greygirlbeast: (Bowie3)
Should probably make this quick. Out there it's sunny, and it almost still feels like summer. Almost. But I won't be heading for the sea.

Yesterday, I finished, well...I think they'll not abduct me again and use the electric nipple clamps on me, not if I only say, yesterday I finished Phase One. Just wait until you see.

Actually, the electric nipple clamps are kind of exquisite.

---

I'm reposting a big chunk of Friday's post, because not as many people seem to bother with reading this LJ on Friday's, and I want this seen. Comments are good, too:

Before anything else is written on this entry, you have to see what happens when The Drowning Girl: A Memoir falls into the hands of the superb and marvelous Michael Zulli, who has, through his own amazing graces, become my Phillip George Saltonstall. Here is the painting of the title, and here, too, is the "lost" painting that Imp does not learn about until much later:

The Drowning Girl, Nos. 1 & 2 )


There really are not words adequate to the task of describing the effect these paintings have had on me, seeing your fiction made real, and I thank you again (and publicly for the first time), Michael. No, these will not be in the Roc trade paperback, but they will appear in any hardback edition, should any hardback edition ever appear. At least one of them will also appear in the photographs and book trailer project that I have undertaken with [livejournal.com profile] kylecassidy. These images will also appear on the LJ we're keeping for the project, [livejournal.com profile] evacanning, and, eventually, on the novel's website.

---

Last night, after Vincent D'nofrio, I read another story from The Book of Cthulhu, Molly's Tanzer's "The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins." And wow, this one's a keeper. I'd never encountered this author before, but...imagine H. P. Lovecraft refracted through the lenses of Lemony Snicket, Edward Gorey, and any number of Victorian authors, and you get this wonderful and delightfully perverse short story. Brava, Ms. Tanzer. That said, I fear I'm running out of good stories in this anthology. I've read twelve out of twenty-seven, and I don't have high hopes for more than three or maybe four further worthwhile pieces. But yes, "The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins" is very, very good, and I'll be keeping my eye open for additional work by that author.

Etsy has proven the Apocalypse is nigh: there is now a category for "hipster."

I'm not heartened at the news of a new Kate Bush album (coming in November), Fifty Words for Snow, not after her last couple of releases.

And, finally, I was genuinely saddened to see that Andy Whitfield has died. Spartacus: Blood and Titties won't be the same without him.

The Word for the World is Plastic,
Aunt Beast
greygirlbeast: (goat girl)
And today, is Ray Bradbury's 91st birthday. Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for Mars, Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, bottles of dandelion wine, that foghorn, the Elliot family, and a thousand other wonders.

Sunny and cool here in Providence, thanks to a low humidity and dew point. Very windy.

Turns out, as of yesterday, we're moving the entire shoot for The Drowning Girl book trailer and The Drowning Girl: Stills From a Movie That Never Existed from Boston the Rhode Island. This happens this coming weekend, so things here will grow increasingly chaotic. [livejournal.com profile] kylecassidy and crew will arrive on Friday evening, and as we only really have about a day and a half to shoot, it's going to be intense. But, hopefully, fun intense, and hopefully many wonderful things will come of it. Oh, and yesterday Michael Zulli showed me the underpainting of his version of G.P.S.'s The Drowning Girl (1898), and, even at this unfinished stage, it's beautiful. A part of the novel is coming alive and will exist beyond the printed page, and I thank him so much for that.

As announced, yesterday was a "day off." I still spent about three or four hours working, but there was no writing. What we did do, though, is go to Swan Point Cemetery for the first time since the ugly fiasco of the 20th of August 2008. I do not know if it was my post, then Boing Boing picking up the story of the verbal assault against me and Spooky, and the story spreading across the interwebs that led to a major change in Swan Point security, or if it was that combined with other incidents, or if it didn't involve my experience at all. But it has changed, and wonderfully so. There are visitors again, and bicyclists, and the air of oppression has been lifted. For the first time in three years (!!!) we were able to visit Lovecraft's grave. Likely, things have been better there for a year or two, but I've just not been able to return, that incident in 2008 was so upsetting. There was a big gathering on Saturday to commemorate HPL's birth date, but I didn't want to be a part of the crowd, so I waited until yesterday (I don't think the Old Gent would have minded my tardiness). We walked around the beautiful cemetery, me making notes, recording names for future stories and novels, getting mosquito bites, and marveling at trees. We found a huge red oak (Swan Point is also an arboretum) , and I took a single leaf and pressed it in between the pages of my Molskine. The cemetery was so, so peaceful: bird songs, the wind through trees, insects, the Seekonk flowing past to the east, and very little else. It was at least part ways as grounding as the sea.

We saved HPL's grave for the last. There were many a wonderful offering carefully laid above the grave. I left a tiny button in the shape of a black cat; knowing his love of cats, it seemed very appropriate. Anyway, hopefully we are now all free to visit the grave whenever we like, and I can only hope that asshole security guard was fired. Yesterday, I felt like I'd gotten back something very grand and important to me. There are photos below, behind the cut.

Afterwards, we had an early dinner at Tortilla Flats.

And I have a long day ahead of me. Spooky's begun cleaning the apartment in anticipation of the arrival of photographers (and all their gear) and models/actresses on Friday. I have to begin Chapter 8, the final chapter of Blood Oranges, which I hope to make very significant progress on this week and finish early next week.

21 August 2011 )
greygirlbeast: (Default)
So...as part of our Big Damn eBay Sale, Spooky's put up something I have never previously offered. Before I do a painting, I do numerous studies in colored pencil. The canvas I've been working on, Black Ships Ate the Sky (yes, Current 93, and my nightmares), has several of these studies. Mostly, they allow me to block, work out color schemes, and get a lot of ideas out of my system so I don't clutter up the canvas with things that don't actually belong there. I've never before offered one for sale. Indeed, it never occurred to me to do so.

However, the recent(ish) Study for Yellow 1 and Study for Yellow 2 auctions did well. So, when Spooky suggested I put one of these up, I agreed. So, here is Study 3 for Black Ships Ate the Sky (2011).

By the way, the painting isn't finished (close, but not quite). It also isn't for sale, and I presently have no plans to sell it. I think it's just too personal. Though, I don't know what I will do with it. My paintings aren't usually things I want to look at after I'm done with them.

But I digress...and yikes, four uses of "so" in one entry.
greygirlbeast: (mucha)
This is a post I meant to make a couple of days back, but better late than never.

Thursday May 19, 2011, the woman that Frank Frazetta once called "the greatest living painter," Jeffrey Catherine Jones ("Jeff Jones"), died. If, like me, you grew up in the 1970s and '80s, reading magazines like Heavy Metal and novels by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, and Robert E. Howard, then you are likely familiar with the work of Jeff Jones, even if you have no idea who she was.

In particular, a lot of people don't know she was a transwoman. She also suffered from mental illness, and to quote Wikipedia, "In 2001, she experienced a nervous breakdown and lost her home and workspace. In 2004 she had her own apartment and started producing work again."

And now another visionary is gone from the world, and we are poorer for the loss. There are some examples of her work behind the cut.

Wondrous Things )
greygirlbeast: (Default)
A vile morning here in Providence, after a vile, wild night. Hard rain and wind last night, with waves out at Beavertail as high as ten feet. Spooky says there were surfers out there after dark, which boggles my mind. About 2:30 a.m. last night (1:30 a.m. EST), the rain turned to fairly heavy snow, and the wind grew even worse. But everything was wet, and the snow didn't stick. This morning, the wind is a banshee, and the rain's still with us. I hear Maine took a beating.

Hemingway said to write about the weather.

I am now once again on Caitlín Standard Time, as I refuse to "fall back." Which makes me one hour early for everything.

Hardly any sleep again last night, and it must be a testament to the power of my insomnia that I make reference to an August Derleth story in the subject line of this entry. After sleeping only five hours night before last, last night I managed only four. I'm getting sickly again, from the work and the stress and, most especially, from the insomnia, so I suppose it's time to talk to my doctor, tweak the meds, take Vitamin D. Rumor has it today is a day off, though I doubt I'll notice.

But, there's good news. Yesterday, I wrote an astounding (for me) 2,769 words and found the place where Chapter One of The Drowning Girl ends. That wasn't quite my personal best for a single day (2,800+, I'd have to look it up), but it's damned close. And it was a relief, after only managing 259 words on Saturday. Unfortunately, now I have to set the novel aside and write a short story that has a December 1st deadline, and then do Sirenia Digest #60. But, if I'm correct about my various deadlines, I'll be able to spend almost all of December and January on the book. I'm guessing this novel will come in between 80,000 and 100,000 words, at about 10,000 words a chapter...pretty much the same as The Red Tree. So, I hope that by the end of January I'll have the first five or six chapters written.

I've not left the House now since the 30th, which makes...what? Today will be Day #9 of the Captivity. And it's far too nasty to go out today. Time feels weirder and weirder. Not sleeping, not going out, playing too much WoW and CoX, reading and reading and working and working. Not sleeping. Pills and eyestrain and dehydration and cold feet. It's all deranged, as Mr. Bowie said.

No, this is not a Happy Post.

Saturday night I began the next painting, Black Ships Ate the Sky, which is presently a furious, livid thing. This is the first largish canvas I've done in forever, 18"x24".

Spooky had to go out yesterday for more Napthol Crimson.

I think the wind means to flay the paint off the House.
greygirlbeast: (Default)
Hard rain last night, rainy today.

Yesterday is the day I've feared. After three fantastic writing days, yesterday The Drowning Girl sputtered and hit a speed bump. I did only 595 words. Even emptying the Word Bank, I was still 234 words short for yesterday. Today, I have to do much better and get back on track. I'm giving myself until the 7th (instead of until the 6th) to finish Chapter One (which, in the book, is just 1).

Spooky had to go out to get her new glasses (which look great), and when she got back home I was pretty panicked and flustered. But there was much good mail, which rather helped my spirits. Best of the lot was a Lovecraft pin, sent to me by my editor, Anne Sowards. The administrators of the World Fantasy Awards present each nominee with one of these pins, which are miniatures of the actual award (designed by Gahan Wilson). It made me very happy, and helps me feel better about The Red Tree, and now I shall always wear it on my lapel, whenever I have a lapel on which to wear it. There's is a photo behind the cut (yeah, my nail polish is looking rough):

Because I Done Good )


My thanks to everyone who bid on Study #2 for Yelllow, and to the winner of the auction. Likely, as mentioned already, it'll be at least a couple of months before I offer another painting. There's a large canvas I want to do next, and I don't intend to sell it.

Other good mail yesterday included my Shaharrazad mousepad. I've used the same mousepad since...forever. It's an Emily Strange mousepad I got when I was still living in Athens, round about 1996 or '97. And finally it had worn smooth and needed replacing. But getting thirteen or fourteen years out of a mousepad is surely to be counted as a good deal. Also, thanks to Steven Lubold, who sent us a copy of Current 93's Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain, which I'm listening to at this very minute. The mail also included my contributor's copy of Steampunk Reloaded (edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer), which reprints "The Steam Dancer (1896)."

Last night, after dinner, we began the annual November reading of House of Leaves. This will be reading #5 or #6, I suppose. We also read Kelly Link's hilarious and charming "The Fairy Handbag" and her absolutely brilliant "Pretty Monsters." I cannot stress how much I adore "Pretty Monsters." The structure of the narrative is a trick I wish I'd thought of first, and the characters are so perfectly executed (make of that verb, executed, what you will). And these lines, from near the end, are wonderful:

Except you can't judge a book by its cover. Whether or not this story has a happy ending depends, of course, on who is reading it. Whether you are a wolf or a girl. A girl or a monster or both. Not everyone in a story gets a happy ending. Not everyone who reads a story feels the same way about how it ends. And if you go back to the beginning and read it again, you may discover it isn't the same story you thought you'd read. Stories shift their shape.

I also got some very, very good rp in CoX (thank you Sekhmet and Enth'lye). I've just about decided to cut all the Lovecraftian out of Erzébetta's backstory, and just avoid bastardized HPL whenever it crops up in the game. This is not the sort of thing about which I can compromise. I'm not even willing to try. Do it right, or do not bother, because doing it wrong is an insult to the source material. Oh, also, [livejournal.com profile] darkarmadillo managed, in yesterday's comments, in only three words, to perfectly summarize the essence of Lovecraft's cosmicism:

Nobody saves nothing.

Damn straight.
greygirlbeast: (The Red Tree)
Cold and clear in Providence. The tree Outside my office window has shed its leaves. Some asshole vandalized both our jack-o'-lanterns. They cut the word "fuck" into one. I wonder if she or he feels that was some grand show of rebellion. Carving "fuck" on a jack-o'-lantern. If so, I'd like to find him or her and offer a lesson, out of pity. Anyway, I fear there will be no pumpkin drop this year. The pumpkin is defaced, and I'm too busy to make the trip to the Saugatucket River.

Sleep was better, thanks to the Sonata I took at 3:30, which allowed me to get to sleep about 5 a.m.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,877 words on The Drowning Girl. Two days down, twenty-eight to go. Since I'm making the 1,500-word-a-day push, I'm going to word bank, like I did the last time I set such a desperate, idiotic goal for myself. How does one word bank? Well, each day I have to write 1,500 words. Whatever I write beyond that goal counts as surplus. Surplus accumulates. For example, the Word Bank has accumulated a surplus of 501 words over the past two days. This surplus protects against the inevitable day when I can't get anything written. A surplus of 1,500 words is a lost day I don't have to worry about quite so much. By the way, while I do approve of writers making themselves write something almost everyday, I do not approve of the sort of thing I'm doing here, and have only resorted to it out of desperation.

A shame, though, that I can't spend the whole month of November on The Drowning Girl. I can only work on it until the 6th. On the 7th, I have to begin work on a longish short story for an sf/f anthology. That's going to take at least two weeks, and then I have to write the contents of Sirenia Digest #60 and get the issue out by the 30th.

My thanks to [livejournal.com profile] kaz_mahoney for pointing me towards Colleen Mondor's review of "As Red As Red," which I might have missed otherwise.

---

I'm trying not to think about the elections. The losses, the wins. I'm so weary of fickle, short-sighted Americans. Because President Obama could not solve all their ills and fix the world in two short years, they're changing course, jumping ship, pretty much insuring the President will be even less effective. Things are still bad two years in; jump ship. The next set of politicians are the ones who will hand you that quick fix. Anyway, here in Rhode Island, we've elected the state's first independent governor. No, not some shit-for-brains teabagger. Lincoln D. Chafee is a former Republican, who broke ranks with the party to endorse Obama, and Obama endorsed his run for governor. So, yeah. Rhode Island remains the contrary state, and it could have been worse. Democrats won all other statewide races in Rhode Island.

---

We have entered the final day of the auction for Study #2 for Yellow. And there are other auctions, and, as always, money's tight. So please have a look. Thanks.

---

I've been reading about Harry Clarke. And sure, Beardsley was an enormous influence on Clarke, but I think Clarke was actually the more talented illustrator. Of course, his true passion was designing stained-glass windows, though he's most often remembered as an illustrator of Edgar Allan Poe. Also, still making my way through the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (30:5), including "A Miocene ziphiid (Cetacea: Odontoceti) from Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA," "The dentary of Suuwassea emilieae (Sauropoda: Diplodocoidea)," and "The postcranial skeleton of the aquatic parareptile Mesosaurus tenuidens from the Gondwanian Permian."

And now, time to stock the word bank.
greygirlbeast: (Default)
My insomnia's been getting worse again, which drags everything else down the shitter, of course. My work habits. My mood. My ability to tell if Drug X is dealing with Symptom Y. My ability to remember if I've taken Drug X. My appearance. I do not sleep, it all goes to Hell in a little rowboat.

And I have a reading in six hours. Before the reading (six o'clock p.m. at the Brown University Book Store; at least I get to wear a mask), I need to wash my hair, let it dry (NO BLOW DRIERS), make edits for the two stories for Sirenia Digest #59, layout the issue (including cover), and...stuff. Lots of stuff. How this is going to happen, I don't know.

Yesterday, what? Oh, yeah. Yesterday, I wrote the prolegomenon for #59, which went a bit long. And I read over and made line edits to "And the Cloud That Took the Form" and "At the Reef."

I consume virtually no caffeine.

I think my body has spent a decade forgetting how to sleep.

My thanks to the reader who sent me Richard Kaczynski's Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley, so now I can be reading about six books all at once.

Really excellent rp in City of Heroes and Villains last night, and I wanted to say thank you to [livejournal.com profile] stsisyphus, Mel, Enth'lye, and Blair. Yes, it would seem that ecsedi Báthory Erzsébet and La Bête du Gévaudan are one and the same, who now exists as an insane super villain with freezy powers, after being enslaved by Vlad Tepes who wanted to use her undead womb as a vessel to allow Nyarlathotep to be born into the world! Yeah, I know. Wacky. I'm waiting for the zombie unicorns to appear.

Here are four photos of Study #2 for Yellow. The painting will go up on eBay later this afternoon. The platypus is giving me the finger, so...later...

Study #2 for Yellow )
greygirlbeast: (Default)
Yesterday, I finished Study #2 for Yellow. I'll post photographs of it tomorrow. While I was working on this painting, I didn't let myself look at images of Study #1 for Yellow. So, I was sort of astounded when I finally did yesterday, and saw how much better the second painting is than the first. This one will go up on eBay, but I have a feeling I won't be offering another painting for a while. The next couple, I'm going to want to hang onto. It's not like selling a short story or a novel. You're not really giving anything away. These days, I don't even send an editor a hard copy of a manuscript. The paintings are solid, tangible, and they go away, and they're gone.

I emailed Vince notes about his illustration for "At the Reef" (to appear in Sirenia Digest #59).

Then we took advantage of what will likely be the last warm day this year. It was 74F Outside, so, we left the House and drove south and east to Conanicut Island and Beavertail. On the way down, we listened to Throwing Muses and I read two Thomas Ligotti stories, "Drink to Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes" and "The Glamour." By the time we reached the shore, the sun was low. And it felt about twenty degrees cooler by the sea. The surf was unexpectedly rough, and there was an enormous fog bank rolling in from the east. We watched it swallow Newport and Aquidneck Island. It was neither grey nor blue, and moved swiftly over the water. We sat on the rocks and listened to the foghorn. There was a flock of cormorants drifting out beyond the breakers, and a few gulls perched on the boulders, eyeing the bay as though it had betrayed their expectations. A flock of eider ducks flew past. The air was salty and cold and I didn't want to come home.

There a photos below, behind the cut.

---

I'm wondering if I can "crowdsource" two relatively simple tattoos. Am I even using the portmanteau correctly? Anyway, I've been thinking, as I cannot currently afford the back and sleeve work I want done, I could settle for one word on each wrist. On my left would be the word House (in blue) and on my right wrist would be the word Tree (in red). Both would be inked in Courier. I'd probably have it done at Artfreek on Wickenden Street. Two words that have had such significance for me.

---

Tomorrow night, I will be reading (and signing) at the Brown University Bookstore on Thayer Street. Costumes optional. Reading starts at 6 p.m. You should come, if you can. I hate reading to empty rooms. I will probably be reading something from The Ammonite Violin & Others.

---

The platypus compels you to have a look at the current eBay auctions. Also, the platypus compels me to remind you that all the cool Halloween-related creations in Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop will go away on November 1st, so act now. The platypus is a compelling beast.

I think that's all for now. Except for the photographs. I have to write.

Last Warm Day, 28 October 2010 )
greygirlbeast: (Eli1)
Yesterday was warm, and the night before ferociously windy. Night before last, I sat at my desk with the window open, and the wind blowing the world around Outside. There was sun yesterday, though it was still chilly in the shadows. Today, it's still warm, 70F at the moment, still warm, but cloudy. There must be something wrong with the commas in that last sentence. Anyway, I left the House yesterday, but the junk shop we wanted to scour is closed on Tuesday, and we didn't know. Still, it got me Outside. Last night, I was so tired I slept almost nine hours.

Back home, I all but finished the newest painting, Study #2 for Yellow. I'm much happier with it than I was with Study #1 for Yellow. I tweeted yesterday, "I am painting a convulsion." This morning, looking at the painting, I see it was an accurate description.

---

Back to the subject of my doing podcasts, and my discomfort with my voice, and how it follows from being transgendered. Back to being very weary of how so much of the world perceives gender. Back to vocal dysphoria (from Greek δύσφορος [dysphoros], from δυσ-, difficult, and φέρειν, to bear). Day before yesterday, the following was tweeted:

Um...Is Caitlin R. Kiernan a tranny, or just a really deep voiced woman? :/

Yeah, the witty emoticon was part of the post. A few minutes later, there was a second tweet, by the same person:

I'm STILL not sure if Caitlin R. Kiernan was born as a woman with a deep voice, or what. Apparently she's/he's an expert on H.P. Lovecraft.

To which I replied:

What the hell's the difference? Does gender, or birth gender, make one a better scholar or author?

I received this reply (and it's clear that the person asking these question didn't know I was, well, me, the person about whom he seemed so intensely curious...and yes, it's a he...I checked, because clearly gender is germane to all such discussions):

No, not at all! It's just hard for me to react to something my brain can't categorize. It's not a problem with her.

So...he cannot react (which he apparently must do) to something I've said unless he's capable of pegging my gender. Or sex. Or both. And, of course, it's more than that. My birth sex must be pegged, so that he can categorize, then react. A few minutes later, he tweeted:

@greygirlbeast For the record I have no problem with anyone's sexuality--it's just a first reaction to something like that to say 'Huh?".

To say "Huh?" Note, he doesn't say, "it's my reaction," but implies the reaction is universal (and it may well be). Anyway, I suppose I should be relieved. After all the hateful comments people made at YouTube when Frank Woodward posted an outtake from my interview for Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (which I almost didn't do, because I hate my voice), this is kid stuff. The "tweeter," was, by the way, an actual kid. This, of course, excuses nothing.

But it should serve as an illustration to those who simply seem unable to grasp the source of my discomfort. Not because there's actually anything wrong with women having deeper voices, or with being a transsexual. But because it wears me out. It exhausts me. Seeing this shit after all these years. My gender will always be a reason for many people to dismiss me out of hand. Or to hate me. Or to spew transphobic and homophobic vitriol. Or whatever. I know that. I accepted that ages ago. But it still wears me out. I always expect it, and yet it comes when I least expect it. It almost always blindsides me.

That someone must know my gender before he can "react" to my comments. And it hardly matters that there are better, smarter, more tolerant people in the world. It matters not one whit. Sometimes, I get tired of fighting the good fight. I've been fighting it my whole life. But, here I am still fighting, because I don't know how to stop.

I'm talking in circles. I just wanted to put this out there, as a case in point. This is why I dislike my voice, and this is why I am hesitant to do podcasts, or live interviews, or cons, or public readings. I'd like to move through the world being treated no differently than other women, those women who happen to be cisgendered. The lucky women who've never had anyone doubt their identity.

And if I've revealed anything here you didn't already know, well...either you haven't been paying attention, or you're too good and intelligent a person to give a shit. Or both. However, should it make you think less of me, in any way, you can go fuck yourself with a rusty corkscrew. I'll even help, if you can't figure out how that works.
greygirlbeast: (newest chi)
Sleep went disastrously wrong last night. I crawled off to bed about 3:30 a.m., but couldn't sleep (let's not go there). So, I got up, and didn't go back to bed until 5:30. Then I began waking around 9 a.m., and finally got up at 11:15. How the hell do people "sleep in"? I'd even taken a Sonata. So, this morning I am more than half asleep and almost every joint in my body (but especially the knees down) is screaming. These little reminders that I am not a kid anymore. Spooky hardly slept any better than I did, or than did I, or what the fuck ever.

Yesterday was mostly spent reading over "The Colliers' Venus (1893)" for the first time since I finished it almost two years ago, at the end of 2008. I remember not being happy with how the story turned out, but reading over it again yesterday I liked it quite a lot. It's one of the four Cherry Creek stories, set in an alternative steampunkish history, and Denver is, instead, a city named Cherry Creek. And people dig too deeply. I had a lot of questions from the copyeditor, and the only way I could answer them was to read the story. So, I read the story, and then I answered the questions.

We continue to work on Dancy's cigar box. In the meantime, please have a look at the current eBay auctions. And Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks & Sundries Etsy shop. The whole tax thing really did a number on us this year, and I feel like no amount of work can compensate. I wrote two stories between October 18th and October 24th, and I still feel like a slacker. After all, what about all those hours I was awake when I could have been writing more.

I'm not leaving the House enough, even though I'm leaving it more than usual.

Oh, yesterday I also backed up almost everything on my iMac to Spooky's Toshiba 250 gig external hd. That meant, among other things, removing almost exactly 10,000 photographs from my Mac, and, to no one's surprise, it's running much better now.

My thanks to Steven Lubold for the marvelous packages that arrived yesterday.

In theory, today is a day off. Though, I'm told I have to work on the painting I set aside more than a month ago. Study #2 for Yellow.

Some very good rp in CoX last night (and a little bit of leveling). Special thanks to [livejournal.com profile] stsisyphus.

And now...well, we'll see.
greygirlbeast: (Default)
Rainy yesterday, and rainy again today. Which is a good thing. This is rain that was desperately needed. Providence has been so dry all summer (after the floods back in the spring).

I've had to stop taking Prazosin, because the hypotension wasn't going away, and it was beginning to make me genuinely ill. I look up, and almost the whole summer's gone. And we didn't do much of anything we'd planned to do in June, July, and August, and a lot of that was because the Prazosin was making me feel so bad. Nothing much worse than a lost summer.

On Saturday, I wrote 1,261 words, T-V of "The Yellow Alphabet." Yesterday— well, I don't have the word count on hand, because I didn't write it down, but I did W and X. Today, I do Y and Z, and it'll be done. Then, tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment, then Geoffrey ([livejournal.com profile] readingthedark) will be visiting tomorrow night.

I need a new keyboard (sticky damn keys) and a new mousepad (I've been using this one since sometime in the late 90s and it's smoother than a baby's backside).

Very good rp the last couple of nights. I've gone and gotten hooked again. Last night, Spooky and I also worked on finishing up the quests in Icecrown (WoW) with Shaharrazad and Suraa. We're at 100 out of 140. Yesterday, I read an article on the evolution of bipealism in hominids, in the July issue of National Geographic. I also began a new painting yesterday. Night before last, we watched more of Season Four of Dexter.

Lately, I feel like all my thrills are either vicarious or virtual.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thanks.
greygirlbeast: (Bjorkdroid)
Um...yeah. Yesterday is an absolute and utter blur. And it probably would be even if I hadn't slept like ass last night. I have no idea why I slept like ass. I actually got to sleep about 3:30 a.m., and slept for an hour. Then I woke and was awake until sometime after five, when I finally got back to sleep. But from there on, sleep was a fitful fever dream. The dreams were like fireworks going off behind my eyes (a purple analogy, but apt). And now I feel, well, the opposite of good, the opposite of rested.

As for yesterday, that brings me back to the absolute and utter blur. It began with me writing a short piece on H.P. Lovecraft for a Suvudu article by Matt Staggs, and then there was the blog entry, and then I had to get my bio and photo off to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, which I should have done days and days ago. For them what missed the news earlier, I will be Guest of Honor at this year's HPLFF and CthulhuCon in Portland Oregon (October 1-3). Anyway, then I had to answer email, and after that, about two p.m., I got back to work on "The Yellow Alphabet" for Sirenia Digest 57. I wrote 1,184 words, and did Q-S (S is for Shibari was especially challenging). And after that I had to finish proofing the galley pages of "The Bone's Prayer," which is being reprinted in The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror (edited by Paula Guran). And...then I stopped for the day.

After a power nap, and dinner (leftover chili), and a bath, I went back to Insilico, and began what would prove to be about six straight hours of roleplay. In which...crazy cyberpunk shit happened. Lots of crazy cyberpunk shit. I'm at one of those zenith points in rp. They happen every now and then. The world of the sim begins to feel more real than the real world. The face of the avatar becomes more substantial and immediate than my own face. It ought to be disturbing, I suppose, but it isn't. Oh, and after rp, another episode from Season 4 of Dexter.

And that was yesterday. Oh, and the auctions ended, and Study 1 for Yellow went for a truly respectable sum. My thanks to everyone who bid; this round helped greatly with the unexpected vet bills and such. Spooky will be getting another round of auctions started very soon.

There's a long entry about my science fiction, and why it's not as popular as my dark fantasy, but I don't have the time or the energy for it just now. Later. Now, I do T-V.
greygirlbeast: (Default)
Today is, of course, the 120th anniversary of the birth of H.P. Lovecraft.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,233 words on the second half of "The Yellow Alphabet," N through P. O came out especially well, I think.

This month, Vince Locke and I will be doing that switch thing we sometimes do, when we reverse the usual order of things, and I write a story to an illustration he's done for Sirenia Digest. So, #57 will feature a story inspired by this image:





Not much else to say for yesterday. After the writing, I cooked a pot of chili. I read an article in the July National Geographic on Ardipithecus. There were three exhausting, wonderful hours of rp in Insilico (thank you, Blair). Spooky and I watched two more episodes of Season Four of Dexter (I'm loving John Lithgow's extremely creepy portrayal of the "Trinity" killer).

Sometime around 2 a.m. I finally found the nerve to open the box containing copies of the mass-market edition of The Red Tree. The cover is still hideous and inappropriate, and the smaller format does nothing good for the layout of the novel. But Roc did a nice job with the cover blurbs (quotes from various reviews). Hopefully, it'll sell.

That was yesterday.

There are about four hours remaining in the auction of the first painting I have ever offered for sale, Study 1 in Yellow. And the auction for a copy of the lettered edition of Tales from the Woeful Platypus (plus handmade Beanie platypus) ends in less than an hour.
greygirlbeast: (Default)
I awoke this morning to discover that almost all the soreness from yesterday's fall has, against expectations, vanished. It's especially surprising given I actually sat up and worked yesterday, after a hot bath and Advil. I spent most of the evening lying down with my foot up, but still. I'd expected many days of soreness, so...I'm very pleased this is not the case.

Several people yesterday said I should go to the doctor. One or two even stressed the need for an MRI. And all I can say is that I am a freelance author who doesn't make a great deal of money and who has no health insurance whatsoever. Given that (quickly checking online) I see the average cost of an MRI on an ankle is $1,500, it's entirely out of the question. Especially since the total cost of that doctor visit, and followup visits, would likely run around $2,500. Not a chance. If I am quite sure my life is at stake if I don't seek a doctor's assistance, only then will I do so. And even then I can't afford to do so. I'm already paying hundreds of dollars a month for medical care I can't afford, because I was finally left with no option. And I've looked into health insurance plans for the self employed, and everything I've seen isn't much better than nothing. Hell, given the absurd costs of medical care in the US, even good insurance isn't much better than nothing. In my life, the only preventative medicine is a good diet and exercise (and I don't get much of the latter).

But enough about my damned ankle.

Yesterday I worked on the table of contents for the "Best of" project. I'd ended up with a total word count of 237,712 words, were I to include everything I want to include. Obviously, this won't do, as my word limit is 200k. I did, however, email Bill Schafer to ask if I could go over, and if so, by how much. His reply, I can go to 205k, but if I go over that...well a visit from a teddy bear with a plastic machete was involved. So, I have to go back to work and shave off 32,712 words worth of fiction from my "wish list." Which might only be three stories. I just have to work it out. A good part of yesterday was spent deciding which of the Dancy stories to include. I read "Waycross" and "Les Fleurs Empoisonnées" and "Highway 97" and "Alabaster." I decided that the "Best of" volume will include three of these, "Alabaster" being the one that won't appear. "Bainbridge" and "The Well of Stars and Shadow" were never in the running.

Today, I have to, among other things, decide whether "The Road of Pins" or "Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)" gets a place in the life boat. They're too thematically similar for both to make the cut. This is a strange sort of undertaking.

All the comments the past couple of days on first-person narrative and the interauthor have been welcome, and many have set me to thinking in new directions, or helped to clarify old and well-worn dilemmas. Yesterday, [livejournal.com profile] dragau wrote. I just realized that no one has used the word "biography" or its variations these last two days. Is its absence significant, something we overlooked, or is the word not relevant? And it's a very good point, as that's what we're really trying to get at here (or at least I am), with all this talk about the interauthor. Whenever a fiction writer is writing in first person they are, by default, writing a fictional autobiography.

---

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions and at the goodies in Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks & Sundries Etsy shop. The latter now includes a hand-painted Ouija board!

Also, I've finished my first painting in many years. I was, in part, inspired by the paintings of Constance Hopkins in The Red Tree. And I think I've decided I'll be putting it up on eBay tomorrow or this evening. Also also, Spooky's made a new beanie platypus that we'll be auctioning with a copy of the lettered edition of Tales from the Woeful Platypus. We did this a couple of times back in 2007. I think we only offered four Beanie platypi, so....these are rare.

Okay. Here are painting and platypus photos. The mothmen say it's time to work:

Evil and a platypus )

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Caitlín R. Kiernan

February 2012

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