I bob in public places

And I'm more fatigued for it

Elizabeth Mitchell
July 25, 2025

Morning darklings,

The Lawrence song called The Weather was just playing in my headphones. It’s one of the 18 songs on a playlist for a surrealist book I’m playing with. The other books I’m either actively working on or tinkering with have 6 to 30. There are no crossovers—not with each other, not with books I’ve already written or published or given up on (whether permanently or temporarily).

Though I set the tone for my books, music or ambient sounds keep me in it. As I write a moody scene in my sunny backyard or a sweet romance moment in the harsh lighting and chill of a diner or a horrific murder in a crowded coffee shop, having familiar sounds is grounding, locks my mind where I want to be. At least, on the good days.

This often means if you see me writing in public, my head is bobbing or my body is swaying a little. I may even mouth a few words from the songs I’m listening to or pause to tap on my keys.

The act of writing is very exhausting for me. It’s not just the mental brain power to put words together in an order that makes sense and follows a narrative worth reading or the energy of holding characters and places and emotions in my head while ADHD scratches inside my skull. It’s not just the effort it takes to press the keyboard, though that subluxes my fingers, or having my hands on a flat laptop for prolonged periods, which often leaves a bruisey feeling behind. It’s not just holding myself in a sitting position, the tension between my shoulder blades attempting to keep me from slouching, or find the best position for my head while I’m in bed with a laptop on my legs and a mousepad nestled in the sheets beside me. It’s also the whole body experience of being unable to sit still due to music, physical pain, discomfort in my own skin, lack of temperature control, you name it. And god forbid I manage to. That’s maybe worse.

It’s the hours after a good, long writing session that I think two things simultaneously: how can I put myself through that again and I can’t imagine never writing again. I muse on how to make myself more comfortable, be able to marathon write again. But other than beach trips, where I set the world aside, life invades and takes part of my physical and mental energy. Which means often, no matter when I’m able to sit down or lay down and write, I’m fatigued. I’m always fatigued. My musings, then, always leave me with shrugs and frustration.

Still, I scour YouTube for new and old and obscure and popular music, with and without lyrics. I look for ambient videos that match the locations of the places I plan on writing about.

Without the sounds in my headphones, I’m at the mercy of the noise around me. That’s not conducive to me getting anything done when I’m sitting, when I’m thinking, when I’m expending energy to write. I’d just be wasting it.

Though with the music, I’m helpless. I can’t not bob.

But then I get more fatigued. It’s a conundrum, really: How can I spend precious energy during the exhausting act of writing bobbing, despite it being such an important part of the process?

I can only tell myself that it’s worth it in the long run, though I could be lying. The books are written in the same headspace every time I sit down, which is good. They are richer and more even, I guess one could say, which is also good. Though, of late, this has made me write slower.

So I’ve started dictating on the days I can walk around the neighborhood at 5:30 in the morning. They are slow and meandering walks where I just talk to my phone. The ambient noise is the world around me, which means the words need editing while I bob to my music to make them match the vibe of the story, but I’m getting words out when I can, how I can.

I’m working on many books, many projects, and doing well to compartmentalize each. But none of that matters if bobbing only tires me more. Because there is no such world where I don’t have a playlist for everything.

Even my life.

SUBMISSION CALL FOR CLOCKS!

It’s that time! The official call is ready. I’m excited to see what you all come up with. Please note the submission window and limit. This may be important, depending on how popular this gets. I hated to cap it, but I’ve already had a lot of local interest, and, on the off-chance this gets noticed, I can’t end up with a few hundred stories to read. Because unless they are horrifyingly offensive, I plan on reading them all. And I do not want to lose my fall and winter to reading. <3

CLOCKS

Submission Window: September 1—November 1 with a 100 story limit / no submission cap for Disabled authors
Word Count: 3-5k
Payment: $40 and a contributors copy to be paid via Kickstarter / royalty share contingency
Theme: Clocks
Genres: dark fiction, speculative fiction, strange, wondrous, near sci-fi, surprise me
How to submit: Details on https://littlekeypress.com/#submissions

What's up with that weird clockmaker down the street?

Has the clock been telling you secrets?

Is someone trapped in a clock?

Has the killer been the clock all along?

I don't know, but you do.

Little Key Press is looking for 12 speculative and dark fiction stories. Dark doesn’t always fit in the horror box. Little darknesses hit our every day life, and those fit. That means literary fiction may find a home here alongside something labeled paranormal or near sci-fi.

Give me original. Give me unsettling. Give me melancholy and longing. Give me beautiful, weird stories filled with saudades. Give me laughter and tears and shock (with purpose). Give me expensive tricks. Wreck me. Manipulate my feelings. Blow me away. Be slow and methodical. Be quick and stunning. Make it stick to my ribs.

I love to see structures beyond the Western three-act. Show me characters I’ll root for, ones I’ll hate, those who are underrepresented, and twists on classic tropes.

Unique style is unique—but only if it has a purpose and works.

No high fantasy/medieval fantasy. No sci fi that has gone fully bee-boop or blee-blorp. No erotica or extreme horror. Also hard pass to dubious consent, rape, sexual assault, violence towards women, bully romance, exploitation of children, visceral animal deaths or murders, or unexamined behaviors such as (but not limited to) racism, homophobia, ableism, and transphobia. And I don't love that I have to say it, but absolutely no AI stories. Human brain or bust.

*It doesn’t need to have a speculative element, but it will need to be dark. It doesn’t have to be dark, but it then needs to have a speculative element to it.

Visit https://littlekeypress.com/#submission for more info about the submission process and to see the contract. While you're there, check out Claw Machine, the previous anthology!