Monday Madness: Overcoming the E-mail Obsession

If you've ever submitted any of your stories (be it for a magazine, an agent, or a contest) you've probably experience the E-mail Obsession at one point.

This involves:

Checking your e-mail every 3 minutes or so.

Having a new heart attack when you have any kind of new message.

Get disappointed when its yet another spam for Viagra. (WTF? I'm not even a GUY!)

Get even more disappointed when there's nothing new.

Check "Sent" messages to make sure you sent it to the right person.

Count the days your submission has been out.

Go to Duotrope.com and check average response times.

Refresh e-mail again. Disappointed again.

Tell yourself you're not going to check e-mail for the rest of the day.

Resist for five minutes. Check again.

Go to submission website and fret over the guidelines. Yes, you did it right.

Refresh e-mail.

I am happy to say that I have finally overcome the e-mail obsession. Granted, I don't have any queries out for my novels, but I DO have a couple of short stories out on submission. Going on two months. Gah.

But I've discovered a little secret that prevents me from overloading Yahoo with all my refreshes. Forgetting about it. Acting like you don't care. Moving on to other things. Yes, it works. Amazingly well, actually.

Now, I still check my e-mail once a day (just in case) but that's my limit. Why waste the time fretting over when an e-mail is going to arrive (and what it will say) instead of moving on to another project? Distraction is key, my friend. Yes, indeed.

Now, anyone need the hookup on discounted Viagra?