General (wholly unsatisfying, I'm sure) query update and a big apology.

First off, my sincere apologies to any of you out there who've been waiting for a response from me on a query or a partial. I'm still (more or less) on a blogging hiatus but wanted to pop in and give y'all brief update on where I am currently with partials and queries. And where I am is WAY WAY BEHIND.

So, if you've queried me or sent me a partial and haven't heard back from me yet, please don't resend your query or partial. Don't worry that I haven't gotten it because you haven't received a response yet. Do assume that I am just extremely backed up in reading and responding. For some reason my query rate has shot up enormously. (As an example, yesterday I received 131 queries in one day. That's considerably more than for a normal day; that's considerably more than more a normal week, actually.) I actually do respond to everything I receive (unless there's an unsolicited attachment of any kind; those just get deleted).

And I also want to gently remind everyone that I no longer accept snail mail or paper queries of any kind (although some of my colleagues at the agency still do). Any paper queries that are mailed to my attention at the FinePrint offices are automatically discarded. If you've sent me a snail mail query anytime between June 1st and today, and haven't heard back, well, it's because your query didn't get read. Do feel free to re-send as an e-query after reading my submissions guidelines, okay?

Please give me until September 1st to respond to everything. If by then you still haven't heard back from me (and if it has been at least four weeks since you sent your query or partial), please do feel free to drop me a polite reminder poke by email.

Thanks, all!