of internet love don't end like that. Destiny put us together in that chat. Destiny found the way to make us meet even if we where miles away.

I hope I didn't bore you with my love story but it is very important to me and wanted to share it with you all.

Have a great Monday!

Ps: Sorry if there are any mistakes on this post. I wanted to share this story like a novel but I ended with my baby next to me and I don't think I can get back to the computer until tomorrow. So I shared it like it came to my mind without showing only telling....

Big thanks to :whitehousemom  for helping me correct this post and teaching me! I have amazing friends in LJ!!

1. Dia de reyes went really well, the kids liked the presents and we really had a good time in my parents house. My mom actually didn't say anything hurtfull to me...

2. I have to start my diet again tomorrow. I ate a lot of rosca, chocolate and roasted chestnuts. So if I want to continue losing weight I have to go back to my balanced way of eating. 10 pounds more to go.( that Tiramisu of Tracy has to wait *snif*)

3. This is the last weekend of the winter vacations of Carlitos so we are going to take him to a place he chooses, he haven't decided but I think is going to be fun.

4. I have to take out the Christmas decorations on Saturday and I hate it. When you put it on you don't mind the work because you want to see the three and want your house full of Christmas spirit. Besides everyone wants to cooperate but anyone wants to take them out!

5. I didn't move forward on the translation but I did in the revisions. I hope I can go back to my schedule of writing on Monday.

Have a great weekend! I am dying for some sleep!

A holiday we celebrate in Latin America and Spain.

In this holiday we commemorate the arriving of the Three Kings – Melchor, Gaspar and Baltazar-- to see Little Jesus with presents for him (gold, frankincense and myrrh).

Days before children leave letters on the Christmas tree asking for the presents they want. In January 5 they leave a shoe for the three kings to leave their presents. Also children leave cookies and milk for them to eat.

In that day in Spain in all of the towns the Three Kings participate in a parade were they show the presents they are going to give. These parades are beautiful traditions full of color and music that children love. They throw candies at everyone. Candies can hit you in the head so be warned!

I watched once the Three Kings parade in Madrid and it was beautiful with immense displays going through the down town streets. Anyway I put here some videos so you can see it.

 

 

In that day we eat Rosca de Reyes that is a round sweet bread with candied fruit on top, recently, different flavored whipped creams are used as filling.

In Spain inside the Rosca is a doll, the one that gets the doll in his piece has to pay the Rosca.

In México the one or ones that get the doll have to make a party on February 2 ( Dia de la Candelaria) the day of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. The party must have tamales and atole (a hot sweet drink thickened with corn flour).

Right now I am going to help the three kings with the presents and see if they want to share a little milk and chocolate. ;)

Maybe I can persuade them of giving me presents instead of coal…

Whether you celebrate or not this Holiday, I hope you have a beautiful Thursday!

 

Lately I am never impressed with music videos, maybe because they are always about the same thing.

But the video of Katy Perry for the song Fireworks impressed me. The mix of the lyrics with the images made me cry. ( I am very sensitive)

It is beautiful! I leave you here the video and the lyrics. Hope you like it!




Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?

Do you ever feel already buried deep?
Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
'Cause there's a spark in you?

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July

'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky

Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down

You don't have to feel like a waste of space
You're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow
And when it's time, you'll know

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July

'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky

Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you
And now it's time to let it through

'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky

Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon


Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Yes, over here we are still in holidays. We still have to celebrate the Dia de Reyes on January 6. So the kids will go back to school next monday and will have extra present this thursday!

I plan to post something of the tradition of los reyes magos this week.

We started again the diet from january 2 to january 5 so we can lose a little weight before the rosca and hot chocolate of the dia de reyes. We are eating at my mother's home so I am not cooking. Finally!!

This vacation time I took a break or semi break of my translation. With carlos on vacations Alex doesn't want to take a nap and all my schedule goes through the window so I flow with them and what they want to do. We play a lot these days with the xbox and the kinect , certainly Carlos and I are making exercise. I feel pain in some muscles I didn't knew I had.

Actually I thought the xbox was going to be a game for carlitos to stay sit, but actually he burns a lot of energy with the sports game. And mommy loses a little weight  :p

I hope I can recover my schedule on Monday so I can move forward with my translation- revision.

How are you going with your manuscripts,revisions,queries,synopsis,etc?

Have a great Tuesday!!

Thsi cake is traditional of Galicia, Spain. It is made in honor of Santiago de compostela, an apostle.
As i promised I am sharing the recipe! 

Ingredients:

175 gr of flour

3 eggs

125 gr of milk

A split of water

125 gr of butter without salt

250gr of pealed almonds

250 gr of sugar

The skin of half a lemon

25 gr of pulverized sugar.

Triturate the almonds with the lemon skin. Until the almonds are in very small pieces.

Whip the eggs with the sugar for 5 minutes at medium- High speed.

Add the milk, the split of water, the butter at room temperature, and the flour. You whip it 2 minutes at the same speed.

Add the almonds and the lemon. Mixing it 1 minute at medium- high speed.

Put the mix in a previously buttered demountable round baking pan. Cook it in a preheated oven 200°C for 25 minutes. Let it cool completely before removing it from the baking pan. It is very fragile.

Last sprinkle the pulverized sugar over the top.

I know that many of you don’t use this measures but I don’t know how to translate them.

The original recipe is for a cooking machine called Thermomix ( my best friend in the kitchen)

It is a little wet because of the oil of the almonds  but believe me is delicious.

Here is a photo: