Query Letters

My goal is one query letter a week. Today I'm working on my query letter draft. Ugh, there is nothing like a query letter to render a good punch to your ego's gut. I have to be humble, yet promote my book. I have to be engaging but not cutesy. I have to be professional but not boring. Sample letters are not terribly helpful, as they generally contain blatantly obvious faux pas. (How does one make faux pas plural?) So I'm just going with it, writing down my first thoughts and planning to revise, revise, revise.
I know that I need to increase my rate of letters. If I were sending out a letter a day, I would have less time to stress. Additionally, I wouldn't feel as if each letter were a precious seedling that MUST produce results. Instead, each letter would seem like a small seed, insignificant on its own, but in combination producing a lovely garden.
Well, once I get the perfect query letter written, I'll be all over that. Right?

Superbowl XLV Halftime Rehearsal Review

The rehearsal for the halftime show for Superbowl XLV was really quite good. It was a full dress rehearsal, complete with lights, dancing, and full sound. Well, not completely full sound. It was clear that the sound booth techs had a few wrinkles to iron out. Fergie's mic wasn't on when she first starting singing, and then she consistently drowned out the other music. The techs will need to make sure they're on their game for the actual performance. Then Slash was painfully quiet - while it was nice to see him, I sure would've liked to actually hear his performance. Fergie did a nice job standing in for Axl Rose - not sure if he was coming later or not. I hope so, because to sing that song using Slash and not Axl is just a little weird. Oh, and I couldn't hear Usher either. I'm sure they had all those little sound kinks worked out by the time of the actual performance.
Moving on, the dancers in their lighted costumes were a very cool effect - kind of like watching Tron Legacy, but live and without light cycles. I especially enjoyed the hearts they formed. Unfortunately, the lights in the letter "V" were not working for the rehearsal - something I assume the techs will fix before the actual performance. It was a little distracting, because it looked like the word was "L O I ' E" rather than "L O V E".
All in all, the dancing was quite good. The singing was quite possibly good, although difficult to hear. Really, a very respectable rehearsal.

Paramount Pictures Secret Deal Exposed

The world was shocked this weekend when CCTV, the Chinese controlled media outlet, used a clip from the movie Top Gun in "news" footage, claiming it was actual footage of their fighter jets shooting down an F5. The clip. The Wall Street Journal did a frame by frame comparison which shows the true origin of the footage.
Now this reporter has an update to the story. Based on an interview with an anonymous source, Paramount Pictures, the distributor of the movie Top Gun, recently made a secret deal with CCTV and at least two independent news conglomerates. Under the terms of this deal, when news stations have a story without compelling footage, they are licensed to substitute clips from Paramount Pictures movies.
Anticipated movie clips include scenes from the following:
Scenes from Star Trek when discussing weapons of mass destruction (the collapse of the planet Vulcan).
Scenes from the movie Iron Man when discussing the war in Afghanistan.
Scenes from Napoleon Dynamite when discussing local zoo events (footage of llama and liger).
Scenes from Deep Impact when discussing the possibility of a meteor hitting Earth.
Scenes from the Titanic to be featured in an upcoming History Channel Special.
These are just a few of the ways that news stations intend to enhance their video offerings. So stay tuned, old releases may be coming to you on your local TV station!