[Introduction: Melanie Stormm continues her humorous series of posts about the misdirected emails she’s been getting. Stormm is a multiracial writer who writes fiction, poetry, and audio theatre. Her novella, Last Poet of Wyrld’s End is available through Candlemark & Gleam. She is currently the editor at the SPECk, a monthly publication on speculative poetry by the SFPA. Find her in her virtual home at coldwildeyes.com. Wipe your feet before entering.]

THE TROUBLE WITH BAERS

Hello All, Melanie here!

In recent weeks, Writer X has solved the dilemma on How to Become Famous Instantly When You Are A New/Early Career SFF Writer. The answer is simple: write something that no one else has written.

Now, I hear some of you saying that this is what all writers have to do if they don’t want to spend valuable money and years of their lives being sued for plagiarism. Plagiarism is complicated, as we learned last week when X formed a Not For Profit organization dedicated to fighting Pre-Stolen ideas. You don’t have to plagiarize to accuse someone else of nicking your idea.

In previous iterations of this goal, Writer X created a “new genre.” In this current iteration, she’s mashing up two different genre conventions to prove to the world that she truly is the “next big, epic fantasy writer of all time.”

Unfortunately for X, there’s a new TV show called Plight of Stars with a premise very like the idea that X is certain will help her Make It Big. But X has a plan: hire a Juju practitioner to wipe the existence of the show out of the consciousness of everyone who’s ever seen it—or even worked on it. Simple enough stuff.

Meanwhile, in Cradensburg, a mysterious carnival has come to town but no one’s been able to attend thanks to all the rains they’ve been experiencing. This also means that Tryxy the demon hasn’t met up with his angel friend at all as everyone knows angels are allergic to rain.

Perhaps X would do better if she moved on to a new idea—say, sitting down and actually doing some writing. But that doesn’t seem to have occurred to her yet. 

Without further ado…

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Subject: MARCHING AN ARMY IN THE RAIN

Dear Gladys,

As I wait for my new juju practitioner to return my email, there’s something else I’d need to talk to you about.

I’m writing to request provisions for my army. The rains have been long and plentiful, and my soldiers are up to their knees in the significant overflow. Just yesterday I took my army on a rucksack march down to the corner store and back and at least two of my soldiers were swept away and nearly sucked into a drainage tunnel. I had to drive all the way to Walmart to get a pool noodle to retrieve them!!!!

The news is grim, Galdsy. We are not going to make the long march to our local IRS office without better provisions than what we have.

Please send all your pool noodles right away!!!! My latest fantasy saga is on the line!!!!

xox,

Generally X

P.S. Originally, I was calling myself General X, but my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, says that it might be disrespected to real, actual generals and so I told him that I was just generally a general and we both agreed that it probably would be fine for people to just call me Generally X. After all, I am me at least 90% of the time!!!!

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Subject: THE FUTURE IS WITHIN REACH

Dear Gladys,

So far, I’ve heard nothing from my new juju practitioner. I called her office and her sister Linda told me she’s on vacation at a llama farming retreat in Oshkosh, Wisconsin through Thursday. Until then, I am forced to stay on my current path!!

My troops have had a tough couple of days with their morale. First, they were disheartened when the shipment of pool noodles I had said were on the way never arrived. I told them not to worry, have a heart, Gladys ALWAYS DELIVERS!!!!

Then, the popcorn contribution we requested from Mr. Morgans also never came and we were forced to commence with our Regimental Movie Night making do with a can of ginger beer I found in the back of my pantry and some of the Cool Ranch Doritos Tryxy keeps in his secret stash. But don’t worry, I will replace them before he misses them!!!

Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re DYING to know how my writing is going. Unfortunately, I am in the middle of a war, Gladys. As you know, I created a nonprofit organization just last week to address the problems Plight of Stars has created for me and SO MANY other writers. I submitted all of the necessary paperwork and waited for them to give me my 501c3 number and you know what they said???? THEY SAID IT TAKES 6 to 9 MONTHS!!!!

I said, “That’s ridiculous. I took the time to fill in all those questions and you mean to tell me that you’re just going to put my papers on the shelf and not look at them for 6 to 9 months???”

And the person on the helpline said, “First of all, we don’t accept applications filled out in pink crayon. Secondly, is this like your first time interacting with the IRS. Ever???”

That kind of calloused dismissal of pink crayon grinds my gears, Gladys!!!! Now I have to fill it out all over again and in the stifling, repressive colors of blue or black!!!!

At first, I wasn’t going to build an army and march on them. But then I really didn’t have anything else to do and it turns out that there were a bunch of unemployed gnomes and libertarians from Brokenheap, NH that really like the idea of marching down to the IRS and weren’t really doing anything else either.

When I explained to them the awful trouble Plight of Stars has made for my writing career, one of them suggested that we all watch the show together so that we could get good and mad. ‘Cause if there’s one thing that can keep you excited about your decision to join the army, it’s getting good and mad!!!!

So that’s how Regimental Movie Night started. But really it’s more like Regimental Movie Hour. On Monday alone, we binge watched the entire first season of Plight of Stars TWICE.

After our rucksack march to the corner store to get more snacks went afoul, we decided to google fan theories about what caused the Blight and whether everyone agrees that the strange thing that happens to Elfthera when her eyes go black is caused by exposure to the blight and that caused a good deal of infighting.

By the fourth binge-watching, we had all switched our computer wall papers and phone lock screens to the image of Elfthera with the black Blight eyes. Then, I decided we had to do some real army activities so we marched on down to the town green and practiced bivouacking there.

There’s one thing that has become painfully clear: THIS SHOW IS AMAZING!!!!!! It’s the best thing I’ve ever watched and that tells me more than ever that my epic fantasy saga is going to be SOOOOO GOOOOOD so long as Linda isn’t leading me down the garden path regarding my juju person being back on Thursday.

By the way, Gladys, can you pop by the town green with your airhorns??? We were unexpectedly set upon by baers and had to retreat to the trees and now the baers have made a real mess of our tents and are sleeping down there and going to town on Tryxy’s Cool Ranch Doritos.

Also: bring more Cool Ranch Doritos. Once you clear the baers we’re planning a Plight of Stars Sing Along and Cosplay Sewing Session.

xox,

Generally X

sent from my iPhone in a tree

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Subject: Further complications with the baers

Dear Gladys,

So I called my new juju practitioner’s sister Linda to ask her if my juju practitioner was back yet and she said, “I told you. She’s not due back until Thursday.”

And I said, “I was just checking in case she came home early.”

And she said, “People don’t come home from retreats early.”

So I said, “They do if they discover too late that someone has infiltrated the catering and replaced all of the food with rotten eggs.”

And she said, “HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?” 

And I said, “I DON’T KNOW. IT WAS HYPOTHETICAL AND I’M CLAIRVOYANT.”

That’s when her phone became mysteriously disconnected. Must be all the rain!!!!!

Unforunately, the baers have drastically reduced my army’s numbers. Five or six of the gnomes said that they were only in this for the cool ranch doritos and now that we’ve resorted to eating pine cones, their intestines are responding adversely to all the fiber. Three of the libertarians are threatening to leave on the principle that they don’t like conforming to anything for too long and they already have day jobs working for the government.

But the biggest problem is the Plight of Stars withdrawal. We’ve been forced to comfort ourselves with reenacting our favorite scenes from the safety of the tree tops. It really is a wonderful show. This is the best idea I’ve ever had and I can’t wait to start writing it as soon as I obliterate the show from the memory of the World with the use of juju magic.

We also have Trivia Time where we ask each other pop questions like “what was the actress who played Elfthera’s first TV role?” (ANSWER: it was a pampers commercial.)

Sometimes we run out of things to talk about with Plight of Stars so I’ve taken to teaching my troops this thing I like to call Wild Crafting. It’s when we create pictures and sculptures of our favorite POS character using nothing but pine needles, pinecones, and sap. I made a picture of Elfthera. One of the gnomes actually created an entire model of the Starship Blightrunner and one of the libertarians made a cute little sign that read, “Taxation is Theft.”

Yes, it didn’t conform to the rules, but UNLIKE THE IRS, I ACCEPT CREATIVITY, GALSDY!!!!!

This is further complicated with the fact that the baers have started to bully my soldiers from below. The baers don’t like our trivia or sing alongs or scene recreation and have started growling at us and rearing back and head-butting the trees until we’re forced to let go of our arts and crafts and hang on for dear life!!!!!

Then, they ate all our pinecones!!!

None of this would have happened if it weren’t for Plight of Stars!!!!!

As soon as I get out of this tree I’m going to march right on down to my juju practitioner’s house and obliterate this show from the face of the planet!!!!!

xox,

Generally X

sent from my iPhone up a tree with a baer at the foot of it

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Subject: ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Dear Gladys,

Well, my visit to my juju practitioner was an overwhelming success. As I predicted, the rotten eggs had her return home from her retreat a day early to find an entire battle-scarred gnome and liberatarian army resting from our toils among her llamas.

At first she looked very confused by our presence and then her sister Linda came out and whispered something about, “this is the lady I told you about” and then the juju practitioner got right to business. I told her I wanted “something something” COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY wiped from everyone’s minds. I even wrote it down in pink crayon. She got to work, right away!!!!

As far as I can tell, things have returned to working order and I can get back to writing that epic fantasy saga I was telling you about just as soon as you write back to me and remind me what it was supposed to be about.

Also, have you seen my pool noodle, tent, and pink crayons? They appear to be missing.

Pages next week Galdys!!!!

xox,

X

HAVE YOU

SEEN MY

COOL RANCH

DORITOS?

I CAN’T

FOR THE

LIFE OF

ME

REMEMBER

WHERE I

PUT THEM.