Meet Mr. Mired and Mr. Dreary.

I got up about an hour and a half ago, and the sky was black, and there was rain and thunder and lightning. It seemed a good thing, after the nightmares, the violence in the sky a welcomed distraction and/or counterpoint to the violence of sleep. But now the storm has passed away east, and it's only grey and damp and chilly. Ugh. The storms never seem to last long enough these days, which is to say they never seem to last long enough to match the storms in me.

Yesterday, I came very, very near to being an irresponsible slacker and taking the day off. It had been ten days straight reading and editing Daughter of Hounds, ten days without a break. But there's really not a day to spare right now. I sat here for about an hour, trying to talk myself into getting up and getting dressed and leaving the house, maybe visiting the dinosaurs at Fernbank, maybe going downtown to the High. But then Diligence and Duty and that little bitch Fear won out, and Spooky and I spent the afternoon on the second pass through the typescript, tackling the more difficult line edits (but not yet things that qualify as actual rewrites; those come on the third pass). I discovered I'd used "shitstorm" four times in the ms., when only once will do. Stuff like that. We made it as far as page 319, and we'll do the other half today. But I'm reaching that point with the book again where I have to admit that I've become mired within it like an ant in amber or a scavenging Smilodon in tar. I have begun to lose perspective, and my ability to identify actual problems and pose actual solutions is fading fast. I am mired in the pages. I am lost in the futile struggle to make this book perfect, when I know it will never be perfect, and even if it could be, it's success or failure in no way hinges upon its proximity to that hypothetical state of perfection. Success hinges on advertising dollars that won't be spent and publicity that won't be pursued and the bottom-line politics of bookstores and the fickleness of readers who generally prefer mediocrity anyway.

Sorry. I hate waking up tired and being greeted right off by that thing which made me tired to start with. I hate waking from apocalypse into futility. I much prefer apocalypse, please.

Yesterday's bright spot was replacing the word "shit" with "alley apples," which amused me nigh unto wakefulness.

So, I struck a deal with Me, clear in the knowledge that I can't be trusted. I promised myself that if I worked on the ms. on Saturday and Sunday, then I could have Monday off. Even though I can't presently spare a day, between DoH and Sirenia Digest. But surely, after twelve consecutive days at the keyboard, at these pages, no one could begrudge me a day off, regardless of the deadlines in question. Right.

My thanks to everyone who's helped out with the video for "Special". Thanks to robyn_ma for sending me an .mpg that's vastly superior to what I was able to see at YouTube. I still don't have the complete video though, and should anyone come across it, I'd be grateful if you could please e-mail it my way (greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com).

There's an interesting discussion of "Onion" going on over at species_of_one. I don't post over there, as a rule, not wishing to discourage and whatever, but I thought I'd mention it, in case someone here who doesn't know about the forum (which replaces the old scaredhedgehog forum) should want to check it out.

There's the thunder again. Maybe there's more storm to come. Maybe it'll knock out the power. That wouldn't be so bad. Please have a look at the eBay auctions. Right now, we have The Dry Salvages and The Five of Cups up. Check it out. Wait. I said that once already. Er...bid. Yeah, that's better. Bid. Please. Okay, now I'm gonna go try to talk Spooky into making me coffee and noodles...