Pick your email subscriptions with care…

November 11, 2007 by Lani Voivod, Chief Scribbler.

(Note: This comes from my hubby and fellow scribbler Allen Voivod, from a writer’s newsletter he wrote back in 2006 - still useful today!)

When I asked myself, “What could I use?” recently, two answers sprung forth: 1) I could always use a little inspiration, and 2) I could always use a little less junk in my email Inbox. So I looked at everything coming in on a regular basis, and started unsubscribing like crazy.

What a difference a month makes! I cut down my emails by over a third, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything, and I don’t feel the sense of dread while watching the popping of envelope icons in my System Tray (sorry, Mac users, I don’t know the relevant analogy for you - and that’s the general “you”).

So that covered #2. But what about #1? Ironically, it involved subscribing to an email newsletter. The Writer’s Almanac is linked to Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame, and I must admit I’ve never once listened to Keillor. It’s not that I don’t like him - I’ve just never been motivated enough to find out whether I would or wouldn’t. Based on the Almanac, though, I’ll probably give him a sympathetic listen whenever the first time occurs.

The daily contents of each email are a poem and a this-date-in-history thing with a literary focus. What’s surprised me recently is how many satirists are showing up - Vonnegut, O’Rourke and Atwood, to name three in November alone. What’s surprised me even more are the poems, which I initially dismissed as irrelevant. In fact, the more I read them, the more I get that sort of “ping” in the soul, the feeling of how powerful words are, and of the insight they can deliver.

I’ve begun making it a ritual to open this email before any other in the day. If you’d like to check it out, here’s the link to sign up.

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