My inbox seems to be behaving today — i.e. not too many messages coming in stamped “URGENT!” — so I’ve decided to take the rest of the day as a reading day. I had lunch the other day with an editor who works from home a few days a week, who thought that she’d be able to be home for her kids, read, and work, all at the same time, without the commute.
Not so much.
It is possible to get reading done though, but like all good things, requires a bit of sacrifice. She had to tell her publishing colleagues that she was unavailable for calls on her work-at-home days, and suddenly she was able to get a lot more done. My sacrifice? No trolling the internet, catching up on blogs, constantly refreshing my Google reader for more publishing news. No instant messaging. Yes, I’ll reply to emails, and I’ll answer my phone, but I won’t be sitting in my inbox, checking each new message the moment it comes in.
Hopefully, I can get caught up on my partials, respond to some queries, and find some new clients! For those of your who have sent material, who’ve checked your email against the calendar and realized I’ve had your chapters or novel for more than my promised month, thanks for your patience.
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Guys, I don’t want to do this. I WANT to respond to every query I receive. But if authors keep ignoring my advice to track their submissions, and keep resending queries I’ve already responded to, well, at some point I’m going to realize what a waste of my time and yours it is to keep responding to those repeats.
Last Wednesday I said goodbye to my pets, hopped in a car with a couple other writers, and left my neighborhood for […]
In writing, as in life, sometimes things happen that you don’t expect. You can draft and draft and draft, and prepare an outline of your novel that has every tiny little bit of plot mapped out to the nth degree, but if you’re not willing to toss all that aside, to let things go where they want to go, and let scenes play out as you never imagined they might, then I think you’re crippling yourself as a writer.
Neil Gaiman recently posted about T-Mobile’s fancy new G1 phone, and his aborted attempts to test one out. One day later, he alluded to the fact that a G1 may be on its way to him, and I, for one, can only say: WHAT ABOUT ME????