A day in the life of someone else's slushpile.

Agent Fabulous, a friend of mine, was ill for several weeks, resulting in a scary pile-up of mailed queries and slush. We're talking like 500 pieces of mail. S/he called me last night and ever so politely asked if I could come in for the day and help go through the backlogged paper that was breeding on the assistant's desk. [We won't go into why the assistant had not opened any of the mail in all that time. We suspect s/he will not be the assistant much longer.]

So bright and early this morning, armed with caffeine, granola bars and a letter opener, I got to work. And here are some valuable lessons I learned from spending eight hours going through someone else's slushpile, lessons that I will now pass along to you:

• Naked photos of yourself will not distract the agent into thinking that your writing is better than it actually is. No matter how rock-hard those abs were. [And, yes, they were.]
• No, really.
  
• Naked photos of your cat won't work, either.
  
• Do not suggest that a publisher should be offering you a $31 million dollar advance.
• Do not bribe the agent with a $20 Starbucks card.
• Do try to have a passing familiarity with the English language. [Barring that, a nodding acquaintance with the Roman alphabet will suffice.]
• Using the phrase "This is not representative of my best work" in the query letter will probably not help your cause.
• Spending the entire first paragraph describing the color and texture of vomit? Also not helpful.
• A Xerox of your photo from your high school yearbook will not help sell your book. It will, however, live on in infamy on the intern's refrigerator door, where a steady collection of lunatic query letters has been growing since December.
• If you are a psychiatrist writing to recommend the work of one of your patients, do note that the agent is probably thinking that your restraining order isn't working.
• And, lastly, do not send lingerie with your query letter. Just don't. Not ever. Even pretty lingerie.