The Author Burnout Coach
Episode 04: How to Stop Refreshing Your Inbox
Hello writers and welcome to The Author Burnout Coach. Together, we will dismantle the burnout culture in book publishing and reclaim our love of stories. I am your host, Isabel Sterling, and this is episode 4..
[intro music]
We’ve all done it. We send off a query letter or maybe a finished manuscript to a critique partner, agent, or editor. We’re able to step away, maybe for a few hours, days, or even weeks, but eventually…
We start obsessively refreshing our inboxes, like we hope that by hitting refresh enough times, the universe will come through for us and deliver good news.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong about doing this. If you enjoy getting excited about hearing back from someone and it’s fun to refresh your inbox a couple times a day just to check, that’s fine! You don’t have to change anything if you don’t want to.
And actually–as a quick aside–that is true about EVERYTHING. I love self development and setting big goals and all of that. But so often those things are built on the premise that there’s something wrong with you that must be fixed. We’re told we NEED to get up early to be productive. We NEED to be kind to ourselves and everyone else 100% of the time. We NEED to have perfect unconditional love for ourselves at all times in order to be a good person. There is an endless list of things we’re told we’re supposed to do in order to be acceptable.
Let’s take a moment to send a big fuck you to the patriarchy for creating this absolute no win scenario.
You don’t need to do anything to be whole or good. There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t need to be fixed.
When you can truly believe that, setting goals and working on growing ourselves can come from a place of pressure-free fun, and failures and set backs are just part of the process. They don’t mean we’re not good enough.
This is a journey I’m actually currently on. Even though I’m a coach, I don’t have a perfectly managed brain all of the time. Far from it, and that’s okay! I’m human! One of the things I’m currently working towards is letting go of the belief that I’m not doing enough.
That’s a favorite pattern for my brain. I’m not being a mom well enough. I’m not writing enough. I’m not keeping the house clean enough. I’m not doing enough for my coaching business, and on and on and on.
So I’m getting better at noticing when those thoughts come up, at knowing those thoughts aren’t TRUE, and then letting them go. I’m learning to trust that simply by existing, I am enough. Everything else is just bonus.
Now, you might be thinking, “hey Isabel, if I don’t need to be fixed, why are you teaching me how to stop refreshing my inbox?”
Great question, friends, and thank you for getting me back on track.
Ok, so to recap, if you like refreshing your inbox, great! Don’t change a thing! Though I do recommend that you still listen to this whole episode to make sure you really like it (and also because I have some cool news at the end).
For those of you who DON’T like that you refresh your inbox, let’s tease apart why you’re doing it, why it feels like you can’t stop, and why it feels like ass.
There are a few reasons you might find yourself constantly refreshing your inbox, hoping for good news, and they vary a bit based on what news you’re waiting for.
Let’s say you’ve sent out query letters–maybe you even got a full request from one of said agents and are waiting to hear if they like your manuscript. If you find yourself constantly refreshing your inbox, it’s likely because of how you expect you’ll feel when you get a positive response.
This actually links back to episode 2 – the lies we tell ourselves (if you haven’t listened yet, do that after this one). We so often believe that getting an agent (or whatever next milestone is on our list) will completely change our emotional lives. We’ll be more confident in our writing, and we won’t struggle with doubt ever again. When we believe that moving up a step in our career will make us happy, we start to feel this sense of urgency.
For me, this type of urgency often feels like a tension in my stomach. My chest might feel hot, and my fingers are all fidgety. It likely feels a bit different in your body. The next time you’re waiting on an important email and you find yourself wanting to refresh the inbox, check in with your body and see how it feels. Being able to recognize those sensations can help you as you try to break this habit later.
For others of you, the inbox refreshing isn’t because you think the news will make you happier. It’s because the email will put a new to-do item on your list.
I see this a lot with writers who get external deadlines from an editor or agent. We’ll use a specific example (since specifics can be easier to digest than broad generalities), but this applies to so many scenarios.
Let’s say your debut novel sold and you’ve been working on edits with your new editor. You have a 2nd book on your contract–maybe a sequel or maybe something totally unrelated–and you want to get started on it now that your first book is mostly done.
For the sake of specifics, let’s say is another standalone novel that’s the same genre as your first book but otherwise totally unrelated.
You’ve got your ideas together for the second book and you’re ready to start drafting except…
You don’t want to get too deep into the new book because you’re expecting line edits any day now and you don’t want to accidentally let the new book’s voice bleed into the one you have to line edit, and your edit letter is due back in one week.
If you’re new to publishing, you might not know this part yet, but editors don’t always meet their deadlines. It’s actually pretty common that they don’t. As I’ve mentioned before, burnout culture affects publishing at every level, which includes our editors. Sometimes notes can be days, weeks, or even months late.
Yes, I said months.
And that’s where some of our problems come in. Not the level of lateness (though that can create other kinds of schedule and payment complications, but that’s a podcast for another day). The problem is what ends up happening to us and our ability create during the wait.
Since there’s only a week until notes, you decide to wait to start drafting until those are done. As the deadline gets closer and closer, you start refreshing your inbox more and more. Every time you hit refresh, you find yourself getting more and more annoyed.
And instead of enjoying this last week of downtime, you start to feel this irritation bubble up and up and up. You feel like you don’t have any control over your time or schedule.
Your editor misses the deadline, and maybe you’re lucky and they email to say it’s next in their queue and will be to you soon. So you wait and one week turns into two turns into a month. You look back at that month, every day refreshing your inbox and telling yourself not to start drafting even though part of you wants to, and you find yourself upset because if you’d just KNOWN that you’d have a month, you could have written the first act by now!
As much as we might wish everyone in publishing met their deadlines all the time, we can’t control other humans. This stuff is gonna happen from time to time.
What we CAN control is how we handle our own brains when it does happen.
The first step is becoming aware of what we’re doing. Whenever you find yourself opening your inbox to refresh your email (or opening social media to see how many likes something got…very similar concept there) try to pause. Ask yourself what you’re hoping you’ll feel if the email does come through. What are you hoping the email will give you permission to do?
You may find that sometimes, there isn’t really anything you’re actively looking for. The refreshing has just become a subconscious habit.
If you’re expecting good news to make you feel proud or more confident, ask how you can create those experiences for yourself now. Where can you give yourself credit for how far you’ve already come? Where can you find what’s working in your writing instead of focusing on what isn’t right?
For those of you waiting on edits or other to-do list type emails, my first question is always: have you taken a break? Did you actually ENJOY the break or were you feeling guilty about not working the whole time?
Breaks are wonderful for your creativity, and they work best when you actively choose it. Your brain will try to tell you it’s bad to rest, but that’s just more patriarchy BS. We don’t get upset that babies aren’t working hard enough. Our worth isn’t based on how hard we work. (and honestly, I’m saying this partly to remind my OWN brain. I’m equally worthy when I’m snuggling the dog, writing my book, or making this podcast for you.)
If after your break time is over you still don’t have edits back, get curious about what you WANT to do next. Do you want to enjoy an extended break and do things that fill your creative well (like read, listen to music, watch tv/movies, have new life experiences) or are you truly excited to start writing the new thing?
If you are excited to write the next book but your brain keeps saying you can’t start if you don’t know when you’ll get edits for the other project, ask yourself why. And for every answer, ask “is this true?”
For example, you might say “I don’t want to get started if I have to stop in just a few days.”
Why?
I won’t be able to get enough done.
What even counts as enough? Isn’t a chapter or two better than none?
As you work through this process, you’ll find that either you do want to give yourself more time to rest without guilt OR you’ll be excited to get even a little bit done because it’ll give you a nice boost for when you DO get to really focus on that project.
If you still find yourself frustrated and constantly checking email, you can also ask yourself “what DO I have control over” and every time you open your inbox, remind yourself of that list of things. Pick one, and settle in to what you do have control over.
And now it’s time for that special announcement I mentioned! I’m presenting a live webinar as part of the Pipeline Symposium! On Thursday, February 3rd at 7pm EST, I’m teaching Query with Confidence!
Go to symposium.pipelineartists.com to register! We’re going to cover all the logistics of querying PLUS, my favorite part, how to query without feeling miserable the whole time. The two-hour workshop is only $35 and includes a recording of the session plus worksheets to help you prep your query letter. You don’t want to miss this!
That’s all for this week! Next week, we’re going to pull apart a common belief that leads directly to burnout: wearing busy-ness like a badge of honor!
