World of Peacecraft?

So...I'm tooling along through Ashenvale (long story), and Suraa and I come upon a Draenai being pursued (or so it appears, and one would reasonably assume) by a troll hunter and her cat. We stop. We attack the Draenei. The troll starts shouting, "Don't do that! That's mean!" I kill the Draenei. The troll says, "I wish I had an Alliance character :(" (Yes, she used the emoticon in rp chat). I asked why. She said, "So I could come kill YOU!" I said (without breaking character), "Are you giving aid and comfort to the enemy? Shall I carry word or this behavior to your superiors?" She said, "Don't be a hater :(" (yes, emoticon). Suraa and I rode off, utterly baffled, after Suraa rped kicking the dead Draenei in the head.

I'm pretty sure we strolled into the midst of some hot Draenei-on-troll action, or someone's trying the use World of Warcraft to wage peace.

Anyway...

As for the earlier post, I'm not dead or anything, though I do appreciate all the well wishes. Too many nights of serious insomnia and nightmares, compounded by the frustration and stress of trying to write a story that I finally had to shelve yesterday. Mostly, I need to sleep, without dreams. And find a new story...

Draenei and trolls. What's the world (of Warcraft) coming to?

And then she overslept.

A remarkable eight and a half hours sleep, though there were very strange dreams that refuse to fade. And I didn't wake until 11:30 a.m., so now I'm behind, on a day I really cannot afford to be behind.

Day before yesterday, which would have been Saturday, after writing an additional 530 words on "The Alchemist's Daughter," bringing it to 6,848 words, I finally determined that there was no possible way I was going to be able to bring the story in under 10,000 words. And since I've been having so much trouble with it (I'd only written 31 usable words on Friday, the 12th, despite sitting here at the iMac for five hours), the time had come to do what I said I was going to do on Tuesday (June 9th), and shelve the thing until some future date. It had become such a source of frustration, I'd entirely lost any passion I might once have had for the piece. I was stumbling over every word. And, combined with the effects of the insomnia, it was beginning to make me ill. So, I have set it aside. And now I will proceed to "The Mermaid of the Concrete Sea" and the story I have to write for the sword-and-sorcery anthology, and so on and so forth, and hope I can get all this work done in the next two weeks.

Somehow, a month that started off looking as though it would be easier than the last few months, one in which I might actually have a surplus of time, has become a month wherein I am woefully behind.

Yesterday, I didn't even try to write. Well, I did write the very detailed bibliography/biography requested by ReaderCon, but that's all. I'd hardly slept the night before, the morning before, so we took the camera and drove out to Moosup Valley to scout locations for the trailer for The Red Tree. It was a good drive in the country, that wooded and far western portion of Rhode Island that might as well be Connecticut. And I might post some of the footage later. But I think I've determined most of the trailer will actually be filmed in Providence and South County, and not Moosup Valley. And so not "shot on location." Moosup Valley is simply too remote, and there are South County stand-ins for almost everything we need. There will be some brief shots from Barbs Hill Road, but I suspect that's about it.

But yes, yesterday was nice. A mostly cloudy day, but the lighting was wonderful, and there was no rain. The air smelled of green things and flowers. We sat at the edge of the flooded gravel pit across the street from the Tyler Free Library and listened to frogs and mourning doves. It still feels nothing like summer, and doesn't look like it will until, possibly, sometime in July. We made it home about 6 p.m., I think, but it might have been later. It might have been earlier. I'm so sleep deprived and stressed and dreamsick, time has become very soupy and indistinguishable.

If you've not already, please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Bid if you are able and so inclined. Thank you. Proceeds will be used to defray the cost of my attending ReaderCon 20, which is beginning to look like the only con I'll be doing this year.

Postscript (4:02 p.m.): I finally caved in and chose a Facebook username, caitlin.r.kiernan.

More (very) low-def test footage.

Here are a few clips from yesterday, more test footage getting ready to shoot the book trailer for The Red Tree. And likely the last footage that I'll bother shooting with the Wrong Camera. All from the Moosup Valley area:

More test footage (1) from Caitlin Kiernan on Vimeo.

Shot north of Moosup Valley, RI, Sunday, June 14, 2009, while scouting locations for a book trailer for The Red Tree

More test footage (2) from Caitlin Kiernan on Vimeo.

This stream flows out of the flooded gravel pit that inspired the novel's fictional Ramswool Pond. Hear the froggies.

More test footage (3) from Caitlin Kiernan on Vimeo.

Shot just west of Moosup Valley. Moving west along Moosup Valley Road, then turning south onto Barbs Hill Road.

More test footage (4) from Caitlin Kiernan on Vimeo.

Shot along Barbs Hill Road, southwest of Moosup Valley. Nick Cave (!Dig!Lazarus!Dig!) was playing on the iPod. This is the house that served, in part, as inspiration for the old farmhouse in the novel.