Dead People and Their Friends
Feb. 11th, 2011 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastI did something this morning that I almost never do. I got up when Spooky did, then went back to bed. And, all in all, slept about eight hours, which is about the most I ever get. So, booyah.
Last night, I posted the New Question, the Question @ Hand, and you can read it and respond here. If you were to make of me— of my actual, physical body —a work of art, what would it be? Answers are screened, so only I can see them. I'll select the ones I like best for Sirenia Digest #63, where they will appear anonymously. There have already been two answers so delightful that I wanted to hug them. Hug the answers, I mean. Though, so far, all the usual suspects have been silent. Anyway, I'll be collecting the replies over the next week and a half or so. Haven fun with it. No minimum or maximum word length. And as I said last night, don't be shy. Get our hands dirty.
And here are the current eBay auctions.
I didn't leave the house yesterday.
There was good news from Dark Horse, which I'll talk about as soon as I am told that I may.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,623 words on the eighth chapter of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. A passage from Joseph Campbell (1970), writing on schizophrenia, is very apt: "The whole problem, it would seem, is somehow to go through it, even time and again, without shipwreck: the answer being not that one should not be permitted to go crazy; but that one should have been taught something already of the scenery to be entered and the powers to be met, given a formula of some kind by which to recognize, subdue them, and incorporate their energies." I've passed the 75,000 word mark— by more than a thousand, actually. After writing, we proofed "The Road of Pins" for Two Worlds and In Between.
Last night we spent a little time leveling our dead girls, Erszébetta and Tzilla. Then we finished reading Grace Krilonovich's The Orange Eats Creeps. I'm going to be processing this novel for quite a while. It resists any quick and easy assessment. But my first thought would be that I've encountered a shattered mind, that finally becomes incoherent, as madness increasingly refashions the world in the mad woman's image (unless it's the other way round), and I refer you back to the Joseph Campbell quote above. It's a very good novel, though it may not be at all what you'll expect going in, if all you expect is some weird shit about punk rock hobo junkie vampires drinking Robitussin and riding box cars around the Pacific Northwest. It sheds that skin fairly quickly, and moves into infinitely weirder, darker territories.
Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to snap a series of photos taken from my desk, from the chair where I spend most of most every day and night. I decided it wouldn't matter whether or not the photographs were good photographs, but they had to be taken from my chair. I ended up with thirteen, behind the cut (and don't forget to have a go at the question @ hand). I make no apologies for dust and clutter:
3:03 p.m.
3: 22 p.m.
3: 50 p.m.
4: 11 p.m.
4:40 p.m.
5:06 p.m.
5:26 p.m.
7:07 p.m.
7:27 p.m.
10:30 p.m.
11:18 p.m.
11:33 p.m.
11:48 p.m.
All photographs Copyright © 2011 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Last night, I posted the New Question, the Question @ Hand, and you can read it and respond here. If you were to make of me— of my actual, physical body —a work of art, what would it be? Answers are screened, so only I can see them. I'll select the ones I like best for Sirenia Digest #63, where they will appear anonymously. There have already been two answers so delightful that I wanted to hug them. Hug the answers, I mean. Though, so far, all the usual suspects have been silent. Anyway, I'll be collecting the replies over the next week and a half or so. Haven fun with it. No minimum or maximum word length. And as I said last night, don't be shy. Get our hands dirty.
And here are the current eBay auctions.
I didn't leave the house yesterday.
There was good news from Dark Horse, which I'll talk about as soon as I am told that I may.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,623 words on the eighth chapter of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. A passage from Joseph Campbell (1970), writing on schizophrenia, is very apt: "The whole problem, it would seem, is somehow to go through it, even time and again, without shipwreck: the answer being not that one should not be permitted to go crazy; but that one should have been taught something already of the scenery to be entered and the powers to be met, given a formula of some kind by which to recognize, subdue them, and incorporate their energies." I've passed the 75,000 word mark— by more than a thousand, actually. After writing, we proofed "The Road of Pins" for Two Worlds and In Between.
Last night we spent a little time leveling our dead girls, Erszébetta and Tzilla. Then we finished reading Grace Krilonovich's The Orange Eats Creeps. I'm going to be processing this novel for quite a while. It resists any quick and easy assessment. But my first thought would be that I've encountered a shattered mind, that finally becomes incoherent, as madness increasingly refashions the world in the mad woman's image (unless it's the other way round), and I refer you back to the Joseph Campbell quote above. It's a very good novel, though it may not be at all what you'll expect going in, if all you expect is some weird shit about punk rock hobo junkie vampires drinking Robitussin and riding box cars around the Pacific Northwest. It sheds that skin fairly quickly, and moves into infinitely weirder, darker territories.
Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to snap a series of photos taken from my desk, from the chair where I spend most of most every day and night. I decided it wouldn't matter whether or not the photographs were good photographs, but they had to be taken from my chair. I ended up with thirteen, behind the cut (and don't forget to have a go at the question @ hand). I make no apologies for dust and clutter:
3:03 p.m.
3: 22 p.m.
3: 50 p.m.
4: 11 p.m.
4:40 p.m.
5:06 p.m.
5:26 p.m.
7:07 p.m.
7:27 p.m.
10:30 p.m.
11:18 p.m.
11:33 p.m.
11:48 p.m.
All photographs Copyright © 2011 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
photos taken from my desk
Date: 2011-02-11 05:46 pm (UTC)Re: photos taken from my desk
Date: 2011-02-11 05:54 pm (UTC)Thanks for the wonderful photos.
You are very welcome.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 05:54 pm (UTC)Today, I am trying to marshal my thoughts about yesterday's question. Something is percolating, but it's trying to work its way through a semi-functional brain to get to you. Soon.
Take your time.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 05:49 pm (UTC)Loved the shots of your bookcases. I'm forever curious about what other people choose to shelve. When I helped my mother show houses in the early 2000's I used to always check out the bookcases first, hoping against hope to spot a Dhalgren or a Lud in the Mist. Inevitable disappointment as I always seemed to find the same hash of Patterson, Follet and celebrity biographies.
Question: have you given any thought to self publishing on the Kindle? Recent round of news about Amanda Hocking (http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/) and all the guest posts on J.A. Konrath's blog (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/) seem to indicate that it is a gratifyingly immediate and potentially lucrative way to go about one's writing career. Any thoughts?
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 05:57 pm (UTC)Inevitable disappointment as I always seemed to find the same hash of Patterson, Follet and celebrity biographies.
*shudder*
Question: have you given any thought to self publishing on the Kindle? Recent round of news about Amanda Hocking and all the guest posts on J.A. Konrath's blog seem to indicate that it is a gratifyingly immediate and potentially lucrative way to go about one's writing career. Any thoughts?
As for my novels, those rights have been sold to Penguin, rather or not they ever choose to exercise them. As for the rest, I haven't. I have to be truthful, as readers here no, I have no love for the Kindle. It's not how my books were meant to be read. So, we enter one of those areas where, if a publisher wants to do it, I won't say no, But I'll probably never take it upon myself.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:00 pm (UTC)Deciphering the book titles will be interesting.
It's like "Where's Waldo" with the spins of books.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:05 pm (UTC)Re: the cut title and 'sessile', thank you for offering up words that make me reach for a dictionary.
I go forth and expand vocabularies.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:06 pm (UTC)My favorite photo is the blurry cat.
Hubero hopped into my lap, then refused to be still.
Looking at your iTunes Playlists makes me want to know what is under the "Top 25 Most Played."
I'll post them soon....
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:19 pm (UTC)Still waiting for The Orange... to turn up, so don't be too surprised if I post some random comments about it in the next few days.
I'm glad that we've got some time to answer the Question; I want to do it justice.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:21 pm (UTC)The little dodo is very cute,
One of my two totem animals.
Still waiting for The Orange... to turn up, so don't be too surprised if I post some random comments about it in the next few days.
Please do!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 07:02 pm (UTC)It would be magpies and jackdaws for me, I guess. Sadly it's easier to find carved owls, though.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:35 pm (UTC)The desk photos remind me of the series Terri Windling has been running on her blog - photos of the work spaces of various writers and artists.
I'm not sure why I never thought of doing this before.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 06:36 pm (UTC)It feels so intimate to see this, thank you.
The intimate thing, yeah, I suppose. It didn't strike me that way, but then I juggle my privacy in a peculiar, often contradictory fashion.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 07:28 pm (UTC)Also, your room is the most exquisite red.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 07:31 pm (UTC)Also, your room is the most exquisite red.
It's a shade of red I find extremely comforting.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 09:47 pm (UTC)Also, the picture at 3:03pm is quite the impressive looking book.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 10:42 pm (UTC)Also, the picture at 3:03pm is quite the impressive looking book.
And a truly excellent one, at that.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 10:39 pm (UTC)Your workspace is so neat and organized! I'm impressed and maybe a little envious. There are parts of my studio in which the floor can be seen, and small bits of my desk sometimes show through at odd times through my raw materials and works in progress. Of course, I could neaten things up in here, and I will, of course. But, sooner or later I look around and find myself in a jumbled rat nest again.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 10:43 pm (UTC)It tends to leave me disoriented, but, then, I don't exactly have the most healthy relationship with sleep.
Your workspace is so neat and organized! I'm impressed and maybe a little envious.
It has to be, or I can't work.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 10:40 pm (UTC)Have an idea for the question, but typing this has taken half an hour thanks to a rather old-skool bulky plaster cast. Timing, dammit.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 10:44 pm (UTC)Thank you again, for doing the dirty sharing job.
You're welcome, and sorry to hear about the cast.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 11:31 pm (UTC)For some reason I always really enjoy seeing photographs of people's work spaces. It fascinates me.
Same here.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 12:05 am (UTC)And so there really IS a platypus? Cool!
Indeed. It's no mere metaphorical platypus.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 01:09 pm (UTC)Just thought you might like these images - concrete casts of people submerged on the sea floor to become the basis for new reefs.