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Month: July 2022

Smarter Than the Machine

Years ago when a friend bought herself a fancy new car, my favorite thing about it was the backup camera. I’m an aficionado of the “where’s this road go?” school of exploring, you see, and sometimes you need to be able to turn around in very tight quarters. And my usual partner in exploring is really bad at telling me when to stop. She’s afraid she’ll send me and the car tumbling down a mountain, I guess, so instead we get a move like this. I wanted a backup camera. Really bad. My car is a 2007 Corolla. She (my Precious) came with a three-CD changer as part of the stereo. So that led to…well, I don’t like to listen to commercials, and I hate DJs talking. HATE. So I made two CDs of some of my favorite songs, and stuck those and a CD of soft jazz for headache music in, and they stayed. For years. YEARS. Sometimes I’d put a song on repeat, and not notice for a couple days. Once the child and I were headed up the mountain, and halfway up she asked if we could please just turn the music off. She couldn’t take that song one more time. Recently I did something about both problems. I had a new stereo, with screen, put in my car, and I had them install a backup camera. When the tech was showing me the basics of my new system, he told me to “play something” from my…

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Why Perfectionism Sucks

About a week ago, I read an awesome poem on Instagram. I follow a lot of poets on there, and I collect prompts and post my own stuff and generally try to participate in the poetry community when I can. Anyway, this poem inspired me, and I commented to the poet that I “might write an after poem inspired by it.” (An “after poem” is basically that — a poem inspired by another poem, or a response to it). The poet was obviously excited and happy to read that because she said, “Please, please do!” So I did. The poem was on “All the Places I’ve Lost Myself.” But my version didn’t quite hit the mark; in fact, I believe I veered completely off course. As one does. Oops? I wasn’t happy with it. Well, it wasn’t bad per se. It just wasn’t what I was hoping for as an after poem. If you recall, these Instagram poems are part of my Bad Poetry Project, so they don’t have to be perfect. But all of a sudden, the perfectionism monster reared its ugly head. One revision, I told myself. Just to get it right. I had some better ideas. I was sure I could nail it. And…I almost did? But not quite. Not quite. Now, here’s the problem. I am a total perfectionist. I know this about myself. I’m not allowed to make mistakes, not allowed to be anything less than 100% perfect. Why? I suspect trauma — being bullied,…

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Like Riding a Bike?

Hey, guys, how’s it going? I’m going to have a book coming out in October through Turtleduck Press! But it’s been a long time (since City of Hope and Ruin in 2016) and I’ve realized I’ve got to relearn all the marketing stuff that I haven’t touched in a while. (I did put out two short story collections, containing stories I wrote for TDP plus a few new ones in there–The Short of It (2017) and Half-Formed Places (2021)–but those are different beasts entirely.) Between life and the pandemic and everything, I had a hard time keeping on top of what I was supposed to be doing, let alone extra things like keeping up with marketing trends and new methods, but the day has come to jump back in. I actually went to a webinar this morning! And I’ve promptly forgotten most of it, though my understanding is that they will send the video out so I can watch it again. The biggest thing I remember is that she recommended getting a launch/marketing specific calendar and putting everything on there, so it’s all in one place and you’re keeping track of it. Sounds good to me! Maybe it will come back to me, like riding a bike, but I’m skeptical. Bike riding is always the same, and marketing techniques are always changing. But I am excited to have the book coming out! It feels good to have something done after all this time, and especially after the last couple of…

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Vegetable Gardening, Low-Stress Edition

You might have noticed that the world continues to be incredibly stressful even as the pandemic settles down (please please please). Personally, I’m done. I mean, I keep half an eye on the news and take action as needed, but I’m trying to be ruthless about cutting out or reframing my approach to things that don’t need me to stress about them. Take vegetable gardening. My spouse and I just celebrated our tenth anniversary of being homeowners, and we’ve been growing vegetables for most of that time (thanks to my having grown up with a dad who grew up on a farm). I’ve coddled them, I’ve researched weed control, I’ve carefully staked and pruned my tomatoes, I’ve mourned when something got hit by a pest or a blight. This year I didn’t have the energy for any of that. I asked my spouse to pick out and order whatever vegetable seedlings (baby plants) he wanted, and I would help plant them. Normally we put in some vegetable seeds as well, carrots or radishes, but that’s more my thing, not his; this year, a seed mix of local flowers got scattered willy-nilly in a bare patch. (Some went into pots, too, but for whatever reason, none of those sprouted. Not stressing.) He chose most of our usual things: tomatoes (lots), green beans, various peppers, basil. Then he added watermelon, parsley, mini sunflower, and something called a cucamelon. (Despite the name that makes it sounds like a new and trendy cross, it’s…

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Coat of Scarlet: A Clockpunk Tale, Part 8

by Siri Paulson Read previous installments: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 By the time Niko’s airship approached its next port, Marius knew he could delay no longer. They had been skirting the Continent and were to come in for refuelling and reprovisioning at Porto, since Olissipona, the other major city in West Iberia, was occupied with rebuilding. Niko hid it well, but by the increasing frequency he was stopping by to ask about his coat, Marius knew he was uncomfortable without it. Whatever business he had in port, he wanted to wear the justacorps. To make himself recognizable? To project an air of authority? Some other reason Marius could not guess? Regardless, the coat was ready, and Marius was only fooling himself by continuing to work on it. He was a little anxious about how his amendments would be received. More, he could not shake the fear that once he handed it over, Niko would have no further use for him. The moments they had shared made him reasonably certain that this fear had little basis in fact, yet it proved remarkably stubborn. Gloriana’s earlier warnings about Niko would not leave his ears. He did not even know what language they spoke in Porto. Still, he could not bear to keep Niko any longer from the coat that clearly meant so much to him. So, early in the morning before he could lose his nerve…

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