What do you mean I have to blog today?

Wow, this is new. For once, I don't have anything to say. Blame it on a day spent building databases on Excel. (Hint: if you ever want to see me run for the hills, screaming like a mad woman, tell me I have to work on excel. Worse, tell me I have to set up the template for new databases.) So, I've got nothing for today. There's been no real ground-shaking news in the industry. Sorry, but the continuing drama of Borders and B&N is important, but it's getting boring as well. So, what to do today?

I think I'll do a riff on yesterday's open thread. But, instead of just throwing the blog open for any question or comment, I'm going to change things up a bit. If you have a query you are about to send out but would like some input on before it goes, post it (remember, queries should be one page. Some agents give the general guideline of 250 words). If you want to post the first page of your current project, do so and we'll critique it.

Why am I limiting it to one page? The first is that blogger does have a word limit. Second, anyone who has read slush will tell you that if the first page doesn't grab them, they usually won't read any further. This is especially true with short stories.

If you want to practice your elevator pitch, here's your chance. Don't know what an elevator pitch is? Well, it's that 30 seconds you get to tell an agent or editor what your book or story is about. You have to let them know genre, that the work is finished or not, what it's about and what makes it unique. And you have to do it all in the amount of time it takes to wait for the elevator to get there.

So, that's the blog for today. I promise to have a working brain -- or at least a reasonable facsimile of one -- next week.