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greygirlbeastFirst my thanks to everyone who offered condolences and advice regarding our trouble at Swan Point on Wednesday. Currently, I know I am writing letters to the cemetery and to the security company it contracts from, but other than that, we're weighing our options. I do not have the time, nor money, nor am I physically up to some sort of legal battle over this mess, and I sure as shit don't want that sort of publicity. But I do not intend to allow my promise to the security guard in question to become a hollow one. I hope to at least secure a written apology and the right to visit Lovecraft's grave without being verbally harassed.
Sorry. Very, very not awake. I was asleep by three ayem, I think, after just lying on the bed an hour and a half, at least that long, talking over our plans for Howard's End. But then this stupid tooth woke me at eight and I had to take another dose of ibuprofen to get back to sleep. I might have gotten seven hours.
I did 1,245 words yesterday, finishing Chapter Four of The Red Tree, and I think I was still writing about 6:30 pm. There are so many ways that The Red Tree is different from my other novels, the most immediately apparent being that it's written as a first-person narrative. But it is also likely the first time I have ever really intended a book to be frightening. If my short stories or novels have, in the past, come off as "scary," that's pretty much been a by-product of everything else I was trying to accomplish. Here, I admit up front that I'm trying to create fear, a sense of horror, that sensation where awe spirals into terror, dread, and so forth. And it's not easy, and I'll likely not do it again. For one thing, when intentionally writing a "scary story," you know you have to contend with all the jaded, mouthy assholes who, no matter what, will boast about how it didn't scare them. I'm so asleep, I don't even know if I'm making sense. What I'm trying to say is that one reason I have avoided, in the past, trying to write terror stories is that, for any tale to work beyond the simple fact of its fundamental, intrinsic merits, for it to function as communication between the writer and an audience, the audience must be willing to meet the writer halfway. The audience must be willing to open itself up to the experience. I do not generally think of my writing in these terms, as communicating with anyone but me, so I find this all very daunting.
I feel, this morning, like I'm trying to write in a second language. What the fuck was I speaking in my dreams? And, yesterday, how did I forget to mention the Horrid Coffee Deluge in my office Wednesday morning, that I really should have taken as an omen of all that was to come?
Please do pre-order A is for Alien, if you have not already. Remember, there's an afterword by Elizabeth Bear (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala), interior illustrations by Vince Locke, and a splendid cover by surrealist Jacek Yerka. I think I have to decide on the final cover layout today, so you should be able to see it soon. Also, the forthcoming mass-market paperback of Daughter of Hounds can now be pre-ordered from Amazon. Thanks.
We're getting pretty excited about Howards End. Jessica Ornitz is hard at work on the terraforming, sculpting hills and seashore, digging basements, warrens, subbasements, and abandoned railway tunnels. I've scheduled the first official builders meeting for next Monday night. As for the rp, an initial story arc is taking shape in my head, something that will allow newcomers to both SL and rp to wade in. I've yet to think of a good name for the paranormal/occult society that meets in the Athenaeum, but, for now, I've taken to calling it the Joss Whedon Memorial Cliché. Presently, we have 19 players lined up (and 9 builders), so there are still spaces open, and you are invited to be part of this experiment, this attempt to elevate SL roleplay to the level of an interactive, self-perpetuating "novel." Just comment here, or email me, or IM inworld, and give me your SL name so I can send you an invitation to the "Denizens of Howard's End" group.
Okay. I think that's it for now. Do please feel free to link to yesterday's entry, or mention it, in your own blogs. You don't have to ask permission.
Sorry. Very, very not awake. I was asleep by three ayem, I think, after just lying on the bed an hour and a half, at least that long, talking over our plans for Howard's End. But then this stupid tooth woke me at eight and I had to take another dose of ibuprofen to get back to sleep. I might have gotten seven hours.
I did 1,245 words yesterday, finishing Chapter Four of The Red Tree, and I think I was still writing about 6:30 pm. There are so many ways that The Red Tree is different from my other novels, the most immediately apparent being that it's written as a first-person narrative. But it is also likely the first time I have ever really intended a book to be frightening. If my short stories or novels have, in the past, come off as "scary," that's pretty much been a by-product of everything else I was trying to accomplish. Here, I admit up front that I'm trying to create fear, a sense of horror, that sensation where awe spirals into terror, dread, and so forth. And it's not easy, and I'll likely not do it again. For one thing, when intentionally writing a "scary story," you know you have to contend with all the jaded, mouthy assholes who, no matter what, will boast about how it didn't scare them. I'm so asleep, I don't even know if I'm making sense. What I'm trying to say is that one reason I have avoided, in the past, trying to write terror stories is that, for any tale to work beyond the simple fact of its fundamental, intrinsic merits, for it to function as communication between the writer and an audience, the audience must be willing to meet the writer halfway. The audience must be willing to open itself up to the experience. I do not generally think of my writing in these terms, as communicating with anyone but me, so I find this all very daunting.
I feel, this morning, like I'm trying to write in a second language. What the fuck was I speaking in my dreams? And, yesterday, how did I forget to mention the Horrid Coffee Deluge in my office Wednesday morning, that I really should have taken as an omen of all that was to come?
Please do pre-order A is for Alien, if you have not already. Remember, there's an afterword by Elizabeth Bear (
matociquala), interior illustrations by Vince Locke, and a splendid cover by surrealist Jacek Yerka. I think I have to decide on the final cover layout today, so you should be able to see it soon. Also, the forthcoming mass-market paperback of Daughter of Hounds can now be pre-ordered from Amazon. Thanks.We're getting pretty excited about Howards End. Jessica Ornitz is hard at work on the terraforming, sculpting hills and seashore, digging basements, warrens, subbasements, and abandoned railway tunnels. I've scheduled the first official builders meeting for next Monday night. As for the rp, an initial story arc is taking shape in my head, something that will allow newcomers to both SL and rp to wade in. I've yet to think of a good name for the paranormal/occult society that meets in the Athenaeum, but, for now, I've taken to calling it the Joss Whedon Memorial Cliché. Presently, we have 19 players lined up (and 9 builders), so there are still spaces open, and you are invited to be part of this experiment, this attempt to elevate SL roleplay to the level of an interactive, self-perpetuating "novel." Just comment here, or email me, or IM inworld, and give me your SL name so I can send you an invitation to the "Denizens of Howard's End" group.
Okay. I think that's it for now. Do please feel free to link to yesterday's entry, or mention it, in your own blogs. You don't have to ask permission.
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LOLVAMP
Date: 2008-08-22 04:13 pm (UTC)http://iconzicons.livejournal.com/260002.html
Re: LOLVAMP
Date: 2008-08-22 05:41 pm (UTC)just received this from Omega tonight, thought of you when i saw your post
*snork*
Okay, I may have to adopt a couple of those...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 04:37 pm (UTC)Now I'm really not sure how that got lodged in my brain.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 05:40 pm (UTC)Either I crossed wires somewhere or dreamed it, but I thought you had already named the paranormal society the "Roanoke Society."
Nice, but I didn't do it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 08:15 pm (UTC)It must have been a dream or something, but the memory feels really... solid. How very odd.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 09:46 pm (UTC)something has gotten wrong in your surrounding subroutines.
The IT team is busy rewriting your personal virtual experience. Until then, please ignore any further deja vues that you might be having.
Your Support Agent
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 11:49 pm (UTC)Maybe it was just a nonlinear recollection. Which is to say, I'm considering using it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-23 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-23 12:35 am (UTC)The Sandman Presents: Merv Pumpkinhead, Agent of D.R.E.A.M..
That's one of those bits of Sandmaniana I think we are all trying to forget.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 04:56 pm (UTC)I don't think I have any useful advice in this situation, but I hope very much you succeed. I saw your post late last night; it was appalling.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 05:39 pm (UTC)I don't think I have any useful advice in this situation, but I hope very much you succeed. I saw your post late last night; it was appalling.
I fear I've passed appalled and moved along to dumbfounded.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 08:28 pm (UTC)You mean it seems counterproductive to harass people out of a cemetery? Just because it's a location devoted to presence and remembrance . . .
Let me know what happens.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 11:50 pm (UTC)You mean it seems counterproductive to harass people out of a cemetery?
I think I mean I am overwhelmed by the sheer wrongness of the situation.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 05:40 pm (UTC)YES!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-23 12:16 am (UTC)Making Sense?
Date: 2008-08-22 08:19 pm (UTC)Absolutely you're making sense! That's why I tell my students to forget genre when they begin a story. If one sits down with the intention of writing a "horror" story, or a "fantasy" story, or a "romance" story, etc. most of the time they will -- consciously or not -- begin to incorporate the tropes and story elements that they've read in other "fantasy" (or what have you) stories.
Fear -- something "scary" -- is a very intimate and personal thing. What sends me scurrying into a corner to shudder and close my eyes might very well make someone else laugh. But if you deal with the traditional "scary" elements (those that are perceived by a majority of readers to be "necessary" to a "scary" story), you're going to -- and pardon me for this weak metaphor -- betray your Muse, ignore the thing at your burning core that made you want to be a writer in the first place.
Had someone like Jonathan Carroll or Neil Gaiman or yourself -- writers with exceptionally distinctive voices and styles -- embraced the popular misconception of what constitutes "scary" or "horror", we never would have blessed with A Child Across the Sky, Coraline or Tales of Pain and Wonder.
Didn't mean to go off on a tangent; apologies.
I just wanted to say that, for this reader/writer, your comments not only made sense, but struck a very deep chord with me.
--Gary A. Braunbeck
Re: Making Sense?
Date: 2008-08-22 11:52 pm (UTC)Didn't mean to go off on a tangent; apologies.
No need. Well said. I've said these things before, in interviews and in blog posts written while I was awake. The two most salient points — 1) that reader/genre expectation defeats art and 2) that fear is incredibly subjective —— are extremely important and, I regret to say, largely ignored,
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 08:20 pm (UTC)If you should receive responses from the cemetery or the security company, I know we'd all appreciate hearing what they could possibly have to say for themselves. Having the security people treat graveside visitors so disrespectfully can't possibly be in the the memorial park's best interest.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 11:53 pm (UTC)I made a printout of your entry from yesterday and handed it around for the people in my office to read. I watched the looks on their faces becoming more and more horrified as they each read it.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 09:50 pm (UTC)No, there is probably not enough alcohol to change something about how disappointed in humans, i thought i know, i have just gotten
no subject
Date: 2008-08-23 02:38 am (UTC)