Bright Red Nails, The Subjective Space, and “Spraying the Crops with Brawndo”

Or, what I’ve published, where I’ve done a podcast interview, and what I’ve been trying to avoid in the past month or so.

OK. Well. It’s been…a month, if you’ve been paying attention to the news at all. Here we are. How’s everyone doing? There’s no right answer, by the way. You don’t have to say “fine” if you’re not. Personally, I’ve gone back to my Covid lockdown-era habit of saying “I’m awake/alive/still chugging along” whenever anyone asks me how I’m doing in that small-talky way. 

But there has been some positive movement in my writing world, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve signed with an agent, and I’m currently working through the revisions he requested. It’s been a fun process, and I think my book is a lot better for them. 

And I am taking heart in the idea that one of the best things any of us can do right now is focus on creating and doing, because that does make a difference. This leads me to… 

Flash Fiction: “Bright Red Nails” 

I submitted a piece of flash fiction to The Periwinkle Pelican, a fun online literary journal, and it was accepted. 

Read it here: “Bright Red Nails.” I’ll wait. It won’t take long.

Right, now that you’ve read it, I can tell you that memory–specifically, what we choose to remember and what impacts it–is something that’s always fascinated me. Dementia, especially, is something that has come up in various short stories that I’ve written since high school, when both of my grandparents started showing signs of it and then declining rapidly. I’ve often wondered what I would remember if I lost most of my working memory. 

The scary thing is, I honestly think it would be the 2000s pop songs that formed a backdrop to those weird, emotionally-weighty early teenage years. 

Podcast Interview on “The Subjective Space” 

This month, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Sindhu Rajasekaran, a grad school classmate of mine from University of Edinburgh, and doing an interview for her podcast, The Subjective Space. 

As I said at the start of our interview, I was honestly flattered that she considered me interesting enough for her podcast, because when I first met her, I was intimidated. Back in grad school, she was already a published author, having just released her debut novel, Kaleidoscopic Reflections. Since then, she’s published So I Let it Be and Smashing the Patriarchy, and has a fourth book coming soon, which is based on her PhD research. 

So yeah, this extremely impressive (but also lovely) person wanted to talk to me for 45 minutes about my book, writing, comedy, and work in PR, and then record it and put it online. That was fun. 

You can watch/listen to it here: EPISODE 19 Sarah Flocken | On Improv, Novels & Communicating for a Living in the Age of AI

A Thing I’m Avoiding: “Spraying the Crops with Brawndo”

Do the Work’s post, “Tend your fire,” which came out a week after the election, is something I’ve been returning to over and over. It contains some of the best advice I’ve found for a creative person (or really, any person) who’s, umm, dismayed about what might be coming in the next four years. Author Julie Falatko’s advice is, essentially, “put your phone down and create.” To paraphrase Julie, the world does not need one more person who is good at scrolling the Internet. The world needs more people doing whatever good thing you are uniquely talented at, whether that’s reading to your kid or petting your dog or writing or standing up to bullies. 

However, the quote that I will probably get crocheted on a throw pillow in the near future so I never forget it is this: 

“Remember in Idiocracy when they can’t figure out why the crops are dying, and it’s because they are spraying them with Brawndo, a sports drink? The people have been told Brawndo has what plants need. They don’t understand how this can’t be true.

Put down your phone. If you have an idea for something to make, and you’re not working on it, and instead you're looking at the internet, you’re spraying Brawndo on your baby seed of a creative idea. It’s not going to grow.”

Maybe that’s a bit long for a throw pillow. I’ll just stick with “Don’t spray your crops with Brawndo.” It’s what I say to myself now whenever I find myself mindlessly doomscrolling.

And One More Thing

If you’re in San Diego, and need something to do on Friday, December 6, I’m hosting another edition of Pundemonium! San Diego’s ONLY Pun Competition. If you’ve never been to a pun contest before, they are a thing nationwide–and if you’ve never been to a San Diego Pundemonium, know that it’s the best kind of communal silliness you can ask for in a comedy show.