Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Please Welcome Mystery Author, Wendy (W.S.) Gager

Wendy Gager
W.S. Gager has lived in Michigan for most of her life except when she was interviewing race car drivers or professional woman's golfers. She enjoyed the fast-paced life of a newspaper reporter until deciding to settle down and realized babies didn't adapt well to running down story details on deadline. Since then she honed her skills on other forms of writing before deciding to do what she always wanted with her life and that was to write mystery novels. Her main character is Mitch Malone who is an edgy crime-beat reporter who would have made a great noir detective but instead hunts for the next Pulitzer and won't let anyone stop him.

Webpage: http://www.wsgager.com/
Blog: http://www.wsgager.blogspot.com/

Some of Wendy's Books -
                                                            


Her Amazon author page- http://tinyurl.com/3fqfzf2









COMING SOON-              
A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES

Mitch Malone hasn't returned to Flatville since his parents were killed in an auto accident while he was in college. His mission is to teach good reporting skills to the local newspaper but Mitch isn't teaching material and his first session sends in disaster when he makes a bet with two reporters that he can find a major news story before the week is up. Drowning his sorrows in the local pub he comes face to face with his classmates celebrating the 15th class reunion. The Homecoming Queen he always had a crush on makes the moves on him and when she comes up dead the next day, he is the main suspect. Add in a bully for a cousin, a police chief who made his life miserable in school and a tragedy from his youth that still haunts him. As Mitch pokes around, more people start turning up dead and he is next…

Today, Wendy is posting on a topic you may relate to, as I do -  
CAN EMAIL BE ORGANIZED?

I consider myself a pretty organized person. I can put my hands on anything in the first place I look in my house whether it is bills, extra toothpaste, or note cards for a panicking daughter who has a presentation the next day.

If I’m so organized with physical things, why can’t I apply those same principals to computer stuff? My hard drive is a disaster. I spend lots of extra minutes looking for things in directories that all have similar names or everything in My Documents.

Worse yet is my email account? Why do I have a hard time deleting or organizing? I am on several email loops and love them but I get over 100 emails a day and some of those lists are digests. How do you organize that information? I’ll admit it. I’m an email pack rat. My email is going to crash because it is so hard to delete anything that I may someday want.

All I can think about is the old woman who dies and the EMTs have to wade through stacks of newspapers, boxes, junk mail to get to the body. What is a person to do? In my day job, I’ve worked with people who get an email, respond, and then delete it. I hate these people who only have a few emails in their inbox at any one time! (If you are one of those, please don’t take offense. I could use some help!) How can they be so organized? I’ve tried to set up a file system similar to what I do for bills and paperwork at home but only virtually. I never seem to file anything consistently so now I have two places to look, the list with 2800+ emails and then the filing system.

I can’t not get the emails. I’m currently on a blogging tour for my latest Mitch Malone Mystery, A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES, I can’t miss an opportunity to promote or worse yet a purchaser, an invitation or interview request. I would miss something I need. Things get really bad if I can’t check my emails for a day or heaven forbid two or three days. I have close to 500 emails. How will I ever read them all? At that point I begin to feel helpless and out of control. I nearly lost control when one loop had every one of its 1000 plus people do tagging and their tagging emails filled my box until one enterprising person creates a database with them in it. I kept up for a day or two and then have gone back five or six times but still have those emails in my in box. I can’t delete anything sight unseen.

This is the start of my five step plan. Admittance: I’m addicted. Is there any help for me? Have any suggestions? I do so want a slim little inbox and be able to put my hands easily on the emails I do need. Help!

Can anyone offer Wendy some help? Or are you helpless, also? I know I am. Please comment below.

19 comments:

WS Gager said...

Morgan: Thank you so much for helping with my adiction...I'm really looking for some help! There has to be something out there.

Morgan Mandel said...

Welcome to Acme, Wendy. I hope someone can help you, but it's not me. (g)

Morgan Mandel
http://spunkyseniors.blogspot.com
http://www.morganmandel.com

Margaret Tanner said...

OMG Wendy, you could have plucked that blog right out of my brain. I thought I was the only person who is bogged down with hudreds of e-mails, and don't know what to do with them.

Afraid I can't give you any advice,I am struggling to find a solution myself.
Best wishes

Margaret

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

I thought I commented, but don't see it. See you soon, Wendy. I read my email, reply if needed, and delete. Otherwise I'd have 100s and I don't want that.

Marilyn

V.R. Leavitt said...

Unfortunately, sometimes the slash and burn technique is really needed for email. Unsub from newsletters you don't really read. Reply to the messages that need replying to and then get rid of them. Save the ones you definitely will refer back to, and hopefully that'll help. :-) Good luck!

WS Gager said...

I know I need to be better about deleting. I tell myself I will never find it if I need it anyway, but I always hesitate at delete. I need a 10 step program. I do need to unsub from a couple of newsletters though. Thanks V.R.
Wendy

WS Gager said...

Marilyn: I can't wait to see you in Vegas. My plane leaves tonight.
Wendy

Bob Sanchez said...

I use Gmail, which allows me to set up rules for incoming emails. I subscribed to a very busy email list that I only needed temporarily but may want to use again (It's for giving and finding free stuff). So I have all of these emails automatically go to trash; when I want that list again, I will cancel the rule.

There's a lot of labeling you can do manually, but have it done automatically to save yourself a lot of hassle. Anything that requires some action on my part gets marked with a star and marked as unread. If you don't care about mail from a particular source, do a search for that source to display a list of all those emails. Then you can delete them all.

WS Gager said...

Margaret: You and I have a lot in common I bet. Let me know if anything works for you!
Wendy

WS Gager said...

Bob: Those are great ideas. Does it work for Yahoo? I also like marking the ones with stars that need attention. Sometimes I lose those and spend lots of time trying to find the one I need among the many. Thanks for the help!
Wendy

T. Forehand said...

I can flag, mark, read and delete, archive, and any number of the choices suggested but I then can't find, forget the color code I set up, delete the wrong thing, or spend wasted time searching my archives. I am beginning to think it is hopeless. I try to deal with it as it comes but it is distracting and takes away from writing time. If I don't look at it every day it gets worse. I am of no help...it is a problem. If only it was an agent or publisher emailing..I would be happy for the distraction. Happy writing.

WS Gager said...

Terri: I think I clone your actions everyday. I guess I should just delete and not worry and concentrate on writing.
Wendy

CA Verstraete said...

In microsoft mail I set up rules to and organize by topic. After I read I delete. And I make sure to keep the inbox to no more than 180 emails. That's reasonable then. Some get moved, some get dumped. Otherwise yes it gets out of hand and drives you crazy!

Morgan Mandel said...

I feel like almost all I do is delete emails as soon as I open my inbox. Still, I don't feel right not keeping in touch.

Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com

Margot Justes said...

Wendy,
Better late than never-welcome to Acme.
Margot Justes
www.mjustes.com

Deb Larson said...

Wendy ~ Have you been looking in my window??? I have the same problem with emails. Right now I have over 600 and I tried to delete several pages and got panicky and gave up. I try to check each day but don't always succeed - that's the problem. Sorry I do not have a solution either.
Welcome to Acme Authors - hope you enjoyed your visit. Best of luck on your next promotion!
DL Larson

WS Gager said...

I would love to keep emails to 180! I was delayed at an airport yesterday and went through deleting emails. Made a two hour delay go quick but still over 3000. Will have to work harder. Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. It was great to be at Acme.
Wendy

Farrah from The Book Faery Reviews said...

I use Gmail for labeling so I can archive immediately after reading and get it out of my inbox. I unsubscribe periodically because sometimes my reading trends change. But like you I STILL get 100s of emails daily. In fact most days I delete in the 100s daily. Often things I haven't even read (group emails), notifications, etc. You'd think I'd just remove myself from all of those but I'm afraid I'll miss out on something!

WS Gager said...

I think that is my problem. I'm afraid I'll miss something...not sure how to untrain myself...Thanks Farrah
Wendy