Usually that extroverted little cherub doesn’t start buzzing around my head until the start of a new year — Januquery and Februquery, to be precise.

It’s uncanny.  I always get a sudden and powerful urge to start sending out submission packs right at the end of the year.  Only this year, it’s hitting me several weeks early.

It may be partly because I always saw querying as an evil that had to be tolerated.  As a result of that attitude, I think I usually did it badly and I know I always did it in a hurry.  It showed in my results.  I had a few near misses, but mostly I just collected a half-decent stack of rejection letters.

2009, I decided last summer, was the year I had to get it right.  Serious agent research.  Targeted submissions.  Focused, concise queries.  Synopses that I put some real time into, instead of ones I hammered out in anger because I resented that they even need to exist.

Some of the research I had already done.  There are a handful of major agencies I’ve been aware of for years, and this wouldn’t be the first time I’d submitted to them.  The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency is one.  Mr. Ellenberg represents (among others) John Scalzi, and I get the impression that the relationship has worked out well for both of them.  The Donald Maass Literary Agency is the other.  Mr. Maass represents Kay Kenyon, who is about to release the final volume of her spectacular tetralogy, The Entire and The Rose.  She’s also a very kind and encouraging person to aspiring writers like yours truly.

So, it was more than a well-timed kick in the pants when one of my newer writing buddies, Paul Comstock, let me know on Tuesday that Ellenberg’s agency is inviting potential new clients to submit material to them.  The synopsizing and querification that I worked on in October, left to ferment for a few months, and revisited a few days ago was pretty much right where I wanted it to be.  After a few minor tweaks, I think it’s ready to go — as in, to go out in the mail tomorrow.

I’m going to hit the Maass agency at the same time.  I would query them anyway, but I happen to be taking his Breakout Novel Intensive workshop in the spring.  This confluence of events will lead to one of three scenarios:

1. 1.Donald Maass or another rep at his agency reads it, is interested, and responds positively.
   

2. 2.Mr. Maass or another rep at his agency reads it, is not interested, and responds in the negative.
   

3. 3.No one at the Maass agency responds in the nearly four months between the time that I mail it and the dates of the workshop.
   

In the event of Scenario 1, meeting Mr. Maass at the workshop can only be good.  That’s all I have to say about that.

Should Scenario 2 be the winner, meeting Mr. Maass at the workshop may give me an opportunity to learn more about why he chose to pass on the material.  Understanding the reason for his decision, even if it’s simply that the premise didn’t interest him, can only be good.

Finally, if Scenario 3 is what ends up happening, then meeting Mr. Maass may give me a graceful opening to inquire as to the status of that submission.  This, too, can only be good.

(I won’t actually take the book that I intend to query him on, Kalypsa Rising, to develop further at the workshop.  It will have already been submitted to a number of agencies, some of whom may have responded positively by then.  My current plan remains to take a new work that I started developing in Rome two years ago after being inspired to bloody imperialist thoughts while walking around in the colosseum.)

I may still get the bulk of my queries out in January, but the process seems to have taken on a motion of its own this year.  I like to think that’s a pretty good sign for 2010.