New Contest: PUBLIC SLUSHPILE

Okay, I'm on a roll here -- must be the collective effect of springtime and gelato.  At any rate, I've come up with a new idea that will hopefully lead to some more, in-depth critique here on the blog.

It's called PUBLIC SLUSHPILE!  And that's exactly what we're going to create.

Get ready to faint:  I want you to submit your QUERY LETTER.

*pauses while people faint*

But wait!  This is NOT a query critique.  You know I don't like those.  Here are all the details:

• Submit your query letter, MINUS PERSONAL DETAILS, to the web form at MSFV.THOUGHBIN.ORG. 
• All genres except erotica are invited.
• Since this is a brand new contest type, everyone except the 5 winners from our FIRST LINE GRABBER may enter, for obvious reasons.
• The submission window will be open from 1:00 to 9:00 pm EDT today.
• This is a LOTTERY.  At 9:00, the Authoress Bot will choose 25 entries at random.
• These 25 entries will be posted to the blog on Wednesday morning.  (Please note: I will delete any personal information that may have slipped through. Stick to the meat of the query!)
• Queries will be read and evaluated by our readership according to the rules below.
• The top 5 queries will be invited to submit their first 500 for public critique.

That's the gist of it!  If you're ready to embark upon the query path--or if you're already in the midst of all that--and you would like the opportunity to see whether your query can hook us enough to secure some critique on your first two pages, this contest is for you!

Here are the QUERY EVALUATION RULES:

• NO CRITIQUING THE QUERIES!
• Each comment needs to begin with YES or NO, followed by one sentence (one!) explaining why.
• One comment per reader.
• Comments that do not begin with YES or NO will not be included in the final tally.  (Because I value my eyeballs.  I need to be able to skim through the comment boxes and make quick counts.)
• The 5 queries with the most YES responses will be invited to submit their first 500 words.

My hope is that the YES and NO explanations on these queries will help the authors to determine the efficacy of their queries and, if improvement is needed, to lead to effective tweaking.

Sound good?  Questions below!