No Mars for Me: A Cautionary Tale

[greygirlbeast]

Several things I want to touch on in this entry (like why there was no entry yesterday), but before I start in on those things, let me mention that we'll be starting a new round of eBay auctions in the next couple of days to help cover the fucking taxes, which Spooky paid yesterday. Your patronage will be much appreciated. Another way you can help out is by picking up something cool from Spooky's Etsy shop, Dreaming Squid Dollworks. Be advised, by the way, that all the Hallowe'en figurines she has up are only available through Hallowe'en. They'll be coming down on November 1st, until next October. Thanks.

---

I have this problem. I can't say no to work. Pretty much never do I say no to work. I blame the poverty of my childhood, coupled with the absurd cost of not being willing to live on the street in a cardboard box. A direct result of this is that I frequently become over-extended. And usually, that only results in exhaustion. And exhaustion and writing go hand in hand, at least as far as I'm concerned. I'm always exhausted. That's just the way it is. But...occasionally I push things a bit far, even for me. Which gets back to our subject line, and there being no entry yesterday.

Over the last year and a half, several wonderful editors asked me to contribute to several wonderful books, and I said yes to every single one of them. Never mind Sirenia Digest (usually two stories a month) or the novels, or anything like realistic considerations of the allocation of my time. I said yes. So, I've been working harder than usual, getting these stories written, on top of everything else, including promoting The Red Tree.

The Mars YA short story, "Romeo and Juliet Go to Mars," has become a casualty of my desire to say "yes" to every project I'm offered. But...somehow, I'm not telling this right.

This month started off hectic, but I thought I had everything under control (I usually think that, whether it's true of not). But I'd seriously miscalculated the number of days I'd need to spend copyediting The Ammonite Violin & Others. And I felt things began to slip. And I began to have far more serious headaches than usual, the sort that land me in bed. And, finally, Sunday night I had a very bad seizure. Almost always, the bad ones come when I'm pushing myself too hard. Still, I got up on Monday, near panic, and tried to continue work on the Mars story. But by late afternoon, early evening, we'd finally gone to Code Orange. I was locking up and freaking out. And Spooky told me I needed to set the Mars story aside, that it was just too much, especially given that I still have two public appearances and Sirenia Digest #47 to get through in October, and I still haven't put together the long-overdue proposal for the next novel for Penguin (though I've been paid part of the advance for it). Plus there are interviews. So...with extreme reluctance I emailed the editor for the Mars story on Monday afternoon and bowed out of the book as gracefully as I could (first time I'd pulled out of an anthology in years). And then I went to bed, where I spent most of yesterday.

I may resurrect "Romeo and Juliet Go to Mars" sometime next year, but for now, it's going to have to lay fallow. And I may be bowing out of another anthology before the end of the year.

So, no Mars for me, not right now, and should you happen to see me at the Manhattan reading on the 27th, or at the Brown University reading on the 24th, and wonder why I look a bit more haggard than usual, there you go.

---

Monday night and all of yesterday are a blur of resting and reading and streaming stuff on Spooky's laptop and watching DVDs. I've been working my way through Lovecraft Unbound. Yesterday, I read "The Crevasse" by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud, Anna Tambour's "Sincerely, Petrified," "Sight Unseen" by Joel Lane, and "In the Black Mill" by Micheal Chabon. My favorite of the lot was "The Crevasse," which is really superb. I would have liked it to have been longer, but I'm not sure that's a valid criticism. And we watched the rest of Season Three of Weeds, and a documentary about David Lynch.

Yesterday, Spooky made me go Outside for a little while. We walked around Dexter Training Grounds for bit. The air was chilly, almost cold. The trees are rapidly getting their autumn colours. There are some photos below. As for today, I am under orders to get get more rest before I have to begin work on the digest, and mostly, I just have this fucking knot of regret over the Mars story. I think the knot is lodged somewhere in my belly. Regret truly is one of the most loathsome of emotions.















Photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac.

Comments

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

On regret, now's not the time to quote the beginning of the Butthole Surfers album Locust Abortion Technician, is it?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

On regret, now's not the time to quote the beginning of the Butthole Surfers album Locust Abortion Technician, is it?

I think it's best we don't.

[theninth.livejournal.com]

The photos are beautiful. Your autumn is much better than the one in Baltimore. It's clear and cold, but in the city there's mostly just plastic bottles and food wrappers and not that many leaves. The leaves we do get are usually just brown.

I'm assuming it's better Somewhere Else further away than the mile between home and the office.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming it's better Somewhere Else further away than the mile between home and the off

The leaves are always redder on the other side.

Time management

[deep-bluze.livejournal.com]

I never seem to get it right - how long a project will take, how long it SHOULD take...I fully sympathize, and though it's rough to back out of things, sometimes it's for the best, yes? Romeo & Juliet have been waiting a long time to reach space...a year or so isn't going to kill them. (They'll probably do that themselves) D

Re: Time management

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Romeo & Juliet have been waiting a long time to reach space...a year or so isn't going to kill them. (They'll probably do that themselves)

Good point.

[mizliz13.livejournal.com]

This is a little late, but I just wanted to say: Regarding the Facebook/Twitter/comments thing, if I ever stepped over the line and said something that upset you, I apologize. My brain is like a sieve, so I don't remember most of the things that I've written (and, frankly, I'm too busy/lazy to look the stuff up).

Oh, and thanks to you, I was pleasantly freaked out by Deadgirl last night. Very cool.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

This is a little late, but I just wanted to say: Regarding the Facebook/Twitter/comments thing, if I ever stepped over the line and said something that upset you, I apologize. My brain is like a sieve, so I don't remember most of the things that I've written (and, frankly, I'm too busy/lazy to look the stuff up).

You were not one of the Bad People. Trust me.

Oh, and thanks to you, I was pleasantly freaked out by Deadgirl last night. Very cool.

I'm glad you liked it; it's a nice little discovery.

[mb2u]

The photo of the leaf gave me a little happiness today. It was needed and appreciated.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

The photo of the leaf gave me a little happiness today. It was needed and appreciated.

It's a very fine leaf. I brought a number of those back for our altar.

[birgitriddle.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing red leaves here too. I love them.

Regret

[jlwmid.livejournal.com]

Many Stephen King fans had to come to grips with the possibility that they might never read the completion of the Dark Tower series when he was struck by a car. After my initial horror at what had happened to him, I realized that as a reader, books were best viewed as gifts. The best gifts are unexpected and received without expectation. While it is nice to know that an author whose work I enjoy is working on another piece, I try not to have any expectations about when and even if I will ever actually get to read the piece.

I would much prefer that those who have entertained me, made me think, filled the dark of the night for me, have the opportunity to experience the same themselves as they require. If I get another story, it is a gift.

I really liked The Red Tree [your first book for me].

Re: Regret

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

If I get another story, it is a gift.

I think this is a very healthy and proper attitude, and I thank you.

[seph-ski.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous photos. I need to go for a walk and collect some leaves. I've read they can be preserved by soaking them in glycerin or dipping them in wax and hanging them to dry, and I'd love to try it.

I see someone else mentioned "Deadgirl" and I too wanted to thank you for the recommendation. It's so hard to find truly creepy movies among all the mindless slasher flicks.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous photos. I need to go for a walk and collect some leaves. I've read they can be preserved by soaking them in glycerin or dipping them in wax and hanging them to dry, and I'd love to try it.

I like the wax idea. I may try that.

[humglum.livejournal.com]

I did it with roses, years ago. It works very well.

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

I am sorry it got to this point.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I am sorry it got to this point.

I really have no one to blame but myself. I know my limits, and I ignore them too often.

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

If you do unearth the Mars idea, avoid making it YA. Everyone is flocking to the YA market these days, and all it does is cheapen the fiction involved. When I was a young adult, I was reading friggin' Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King (back when he was still a decent writer), Ramsey Campbell, and of course HPL--none of that watered-down kiddie shite. Scott Westerfeld's steampunk/biopunk retelling of the First World War, Leviathan, is a GREAT story utterly and fatally hobbled by the fact that it's dumbed down for the prepubescent market. Screw that.

Clever idea for that story, btw--but, ummm, it's kinda/sorta been done before in John Carpenter's lamentable The Ghosts of Mars.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

If you do unearth the Mars idea, avoid making it YA.

One step ahead of you. If I write it, it will not be written for a YA anthology (as planned), and would be an adult sf story.

Clever idea for that story, btw--but, ummm, it's kinda/sorta been done before in John Carpenter's lamentable The Ghosts of Mars.

Wait...do you mean "Romeo and Juliet Go to Mars" sounds like The Ghosts of Mars? I'm pretty sure they have nothing at all in common...except Mars. But, maybe I read you wrong.

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

The matriarchal Martian society you described in an earlier entry sounds similar to the one mentioned in The Ghosts of Mars. However, in the film, this society doesn't actually play any role at all in the plot--I don't know why Carpenter even threw in that detail.

Unless, of course, "Romeo and Juliet" is something different and I'm merely experiencing another memetic collision (which happens often these days).

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

The matriarchal Martian society you described in an earlier entry sounds similar to the one mentioned in The Ghosts of Mars. However, in the film, this society doesn't actually play any role at all in the plot--I don't know why Carpenter even threw in that detail.

Ah. Honestly, I don't even recall that detail, but then I hated the film so much I pretty much blacked the whole of it from my memory. And this isn't so much a matriarchal or matrifocal Martian society, not in the usual sense, as a society composed entirely of women. There simply are no men on the planet. And, also, I don't give a rat's ass for originality...

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

I don't blame you for blocking it out: it was execrable.

Question, though: How would a completely female society even exist past a single generation unless they either had A) a huge reservoir or sperm and/or frozen embryos stashed away someplace; or B) had bioneered themselves to be parthenogenetic?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

How would a completely female society even exist past a single generation unless they either had A) a huge reservoir or sperm and/or frozen embryos stashed away someplace; or B) had bioneered themselves to be parthenogenetic?

Here I will quote myself, from the entry on October 11th:

"The female colonists have adapted. We have a society where lesbianism is the normative state, and where heterosexuality dooms one to a life of loneliness and stigma. Women breed via frozen-sperm deliveries from Earth, and also by a complicated parthenogenic process."

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha. I somehow missed that.

Sounds reasonably self-sustaining, but not on a planet-wide scale--unless some form of disaster prevented or thwarted further colonization and development efforts. I'd be curious to see how this society evolved. You might want to check out Nicola Griffith's Ammonite as a reference point; the narrative bored me to tears, but the milieux and worldbuilding were excellent.

I love sci-fi that deals with gender roles in alternative societies. Melissa Scott's Shadow Man remains my favourite of the lot, though. She could've done more with the biological concept of the five sexes humanity grew into, though: the "extra three" sexes are just relative mixtures of male and female traits/parts.

Incidentally, I've started work on a story concerning a gentleman from Providence whose brain was taken in 1937 by the Yuggothians to meet Nyarlathotep on Yuggoth. When they return him to Earth in 2005, they accidentally place his brain in a female body. I'm calling it "She." *hahhahaha*

[blackaire.livejournal.com]

I identify with this post wholeheartedly. Was hit with back-to-back novel deadlines this spring due to a variety of earlier Life Clusterfucks and compromised every kind of health and sanity I had making it. It was a hard lesson in scaling back, but knowing I'm not the only one makes it a little easier. Thank you.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome.

[possumqueen.livejournal.com]

should you happen to see me at the Manhattan reading on the 27th, or at the Brown University reading on the 24th, and wonder why I look a bit more haggard than usual, there you go.

Aha! Now we know the strategy behind those fabulous masks you wear. -winks-

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Aha! Now we know the strategy behind those fabulous masks you wear.

Well, yes...that's part of it.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I wish we had autumn down here.

I come from a journalism background, where everything was a controlled chaos and there was sort of a regular schedule under the lack of schedule. But I was thinking about it after reading your entry, and realizing it must be crazy making to try and have a schedule as a writer. Necessary but aggravating and boggling.

Instead of offering so 'don't cry emo kid' noise, I will just say I think I am going to believe you put the seed of pony girls in my head because I think I just had a Sweet Valley High / The Red Tree crossover dream. Aaaaaaaaaaa.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Instead of offering so 'don't cry emo kid' noise, I will just say I think I am going to believe you put the seed of pony girls in my head because I think I just had a Sweet Valley High / The Red Tree crossover dream. Aaaaaaaaaaa.

I think I might actually be able to get behind that...

[thimbleofrain.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're lucky to have Kathryn in your life.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're lucky to have Kathryn in your life.

Oh, fuck, yeah.

[thimbleofrain.livejournal.com]

Oh, fuck, yeah.

That's good to hear.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

the fucking taxes

So they did make chartered accountancy a much more interesting job? *ducks and runs*

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

How about the "goddamned taxes," then?

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Understood.

And seconded on the "it helps that Spooky's there for you" sentiment.

[ulesegi.livejournal.com]

Please take good care of yourself. Your work matters, *you* matter, to many of us whom you've never met. I try to imagine what my world would be like without Dancy or Audrey Cather or Sarah Crowe, and I'm saddened by how diminished it would be. I'm certain there are other equally amazing people I will never meet except through your words. I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for your work. It's worth any wait.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for your work. It's worth any wait.

Thank you. Would that my creditors were as kind.

[ulesegi.livejournal.com]

They would be in a right-thinking world, where Art and Myth were valued properly. Unfortunately, we live in a very wrong-thinking world, where Artists and Myth-makers such as yourself are under-appreciated and certainly underpaid. Damned unfair.

[nballingrud.livejournal.com]

Thanks for saying that about "The Crevasse". You know, in the initial draft it was a bit longer. We had one more scene at the end in the protagonist's basement after he goes back home. He goes down there one night to discover that a similar stairwell has appeared there. But it felt like we were hitting the same emotional notes as we did in the depot scene, and les effectively. So we dropped it.

And for what it's worth, I don't think you should be too hard on yourself for withdrawing from an anthology commitment or two. You seem -- from my admittedly distant and narrow perspective -- to have a rock-solid work ethic, and more importantly your work is top notch. I think it's easy for writers to turn themselves into engines, and to forget that they're human beings. This writing gig is hard enough; you owe it to yourself to just put it down and breathe, sometimes.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

This writing gig is hard enough; you owe it to yourself to just put it down and breathe, sometimes.

Breathing...that's the thing where the good air goes in and the bad air goes out, right?

Sorry, it's been awhile.

And thanks for a very fine story.