aftermath (again)
Sep. 17th, 2004 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastFor Atlanta, H. Ivan seems to have been fairly anticlimactic. I don't think we took nearly the hit we took from Frances. Spooky and I, being idiots at heart, ventured out into the rain yesterday, right after our lights went off at 4:10 p.m. We needed batteries for the boom box, so at least we can pretend we had an excuse. By the time we reached Target (ugh, shudder, whimper), the rain was falling so hard visibility must have been down to about ten feet. The store was deserted and running on a back-up generator. Which was actually pretty cool. It had this whole Dawn of the Dead vibe going for it. I was kind of sorry we couldn't sit out the storm in that vast empty temple to consumerism. We bought our batteries and headed back out into the blue-silver-grey veil of the storm. There was a huge tree down across Briarcliff, and it took us two hours, two switchbacks, and a detour to get home again. When we finally returned, the lights were back on. Ah, well. It was better than sitting in the damned dark apartment for all that time.
I did more work yesterday than you might think. More work than I expected. Spooky and I had to take the negatives back to Wolf Camera, because the print we had made made for the author's photo for The Dry Salvages was cropped funny, and we needed an uncropped print. Spooky bitched a lot about not still having her own darkroom. Today, we pick up the new print and take it to the post office and next-day it to Bill's design person in Mesa, Arizona. There was other dull business-type stuff I had to deal with. Blah, blah, blah.
This chaos thing. The writing has to start again soon. It's all I am, the writing. Yes, the bullshit chaos that has afflicted my life of late stands in my way, and I can't imagine writing around it. But I have to write. And it shows no signs of getting the hell out of my way any time soon. I detest being forced to do the impossible, because other people can't be bothered to do the possible and get their collective shit together. Which is really what this all comes down to. That's all beside the point, though. The point is, I have to fucking write, because no one's going to hire me to tend bar or weld or teach population genetics. I have to write. I have to find a way to cope with the chaos (though I should not have to) and write.
Last night, Spooky read me the beginning of And the Ass Saw the Angel (yeah, I know I wasn't supposed to do that). I was very tired, and the words washed over me like sunlight and thunder, pushing me towards sleep. And I thought, these words are so perfect, so right, so beautiful, it doesn't matter if I'm too tired to catch the story. The words themselves are more than ample. The words are an end unto themselves. Oftentimes, writing is like that for me. When I'm not trying to bully the words into telling a story, when I just let them come. It's a bloody shame words are so bound by the tyranny of communication that they cannot be free to affect our minds the way that, say, music is often free. I can appreciate Wagner perfectly well without tending to the libretto. Likewise, I can appreciate James Joyce or William Faulkner, Angela Carter or Kathe Koja, T. S. Eliot or William Shakespeare, without tending to the story. They wield words with such skill that the story becomes almost an afterthought. Sure, there's a story in there, sometimes a damned good one, but the real star of the show is, simply, the words. Most people aren't ready for that. And that's their loss, but it's mine, too.
Speaking of words, if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Murder of Angels, I'd be very grateful if you would. I hate having to push a book, because I am not a salesperson, I'm a writer. But when the advertising budget is as small as Murder of Angels', it falls to the author to promote, if there's to be any promotion.
Now, I have to do some things, send some e-mails, then go to Wolf and get the print off to Mesa, and then Spooky and I are going to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and the chaos can damned well go fuck itself sideways.
I did more work yesterday than you might think. More work than I expected. Spooky and I had to take the negatives back to Wolf Camera, because the print we had made made for the author's photo for The Dry Salvages was cropped funny, and we needed an uncropped print. Spooky bitched a lot about not still having her own darkroom. Today, we pick up the new print and take it to the post office and next-day it to Bill's design person in Mesa, Arizona. There was other dull business-type stuff I had to deal with. Blah, blah, blah.
This chaos thing. The writing has to start again soon. It's all I am, the writing. Yes, the bullshit chaos that has afflicted my life of late stands in my way, and I can't imagine writing around it. But I have to write. And it shows no signs of getting the hell out of my way any time soon. I detest being forced to do the impossible, because other people can't be bothered to do the possible and get their collective shit together. Which is really what this all comes down to. That's all beside the point, though. The point is, I have to fucking write, because no one's going to hire me to tend bar or weld or teach population genetics. I have to write. I have to find a way to cope with the chaos (though I should not have to) and write.
Last night, Spooky read me the beginning of And the Ass Saw the Angel (yeah, I know I wasn't supposed to do that). I was very tired, and the words washed over me like sunlight and thunder, pushing me towards sleep. And I thought, these words are so perfect, so right, so beautiful, it doesn't matter if I'm too tired to catch the story. The words themselves are more than ample. The words are an end unto themselves. Oftentimes, writing is like that for me. When I'm not trying to bully the words into telling a story, when I just let them come. It's a bloody shame words are so bound by the tyranny of communication that they cannot be free to affect our minds the way that, say, music is often free. I can appreciate Wagner perfectly well without tending to the libretto. Likewise, I can appreciate James Joyce or William Faulkner, Angela Carter or Kathe Koja, T. S. Eliot or William Shakespeare, without tending to the story. They wield words with such skill that the story becomes almost an afterthought. Sure, there's a story in there, sometimes a damned good one, but the real star of the show is, simply, the words. Most people aren't ready for that. And that's their loss, but it's mine, too.
Speaking of words, if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Murder of Angels, I'd be very grateful if you would. I hate having to push a book, because I am not a salesperson, I'm a writer. But when the advertising budget is as small as Murder of Angels', it falls to the author to promote, if there's to be any promotion.
Now, I have to do some things, send some e-mails, then go to Wolf and get the print off to Mesa, and then Spooky and I are going to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and the chaos can damned well go fuck itself sideways.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-17 05:50 pm (UTC)Promise fulfilled?
no subject
Date: 2004-09-17 06:04 pm (UTC)Indeed. Yes.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-17 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 12:07 am (UTC)Yep. Now would be good. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-17 08:25 pm (UTC)I've got five on backorder with our US supplier. They were able to cough up five Low Red Moons and a Threshold (four of those on backorder as well). I was rather hoping for instant Kiernan, but it's on its way and I'm going to push you in Reading, Berkshire, at least. The small figure doesn't reflect a lack of confidence, but a current lack of shelf space. They're going to let me expand horror, though, since it's seriously pulling its weight.
Those books are gorgeous-looking, and I'll be buying copies for my own shelf on Monday when I get paid.
BTW, I'm an exptat southern chain-bookseller trying to get au courant with what's going on in horror this century, especially in the USA (there seems to be little in the UK). I think I have a long row to hoe there! Anything I should look for besides lists of Stoker winners?
no subject
Date: 2004-09-17 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 12:10 am (UTC)Thank you. I love having outposts!
I think I have a long row to hoe there! Anything I should look for besides lists of Stoker winners?
I don't read much "genre" horror, actually. Almost none at all. But I do suspect that Stoker winners are often (though not always) the very thing's of which one should steer clear.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 03:16 pm (UTC)Good. Peter Straub may be the best, at the moment. I just can't list more than a handful of "horror" writers that I think are worth anyone's time. I'm not trying to be snarky. It's just true.
MoA
Date: 2004-09-17 10:56 pm (UTC)Sorry that you're surrounded by chaos. I hate it when that happens, too.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-17 11:51 pm (UTC)~80~
no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 02:29 pm (UTC)At the risk of sounding horribly naive, why not? Why wouldn't anyone hire you to tend bar or weld? I ask because what you've written here resonates so strongly with me. I've found myself intimidated by the act of writing, writing that I needed to do in order to progress in my academic program, and wound up in a sad state mentally and physically. Took a semester of leave, worked as a receptionist. The money wasn't good but the experience was. It made me feel competent at something again. It enabled me to leave work at work for a change, instead of spending all hours feeling chained to my desk. Of course, now I'm back at university, masochist that I am, but I think that semester of non-writing work was what I needed in order to be able to continue. It's what broke the spiral.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 03:13 pm (UTC)Because I have no experience at either (though I might like to).