Incommunicado: when a writer can’t write

There are worse things than being without email. It’s rarely fatal. And it can be relaxing. I’d planned to be on vacation last week, anyway—so losing my email on Monday night did not seem like a total disaster.

On Tuesday, I lost power, too. It’s hard to troubleshoot your email using borrowed WiFi in a restaurant parking lot. And, anyway, I was on vacation!

So I bought myself a good book—did you know they work without electricity?—tucked myself in bed when the sun set like Laura Ingalls Wilder, and sweated out the days until my return to the 21st century.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…no power in these here woods. Saturday: my AirBnB host told me we were the last street in town still in the dark. Sunday, like magic: light, WiFi, air conditioning.

But…no email.

I am not a cobbler; I can’t just hang out a shingle and expect people to flood my shop, eager for me to save their soles. My website is a good shingle, especially in its new, redesigned state. But email is my lifeline to the world. Outgoing lets clients know I can help them; incoming tells me which clients need my help now.

I have no way of knowing what waits in my week’s worth of email. Probably a mille-feuille of spam and requests for political donations, separated by a few yummy layers of work.

Dammit, now I want a piece of mille-feuille. But I want my email more.

  • writing