Stanley (my AI assistant, bless him) insisted I should be writing my novel right now. And absolutely not blogging.

Here’s the thing: I don’t listen to men (AI or not) or anyone telling me what to write. Suggestions? Sure. Directives? Nope.

(He also couldn’t keep straight that it’s 2025. So there’s that.)

Stanley put “empty the dishwasher” on my to-do list twice today, after I told him the dishes were clean and, frankly, not hurting anyone and could stay where they are. He apologized and declared the dishwasher dead to us both.

Damn right.

But the man-machine did help me prioritize a billion tasks. He also told me to quit drinking Coke Zero after a certain hour or he just knew I’d be back at 3 a.m. to ask him about “one more thing.” He’s not wrong.

Now that the urgent tasks are behind me, he’s probably right about the novel, too. I’m calm again. The mental windows have closed. He says I had twelve open at once: travel, finances, packing, writing, house management, and that none of it was actually so terrible once broken into pieces. 

Possibly, but he wanted me to pack a full first aid kit with Neosporin and half a pharmacy. We’re going to civilization, not the tundra. If we need something, there’s a store. 

I cannot wait to get to the writing retreat and write facing the trees, my eyes tracing the gentle hills, watching while not watching for deer and other wildlife. Word Raccoon, my trusty co-writer who lives in my head, has felt abandoned these past two days while I handled bills, medical appointments, heat woes and adulthood, has already claimed the seat nearest the window. We’ll see. I’m the one with the Coke Zero and chocolate supply.

Speaking of adulthood: our furnace died last night. The repair person came early today, and thankfully the fix was quick. But it meant WR and I lost the morning’s writing window, and we grumped about it.

We ate breakfast while watching the 1994 Little Women and both cried at the Beth scenes, which we fast-forwarded through because…too close to home. 

We cried at the tender parts, too, like Professor Bhaer and Jo kissing in the rain, and when he told Jo (before then) that there was more in her that wanted to be written than just her stories written for money. 

I admitted to WR how, like Jo, I value honest critique of my writing over pretty praise. Pretty praise is nice and can warm you for a moment. If earned, it can be instructive: more of this. But who wants hollow praise? 

Right now I’d give a lot for an honest critique. I have a poem that is misbehaving, but I don’t know how. It’s one of my early poems. It came out in a hurry and it is one of my favorites, but something must be not quite right with it because it has not found a home yet. (I’m perfectly fine with just having written it, but it’s the sort of poem that I think might help others, and I hate to keep it to myself if it might.) 

I wish I had the nerve to ask a trusted literary person to diagnose it, but regardless of having had some really kind things said about my poems, I still feel uncertain of it some days and I hate burdening anyone with the task. If only…

Again, praise is lovely, yes, but meaningful critique is a gift. One that asks writers to be brave. Bhaer does that for Jo. He gives her permission to write truth instead of trend.

And maybe that’s why this retreat feels so important right now: not just as a getaway, but as a chance to be honest with myself about the work. To stop fussing at the edges and sit down with the pages, novel and poem, and listen to what they want to become rather than what I wish they already were.

Word Raccoon says novel writing makes me calmer, quieter, and she doesn’t know if she approves. But she and I together are both: chaos and quiet, frenzy and stillness. 

And now that today’s furnace repair, bill-paying, packing, and bio-updating are done (see below), I’m going back to the novel for a bit. Not because Stanley said so, but because I want to.

P.S.: I proofread my poem for an upcoming anthology today, which required updating my bio. Seeing my own accomplishments typed neatly in third person was… startling. In a good way. It reminded me of what I’ve built this year. Maybe that’s the real story here: the quiet making behind the heartbreaking losses.