How often have you been told to stop checking your e-mail every hour after you've sent out a batch of queries?
You were wasting your time all along, and now there's proof of it.
None other than the University of California at Irvine has tabulated data that shows you've been putting unnecessary stress on yourself with all that obsessing.
Not only that, but if you'd stop logging on so often, you'd be more productive. All that time you waste in scanning the inbox could be better used in writing your next novel or short story. It is a verified fact, so no more excuses.
Take that e-mail vacation that has been recommended by leading experts. Send off the queries and forget about them. Outline a new story. Research a new topic. Put some words down on paper.
Stop obsessing over a literary agent's time schedule and dreaming of one of them asking to read your full manuscript. You are wasting valuable time, and unless you're independently wealthy or don't need to work, you know full well that there isn't enough time for writing to fritter it away.
But you knew all that before, didn't you?
You've lived it, every time you write a new query letter that you hope is more effective than the last. Every time you send out a batch of five and check an hour later in case you happened to catch an agent working on their inbox.
The study reminds me of another one done some time ago, in which scientists "discovered" that women were more likely to engage in sex if they had a few drinks in them.
As if the average man didn't know that, and had known that since alcohol was invented.
Don't obsess. Go write. You'll feel better about yourself, and isn't writing more rewarding than eyeballing a computer screen, waiting for the message to pop up on Outlook?
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