Query Letter for "A World of Rusted Dreams"

On a whim, I've decided to post here the latest version of my genreal query letter for one of my novels.  A World of Rusted Dreams is completely unrelated to the Static-Lands Saga.  I have sent this letter out, but I still thought maybe readers at the blog can give me some insight, particuarly if anyone out there is familiar with literary query letters and their formatting.  I have read about how to do it in guides and on blogs.  I try to keep queries for all my works short and professional, but, thus far, it hasn't netted me any professional interest. 

A World of Rusted Dreams, by the way, seems to be the start, in force, of my whole spiritual ambiguity kick in my fantasy fiction.  For those of you who go to TV Tropes, the "Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane" trope is pretty much its entire premise. 

I also have a version of this letter I drew up to the tune/theme of the song Paperback Writer by the Beatles.  My lifemate, Bob, cautioned me against actually using that one, however, because of something about wet, fuzzy sponges.  (Don't ask).   May post the Paperback Writer version upon request.

The Letter:

Contact Information Goes Here.

To Literary Agent-Type Organism, (an agent's actual name goes here, of course)

A World of Rusted Dreams is a fantasy / young adult novel exploring the concept of faith, told through the lives of two young people on a journey across a broken land with their respective spiritual guardians.  Mira is a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in Rust, a town surviving on the remains of an ancient city.  Discontent to remain there without having at least one great adventure in her life, she summons a Guardian from the Heavens to protect her on a journey to her nation’s capitol, Resurrection.  Guardian creatures are commonality for the people of Rust, so, Lazarus - Mira’s new horned-lion with giant leathery wings - does not strike people there as strange at all.  This is not so in the outside world, where most people do not believe in Guardians and therefore do not see them. 

Mira’s best friend, Noel, tags along on her journey with his own Guardian, a little wildcat named Geronimo.  When the group reaches the capitol city, the two young people find themselves dealing with a populace that does not see their companions or other things that they are aware of and are hostile to the ways of their home.  Mira finds herself in an unlikely friendship with the ruler of her land while Noel becomes responsible for the capture of a serial murderer.  They learn about differing perceptions of existence and about the nature of hope and imagination as they guard and are guarded by their supernatural companions in a world that is dangerous to both. 

I have written other novel-length works but am keeping them on the back burner at this time.  A World of Rusted Dreams is best classed as a work of philosophical youth-fantasy that doesn’t fit the usual genre-fare.  I promise that it does not have a unicorn or a dragon in it.  If you happen to be interested in that, one of my back-burner novels features such things.  I am also an artist and have worked professionally in that field as a graphic designer, although I currently work as a stable hand at a horse farm.

I seek your kind permission to send you a synopsis or a manuscript upon request for review.

Shadsie (Real name appears on actual letter) 

On Spiritual Ambiguity II

Blogger is not letting me log in to comment for whatever asstastic reason it has.  I wanted to reply to my earlier post in response to some of the stuff said by Personal Failure.  I'll just say it here.  This may be deleted and re-posted to its proper position once Blogger stops being an ass to me.  What I had to say was important to my style of writing.

"I've not seen Naked Lunch or eXistenZ as yet, but I *do* like a lot of mind-screw anime. I'm a fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and of Serial Experimetns Lain...Ghost in the Shell to a degree... My guy discovered a really cool one that dealt with the nature of souls and memories on a fansub download site - Kaiba - It's not liscensed in the West yet.  In fact, I’m such a geek - if you ever see me on here talking about the Internet as “The Wired,” I’m referencing Serial Experiments Lain.

That's probably one reason why I like ambiguity – all the anime I watch.  Another reason is that I don’t want to write just for one audience (well, I am already in that I’m writing fantasy, and that’s a specific fanbase), but as far as worldviews and values, I want to be accessible to a lot of people – (i.e. While some of my own views are going to leak into my work, I don’t want to offend my non-religious/not-into-spirituality friends).  Mostly, it’s just the way I think life is. It seems that no matter what “evidence” anyone has for something – whatever their experiences, not everyone is going to believe them. 

I had a dream that is a perfect illustration for this not long ago.  In my dream, I gained a sudden ability to talk to animals. I had dogs and birds going “Hey, yo!” to me. I could even talk to *meat* to a degree, which made it even weirder.  In the dream, I had the distinct impression that this sudden ability was proof of the existence of God. The problem was, when I tried to tell anyone in the dream, I was labeled as lying and/or crazy.  Then I realized that the “evidence was for me, personally, not for anyone else.” – When I woke up, I couldn’t talk to animals, but I felt like this dream echoed life, as in “The things I see as evidence for the things I believe in are evidence only for me.”

I’ve been cultivating the ambiguity thing for a while now.  In the last novel I wrote (yet, without an interested literary agent, *sigh*) there were four main characters. Two of them were human. The other two mains were their companions, animal-like spiritual guides. The two human characters came from a town where almost everyone had these kind of guardians – and only people who believed in them could see them.  “Non-believers” were unaware of them.  All the same, the guardians themselves enjoyed telling their charges that they might, indeed, be delusions, products of the humans’ imaginations. And – that’s pretty much what the entire novel was about. "