Happy August! This is my favorite month, which is strange because it is hot and everyone is on vacation, but it’s the month that I start sniffing fall, and fall anticipation is the ABSOLUTE BEST.
I used to think August was a trash month because it was too hot and too busy and yet not busy enough, but I have leaned into the anticipatory feeling of back to school and end of summer and looking ahead and a slight change in the light JUST ENOUGH.
(Now I think February is the trash month.)
This month is certainly FAR BETTER than last month—thank you everyone who reached out, horrified, about my ill health—I am so much better now.
We recently went camping in beautiful Northern California. A perfect August thing to do. I was in charge of s’mores (duh).
Since it is August and therefore better weather (instead of the heinous overcast skies of all of June and July), I have been spending a bit more time in our backyard, but every time I go out there, my elderly next door neighbor also finds time to be out there.
This neighbor has been a longtime pill. He and his wife used to shout at us and peep over their fence on a daily basis to criticize how our yard looked. They also called the police on us three times because they:
Felt the stuff we had stored on the side of our house affected their house somehow, despite being separated by a fence, the stuff being on our property, and the stuff not being messy. I’m talking brooms and rakes.
Decided the trees that sit close to the fence line were “ruining their fence” despite them being there for 20 years and presenting no evidence or explanation of the ruining
Hallucinated that we had gone into their garage (?), stolen some gasoline (??), poured it on their roof (???), and were going to light their house on fire (????).
Decided we were keeping raw sewage in our backyard and called the wastewater company to investigate—so an engineer dutifully showed up at our door asking to inspect.
As you can see, there were some issues here.
It turned out that the wife had dementia and she’d make these things up (obviously; it seems like a lot of work to climb on the roof just to set a house on fire when you could do it from the curb) and would tell her husband to call the police, and he complied.
I am not without sympathy here. After all, my own father had horrible dementia and died last year from complications from it. Anyway, the wife is now in memory care, but the husband remains in the house.
He is doing his best to now pretend we were always friendly.
This includes a campaign where he comes out and says (his speech is always a yell), HEY SIERRA HOWYOUDOIN?
To which me or my husband, depending on who’s being bellowed at, say “fine fine” because we haven’t quite forgotten the police/city engineers showing up at our house despite the fact that they agreed the neighbors were mentally compromised. And our neighbor replies, THAT’S GOOD, REAL GOOD.
Living next door to him means a lot of compromise. Almost every time I am out in my yard, he goes into his yard and sneezes loudly three times in a row: BLURRAGGH BLURRAGGH BLURAGGGGGGHHHH, and this is almost always followed by a trumpeting fart.
Yesterday, I was out in the front yard weeding and he comes out and says HEY SIERRA HOWYOUDOING and I said fine and he says HOW’S YOUR MOTHER? which was a strange thing for him to say since my mother doesn’t know him. I said she was fine, too. I recognize that he’s trying.
And, we suspect, this is how he talks normally, and we must adapt. In years past, he and his wife would go into their yard and have conversations that you could hear clearly through every window, whether open or not:
DID YOU FEED THE DOG?
YES, I FED HIM. BUT HE DOESN’T LIKE THE FOOD.
WELL HE’S EATING IT NOW.
YES. HE LIKES IT NOW.
So, nicer weather always comes with a bit of neighbor interaction — in fact, just now as I was writing the last sentence I heard him loudly blow his nose outside my window.
Maybe this anecdote (and thus, tenuously, August) is really about forgiveness, and a little humor in stressful situations. And it isn’t just us! My friend Denise was on BART into the city a few weeks ago and she texted me and said “I think your neighbor is on my train because he just sneezed loudly three times in a row.”
“Did it sound like BLURRAGGH BLURRAGGH BLURRAGGH?” I replied.
“Yes,” she said. “There was also a fart.”
“That’s him,” I agreed. I advised her to hide in case he spotted her and shouted HEY DENISE HOWYOUDOIN— he’s seen her before because sometimes she feeds our cats when we’re away.
Interesting links
I appreciated this run down of cliches and tropes from Atria Books editor Sean Delone: An Ode to Clichés and Tropes
Author Andrea Jo DeWerd had a really excellent post about how and where she’s tried to reduce her Amazon and Target use (and related poor brands—I did not know Chipotle was anti DEI, so I’ll never eat there again). I’ve said this before — you don’t have to give up your spending ENTIRELY since we are, after all, all capitalist piglets, but reducing makes such a difference! I am proud to say I have canceled my KU subscription (I’ll buy books from indie KU authors) and I utilize Bookshop.org way more. Read it: I Spent $5,816.73 at Amazon Last Year and $56.28 So Far This Year (004)
Stella Pyles of The Creative Pragmatist has an outstanding post about finding your writing voice — and how the kids allowing AI to turn their brains into tuna casseroles aren’t gonna get that. And that’s a choice. Worth your time to read Where is the Line of Being Too Online? (h/t to MLG for sharing this). She says:
Here’s where this relates to what we’re talking about here: if we gradually loosen our grip on honing our individual voices—if we begin to outsource critical thinking, or worse, our imaginations, to artificial intelligence, will we have voices at all? Will we know how to communicate with one another? Or will we lose all of the little human fingerprints—the signs of life—that make connectivity so special?
What I’m reading
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston. I really enjoyed this thriller. It’s impeccably plotted and the characters have a depth that were really excellently drawn. Highly recommend.
These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean. This is a romance, but it isn’t. It’s WF, but also not. I’m not sure what it is, but it is good—and Sarah MacLean is an absolute master at writing romance, so you’re in good hands here. It’s about grown children of a recently deceased billionaire who must undergo individual tasks in order to inherit.
The Treasure Hunters Club by Tom Ryan. A fun, rather cozy mystery about a small coastal town after a fabled treasure originally laid by pirates. I love a modern treasure hunting story and this was a good one, although I question how easily pirate gold would be sold in these modern times. Like what’s the exchange rate for pirate gold to dollar? Or bitcoin? Or euro, which might be more stable? Who are you even selling pirate gold to? The story was good but these questions were unanswered.
First-time Caller by BK Borison. A romance about a radio host who no longer believes in love and a woman who comes on his show looking for love. This is a high concept pitch and the story is almost perfectly plotted. I highly recommend writers take a look at the way the characters and their foibles in this book are rolled out, because it’s masterful.
And finally…
Next month is my birthday 🎂 and in years past I have indulged myself in interviewing myself here in the newsletter. Would you like to ask any questions? I will include them in that post if so. Reply or comment to this newsletter.
k thnx bye 🧟
Oh and
If you’re new here, maybe you don’t know about my books but I think an author who does marketing for herself should probably include them.
The forthcoming The Enigma Challenge is out August 2026. Update: Edits are done and it’s off to production! I mean, copyedits aren’t done. hahah. or proofreading. Many more edits still happen. But major edits are done. This means that in the next few months I should start seeing exciting things like cover concepts? Maybe??? OMG how fun that will be. I CANNOT WAIT TO TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK MORE WITH YOU. It is so good. It’s my favorite. I love it. You will love it too. You just will. If you don’t, that’s fine, we won’t discuss it.
Hilarious post! Do you have a routine for sitting down to your writing? (Ie: lighting a candle, sitting in a certain spot, wearing a certain blanket over your head like a gremlin)
Would love more neighbor updates if further shenanigans (hopefully wholesome ones) occur!