Gentle Reminder: Still No Public Email –
In 2015, I closed my public email address to preserve my sanity, though some would question whether I succeeded in my goal.
Lately, a lot of people have attempted to seek advice, feedback or whatever through my personal site: christophermschwarz.com and through help@lostartpress.com. I’m up to about five messages a day now.
Please don’t waste your breath, your fingers or your 1s and 0s. These messages are all simply deleted.
I know deleting them might seem rude. And some of you have told us how rude you think it is in long rants… which get deleted.
Trust me. It’s not you. It’s me. I had multiple public email addresses for 17 years and answered every damn question sent to me – no matter how odd or how much research it required. I helped lazy students with their papers on hand craft. I found links for people too lazy to use a thing called Google. I answered sincere but incredibly time-consuming emails from people who wanted to tell me their life story and get detailed advice on the steps they should take to become a woodworker.
And those weren’t even the ridiculous requests. It’s too early in the morning for me to even think of those.
It was all too much. I was spending hours each day answering emails. It cut into my time researching, building, editing and writing (not to mention time with my family). And then one message snapped my head in two. Out of respect for the individual who sent it, I won’t go into detail because he would be identifiable.
The email he sent was longer than my arm. It was going to take me hours to formulate even a half-a$%ed reply.
I deleted it. Then I deleted my inbox and my old email address.
So now I’m half-sane.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. If you really want to ask me detailed questions, the best way to do that is to visit our Covington storefront on the second Saturday of every month. I’m happy to talk to anyone about anything. I know some of you will whine that you are too poor to travel (while typing on your $2,000 computer…), but people have made the trip from almost every state in the country.
