Query Letter / The Journey of an Aspiring Artist
Dear Ms. Einstein:
I am seeking representation for The Journey of an Aspiring Artist, a work of women’s fiction of about 75,000 words.
Michelle, in search of a voice that will set her apart, falls in love with an artist whose seasoned and well-developed voice provides the enlightenment she needs to forge a story of her own based on her reaction to it. Brett, the artist, is a thief who feigns remorse for his crimes and thereby gains her trust. Michelle compromises part of herself to care for him despite the risk of getting hurt and alienating her family. However, he ends up involving her in crime, breaking her heart, and leaving her to answer for her actions. As a result, she endures a pain similar to the pain he carried in the beginning and equates it to the gain of what she originally sought – an identity of her own.
I have been a member of the Florida Writers Association for a year and have participated in one of its local critique groups with this, my first novel. I also have a short story published in Cynic Online Magazine. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to send my material for your consideration. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Marianne Aluotto
M_aluotto@hotmail.com
Chapter 1
“I don’t know why you’re worrying so much. I could show you something right now that’d make it clear I’m going to hell. You’re not.”
It was typical that the guy I loved would drop a heavy statement like that with so much ease it made me shudder. But it wasn’t always that way. It started with me being enraptured by a free spirit who led a life more exciting than my own. That’s the way it always starts, isn’t it? I was a girl who followed the rules but who wanted to escape anonymity, to rise above the prescribed formulas society set down for achieving success. I dreamed of moving to a big city, falling in love, and being a movie star.
Once I finished my theatre degree at FSU, I went home to my parents in Daytona Beach and slept on a futon in their living room so I could save up some money to move to L.A. Nobody wanted to come with me, so ultimately I’d move on my own which wasn’t that big of a problem – I just remember thinking it couldn’t come soon enough. I worked at a library and started to write short fiction, but I was still living in a shell and claiming that the place I really belonged still awaited me. My whole life until then had been one long preparation, one big temporary state from which I needed to advance.
It took the completion of two short stories to prompt me to try and market my work. In so doing, I was led to an online workshop that hosted discussion forums for writers. It was a gift I hadn’t anticipated – the gift of associating with like minds. This is where the guy who stole my heart came in. All it took was one click on his bio for me to cross the point of no return. It said:
Phil Diamond
I left home at fifteen to experience the world which was not possible in the suburbs – the world of L.A., the glamour of the city, of freedom. Got by on a series of jobs that supplemented my passion for writing (and drinking – they go hand-in-hand). After a few years, the fakeness and vanity of Hollywood hurled me back east to NYC where the true artists gather – Greenwich Village. I’ve written about drugs and con artists, shady dealings into which I fell and from which I recovered. I now continue in my pursuit of the truth and beauty of art, my calling, my soul.
Warning bells probably should’ve sounded at the mention of drinking and drugs, but how many guys with bad streaks like that were capable of the words and honesty of which he was capable? I was determined to know him, to learn from him. It wasn’t my intention to spite the people who sheltered me growing up, but instead to expand my horizons and perhaps dispel any of the stigmas that either he or they may have attributed to each other. Besides, after having claimed to want something other than what I’d been surrounded with, I now had the opportunity to expose it and make it real.
I acted as though I hadn’t spent the last few years in the midst of college-age males in school, even though I had. Why was it different when I came across one online who I practically didn’t know from Adam? I created a fantasy in my mind based on a mere premise, a mere synopsis of his life.
My life suddenly became full because of him. He and a few other writers from the critique website formed a group on Yahoo that enabled us all to chat in real time the way people did with AOL instant messenger. We signed on at eleven pm eastern time every night to talk about our writing, work, and our lives. One night we got on the subject of names, and the youngest among us (a girl in high school) said she thought Phil’s was pretty. He responded matter-of-factly by saying, “My name’s not Phil. It’s Brett Andrew Carter.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Phil is just the alias I use.”
I would never have thought to use an alias myself, but it wasn’t that big a deal. I was who I was. And learning the small detail of Phil’s real name seemed significant to me.
By New Year’s 2005, my own private celebration had occurred in the form of growing connections via the online chats and the prospect – or rather, certainty – of a friend in Phil / Brett. I thought about him every minute. We shared, for moments in time over a computer screen, bits of ourselves as if we were really there in person. Oh, if only we were! I guessed he wasn’t exactly my soulmate, but I considered him someone close to it nevertheless. Someone I would’ve liked to be. How often did that kind of excitement come into my life? It’d been since freshman year of college so I figured it was about friggin’ time.
I remember having conversations with him about love, loneliness, the future, road trips, and L.A. He tried to dispel the romantic notion I had of his free-spirited nature at times but took pride in it at other times. He talked of how he’d met a girl online who’d lived in Wisconsin and how he’d gone to meet her to fall in love with her and then take her to New York with him.
“Wow, I’d love to be swept off my feet like that,” I said.
“Well, I’m the cat to do it,” he replied. “You think I’m joking – just watch, I might randomly show up in Florida one day and surprise you.”
Another night I’d been talking about balancing real life and writing, about being able to do only one at a time because each was so consuming and necessary to feed the other. We weren’t the only ones in the chat so he must’ve felt the need to address me by name when he responded.
“Michelle.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I may fall in love with you in the future.”
It had come out of left field and caused my heart to skip a beat. It didn’t occur to me to write such statements off as ridiculous even though I knew in some back part of my mind that normal people would. I loved it and clung to it like an honor bestowed upon me that I longed to have. I also believed it because I’d been proud of what I’d said, how I’d presented myself, and I thought I was worthy.
I don’t remember who typed the next line in the conversation, but someone said something in reference to his boldness and asked if there was something going on between us.
“Yeah, we’re gonna get married in L.A.,” he said.
I knew not to take that at face value, but I still had no qualms with it.
I eventually posted another short story I’d written over Christmas about a wanna-be actress in college who was assigned a scene with a guy on whom she had a crush. The character she’d played led her into revealing how she really felt about her acting partner in real life, and they ended up getting together. It hadn’t exactly happened to me, but I fused portions of things that had happened to me together to create the story. I longed to get Brett’s reaction, mostly because I felt it was revealing of me. What more could an aspiring writer want than to reveal some intimate part of herself that she might not otherwise be able to reveal? Furthermore, what else could a lovestruck girl want besides revealing herself to her crush?
Chance would have it that he became distracted by a girl who lived across the hall from him in his apartment building, and he talked about her. The only thing that kept me from worrying too much about it was the fact that even if he was distracted, he still talked to me which he wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t important to him. I hadn’t slid in his estimation just because an attractive neighbor of his popped up. I was still important. That’s what I told myself every minute that passed that he hadn’t read my story. Oh well.
The next thing that prevented me from worrying about the girl in his building was the fact that he’d suddenly decided to pack up and leave New York. For where? A lot of places, apparently. He went home to Chicago for a time, then he was in New Orleans, and eventually in the Florida Keys to work on a writing assignment – something to do with script doctoring. His plan from there was to head to L.A. where he had a lease on an apartment to begin March 1. He promised, though, to swing up to central Florida on his way so he could meet me before he left. My plan was to follow him shortly thereafter once I had a little bit more money and my dad had vacation time he could use from work to help me move. I was ecstatic at his promise; I could hardly contain myself.
Ecstasy gradually withered to despair, however, when he stopped answering emails and a vision of him disappearing off the face of the earth haunted me. At times, I comforted myself by confirming that what I’d had with him already was something special in itself, but at other times I felt dejected, disappointed, deflated at the dashing of a hope I’d built up. Had I had reason to hope? I thought I had. It wasn’t that I’d been dependent or anything, but I still felt common courtesy would’ve demanded that he at least answer or explain. I didn’t want to appear foolish or lame, didn’t want the world to think I was incapable of obtaining what I knew I had obtained. I was capable, I wasn’t crazy, Brett couldn’t have dismissed me for no reason.
Finally, after a few weeks had gone by, he wrote me an email apologizing for getting caught up in his business and being unable to correspond. Things had been delayed in the Keys and he hadn’t had time to stop on his way out west. However, he’d finally gotten settled and was taking it easy. He had no upcoming writing assignments but could afford to not take any for the next few months while he decompressed. In the meantime, supplemental income would likely be attained via poker and betting on sports (sports being something he’d only recently gotten into). He looked forward to seeing me soon, or whenever I happened to make it out there myself. Yes! I certainly would be coming, and I knew he’d eventually come around. I knew I couldn’t possibly have lost him.
About a month or two later, my dad got a new job in Pensacola. Before he started, he was able to come to L.A. with me to help get me set up. I packed up all my clothes and personal belongings into as many suitcases as I’d be allowed to travel with, we shipped my car, and we boarded a plane to California.
I hadn’t told my dad that Brett had moved to Los Feliz, but when we found an apartment complex in that area, we decided it’d be the best option out of all we’d seen up to that point. It was a bit pricy at $995 a month for a studio, but he preferred for me to be somewhere safe and nice instead of somewhere cheaper but potentially less safe. Limited time was also a factor in our decision to take it – we still had to furnish it before he left in a couple of days.
I was so happy in the hotel that last night after having wandered around the city in search of a place to live. I’d waited so long for my dream to come true, and at that point I had to wait no more. I checked my email on my new laptop I’d gotten, and Brett had written to say he was in Detroit but that he’d be willing to let me crash with him if I was unable to find a place quickly enough. Of course it wouldn’t be necessary, but the thought itself was one that made me smile in disbelief. To think that in a matter of days I’d be meeting him!
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This 488 word review has not been unlocked.
I’d say it was a good read. It needs just a little more detail in it and some space between the paragraghs cause some of them look kind of smashed in together, but other then that it’s good.
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