A Writer's Agony: "I'm NOT going to be Ignored!"

In the 1987 film Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas has a happy life with a successful career and a lovely wife until things get complicated when he has a steamy affair with Glenn Close.  Douglas wants the fling to be just a fling and tries to sever the relationship, but Close will hear nothing of that. She wants him all to herself and begins stalking him and his family with the intention of getting what she wants. It's an unsettling movie that really reflects the darker side of obsessive behaviors and the creepier side of "love gone wrong".  

 There's an image in that movie keeps coming back to me when I obsess a little too much about hearing back from an editor: a trauma that any writer can relate to. In the movie, Glenn Close is getting deeper and deeper into her obsession and doing nastier things then just calling and hanging up.

The scene that comes to mind is Close approaching Douglas with a knife in hand. Her argument with him comes to a boiling point and she declares: "I'm  NOT going to be ignored!", while at the same time psychotically digging the knife repeatedly into her own leg while walking towards him. Yikes, I know....pretty gruesome, but it does get your attention and it got his attention.

Now I would not take a knife to my leg in frustration from being ignored, but sometimes my frustration from not hearing back from an editor makes me go a little bit crazy. Not that crazy, but frustrated and depressed.  All my insecurities surface and my mind keeps going back to the article that is "waiting" for approval.  In some twisted way this vision of Glenn Close digging a knife into her leg has helped me to overcome (or at least diminish) my obsession with waiting to hear from an editor. Checking my email about 20 times a day will not magically make that editor contact me. Metaphorically digging the knife into my leg is very counterproductive.

 I have learned to laugh at myself and my obsession and try...so very hard to move forward.  I tell myself to start writing the next best thing instead of waiting and waiting for the disposition of that article. Sometimes when I am waiting to hear back about any writing assignment, it is kind of like being on a hold with a company listening to elevator music.....Ugh. Patience is a virtue but sometimes hard to come by.

Perhaps some of this need for quick response time has been generated, in part anyway, by the instantaneous communication of todays world. Texts, tweets, Facebook, instagram and email...pick your poison. Have many times have you heard, or said it yourself: "Didn't you get my text?" (or email) People's expectations regarding inter communications have definitely changed in a myriad of ways, including how quickly we respond.

People close to me (Husband and sons) keep telling me that perhaps I should not have such stringent time frames about people responding to me. "Don't worry....she will get back with you, she's busy...." Yeah, maybe...but it still drives me crazy.  I have to just keep plugging away and remember to....Drop the Knife. Metaphorically, that is.