Arrr, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day!
I guess what I'm saying is, if you do reboot your query, don't take too long.
This is interesting, and I never thought about it that way. Most of my successful querying hasn't taken place at the end of the year, but I've done a lot of querying in November and December that have had less-than-stellar results. Not saying that my query was amazing then or maybe the concepts weren't as great, but maybe it was poor timing.
Unfortunately, here I am on hold for TM querying, and I'll prolly be ready again in winter.
Srsly, the best thing you can do to stop thinking about it and going crazy is start working on your next novel. And try to resist the urge to check your inbox 7,482 times a day (like I always do
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Sometimes querying can make it impossible for me to work on a novel because I'm so impatient about e-mail that I constantly want to refresh. Since gmail automatically checks and so does my phone, this means I refresh AW a lot instead.
I was doing my usual e-mail obsession because of querying TM and the IaPT sub (which reminds me, I need to nudge on that), but then I got the LSG idea and the R&R and those two things really helped push e-mail from my mind. In fact, because I'm more in a maybe-I'll-get-a-request phase than a maybe-I'll-get-an-offer phase, mentally, I'm kinda relieved not to be getting requests until I finish this R&R and decide what to do with the novel. Anyway, the point is that thinking about new stuff really helped calm me down.
This. And acceptances always seem to arrive fastest... if they're waiting two months to get back to you, it's not because they're so excited about your query :/
This actually isn't true. If you're waiting months, it has nothing to do with their excitement over your query, it only has to do with timing and how fast the agent is going through her inbox. Think of it this way: she can only be excited or not excited about your query if she reads it. And once she's read it, it's time for a response. I think it feels like the requests come early compared to the rejections is for two reasons. Non-responders might read all their queries on the day you send, and a request would come right away, but you wouldn't know if it's a rejection for months. And also the agents who have a humongous backlog could be less likely to request (if they're that behind on the queries, why would they add to their workload unless they really truly loved it?).
Yes, your query might pop into their inbox and they might see a line from it, depending on how their e-mail is set up, or the title might intrigue them, so you can catch their interest and jump the line with timing and luck, but I doubt an agent reads a query, decides to reject it, and then sits on it for months.