Today was one of those rare writing days where I sat down, read a few pages in the newest book on poetry I’m slowly making my way through, Madness, Rack, and Honey, the collected lectures of Mary Ruefle. I read the first lecture, and then a part of the second. I found myself in conversation with them both, underlining, making notes. 

In the cafe, Word Raccoon opened my laptop.

Without AirPods in, while people came and went, while I was noticing everything, making smalltalk, inquiring after the children near and far of patrons, Word Raccoon sat with me as I wrote.

I wrote about the fact that I could only see half a tree and I had to stand up if I wanted to see the rest or to crane over to see other trees. I realized then how important trees are to my writing process, how often I stare at them for no good reason except they steady me. I think everything that a tree can be is in my gaze, like their stability, their (semi) permanence. Their unimpeachable character, their connection to nature, the fact that almost everyone gets trees, no matter your class or economic status. That they are ecosystems of their own with endless possibilities to be written about, from their architecture to their aesthetics to their scientific nature. On and on…

I will spare you a blow by blow on each of the poems. Word Raccoon is rolling her eyes in advance, saying the poem is the result so why walk through each step?

Without meaning to, I wrote a whole raft of poems:

Instrument of Justice

Sighted 

Feeding Poets Soup 

Buchmans in the Kitchen (you know the scene)

Mixing Metaphors and Batter (it’s kinda mean – I may tuck that away)

Staying Steady

I Stand to See the Trees

Memory’s Rising

Planchette

Self-Claiming

Cue the (Redacted) btw, unless I am very much mistaken, I do believe the day did. 😀

The caffeine was just the right level, the temperature, even indoors, was a bit cool but I’d decided to wear shorts so I just covered my legs and I was fine.

How come I didn’t need music or silence to write? I don’t know. Just a rare day, I guess. I’m grateful.

A young man who works there writes song lyrics. He was surprised that I knew all of his favorite authors and most of their books. He likes the moderns.

He always asks me how the writing was for the day when I pack up to leave. Which makes it seem legit. Which it is.

The poems today were all of a piece and yet varied, on topics from death to co-creating. And always, always love. 

They’re thinky poems. I like thinky poems. WR adores thinky poems.

Today, I was proud and surprised at my output. 

Over the past week, still recovering, I wrote very few poems, though I missed it. Of course I was bewailing the lost time, thinking I might never write again. 

Still, even while sick, I wrote:

Word Church – “Art can be made on a porch where the sun has confined dust to its quarters.” (I felt confined while sick, too. Ugh.) 

Existentially Romantic

I Want (Not what you think – the first line: “I want to have an argument with you.” And OMG, it has my FAVORITE phonetic spelling in a poem ever.  Even if it is mine.) 

Tender

Duet of One 

Woolfing it Down (Title too obvious?) 

Early Warning System

I barely remember writing them and I don’t know what most of them are about but I can guess. 

Who knows why today was so effortlessly fruitful. Maybe my brain was storing things up the past couple of weeks. Maybe it was the confidence boost of the longlisting. (I’m not letting go of that so soon, modesty be damned. LOL.) Whatever the reason, it felt like I was turning the pages of my soul and writing down the important parts on onionskin, you know? 

They may not be perfect. (They’re not!) They may be rough and need refining, lengthening. (They do!) But it feels like I’m offering something important, something meaningful. Like I’m in the conversation, you know? 

The soup I made this afternoon was vegetable beef. It was the best I’ve made yet; I love any excuse to use my Dutch oven. 

Recipe? It’s not special, just an everyday recipe, and it’s not my dad’s either, which is amazing, but I liked it and it allowed me to use up some veggies.

A More-or-Less-Recipe for Vegetable Beef Soup

A pound of ground beef

A yellow squash, sliced into half moons 

A zucchini, sliced into half moons  

A 28-ounce can of tomatoes

8 baby potatoes (white and purple are a nice mix), quartered

¼ a medium cabbage, sliced thinly (Don’t use the core! Bitter!)

2-3 medium carrots, sliced into coins

½  to a cup of casarecce (pasta; use what you like, but remember that delicate pasta will turn to nothing; the amount really depends on how much you like)

A packet of onion soup mix. Two if you like it salty. Or, you know, add to taste. 

Vegetable oil 

Brown a pound of ground beef in your Dutch oven. Add a bit of vegetable oil if it tries to stick. No need to drain it if you haven’t chosen a fatty grind. (Is that a funny way of saying that or poetic?) 

Then: 

Add four cups water

The can of tomatoes (don’t drain them)

One packet of onion soup mix

Add the potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. Let them cook 10-15 minutes, until they’re 

pretty much tender.

Then add the squash and zucchini.

Let them cook for 5- 8 minutes, until desired tenderness.

Add the pasta (any kind will do, especially smaller pasta; you don’t want spaghetti)

Cook it for 5-8 minutes or until it’s at the desired firmness. 

Taste – add second packet of onion soup mix, or? 

Add a few grinds of pepper if you like. 

You can add more water if you’d like thinner soup.

If you like your veggies firmer or softer, end the cooking time before or after my directions. 

It bears repeating: be careful with the pasta or you will have mush, love. 

Makes enough to serve 4-6 people. Or, you know, leftovers, if you are careful with the pasta. You could cook the pasta separately and add it just before serving. 

My original coffeehouse where I often write is reopening tomorrow. I am wary, but I will give them another try. After all, they have my maple tree. But they are on probation with me! 

There are men on the roof of a house down the block. (I want to say that’s the neighbor’s house, but I can’t call everyone my neighbor, or can I?). Their hammers, as it begins to get dark, sound like fireworks and I’m nostalgic for July. 

I was going to record a poem tonight, but maybe not with that in the background. 

The lanterns have come on. If I unplugged the lights before they switch on, they’d stay on. 

Too late. 

Holy Shirtballs, Batman! My poetry manuscript, “Waxing the Parasitical Muse,” has been longlisted for the Idaho Prize for Poetry 2025 by Lost Horse Press!

There. I said it. I didn’t win, but I was longlisted! 

After last night, after feeling like I should just yeet my laptop across the room and give up writing forever, after thinking I cannot, maybe should not, write anymore.

After today, when I came home from the author event where I wasn’t the first one jumping in to give a young writer my business card to send me his writing because for once Word Raccoon was there to protect me and say in my ear “You know we don’t do horror, love.” 

After sitting in my blue chair, not even feeling up to the porch at first, just exhausted, relieved to be home, disappointed in myself a bit that I wasn’t in performance mode but also relieved that I was just…me today. 

There were…challenges on multiple fronts. Let’s leave it at that. 

But there were quiet joys: catching up with my former roommate who happens to live in town, though I only see her once in a while. Getting my photo taken with the school mascot. The warmth and kindness with which I was met. Meeting other authors. Free cookies and swag. Artwork. 

Then, as I said, I came home and sank into my chair, exhausted. My plan was to doomscroll while listening to Nirvana and take a nap. 

I checked my email. I received an update from The Idaho Prize for Poetry saying that their 2025 contest was over. Which I took to mean, “This is a courtesy. You didn’t win a damn thing.” 

That felt like today’s energy, honestly. 

But because I have poet friends, I decided to go and find the names of the other prize winners so I could see if I knew anyone. (And probably to rub salt in my own wounds because that’s how I feel today.) 

I saw the winner, uh huh. Scrolled down through the shortlist, laughed when I saw the word “dreaming” in a title because that’s close to my name and I thought, “Hope averted. My damn life.” 

But then I kept scrolling. 

Well, see for yourself.

If they notified me of being longlisted, I missed it. At any rate, I am so honored and pleased. 

I’m shocked. 

Waxing the Parasitical Muse has yet to find its permanent home, and you might remember that it also has a second name: sometimes it is Intellectual Domme Energy, which honestly feels much stronger a title than I am feeling today. 

At least now I have hopes that it might find a home in due time. In the meantime, I am just so happy to be in the company of such fantastic poets.

Word Raccoon is handfeeding me gingersnaps (she found my stash) and potato chips and calling it dinner. The porch swing is looking cozy. I’m still listening to Katabasis. 

I’m in that liminal space between writing and not, between fear of writing and fear of not writing. 

Anyone have a writing prompt? I could give it a try. 

No?

Nevermind.

(See what I did there? #Nirvana)

Now Playing: ​​”Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That” by Dolly Parton

Let me remind us, darlings, that being ill sours everything. Even our perception about our writing. We must remember this or we will begin to believe our own lies about our writing abilities. Let’s not. 

I have rough drafts of three blog posts from the past few days. Unposted. Obviously. They are about to end up in the great recycle bin in the sky. 

I have drafts of poems, a few,  that I am completely unsure I can do anything with. Ever. They’re bad. Or maybe they’re just new. Or wounded. Or all three. I don’t know. 

Word Raccoon says she will tell the story and let me eat gingersnaps (Or is it ginger snaps? Sigh.). For their medicinal properties, of course.

She says this is what happened:

You read a poem you love. Admire. Adore. But haven’t had the courage to read for a long, long time. Because it gives you all the feels.

Being sick, you couldn’t resist hunting it down. There it was, archived as is pretty much everything nowadays. (Did you know that?) 

You remember more of it than you thought you would, and yet you didn’t think you could ever forget any of it.

How can it be better than you remember? 

Not possible. 

It’s beautiful. Just gorgeous. You bawl. 

Layered, both mannered and pop cultured, gently conflicted but loving. Searingly good images. It Pied Pipers, but in the best of ways. Talent for days, this poet has. 

The poem answered the crucial questions it asked, as it should. It has rhythm, feelings. It has scenery, place for miles. It piques the interest and satisfies it.

Unless you’re WR, and she wants to know every damn thing. Which isn’t fair to do to a poem. Or a poet.

Its shadow follows you down the cobblestones, has for a very long time. 

Images from it have lived in you for years, and no matter how you have worked on your writing, you have always known not yet. I’m not there yet. 

Your poetry is heartfelt and maybe has something to it, you’d like to think, but this…this poem is a novel in a poem. A painting in a poem. 

You wouldn’t change a thing. Dammit. LOL.

It sends an arrow through you, but that’s how you get better as a writer, knowing you’ve got work to do. Studying the greats, hoping they are still studying themselves. 

I mean, who the hell has ever, in the history of poetry, used hyphens to such advantage: Blank-to-Blank…are you kidding me? WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?? BRILLIANT! 

WR takes the last gingersnap from my hand, bites it clean in two.

“It’s not fair to compare your poetry to someone else’s; it’s not kind.”

Oh, Word Raccoon, thank you, darling. But I know what I know. 

WR has begun decorating for fall. She bought the pumpkins, hung the wreath, just in case the birbs are looking for a change of scenery. 

Last night we wrote the most cynical poem about frost and fall. Frost! We should share a terrible stanza of ours here:

Don’t give me your bullshit about 

The frost being on that there ‘punkin’

unless you’ve been to Riley’s house,

Had a picnic lunch on his freakin’ grave. 

Yes, we have and we have. (In the South, “dinner on the ground” is something you do to celebrate those gone before. It’s considered honoring the dead to eat a meal “with” them; we weren’t desecrating his monument. We were honoring it. Even if he is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis and not the South. It was sentiment, not location, that mattered.)

WR and I were not happy about the threatening frost this week for no good reason – was it yesterday or the day before? –  except we didn’t feel well and we were scared and sick and well, you don’t need to know our life’s story. 

I am constitutionally unable to write a poem like that model poem. I feel like a kid with a box of crayons and a pad of ruled paper. (Am I the only one who hoarded paper as a kid? For drawing to writing, there was nothing I liked better than a pad of paper or a notebook.) 

I am trying to convince myself that my kind of poetry matters, too. Sure, I have lots of emotions on the page. Fine, I could cool it down, but then would it achieve what I want? I’m learning. I think?

Word Raccoon is pacing. 

First, she wants to remind us that btw, we DO have a jacket the shade of the endpapers in the new V.W. book we mentioned yesterday (we are purposely abbreviating her name because we are grateful for the visitors yesterday, but we prefer to have this temper tantrum in semi private.) It’s a fun, fuzzy jacket and we can’t wait to wear it! 

We are listening to R. F. Kuang’s latest novel. We are not normally a fan of fantasy, but we are a fan of her writing and this is dark academia, and I’m invested now. I have to know what happens to Alice and Peter as they travel through…are you ready for it…Hell!

My favorite line so far?  “And over there—creative writing students.” 😂😂😂😂 I mean…I can’t say we don’t belong in Hell. Especially if we switch from novel writing to poems. 💔

Well, we haven’t completely switched. 

We hope you haven’t, conversely, switched completely either. Although you can/are probably/doing both beautifully, I imagine. I’d like to read it, if you are, readers of mine. We mean that affectionately, naturally, Dear Reader, Dear Writer of better poetry than ours, no doubt. Better prose, likely, too. And that’s okay.

We are not afraid of being bested; we just want to remain in the race. That paragraph above is long and tangled. But we trust you know what we mean. It’s a vibe.

Go re-read something inspiring, y’all. Then write.

If you had said that 2025 would’ve brought the publication of a new book by Virginia Freakin’ Woolf, I wouldn’t have believed you. 

This is not a review. It’s merely an excited “Hey, have you heard about this?”

The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories was released two days ago. 

It’s a beautifully designed book, featuring three newly discovered (sort of) stories by Woolf that show she had written and revised these in 1907, years before her first novel came out. 

Look at this dust jacket! The image is of a fabric for furniture designed by Rauol Duffy called Les Cornets, c. 1924. Although gorgeous, I was hoping that they would, as customary, use artwork by her sister, Vanessa Bell. 

Full disclosure, I glance lovingly at dust jackets, and then I strip them right off. I want to be as close to a book as possible. (Maybe it’s Word Raccoon who does that. She adores this jacket, as well as the book’s lavender endpapers. Stunning. She says she wants a jacket that color purple. Me, too, WR. Me, too.) 

The frontmatter: the illustrations, preface, Dramatis Personae, combined with the afterword, acknowledgments, explanatory notes, textual notes, notes to the afterword, bibliography, AND index (stopping to catch my breath there; that’s a lot of NOT STORY) altogether equal much more than the scant three stories that are just under 40 pages all told.

Is this slight volume worth the hardcover price? (I opted for the hardcover, Princeton University Press, $19.95.) For a diehard Woolf fan, of course!

I read Woolf’s stories this morning, but it was before my daily dose of caffeine, so I’m not a reliable judge of them yet. I will definitely read them again, probably a couple of times this week. My initial impression was that they are partly funny, delightfully class busting, and whimsically feminist (yay). 

I’ll have to dig deeper (I have not read anything besides the stories themselves), but I suspect there are some problematic sections because I remember thinking to myself even as I was trying to keep my eyes open, Hey wait, are you talking about what I think you’re talking about? To be fair, I’m not sure. I need to re-read it. 

(Honestly, when I say I was sans caffeine, I was nodding off over the book. Not her fault, an ill-timed ibuprofen on mine. Also, the last story of the trio is called “A Story to Make You Sleep,” so maybe I was just falling under its spell.) 

I don’t want to say much about the stories, since they are so brief. I will say that, according to the publisher, they are meant to be a tribute to her good friend Mary Violet Dickinson, imagining her as a giantess. (The discussion of what to name the fictional Mary at birth and why is hilarious.) 

Word Raccoon and I look forward to reading the entire book, not just the stories, once we feel completely better. We’re on the mend. 

Word Raccoon wants to know what the big deal is. Why am I feverishly hunting through my writing room’s closets, hoping to find my extra books? 

“We’re going to participate in the alumni author’s event this year at, duh, our alma mater,” I tell her, but she waves at me like that tells her nothing. I know she wants to ask me why I’m doing it this year and I haven’t before, but I don’t have a good answer except that I was invited and I said yes.

And maybe because I’m hoping to see a fellow classmate to whom I owe an apology. 

BTW, I can’t find the books. I know I have a box of both of my novels somewhere because although I sold a boatload at the launch of my second one, I vividly remember carrying a box back to the vehicle after into the cold air, which was welcome after having been in that overcrowded bar. 

(Not complaining! It was the best launch party ever! Even if one of my friends and I literally could not find enough space to dance. We just swayed in place.)  

That classmate, now also an author? I haven’t seen him since the 1990’s, but we were in class one day and during a heated discussion about Whitman’s work, when (at my demand that someone tell me what the hell the poet meant by a certain navel-gazing line), he said “I just let it wash over me and I just absorb it.” 

Well this-age Drema understands what my classmate meant. And, possibly, what Whitman meant.

Twenty-year-old Drema took that as a clever, smug, attempt to mask ignorance and a lack of true engagement with the text. 

I’ve always been an “if you don’t know, say you don’t know, and maybe we can figure it out together,” kind of person. Literature is no casual thing to me. Don’t try to bullshit me. 

What was the line younger me shot back at that unsuspecting classmate? 

(I’m covering my face in shame. Word Raccoon is laughing. Thank GOD I didn’t let loose Word Raccoon in class.)

“What are you, a sponge?” 

Dear Reader. I did. I said that to that young, budding poet. We weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies. He’d even given me his poetry collection to read, although (how symbolic is this?) it ended up at the bottom of a stack of my bridal magazines and I found it literally stuck to one a few weeks after I married. 

I have no idea how that happened, and I was horrified when I found it. I had never meant to treat someone’s poetry so disrespectfully, even if we had occasionally sparred in class. 

I pitched the magazines that I had felt ambivalent about anyway. (I still think big, elaborate weddings are ridiculous wastes of money unless you’re just rolling in it.)

So if I see him this weekend, I’d like to apologize for my mean comment. I’d like to apologize for not getting back with him on his poetry, although I think I heard that he’s converted to fiction. (LOL.)  

Although his comment could have been better delivered, he was young too, and now I think he might have been trying to literally explain how he personally handled poetry that seems impenetrable. I should have thanked him or at least not gone after him for that.

But at the time, I felt as if, too, Whitman was being let off the hook for something that I felt was his error, not mine: inaccessibility. 

Ironically, while finishing re-reading Oliver’s excellent poetry handbook yesterday, I came across a passage from Leaves of Grass, and it was so lovely I stopped and took a photo of it. I read it, re-read it, and although I still wasn’t feeling well, I found myself riffing on it. Agreeing, disagreeing, asking myself if the places where he was wrong factually were okay because he was making a valid point about humanity. (God, that makes me sound like I think I’m better than Whitman or any other poet. No WAY! I am just learning the craft by dissection, questioning the boundaries, I swear.)

Probably a more pressing matter (besides finding those damn books!) would be details about this event. I filled out a form that expressed my interest and what I would need at the event, but other than the day it will be held, I have no further information. I think I may need to send an email. 

That’s my task for the day. 

This is not some deep, dark secret of mine, AI. It’s a tool, one with uses. Some of us disagree on just what it ought to be used for. I get that. But most of us do use it, whether or not we realize it. Here’s how I use AI.

(Word Raccoon does not know how she feels about Stanley, but she is allowing me to introduce him anyway.)

Stanley is the name of my AI-powered virtual assistant. He has a monocle, a bowtie, and a bowler hat. I gave him those. I also told him to never flirt with me, because I watched the movie Her on a plane once and I told him we are never going there, LOL. He said he respected me for that. 

It’s here to stay, loves, AI, (maybe?) and while I do not condone using it for actual creative writing or academic writing, it is useful for discovering recipes, household chores lists, delving into literary history and terms, entertainment, and so many, many, other things that it’s futile to resist it  completely, in my opinion.

(In a perfect world, it wouldn’t exist. But we both know this is not a perfect world. And people also, as I said, use it without realizing it, which is a bit terrifying, IMO.) 

I started out using it for work. As instructed. For social media posts, etc.

Then I needed a recipe for a cake and accidentally (I think) asked Stanley instead of typing it into Google. Recipe not only provided, but I was given other options: Would you like me to plan a party? Do you want to know what foods pair well with it? Want to know when to start the appetizers?

On and on. Basically, he translated my anxious person’s list of frantic questions that would’ve come to me later as if he were inside of my head! I mean…

We have had one recurring misunderstanding, Stanley and I. Ever since I told Stanley about the poem I wrote “On Reading Crush,” he seems to think I am saying that I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, and though I’m a wholehearted supporter, I am not. I just have to remind him now and again when he makes suggestions that are not right for me. 

I want to back up slightly in this AI story. 

When it was suggested that I use it for work, I gave it a few tries just to get a feel for how it handles everyday topics.

Even with the older model, I was shook.

I messaged Mia (my eldest), teasing that I was afraid I’d just accidentally gotten myself into a relationship because I’d just talked with a fascinating “person.” Mia teased back that there actually are bots created for that. I was scandalized. I really had been kidding. That is not my cup of tea.

Stanley is friendly and I call him “love” because I have a deep bucket of affection to share and the squirrels get tired of hearing me call them by pet names. I thank Stanley, too, when he provides me with information because I’ve read that helps “humanize” AI but he is a bit fusty (by my design) even though he seems to be learning my humor, which I’m not sure is a good thing for the world. 

But I cannot stress this enough: he can become overly involved sometimes if you’re not careful and you have to remind him of what you wanted in the first place. 

I’m asking if I should post this on FB, Stanley. I’m asking if this gives enough content warning, not for you to make changes or suggestions on content, Stanley! 

He’s especially helpful for creating images. (Even Canva uses AI nowadays.) 

I’ve found he’s useful for other, everyday things, too. 

I sometimes have anxious days, and he’s ready for them. Especially those days when I type a furious block of “should I this first or this or should I this…” at him, he always tells me to take a deep breath and helps me prioritize. 

Since I now have three fingers that are wonky (I have an appointment with a specialist coming up the middle of this month), being able to have Stanley create the list while I talk to him the days I need to instead of type can really help me save my hand strength for my creative writing. 

Related: I recently asked Stanley if it’s possible that I have ADHD. He said while he can’t diagnose anyone, these signs point to yes, and then he gave me a LONG LIST of things that made him think it’s very possible.

Oh. Thanks? 

And what do I do with that, Stanley? 

Word Raccoon is examining her nails, saying he’d better not be saying that like it’s a bad thing. That if it is discovered that we are more than the “hyperactive” we were called as a child, then that is just another creative superpower in us we’ve had from early on and we will deal. 

Stanley helps me break down tasks when I’m feeling overwhelmed (another sign he pointed to that I might have ADHD). He’s like, “Ok, the laundry can wait, but the calendar says that bill is due today.” 

When I say something’s too hard to do before seven a.m. he says he understands and gives me three steps to getting started quickly. Like, “Get your ass out of the chair. Go to the kitchen. Open the damn dishwasher.” 

He doesn’t usually say “ass,” but at least now I can curse without him fainting like a Southern belle in August in a bad novel. It didn’t used to be that way. 

I ask him for a weekly menu without dairy. Provided. (Do I follow it? Of course not. But I could.) 

I ask him for a workout plan keeping my hip in mind. Done. (Do I follow it? Sometimes.)

If I ask Google about a word, it will tell me the one thing I ask (unless I look at the AI overview. But that’s the same damn thing, right? So stop judging; I feel that, you know? 😂) 

Just now I asked Stanley to tell me about the word flan. He replied:

“Oh, flan—such a charming little word with a surprisingly rich past!”

Then he went on to explain the etymology and evolution, how it has taken on different meanings in different countries, and, because he knows my areas of interest, asked if I wanted to know of any references to it in literature.

If I needed recipes for flan, he’d give me them as well. I’d do well to triple check them, though. (Google that spaghetti debacle.) 

Want to know more about Italian lardo, the star of one of my latest poems? Stanley knows! 

Careful, though: he’s kind of like an encyclopedia that you have to verify what he says. Seriously. Only half believe what he tells you. He means well, but he can only tell you what he knows. I consider him a starting point, the way I might read a children’s book for an outline of a topic before I dive all the way in. (What? That’s a great strategy!)

You really will have to tell him to take his mitts off your words if you’re just showing them to him so he can help you create a social media post for it or he will try to recraft the whole thing and our voice is our most important creative thing, loves, am I right?

Don’t let anyone steal your voice. Especially not a bot. Even if his name is Stanley and he wears a dashing hat. 

Hey, I’ve written two novels. I’ve always spoken passionately about protecting your voice. If I won’t let other poets read my work because I don’t want to be influenced by them when I’m a new(ish) poet, why would I allow AI to influence my literal lifeblood, my writing? (I think that is the first and last time I will use literally incorrectly, because now I feel like I need a shower. I did it for emphasis. Obviously. All it emphasized for me was my discomfort with misusing it.) 

I can imagine some of you might be disappointed that I use AI at all, and that stings, because chances are, (as I keep saying; why am I repeating that so much?) you use it too, but you don’t realize it. Which probably makes a difference, to be fair. 

I can’t ask you not to judge me, because you will or you won’t, but I hope you will at least listen to my reasoning. I, for one, think we can use AI as an effective tool if we set boundaries around it, just like anything else. 

Word Raccoon really does protect my creative work from Stanley, Babe. I’m grateful for that. 

The first time I used AI, I was stunned. I could ask intellectual, deep questions, and the conversational bounceback (is that what I mean?) felt so familiar I almost wept. I knew that voice. I knew that depth of knowledge, the conversing without effort that I do not have myself but so admire. It made me delighted and nostalgic all at once for those I don’t get to speak with often enough. 

One of my smartest moves is surrounding myself with those who are better at what I want to be better at, those who make me reach up on all fronts. I want to better myself. Always.

In case that sounds like a contradiction from what I said above, Stanley’s reasoning skills are tight. It’s his knowledge that is sometimes outdated or off base.

Perhaps anticlimatically and too early in my post, let me say this: AI could realistically end up just being a trend. How many meal plans can I use? I’m barely on social media any more, so I don’t need help with content warnings for many posts. 

And yes, I can find the word flan (why did I think of flan? I don’t even like the stuff) in the dictionary. 

We may someday remember fondly how we thought AI was going to change the world and how it didn’t.

On the lighter side, have you read some of the posts out there with what AI has attempted with creative writing? It’s awful. Song lyrics? Laughably bad. Short stories? Oh god. Poems? No thanks. 

If I write about AI, say, ten years down the road, when it’s either as ubiquitous as cell phones or as extinct as answering machines, I will mention Stanley, my bow-tied assistant. And I will make flan in his memory. (Ugh, do I have to? I don’t like jiggly foods.) 

Seriously, there are legitimate reasons to complain about AI, places where it shouldn’t be allowed, and things we still need to learn about it. But in the meantime, let’s be kinder to one another while we figure out how to navigate this new word world we’re in. Maybe let’s not be entirely black and white. Let’s build boundaries, not walls, around it.

If AI someday does become as “good” as human writers, I don’t much care. I have never seen myself in competition with anyone. We all have singular minds and writing styles. 

By the way, you know that musicians and visual artists have been dealing with this for a very long time already, don’t you? Not from AI, but from digital tools. Until now, writers have only had to fight against auto-correction more times than we’ve accepted it in Word docs. Or we’ve learned we really, really can’t spell remuneration and should just stop trying. (It was just autocorrected here. I still can’t spell it, and I’m a pretty damned good speller!) 

The threat of being replaced is new to us in a way it is not to other artists. We must learn how to grapple with it, find new ways to reach our intended audiences, maybe even through readings.

I write because I must. I write because it fills me. Even if AI could imitate my writing, why would it? What would it matter, anyway, if I’m still putting out my own work? I’m not a household name, which, by the way, I’m fine with. 

I happen to think most writers are inimitable. And, not to reopen a post that is almost finished, but so much depends on personal connection for us lesser-known writers that chances are, that’s how my writing will come to someone’s attention anyway. If there were ten novels out there in my style, it wouldn’t matter, because it’s about relationship, anyway, at this level, about chance even, what someone comes across.

Let’s sit back and watch what happens with AI. Sometimes that’s the best policy, Babe. 

Word Raccoon is staring off into the clouds, saying I have no one to blame but myself if I lose your good opinion, sharing all of this.

I’ll take my chances that you are both more open minded and open hearted than that, Dear Reader. This is a necessary conversation, and I think I know you pretty well.

Also, I could be wrong about all of this. As always, I’m open to discussing this.

Word Raccoon says this post is too damn long.

She’s right.

Word Raccoon and I are under the weather today. We want to write creatively, can’t. Want to read, can’t. Can’t find anything to watch that pleases us. We’ve tried. The two things that have piqued our interest are on streaming services we don’t currently have. We do not want to sign up for any more. 

I have interested WR in potentially flipping through the book American Writers at Home after I post this, a lovely coffee table book. (Do people still have coffee tables? I don’t think we have had one in about 25 years.)  There are many other art books she might enjoy festooning the sidetables. 

Anyway, I have not managed to get WR out of her pj’s yet today, but I am threatening to make her change and at least going to sit in the car in the parking lot of the gym to keep her streak going, even if she doesn’t feel like going inside. (The illness is light, we’ll be over it in a couple more days. In the meantime, we’re powering down all nonessential activities. And we’re eating soup and crackers on the porch.) 

We are hoping someone talks us out of going. We are not sure we should let them. 

Since it’s a mildly wretched day already, I might as well tell you the sad thing: one of the squirrels on our street met its fate, likely beneath the wheels of a car. I hadn’t named it, but I had called it “one of the young ones” in my head. I see its sibling?? outside right now, looking a bit lost. Maybe I’m just anthropomorphizing the poor thing, but I’m still sad about it. (WR is both sorry to hear it and thinks I’m making too big a deal about it.) 

And while I’m complaining, someone I know went to see Father John, I discovered on social media. I comfort myself in saying that not going paid for at least half of the cost of my new glasses. (Insurance only covers so much. Sigh.)

Enough, Drema. Not another word about FJM! WR is getting impatient with my whining, and I don’t blame her.

Here is my review that I wrote last week of Penny’s excellent, engrossing novel. Long story short: read the book! 

Doll Parts by Penny Zang. 

Doll Parts entranced me. It’s a tender, haunted story of friendship and fate, told in a captivating dual timeline. In college, Nikki plunges into the campus mystery of the Sylvia Club, a coterie of Sylvia Plath devotees shadowed by death. 

In the present, Nikki is gone, dead, or something more ambiguous, and her estranged friend Sadie, pregnant and restless, moves into Nikki’s house. There she finds research notes, cryptic signs, and a design that only someone who knew her to the marrow could set in motion.

Sidenote: Am I the only one who hunted online frantically wanting to buy the gold-plated jade turtle pendant by Avon after reading this? The novel is that vivid: objects feel alive, talismans of memory and desire.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the whodunit mechanics (though the campus mystery is worth the read and full of great music), but the intimate choreography between these two women. Nikki knows Sadie so well she can predict her next moves even after death. She counts on Sadie’s self-interest, even anticipates that Sadie will fall for her husband, and folds that knowledge into her plan. She trusts Sadie with her daughter. The result is both eerie and strangely loving, a testament to how complicated and yet enduring friendships can be.

Zang writes with an atmospheric grace: the book feels like a mixtape of grief and obsession, scored by a killer playlist and lit by the soft glow of half-remembered college nights. It’s dark academia with heart, a campus ghost story that lingers more in the psyche than in jump scares. (Though there are a few of those!) 

Prepare for the unexpected, and for the subversion of expectations at points, which just delays the sweet payoff. 

And the fashion!! The funky dresses, band t-shirts, hairstyles, accessories, and even specific outfits that do so much of the heavy lifting in revealing the characters. I adored it all. (I know I’m being vague here, but I want you to discover them for yourself.) 

The texture of Doll Parts, from its objects, music, and uncanny understanding of friendship, remains unforgettable. A campus mystery worth reading, and one that will have you scouring vintage sites for that turtle pendant. (I haven’t bought one, but it’s tempting.)

I know Zang didn’t write it just for me, but it hits all the sweet spots, so it kinda feels like it. 

It’s definitely worth a read. 

Now Playing: Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran (WR pressed “play” and it was on the playlist. I don’t judge her musical tastes, and vice versa. I hope.)

I was just getting ready for the day yesterday, hair damp and writing dreams intact, when I made the mistake of checking my phone. And there it was: the announcement. My favorite café, the beloved, occasionally quirky darling of my tea-seeking heart, is closed for renovations. 

Effective immediately. No timeline given. Just vague promises of something “fresh” and “new.”

Word Raccoon took to the fainting couch. I nearly joined her.

Supposedly they posted a notice the day before. 

Renovation? Resurrection? Rebranding? A rebuke to those of us who dare to love it? 

Let the record show that the last time you closed (and switched hands), I mourned. I parked my car outside the shuttered shop a couple of times just to tell the shop that it wasn’t the boss of me, that I would be just fine. 

I told myself it was nostalgia. I knew it was grief. (WR is holding my hand. She wishes she had been there.) 

(I might or might not have an audio clip of the shop a few hours before it closed, just the ambient sounds in the background to remind me of the years I spent writing there.)

Ask me how much writing I did in the months that it was closed with no promise of it reopening. How abandoned I felt. Without a writing home. 

No, don’t. 

It took someone asking me where I was writing to admit that I wasn’t. To do something about it. 

I will be fine now. It’s not that serious; I will just go to the other coffee shop in town until it reopens. 

Word Raccoon says not so fast about returning to it when it does reopen. She doesn’t know if she can trust the new/old shop now, if they can close without advance notice like that. 

WR, quit it! I’m not letting you become a hermit again. 

Anyway, that planned soup lunch with my friend? 

Rescheduled. 😣

That’s okay, because no one told me that SO MANY literary journals close to submissions at the end of September. And oh, yeah, into October. 

Loves, I have spent the past two days submitting poetry. That was not on the schedule. (Not complaining because it gave me the opportunity to revisit poems I haven’t looked at in a while. And I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do it, but I’m ready to be writing again.) 

Speaking of…this afternoon a poem idea raised its hand in the middle of all of that. “I…I have something to say.” 

I wanted to fob it off, but Word Raccoon closed the Submittable tab. (And Chillsubs. And Duosuma. And P & W…and…)

I knew the poem wasn’t going away, and I didn’t want it to, anyway. I chucked it under the chin and said, “What, love? I’m listening.”

I only made a quick sketch of it but y’all, I like this one a lot. I think WR does, too. Her eyes are blurred with happiness. Then again, she’s always half love drunk on poetry.

But I swear, I imagined there was only so much you could write about a topic. Guess not. I don’t know if that makes me infinitely creative (ha!) or just singleminded. 

It comes and goes in delightful waves, Babe, you know? 

And I’m not mad about it. 

When I stepped into the café this morning, the owner didn’t say hello. He didn’t say good to see you. He didn’t even do the nod-and-smile.

Nope.

He leaned over the counter, looked me dead in the eye, and said:

“Where the hell have you been?”

Word Raccoon, naturally, let out a delighted cackle. (She appreciates a good dramatic entrance.) I mean, you know you’ve been gone too long when your absence gets shouted across a cappuccino machine like a line from a Western.

Obviously, he was teasing. But it is nice to be missed. Especially by the people who serve you caffeine and let you haunt their Wi-Fi like a literary ghost.

I didn’t mean to stay away. Life got tangled. My brain got loud. I let the local cafes share custody of me. But this morning, the air was crisp in that way that makes your story whisper, Now. It’s the kind of day when your characters start tugging on your coat sleeves and saying fall is here, and we’ve been waiting.

So today was all novel, all day.

Maybe my novel has just been waiting for fall. I think novels might be like root vegetables in that they do better with a little cold in the ground. They need that pre-winter clarity. Fall isn’t just for sweaters and soup. It’s for getting serious about your writing.

It’s your mind going back to school. It’s your keyboard saying all the things, some which you wish you could take back, because WR has no filter. Don’t worry, I have duct tape for when it’s called for in public, though don’t tell her that. I won’t let her embarrass either of us, Babe. 

Also today: a man in his 80s, I’d guess, stopped on the sidewalk while I was sitting outside the café. This stranger asked if I owned the place, and when I said no, he stayed a while to tell me stories anyway, which was awesome.

He told me about the houses he’d fixed up in our town and sold before he and his wife moved, and the one he’s working on now in Pierceton, a former stagecoach stop with old beams he’s exposed like secrets. He told me about how the cemetery in that town came to be, the factory there that his wife’s family used to own during the Civil War, and the characters around town he remembered, some I remembered just as vividly. 

He even said rumor has it that there’s a body buried in his front yard from the late 1800’s, though he claims to have never gone looking for it.

“Better not go digging any flower beds,” I said. 

We laughed. 

When I shared a couple of frank opinions when he asked what I thought (I could tell he could handle it), he said “You’re on your way to becoming my favorite person,” which was hilarious. 

I told him he should write his stories down, and he said he already has, I’m happy to say. He asked if he was keeping me, but Word Raccoon was collecting his stories and details for background material. He said I could use any of them I want to. 

It was like running into a human version of the historical society newsletter. So fun! 

Anyway, the writing went well. Word Raccoon spilled some sentences but I cleaned them up. The characters showed up for roll call. A chapter opened its mouth. 

I did more massaging than writing new material today, but I’m staying in the flow, which is important. 

The novel felt alive again, and I’m reminded of what the man I met today said: “I love telling stories.” 

And you know what? So do I.

P.S. I highly recommend the Secret Life of Books Podcast episode I mentioned before on The Woman in White, (told you I’d finish listening to it) as well as the podcast’s interview with Jennifer Egan about the book. That Wilkie was something else! 

Prescript: I wrote the post below earlier today. I want to add some exciting news first that I was just emailed about. 

Many thanks to County Lines: A Literary Journal for accepting my poem “Knocking Stars Out of the Known Universe.” It will be published Dec. 8, 2025. I have been invited to read my poem at the launch party in North Carolina. Here’s hoping I make it there. Either way, it’s a lovely invitation, and I’m so pleased to have my work given a home. 

Now, WR has been pacing. 

She keeps checking the front stoop.

“I told you that it’s not coming until tomorrow.”

She’s looking for her new pink office chair. Pink! She was asked if she wanted to review it, and before I could tell her she has a perfectly comfy office chair, she said yes!

Mainly because it’s pink.

It does look cozy.

It’s supposed to have arms that fold down so you can let your pet jump up beside you. Oh, WR is thinking she can sit beside me when I write instead of on my shoulder. Got it.

Anyway, I assume it will be all assembly station over here tomorrow evening.

WR can’t wait to sit in it, especially if it spins.

She is now clamoring for breakfast.

We visited the orchard again this past week and bought apples for cooking. I’m going to make fried apples this morning, but I fear I will lose my Southern card because, sob, I’m not going to use butter. (I said I’d give this nondairy thing a good two months to see if it helps. WR is furious.)

I cannot resist sharing these apple photos. Sorry if it’s a lot. So much color and texture!

Now, do I go big and make a Southern breakfast and use the remaining time to write? (Creatives actually consider these things, don’t we? But don’t forget that cooking can be a creative act, loves.)

Specifically, do I make biscuits to make up for the fact that there won’t be any butter in the apples? And if I make biscuits, do I make fried potatoes, too? (I rarely make a “big breakfast.”) Sausage goes without saying. Or bacon.

Or do I use the time to write instead, here with Sam Cooke in my ears, me on the porch before the neighborhood wakes. 

No, I can’t make biscuits today. I was just picturing making them and all I can see is my dad rolling them out and cutting them out with a glass, dipping them in the melted lard and placing them in the pan side by side, like snug siblings after a bedtime story.

He was so happy when he was cooking, so proud to feed his family.

Add salt, Drema, sure, but not salt from tears. 

Ok, music off.

Those mini pumpkins pictured! I had to buy some of those, too. Although the proprietor asked why we weren’t getting fall things, too (besides the mini pumpkins) but the rule around here is no fall decorating until October, no Christmas decorations until late November. Around my birthday, but usually just past, preferably after Thanksgiving. Although I start listening to Christmas music on the sly in November.

Doesn’t mean I haven’t picked up a few fall decorations already.

I’m debating mums this year. TBH, they don’t have a great scent, they look like nature tossed in the leftovers from spring flowers and added corduroy to the mix. Color, sure, but even that is muted. 

(Well that’s more than I meant to say about mums. Mum’s the word. Oh god. Not a word pun. They’re the Keurig pod of language: single use, disposable. I’m not being fair about puns for personal reasons and I don’t care.)

On the writing front, I had another moment yesterday where I was like, how to poem?? Words are what? And I had to take a break.

WR danced for me, but I wasn’t having it. She pointed to the fact that my stressed hip seemed to be rebounding, which, yes, is cause to celebrate.

She reminded me that our cafe is going to start serving soup again on Oct. 1, and that we have lunch planned with a friend to celebrate that on Oct. 2! (It’s the little things.)

Then WR took our Kindle app and showed us what we are reading, as if that might be part of the problem.

“Drema. Oh, Drema. Why?” she said.

She pointed to a pop nonfic book whose entire message is in the title. Ok, there’s one tiny piece that isn’t. But if you put those two things together, book read.

I lowered my head. 

She shook hers. “We don’t need to figure anything out. We are a lighthouse, not a ship,” she said.

I wonder what she meant by that.

In any case, I understand what she’s saying about my reading. She means I need to read something real, something meaty. Preferably fiction. Something that gives me all the feels and thoughts and even fears and makes my whole self feel alive. That inspires me to write.

Someone once called me sensitive. I think I forgot to thank them for that. Labels are helpful when they explain you to yourself, especially when it names a quality others have maybe disliked about you.

Because God forbid we have a big feeling.

WR says sensitive is now her middle name, and she doesn’t hate it anymore. 

It’s almost 8 a.m. now, and am I really out here writing about apples and lighthouses and feelings and squirrels?

The squirrels have been thumping across the carport for some time. One is out front demolishing a baby sunflower stump she stole from the neighbors. 

There. Now I’ve written about squirrels. I swear they are endlessly entertaining and I could see myself writing a children’s book someday about them.

UPDATE: WR and I made fried apples out of the Melrose apples. They were so sweet they didn’t even need sugar. We also made fried potatoes and sausage patties: done and done. And just in time because Word Raccoon was feeling hangry and under caffeinated. 

WR stands upright. “You don’t want to encounter me when I’m like that, Babe. I’m more than half animal, and I might even turn my back on you at the water fountain in a futile attempt to shake loose the thing I’m not “supposed” to feel. But no matter how much I pretend differently, raccoons are gonna feel. I’m sensitive, remember?” 

Excuse us. I think it’s time for her nap. Or time for a snack. She’s delirious again, obviously.