[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 (temporarily closed for update). Wipe your feet before entering.]

THE MISSING FANTASISTS

Hello, all! Melanie here.

The last couple of weeks, Writer X has had a devil of a time deciding what she wants to work on for NaNoWriMo.

You see, she and her friends in the Ink Black Coffee Club Critique Group compete with the Fantasy Writers Meetup of Brokenheap, NH, every year to see which writing group can write the most words in November. Each day, the two teams tally their total word count and check to see who’s ahead. If they’re not sufficiently ahead, they look for someone to blame.

So far, Writer X’s team has yet to out-write Brokenheap’s team, but they have a few new members to share the load this time. I’m curious whether Writer X will get any writing done at all this month. After all, there was that goat.   

This year’s NaNoWriMo begins slightly out of time: the last email is the first email. Sort of.

In the meanwhile, the demon Tryxy has taken up a new and fascinating hobby!

Without further ado…

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Subject: WELL THAT WENT GRATE

Dear Gladys,

Sometimes I think you don’t check your emails.

I know you are receiving this now, but I’m writing you NOW but I’m actually—hang on, let me count—three days in the future. Basically I’m on Saturday, Novemember 4th and you are receiving this on Wednesday, November 1st.

Thanks for not showing up!!!! Everything went fantastically and all my friends are totally not mad at me and getting ready to stage an intervention.

THAT WAS SARCASM!!!!!

In a few days you’re going to discover why it’s important to check your emails regularly. Just know that as a result of your actions the following things have happened:

1.) Ink Black Coffee Club has closed for sanitation reasons.

2.) My boyfriend has chucked his favorite boots in the dumpster and is giving me suspicious looks.

3.) The Fantasy Dream Team thinks that I’ve betrayed them and am in cohorts with the Fantasy Writer’s Meetup of Brokenheap, NH.

4.) I’ve resorted to going back in spacetime again with Tryxy to show them that they’ve gotten it all wrong!!!!!

In the meanwhile, I need you to help me figure this out because you owe me and I suspect this goes deeper than I thought!!!!!! No time to explain, you’ll just have to read your future emails!!!!!

I am currently in the closet of Rain F. Williams’s home office in Brokenheap, NH sweating through my double breasted trench coat, disguise wig, and pink fedora. Tryxy’s outside in the getaway machine keeping an eye out for the fuzz!!!

As you might remember from last year, Rain F. Williams writes fairy-tale retellings. As a retiree, she is one of the most dangerous writers there is on the Fantasy Writers Meetup of Brokenheap, NH. She’s got a professional background and years of self-discipline to lean on and several fantasy books already published with a small press. She writes an average of 3,000 words per day and has won NaNoHokeyPokey a total of TEN TIMES!!!!

But tonight is the first night of NaNoNitwit and, unbeknownst to all of us, Rain F. Williams will report fewer than 2,000 words. Then, she will go silent and stop reporting words at all!!! Unless I get to the bottom of it!!! I just know that if I can solve this mystery then I’ll be able to get my friends off my back and get to my prewriting!!!! Everyone has too much time on their

Hang on, Gladys!!!! Something’s happening!!!!

Rain F. Williams has come back to her computer with a cup of tea.

She’s re-reading her words and making little corrections as she goes.

Now she’s cupping her hands around her tea cup and blowing steam off the top.

I think I heard a thump from somewhere in the house. Probably a cat.

Now she’s smiling contentedly at her words and scrolling further down the—

Wow, is it just me or am I suddenly very drowsy???

No. It’s not just me. Yaaaawwwwwwwnnnn. Through the slats in the closet door I can see that Rain F. Williams’ head is slumped against her shoulder. Her hot tea is spilling all over her carpet but she’s not getting up.

Gladys!!! There’s someone here!!! A pair of hands gloved in dark blue latex are encircling Rain F. Williams. I’m struggling to keep my eyes open!!! Kidnap!! They’re carrying her awawaaa

sent from my iPhone

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From: Bevvy Hart

Fw: Re: Re: Is Brokenheap handing us a win?

Dear Gladys,

We have another mystery on our hands!!!!

xox,

X

begin forwarded message

Ravenhair:

Obviously I would have already done something as simple as check my spam folder before sending an email like this. Mansplaining?

Warmly,

Bevvy

Bevvy Madison Hart she/her

Wandering Spirit Small Press, CEO

A Vegan Owned and Operated Press

On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 5:07 PM Ravenhair Silkenwind <Ravenhair@xx_xx.com> wrote:

Bevvy,

The emails are probably going to your spam is all.

-Ravenhair Silkenwind

On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 4:24 PM Bevvy Hart <wanderingspiritpress@xx_xx.com> wrote:

Dear Fellow Writers,

I’m attaching the latest word count numbers in our competition against Brokenheap. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I haven’t received any updates from them since Wednesday, the 1st. Perhaps we’ll actually win this year?

X, as I’m the Team Coordinator for this year, I’m concerned that you’re off to a bad start. At some point, you have to stop “pre-writing” and get actual words written. Didn’t a goat write more than you last year? Let me know if you need any guidance on this. I find affirmations do the trick.

Fantasy Writer’s Meetup of Brokenheap, NH:

7,675 total words written

Ink Black Coffee Club’s Fantasy Dream Team of Cradensburg, NH:

12,224 total words written

Bevvy Madison Hart: 73 words written

Tod Boadkins: 4,008 words written

Edwína Tómas: 2,489 words written

Ravenhair Silkenwind: 1,117 words written

Thomasina Prepper: 867 words written

Mark Prepper: 3,670 words written

Writer X: 0 words written

Warmly,

Bevvy Hart

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Subject: WRITER X TO THE RECUSE!!!!

Dear Gladys,

NaNoTriceratops is here and to be honest all those writers mysteriously going missing couldn’t have come at a better time. Of course my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, and the rest of my writing friends in the Ink Black Coffee Club Fantasy Dream Team don’t believe that the writers have gone missing, but I have a seventh sense about these things!!!! My sixth sense is strictly related to knowing when the local pumpkin farm’s cider donuts are still hot and it’s been paying off in spades!!!!

Usually, I’d split the cider donut hauls with Tryxy, but he’s decided to keep himself occupied during NaNoMooseLips so that my boyfriend and I can FOCUS!!!!

This month, when he’s not doing homework or playing music with #bestkitten, Tryxy has once again checked out the spacetime machine from our library and is putting it to use. He’s going back in time and taking pictures of historical figures for their Wikipedia profiles. It’s MOSTLY going great. There was a small problem with his photo of Marie Antoinette, but that’s because he took it on September 21, 1792 when she was slightly shorter than she was on September 20, 1792.

Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re dying to know how my writing is going. As you know, I’ve had a hard time picking a project to work on for the month. I can’t work on my old unfinished epic fantasy saga due to the hives it causes, so I decided to work on a BRAND NEW EPIC FANTASY SAGA!!!! I know you don’t know anything about writing, Galdsy, but epic fantasy sagas aren’t written overnight, they have to be ABOUT SOMETHING. I have no idea what this is about. None. Complete blank.

Not to worry!!! Fortunately, I’ve discovered this thing called pre-writing. I heard my boyfriend use the word on the phone while talking to his mother and I’ve discovered that if you say “I’m doing a lot of pre-writing” to your friends on the Fantasy Dream Team, THEY LEAVE YOU ALONE ABOUT WORD COUNT!!!!! Besides, I don’t know why anyone needs to worry about me, after all, I’M the next big epic fantasy writer of all time!!!!!

Hang on Gladys, that’s my boyfriend coming up the hall. I think he hears my keyboard clicking and wants to make sure I’m writing but if he finds out I”m just sending you an email, he’ll be mad!!!

Okay I’m back.

In just a few short hours, the Fantasy Dream Team will be conducting our weekly check-in at Ink Black Coffee Club and I will have to confess that I haven’t written any words yet in front of EVERYONE. If I have to sit there while Bevvy Hart tries to conduct a writing intervention in front of Mark and Thomasina Prepper, I’M GOING TO DIE!!!!

Here’s where you come in, Galdsy!!!!!

Bevvy Hart will call the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. She open with a Writer’s Prayer and Moment of Silent Self-Importance. At 7:15 pm she will read the official word count from Brokenheap. THEN, she’ll begin to grill each of us for our day’s word count and our game-plan for producing more words in the next week.

I have taken the liberty of sabotaging the plumbing at Ink Black Coffee Club and will be slipping a high potency, fast-acting laxative into my boyfriend’s cafe Americano at about 7:13 pm. It will start working by no later than 7:23 pm at which time, my boyfriend’s stomach will get very bubbly. Shortly after, he’ll excuse himself and get stuck in the restroom.

WHILE HE’S AWAY, I need you to SWOOP in and tell everyone that it’s an emergency and the CIA is recruiting me to help you discover why the writers of Brokenheap have mysteriously disappeared. If you come while my boyfriend is still at the table HE’LL KNOW THAT WE’RE UP TO SOMETHING!!!!!

If I’ve planned things correctly—as I unfailingly do—just as my boyfriend flushes the toilet, the plumbing fiasco will kick in and the murky waters in the toilet bowl will menacingly rise.

My boyfriend will frantically pump the trip handle attempting to stem the incoming doom. Then, as the first wave sewage water sloshes against the toe of his boot, he’ll run for the paper towel dispenser only to discover that it’s finicky motion-activated settings has been programed to administer a mere three inches of paper towel.

You and I know two things about my boyfriend: he dreads the idea of anyone discovering he’s messed up a bathroom, AND motion-activated sinks and towel dispensers think he’s a ghost!!!! By the time he’s managed twelve inches of paper towel dispensing, you and I will be out the door and on our way to Brokenheap PERMANENTLY SILENCING ANY OF BEVVY HART’S QUESTIONS AND SAVING ME FROM AN INTERVENTION I KNOW IS COMING!!!!!

Don’t blow this for me, Gladys!!!!

Also, can I borrow your car and your driver’s license? I’ve been banned from the town of Brokenheap. Something something too many parking violations yada yada dumpster fire blah blah noise ordinance.

See you there!!!

xox,

X

P.S. Please bring your snorkeling equipment. I have a feeling we may need it.

Or my boyfriend will.

YESTERDAY,

I TOOK

A PICTURE

OF BEN

FRANKLIN.

SHOWED IT

TO X.

SHE SAID

HE LOOKED

SURPRISINGLY

THIN. I

SAID A

PAINTING

ADDS

FIFTEEN

POUNDS.