WRITING
Beware the Writer’s Time Trap
It’s a time suck you cannot afford
I was that kid with a subscription to Writer’s Digest. I never submitted anything — I didn’t own a typewriter until I got one as a high school graduation gift — and this paragraph tells you pretty much everything you need to know about me.
Born to be a writer? Yes. Old? Yes, obviously, the typewriter reference gives that away. A bit of a dreamer? Oh my God, you have no idea.
I think that’s where I first read about the mailbox trap
Sometime in the early 1980s, some guy in Writer’s Digest talked about his bad habit of spending his mornings checking the mailbox. He always hoped to receive letters from editors letting him know a piece was accepted into a publication or checks from magazines that had run his work.
As I recall, he said he kept glancing out the window, looking for the mail carrier, and would sometimes end up literally standing outside by the mailbox, ready to take the mail from the carrier’s hand.
And while he stood around waiting, of course, he was getting absolutely no new writing done. It was a massive time suck, back before anybody had really thought about time sucks.
