"What a fantastic death abyss."

[greygirlbeast]

2009 is winding down fast. Winding down, wrapping up, whichever. And a strange year it has been. Every year, the years grow shorter— at least when viewed from my subjective personal perspective —shorter and more bizarre. Every year, I feel a greater degree of cognitive disconnect between NOW and THEN, and find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the past with the present; the future, somehow, seems more solid than the present.

No writing yesterday. I did send "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics" to subpress, but it would be a lie to say that was work. Yesterday earns an L, as it was a lost day. However, were I to try to explain why, I'd only get myself into a mood that would make working today extremely unlikely. So, let's just say nothing was written.

The most peculiar thing about "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics" is that it contains no contractions. Not a single one. It was a conscious nod to the style employed by Silverberg when he wrote Nightwings. And it yielded an oddly formal, and oddly innocent, voice. Nothing I would likely ever do again, but it worked for this story.

Yesterday, I had a long hot bath. I napped. Day before yesterday, I finished reading the paper on Tethyshadros and began reading "A new basal sauropodomorph dinosaur from the upper Elliot Formation [Lower Jurassic] of South Africa."

There's a photo behind the cut that I took on Monday, of a rather daunting ice/snow formation hanging from the roof of the house next door:





Photograph Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Comments

love that photo!

[dr-arnzen.livejournal.com]

Great shot. Snow Cthulhu is coming for you... and why not? I hear it lives forever dead in the water.....

Happy Holidays, Caitlin!

-- Mike Arnzen

Re: love that photo!

[beerdiablo.livejournal.com]

Snowthuhlu - though you beat me to it. ;>

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how 1989 and 1999 ended for me, and good riddance to bad rubbish to those years, too.

Ursula K. LeGuin resigns from the Author's Guild over the Google settlement

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

FYI: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Note-AGResignation.html

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

And in completely different linkage, steampunk versions of modern fantasy/SF (http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/steampunk/). There's a painting of an AT-AT that I actually think is quite lovely. And a steampunk R2-D2, which is cute. (Warning: there's also at least one 9/11-inspired gif.)

Thinking of you...

Responding to Spooky's Post of Dec 23

[spank-an-elf.livejournal.com]

So instead of going “huh” I clicked away and found the cliché bone of contention. It sounds like the Authors Guild feared losing the battle therefore they compromised.

Hey, sounds like the healthcare bill.

We’re artists, therefore we are screwed. We are either witches, decadents or fill in the blanks. We sport targets on our backs. We’re different. And to think that monsters can steal the written word is stunning. Wrong to the ultimate degree.

Spooky, hugs to you both from a fellow fly in the rancid ointment.

[kongjie.livejournal.com]

The change in the subjective perception of the passage of time is surprising and disturbing to me. I wasn't prepared for it. How unfair that as one has less time left that the remaining time passes so much more rapidly. I'm reminded of the words of Navin Johnson: "I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days." But seriously, it was one thing to lose that feeling of a summer lasting forever, it's quite another when a week flashes by in a blink.