November 29, 2010 | By: Tracy

Hot or Not

Goodness, my long relaxing weekend turned out to be not nearly as relaxing as I'd hoped!! Sure I'm not the only one who's come to that revelation about their holiday though.

Speaking of holidays, I hope everyone who celebrated got to enjoy theirs. And I see I picked up some new followers over the long weekend. *waves* Promise I'll try to get around to everyone in the next couple of days (NaNoWriMo is almost over).

Please don't ask me why . . .  but at one point this weekend I found myself on a website I hadn't been to since high school. How many of you remember  Hot or Not ? The website where people willingly post their pictures for strangers to rate based on looks alone? (Apparently, the less clothing you wear the higher the score. . . SHOCKER)

For some reason as I was clicking along, voting --don't judge me, it was research I tell you-- I started thinking how I could draw parallels to hot-or-not and querying agents. Because I can, at this juncture, relate pretty much anything back to querying agents if you give me long enough to think about it.

We're putting a small part of ourselves out there to be judged by agents who have no vested interest in us -- at least, not at this point. Though they judge our words, not our looks (thank goodness!), which is why it really is so important to figure out how to write a query letter that best represents you, right?

Because when an agent reads our query we want them to see . . .

Henry Cavill - actor

NOT 

Pee Wee Herman - Strange Little Man


Or so I can put it in terms that my male followers might better understand.  We want agents to see this . . .

I would kill for those boots!
NOT  

I have no words

 So the moral of this story is. . . don't be a "2" when you can be a solid "9"!





13 witty remarks:

PK HREZO said...

LOL... nice analogy! I love it. How's the querying going? I've been out of the loop with NaNo happening.
Anyway, I''m aiming for Feb. to be my NaNoQuerMo. ANd I can't believe there exists a hot or not website.... lol... and why anyone would put any conviction in it... yikes, that seems dangerous to the ego. but hey, who am i to judge! Sounds like a great place to check for character images. :)

S.A. Larsenッ said...

I love how you tied to the two together. Great thinking. Um...yeah, that lost photo is just plain scary.

Stina said...

Oh, I do hope my query isn't like the second photo. :D (Shudders at the thought)

Of course with #3, you can take it a step further. The query might be hot, but the sample pages might be seriously lacking. ;)

Tracy said...

Stina - You're a freaking genius!! So true, a pretty query with sample pages that are a hot mess won't get it done either.

Summer Frey said...

Haaahaaa!!! I love that!! We used to goof off on hot or not at work, just to waste time. It's kinda hard to quit once you start!

Good luck finishing NaNo, and thanks for coming by my blog! Happy to meet you. :)

Jodi Henry said...

Oh, this is funny. I can't believe hot or not is still around.

Oh, maybe I should put a pic rating system on my query letter blogfest. That would be fun.

Hope you can participate. Good luck with NaNo. I finished at 1230 this morning...tired today.

J

LTM said...

good one! Wow, never visited Hot or Not... must check it out~ :D

Kimberly Franklin said...

Ha! I love it! And those pesky holidays seems to really mess with our relaxing long weekends, don't they? :)

Terry Towery said...

Oh sure, my ms would look like Britney Spears on a GOOD DAY -- but then one day it would shave its head and start hanging around gas station bathrooms while wearing flip-flops in the winter. Pretty soon, it would find itself in rehab and then under a court-imposed conservatorship.

No thanks. ;)

Shannon O'Donnell said...

Ha ha ha ha ha! You rock, Tracy! BUT...I noticed your Orioles pic is missing, and it just doesn't feel right to visit without seeing baseball! Just sayin'.

adam.purple said...

Pee Wee's not all that bad...is he?

Shelley Sly said...

Haha! I remember that "Hot Or Not" site... so funny. I like the analogy.

I also think we should finally get together like we keep saying we will. :) I'll email you soon or you email me, and we'll work out details, okay?

Anonymous said...

Excellent,bravo

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