Buried in words
why do people send me so much work on weekends?
Greetings, conjunction of friendly email addresses.
A friend of mine just apologized for possibly losing my email in her “overfull” inbox.
I get 60 or so messages in email per hour, which is why I tend to pretty much do email all day every day — it’s dreadful. Even while I’m supposedly relaxing (like now) and supposedly reading a book (like never) I glance at my phone every ten minutes to keep on top of the messages.
And tragically, those are the two extremes that let people handle email in 2021: they are either shackled to an inbox or they live with the knowledge that messages will invariably fall through the cracks. Maybe this is a good metaphor for the whole world now that AI are running a lot of it: more than half of the messages in my inbox were programmed to be sent at a certain time, and probably half of those or more were actually composed on a template with automatic fill-in with my name making it seem urgent, and a second and third send if I don’t open the email.
Shackled or missing out—I do not think that either of these things is good for us as humans. Our desire to make our job of communication easier is destined to make us not communicate at all: a template will include your name and email and you will use an app to screen your emails and filter out emails that are not from friends—we will all spend all of our time going through mailing lists and deciding who is a friend and who isn’t. Or, like my son, just not read emails at all, ever, from anybody.
Things I did this week:
NEW STORY ANTHOLOGIZED - Once Upon a Time, an anthology of contemporary fiction heavily influenced by fairy tales, launched on June 1, and is currently available from Red Penguin Press. My newest story, “Big Bad,” is the final story in the collection, a deconstructed fairy tale that begins where most fairy tales end and tears all the tropes to pieces. You can get the anthology on Kindle and in paperback through this link.
**NEW ESSAY PUBLISHED** - my very personal essay “How to Breed Little Bookworms” was picked up by Zibby Owens’ Medium Empire, in Moms Don’t Have Time To Write. Here’s the link to the short & sweet essay. Enjoy!
VIDEO - last time I’m posting this one. The playback for the 45 minute interview I did on Writers’ Corner Live TV. The graphics are…overwhelming.
Obviously, I still want you to get my book if you haven’t gotten it. The whole beginning is pretty much a memoir. Then you can give it to some writer who just had a baby or one who keeps telling you they just don’t have time to write anymore because of their kids.
Coming up:
This week should see my interview up on the podcast Sensitive Rebel.
I’m also taking LadyTeen to Salt Lake City. We are looking forward to seeing a new city and state. Neither of us has ever been. Shoot me a reply if you have been to SLC and have a must-do or must-see destination there.
Want to know what’s ridiculous? We have to change planes in Los Angeles. That’s right. We will overshoot Utah and then fly back.
And since we’re going on miles—the flights to LA and from LA to Utah are each costing us as much as the leg back home. That’s right: not only is the flight four hours longer than it needs to be, it costs me double what the direct flight would have cost. Ridiculous!
Wish me luck!! I wish the same to you, my fine feathered friends…