How dependent are you on your internet connection? There must be a quiz for that, right? And secondarily, how dependent on the internet is your job and your efficiency. I found out yesterday. No internet all day. Since I had spent Tuesday and Wednesday with a very busy schedule – pretty much out of the office all day, all I’d done on those two days was answer urgent emails. Didn’t touch anything else online. And yesterday, when I settled down to power through some work, my office had no connection. Turns out the modem needed to be replaced because the service got upgraded and the old modems didn’t like the new tech. Sigh. In any case, that meant no Amazon.com (which I visit far too frequently) and no email. This morning I downloaded about 250 non-spam messages. This could take a while to sort out. I suppose the good news (for some people) is that I did a lot of reading. The “bad” news is that now I need to write the correspondence that results from that much reading. Among other things, I read all the e-queries that I had already downloaded prior. I hope to get the responses all out today. I’ve read 109 this week, and 1 partial requested. I’ve just downloaded another 55 or so….
Saving the world, one book sale at a time.
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This work by Jennifer Jackson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Et in arcaedia, ego. 
Wow. Sounds like a lot. With that one request for a partial, what was the genre, if I may ask? Do you think you’ll have time to elaborate on why the other queries didn’t work for you? :*)
~Tyhitia
http://obfuscationofreality.blogspot.com/
That partial was a fantasy and it happened to also be a referral from a current client.
Not sure about your second question as I need to catch up on a number of other things first. The thing I most noticed yesterday was that very few of the queries stood out in terms of either style or ideas.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll be keeping all of this in mind as I begin querying my work in the next few months.
~Tyhitia
http://obfuscationofreality.blogspot.com/
query responses
food for thought on cutting down your workload…
as a recent querier, i pretty much know from today’s post that i’ll be getting a rejection since i imagine you’ve already sent your one partial request. rather than sending a separate email for each query, maybe you could add a “where I am with e-queries” section to your blog where you update that you’ve read & requested material from queries through X date. Queriers who haven’t heard from you should assume their work wasn’t a match.
Personally, I know i’d be satisfied with this middle-ground btw an individual response & agents who don’t respond at all.
Re: query responses
Hmmm…. well, I’ll think about it, but I’m not sure how it will jive with my particular style and workflow. Also, I’m sure there are at least a few people out there who query but don’t read my blog (though the blog does get mentioned in a fair number of queries these days).
I do send a response to every query. And I probably should have mentioned that there were a handful from yesterday that I did not make a decision about as I was on the fence so there may be more requests going out today.
How dependent are you on your internet connection?
Under usual circumstances, very. I think it’s an addiction–I get edgy if I can’t get online every few hours. Last weekend, I thought I had fried my iMac and couldn’t get online with the iBook, and, well, edgy.
If I’m at a con, though, I can do without for days at a time. I think it has to do with being hip-deep in something I *want* to do.
I can last for a few days, but when I’m on vacation and it’s been five or more days without an internet connection, I start getting twitchy.
For me, it’s the first few days. After that I stop jonesing. 🙂
I am 100% dependent upon my Internet connection for … well, pretty much everything. :} I dread the inevitable period coming up at month’s end when we’re without connectivity as we move from one place to the other.
I do have a fallback, though — my Treo has AOHell Mobile software and a (separate) web browser and IM client on it, so I can at least get to my work email as well as my Yahoo and GMail, and chat with the outside world.
(It’s not an addiction. Really. :})
Take this 20 question test to help you decide whether or not you are an Internetaholic.
Answer YES or NO to the following questions.
1. Do you lose time from real work due to Internet browsing?
YES __ NO __
2. Is email making your home life unhappy?
YES __ NO __
3. Do you go online because you are shy with non-virtual people?
YES __ NO __
4. Is your blog or MySpace affecting your reputation?
YES __ NO __
5. Have you ever felt remorse after binge browsing?
YES __ NO __
6. Have you ever got into financial difficulties as a result of online shopping?
YES __ NO __
7. Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when hunting up that special kink porn?
YES __ NO __
8. Does the chain that ties you to your keyboard make you careless of your family’s welfare?
YES __ NO __
9. Has your offline ambition decreased since you found online semi-fame?
YES __ NO __
10. Do you crave checking your email at a definite time of the day?
YES __ NO __
11. Do you want your email access first thing the next morning?
YES __ NO __
12. Does drafting a reponse to that last flame email cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
YES __ NO __
13. Has your efficiency decreased since you discovered Google, BoingBoing.net and Amazon.com?
YES __ NO __
14. Is the Internet jeopardizing your job or business–or has it BECOME your business?
YES __ NO __
15. Do you go online to escape from worries or trouble?
YES __ NO __
16. Do you go online alone?
YES __ NO __
17. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of too much time in front of a computer monitor–as in you cannot remember what that last Website was, but it was really cool and you forgot to bookmark it?
YES __ NO __
18. Has your physician ever treated you for carpal tunnel, and told you to get a wrist brace or lay off the mouse/keyboard?
YES __ NO __
19. Do you have online personas to build up your self-confidence, and hide behind?
YES __ NO __
20. Have you ever been to a hospital or institution because that freakin’ connection went out one more damn time and you lost it?
YES __ NO __
What’s your score?
If you have answered YES to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be an Internetaholic.
If you have answered YES to any two, the chances are that you are an Internetaholic.
If you answered YES to three or more, you are definitely an Internetaholic.
And yes…I can quit any time. Really. Honest.
At home I would say I’m codependent on my internet connection. It has become part of my daily, at home routine now for um…a long, long time.
At work, we are 99.99% internet dependent. If the network is down we’re buggered. Which I’m fine with because then I get paid to have my novel reading time interrupted long enough to say, “Sorry, can’t help you the interwebs are broken.”
I hope to get the responses all out today. I’ve read 109 this week, and 1 partial requested. I’ve just downloaded another 55 or so….
There is a silver lining to this cloud: none of those are from me.
See? Day better already! 😀
Wow, you’re quite a lot busier than I. However, the internet, especially email, is very important in my life. I’m pretty dependent on it. My life revolves around my computer, actually. Which sounds kind of sad.
My job would not exist without an internet connection.
Seriously. I spend four to six hours out of my workday on the internet, and that is spent genuinely working and not goofing off (that’s the three hours when I first wake up, instead). The rest of my workday, with the exception of shipping, is also done on the computer. No power=day off for me.