The Art of Querying

I'm about to start sending query letters to literary agents for The Second Shadow.  Below is the main body of the letter I have so far.  Any thoughts you have would be great, such as "wow, that doesn't make me want to read it at all!"

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Sargoff has long been blanketed by a fear of the unknown powers that once brought it to crumble. Dark forces are once more at work, renewing these fears and threatening the country as it rebuilds. The orb of a forgotten lord is found, and the hands of evil once more glow with the powers of dark magic.

Jothan has devoted his life to the pursuit of the orb of Lord Hamrin, for he knows all too well the powers it holds.  He meets Cymor, a strange magical creature made of light who retrieves the orb, and the pair then fights and flees to ensure that dark wizards do not recover the orb and reclaim their lost authority.  On their fast-paced adventure, they encounter kings and queens, creatures of water and sand, a great two-headed dragon, and other powers not documented by the library of Sargoff.  In the end, they discover terrible truths that are difficult to accept.

THE SECOND SHADOW is an 81,000 word fantasy novel that explores the effects of fear on a society, and questions whether the agents of evil themselves present more dangers than the very fear they create.

The Pursuit of Shelter

Though we are still a little while away from it, my wife and I have been thinking quite a bit about houses over the last several months. We've done a pretty thorough analysis of the suburbs of the Twin Cities, looking up houses we like online and then driving around and looking and them, and looking around the area. I have a handy spreadsheet that details the pros and cons of each suburb, including whether the general prices and property taxes are higher or lower, yard sizes, and proximity to neighbors. Through this process, we've found the place we're pretty sure we want to live, which is the Lino Lakes area, north of the Cities. This includes Centerville and Hugo, and probably a few other surrounding cities.

We just really like the area. There are lots of trees, which we both like, and if possible we'd like to have good tree coverage on our land. Trees are both quite pretty, and they add to the privacy of the house, as we've been looking for houses that offer that. We'd prefer not to have our back yard staring right at someone else's back yard, so some extra trees would help that. Lino Lakes is also where our church is.

We have a couple other areas we like too, but this one is the clear favorite. We'd probably be a good 10 or 15 miles north of where we live now, so it would add to our commutes, but we both would like to be a little farther away from the city, and Lino Lakes has a bit less of that city feel to it.

We had come up with our list of requirements quite a long time ago - 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a 2 car garage. We also would really like a decent yard (for dogs, and to push our neighbors farther away), preferably with good tree coverage.

We're still about a year away from starting the process. (Well, we'll get to a bank and get approved for a loan before that, probably early next year.) Our plan is to get in touch with a realtor next April, and hopefully start looking at houses in May. The lease for our apartment will run out at the end of next August, so hopefully we can choose and house and get everything done by then. I've added some pictures of houses we've looked at and liked (by "looked at", I mean "drove by"). These are, of course, not houses we'll be buying, sadly, unless they're still for sale a year from now. I certainly have styles of houses that I like more than others, though overall I'm more concerned with the functionality of the inside of the house, than I am with the appearance of the outside. And then we're more open to certain styles depending on the land it's on. The first house picture posted here isn't really a style we're that excited about, but it's surrounded by trees, which we would really like.

I'm super excited. Home ownership certainly comes with more expenses, but we're making sure we're as prepared as we can be. We're going to be able to put down a good down payment on a house (25 or 30 percent), which will be quite helpful. But I'm very excited to finally get a house, as I've been excited to get one for many, many years now.