[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.]

SMELL-O-MATIC 7000

TL;DR: In the continuing covert competition with her boyfriend as to who is the best fantasy writer, Writer X installs an experimental piece of technology in her nose to take her writing to the next level and prove she’s the Next Big Epic Fantasy Writer of All Time. What could go wrong?

Hello, All! Melanie here.

When last we heard from Writer X, she and Tryxy took a walk in the Gloomy Woods to beat the high heat we’ve had here in New Hampshire. It offered all the things you can expect in a place called the Gloomy Woods; black apples, an undead creature named Clementine, and the last big epic fantasy writer of all time’s right arm.

Would you believe August marks the third year of Writer X?

Without further ado…

---

Subject: TRYXY’S A HAIRBALL NOW

Dear Gladys,

Cat dander defies all known laws of invariable mass. With the crazy hot days we’ve been getting, #bestkitten is shedding like a mamma-jamma and we can’t keep up. Every time someone opens the front door, a draft slides in and the house looks like a snowstorm of swirling cat hair clumps!!!!

Just last Thursday, we got the Roomba out to suck up the day’s sheddings, and by noon we had enough shedded cat hair to create FOUR whole life size #bestkitten sculptures and put them in the front yard where they were promptly devoured by a pygmy marmoset.

And if that weren’t bad enough, the Roomba bit the dust by Friday and my boyfriend, award-nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, and I had to call a special Cat Dander Rescue Squad to come in and locate Tryxy who’d been walled off in his room by a dense tide of white fluff.

Have you ever noticed that there’s lots of YouTube videos showing you what to do when your cat gets a hairball but there are NO VIDEOS TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET A HAIRBALL?????

Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re dying to know how my writing is going. WELL IT’S ABOUT TO BE BETTER THAN EVER GLADYS AND YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHY. But I need you to sit down because you are going to be so incredibly excited at the news I am sharing with you.

I actually wrote last week. A short story in fact. It’s possibly the most brilliant thing ever written, but a lot of people who read it will probably just be jealous and try to say that it “needs another draft” or “doesn’t have any sensory detail” or “is a great start to something.” Whatever people think of themselves, you’d be surprised how few people can stand in the shadow of true greatness!!!!!!

In fact, I showed it to my boyfriend as soon as I wrote it and when he read it he said, “Wow. That’s a great start to something. Your plot is really strong, but I think the story might do even more of what you want it to do if you added sensory detail. That stuff’s really critical to helping a reader feel immersed in a story.”

To which I pretended to have cat hair in my eye and left the room so that I could secretly look up whatever the heck “sensory detail” is and a great little article called “SWITCHEROO: How to make a writing critique partner feel stupid and inferior.”

When I was done, I came back and casually said, “I hear what you’re saying about sensory detail in which a writer uses the five senses to add depth of detail to writing, but is it possible you’re missing what I’m really trying to do here? Because obviously I know what sensory detail is and if I would have wanted it in there, I would have added it.”

“Really? In the first draft? I usually have to go back in subsequent drafts and add sensory detail, enriching it pass by pass. For example, lots of writers include sight and sound in their descriptions but smell is one of the least represented senses. I’m always impressed when a writer invokes our sense of smell. Smell is so powerful. And the English language has more words for sights and sounds than it does smell making smell even more challenging. I’m curious,…what were you trying to accomplish by leaving out sensory details?”

To which I pretended to give a loud sneeze and said, “Oh, I think Tryxy is calling me, be right back” and I left the room and looked up “english has more sight words than smell” and I couldn’t find ANYTHING, but I did find out that there are actually EIGHT senses to use in writing and that was just the juice I needed to go back and really ZING my boyfriend and his know-it-all-ness. I was fuming!!!!

“Actually, smell isn’t the most challenging of the sensory details to include. Personally, I rarely see writers include vestibule, prophylactics, and interrogation.”

My boyfriend held up his hand. “Wait. Wait. Do you mean vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive?”

“No. I USED THE WORDS I WANTED, TOD BOADKINS.”

“I prefer to just called it balance, movement, and internal senses—”

“NO ONE IS ASKING YOU WHAT YOUR PREFERENCES ARE!!!!”

“I’m sorry. I think I offended you. Did I offend you?”

“OF COURSE NOT. YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND MY WRITING.”

ANd I would have shouted a lot more just so he could see how stupid he was being but I had sucked in a floating hairball the size of a golf ball and it took ten minutes of my boyfriend giving me the Heimlich maneuver and peanut butter to get it out.

Fortunately for me, I found the Smell-o-matic 7000 soon after. If you’re not familiar, it’s the latest and greatest in writing assistive technology. Originally it was created for people who wanted to have a sense of smell 35x better than dogs so that dogs stop feeling so gosh darn superior, but its uses for writers were IMMEDIATELY APPARENT.

IT works by ratcheting up your sense of smell so that you smell things so acutely, you will be 72% more likely to write scent into your writing. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. The creators of the Smell-o-matic 7000 created a special synaptic pulse that connects what you write to the olfactory parts of your brain so that if you write “LEATHER SOFA” you immediately SMELL A LEATHER SOFA and can describe it!!!!!!!

What’s great is that my boyfriend has no idea the Smell-o-matic 7000 exists and when he sees my next draft, he is going to be absolutely FLOORED!!!!!

About a half hour ago I inserted the device into my nostrils where it quickly melted into my nasal tissue. The instructions say that it takes about thirty minutes to an hour for the device to get to full power. Then, the device effect naturally wears off in anywhere between 7 and 374 days!!!!!! What’s even better is I think a mouse died in one of our walls and this device will DEFINITELY help me find it!!!!! And if that’s not the cherry on top, I misplaced a chocolate bar somewhere last Hogwatch and I spent three weeks looking high and low for it with no luck, but this device is gonna help me find all my lost stuff!!!!!!!

Gladys!!! I think it’s starting to work!!!!! I smell something!!!!

I smell…the seedy, warm smell of unwashed hair. And lots of it. ACK. It’s almost like a linseed oil factory in here!!!! What is that god awful smell???

I THINK IT’S THE CAT HAIR!!!!!! Oh no! Why did I write cat hair??? The second I wrote it, I got another wave of the unwashed hair straight to the back of my throat!!!!!

MY EYES ARE WATERING GLADYS!!!! Do you know how awful tears smell????? How salty they are!!!! It doesn’t smell like the ocean!!!! It’s like sitting on the inside of a brined turkey!!!!

I could vomit. Why did I say vomit? Why did I choose to invoke one of the worst smells to human kind?? The sweet, rancid, roiling, upchuck-inducing smell of vomit. The way its sickly sweet savor tickles the back of your throat like a feather daring you to gag even a little!!!! That is ALMOST the worst smell known to human kind and it’s a fact. Everyone knows that. The only thing worse than that

WAIT A MINUTE!!!! I almost said it. But there’s no way I’m typing that!!!! OH BUT I THOUGHT IT!!!! CONTROL ALT DELETE!!!! CONTROL ALT DELETE!!!!

FRESH FLOWERS FRESH FLOWERS FRESH FLOWERS. NOOOOOOO. THAT WAS TOO MANY!!!! IT SMELLS LIKE A YANKEE CANDLE SHOP NOW!!!! I’M BEING PUNCHED IN THE BRAIN. OH THE VANILLA AND INDISCRIMINATE FLORAL CINNAMON AGONY!!!!!

GOD HELP US ALL GLADYS. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT YANKEE CANDLE SHOPS ARE NOTHING MORE THAN COVERT CHEMICAL WARFARE PLANTED IN OUR MIDST!!!!!

GLADYS, DO YOU HAVE A NOSE PLUNGER???? I NEED THIS OUT IMMEDIATELY!!!!!! DON’T TELL MY BOYFRIEND HE CAN’T KNOW!!!!!!

THERE IS A DOG WHIZZING IN THE YARD ACROSS THE STREET AND A SPARROW SHITTING ON A PIECE OF SIDE-WALK BAKED BUBBLE GUM!!! WHY DOES EVERYTHING EVIL SMELL SWEET????

I HAVE TO GO!!!!! I NEED TO CALL POISON CONTROL AND THE PRESIDENT AND THE POLICE!!!!!!

Pages next week, Galdsy!

xox,

X

DON’T

TELL X

BUT I

ACCIDENTALLY

ATE HER

CHOCOLATE

BAR LAST

HOGWATCH

AND EVEN

HELPED

HER LOOK

FOR IT

BECAUSE

I DIDN’T

HAVE THE

HEART TO

TELL HER

AND NOW

IT’S GONE

ON SO

LONG I’M

COMMITTED

TO THE

LIE.