Query Woes

After reading some inspirational (and incredibly fun) advice on query letters from AgentQuery and the excellent blog QueryShark (go and look it up immediately, it is the single coolest thing I've seen in weeks), I decided to whip up a query letter for Carnal Jesus so I can start fishing for agents.

Except "whip up" isn't exactly the right word, because this process is possibly the most excruciating thing I've ever attempted to do.

It's not that I don't understand the query-writing process. I'm actually usually quite good at condensing a storyline down to a few teaser sentences, even just a sentence. I've done it with my short stories. Why can't I do it with CJ?

Multi-layer plot, for one. Enormous amounts of complicated world-building, political backstory, and a huge cast of characters. And to make matters worse, the plot's already...subtle? Does it make me sound arrogant to call my plot subtle? It really does make me look like a n00b, I'm afraid.

I think the worst part of this whole process is now it has me questioning if there's even a plot IN my book. I'm a little concerned that the reason I can't seem to distill it to a few paragraphs is that maybe there's no plot to distill.

But that can't be, can it?

*sigh* I'm so disgruntled, I can't even write about it.