There is quite possibly nothing more evil than a spam attack when you’re waiting for responses to an e-sub. I have an email address I use exclusively for writing (e-submissions, queries, follow-ups, etc.) and for this blog. I currently moderate each comment (if you’ve ever tried posting a response to this site you’ll notice that it takes a day or so to show up) because every few weeks I’m beseiged with spam for online Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments and the like.

Although I did receive some spam recently about low home-equity loans–from sexycaligirl@whatever.com. That email address may seem appropriate for online poker, or ever online pokeher, but for finance? I mean really, who emails back to sexycaligirl about a loan?

Anyway, point being I don’t get much email at this address so my heart flutters whenever I see something in the In box. Usually that means someone is kind enough to leave a comment (and I’ve had lots of interesting comments from long lost friends and folks who just stumbled onto my blog via Google), or it’s spam, or, crucially, it’s an editor responding to an e-sub. As I said yesterday, I have four stories out, three of which were e-subs, and all three are in the window for “average response times,” meaning I should be getting an answer from each of them any time now.

I’m struggling to get a few more out the door as well. It would be so nice to send one sub out a week and have a steady streams of submissions and responses, but I tend to send out a bunch at once and then there are few weeks of anxious waiting (most places average 4-6 weeks for a response) as they all come back in.

Like most little kids, I used to cut proof of purchases off my toys and send away for the special limited edition G.I. Joe badass (I still remember being disappointed when I got the Cobra Commander with the hood instead of the store-bought standard issue faceplate–the drawing showed him with this sort of ominous hood that only intensified the mystery and evil that was the leader of the Cobra forces, but instead of using cloth (like the cool little jackets on the Jawas) that flowing black hood was actually non-flowing plastic, and the end result looked more like Dumb Donald than the purer form of evil I expected) and I’d perch by the window and wait for the mail.

It’s funny how some things don’t really change.