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greygirlbeastCloudy. Drizzly. 50˚F.
The light getting in beneath my office curtain has been drained of any quality to illuminate. It's still light, but a light that drenches and soaks in, rather than reflecting.
A stapler from college. A coffee cup from the Yale Peabody Museum, filled with pens and pencils. Four rocks: Moonstone Beach (RI), Jamaica, Ireland, Oregon. A tin of Altoids. Etc. & etc.
Comments can't hurt.
Yesterday, I wrote almost six hundred words on "Fake Plastic Trees." I very much like this story, but it's bleak. And it's only going to get bleaker. Yesterday, I decided I wanted the editor to read the first half before I write the second half, so I emailed it away. And now I'm waiting for the verdict. Which leaves me wondering what to do in the interim, which might be only a few more hours, but might be another day or two. I suppose I'll turn my eyes towards Sirenia Digest #65. Still hoping to see a few more answers to the latest Question @ Hand, by the way, though the ones I've received, most are keepers. Some made me feel that electric sensation in my gut. One of the highs I chase, night and day.
Two or three people have objected that they can't answer it because it involves my being forced, and maybe I see their point, the point of their objection. But, this is fiction, and, also, I've given my explicit consent to be fictionally forced. So, the objection mystifies me just a little.
CARE package yesterday from SL, who sent me two of the Brown Bird cds I didn't have, Tautology and Such Unrest, which I just loaded onto my iPod. Also, Curt Stager's (a paleoclimatologist) Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth. I read Spooky the prologue last night. And the package also contained Nicky Raven's retelling of Dracula as a children's story, beautifully illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert. So, my gratitude.
Last night, in response to my Danielle Dax post,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stsisyphus posted the video clip from Jordan's A Company of Wolves (1984) for which I'd posted the screenplay excerpt. And here it is:
<
Thing is, as artists we are influenced by things. I've always been aboveboard about the degree to which Angela Carter has influenced my work. She sparks my mind. She sings to me. I sing back. But then, as artists, sometimes, we are influenced by things, and, sometimes, we write (or paint, or whatever), and the influence acts unconsciously upon us. To wit, I was entirely unaware that in writing a significant part of The Drowning Girl I was very much expressing my love of this scene from The Company of Wolves. Imp tells a story, "The Wolf Who Cried Girl," and it derives very much from this scene. But I was entirely unaware what I was doing until I read the screenplay yesterday, and then it smacked me in the face. I'm fascinated by the silent influences, especially when they're so fucking obvious. "These things happen."
"And then,
you shall open
this book, even if it is the book of nightmares." (Galway Kinnell)
---
Good session with my doctor yesterday. New drug today, and maybe things will improve again. Soon, I hope. By the way, as I say in the acknowledgments to The Drowning Girl, without my doctor the novel never would have been written. It almost wasn't written.
Today, I may actually pitch the ParaRom lesbian junkie wolfpire novel to my agent. I would write it after Blue Canary, the first YA book, while she's shopping Blue Canary.
This evening, I have an appointment at RockStar Piercing on Thayer Street, to begin the process of having my earlobes stretched, and to put my labret back in. I need the sort of pain I get from body mods. It centers me.
Last night, we watched Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for the fourth time. It's is a genuinely brilliant film, and he's going to have to do a lot to ever top himself. We played Rift. I read "Enhydriodon dikikae, sp. nov. (Carnivora: Mammalia), a gigantic otter from the Pliocene of Dikika, Lower Awash, Ethiopia" in the latest JVP. You have to imagine a mostly terrestrial otter the size of a bear, which lived alongside Australopithecus.
And I should try to do some work, while I wait for a verdict on "Fake Plastic Trees."
The light getting in beneath my office curtain has been drained of any quality to illuminate. It's still light, but a light that drenches and soaks in, rather than reflecting.
A stapler from college. A coffee cup from the Yale Peabody Museum, filled with pens and pencils. Four rocks: Moonstone Beach (RI), Jamaica, Ireland, Oregon. A tin of Altoids. Etc. & etc.
Comments can't hurt.
Yesterday, I wrote almost six hundred words on "Fake Plastic Trees." I very much like this story, but it's bleak. And it's only going to get bleaker. Yesterday, I decided I wanted the editor to read the first half before I write the second half, so I emailed it away. And now I'm waiting for the verdict. Which leaves me wondering what to do in the interim, which might be only a few more hours, but might be another day or two. I suppose I'll turn my eyes towards Sirenia Digest #65. Still hoping to see a few more answers to the latest Question @ Hand, by the way, though the ones I've received, most are keepers. Some made me feel that electric sensation in my gut. One of the highs I chase, night and day.
Two or three people have objected that they can't answer it because it involves my being forced, and maybe I see their point, the point of their objection. But, this is fiction, and, also, I've given my explicit consent to be fictionally forced. So, the objection mystifies me just a little.
CARE package yesterday from SL, who sent me two of the Brown Bird cds I didn't have, Tautology and Such Unrest, which I just loaded onto my iPod. Also, Curt Stager's (a paleoclimatologist) Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth. I read Spooky the prologue last night. And the package also contained Nicky Raven's retelling of Dracula as a children's story, beautifully illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert. So, my gratitude.
Last night, in response to my Danielle Dax post,
stsisyphus posted the video clip from Jordan's A Company of Wolves (1984) for which I'd posted the screenplay excerpt. And here it is:Thing is, as artists we are influenced by things. I've always been aboveboard about the degree to which Angela Carter has influenced my work. She sparks my mind. She sings to me. I sing back. But then, as artists, sometimes, we are influenced by things, and, sometimes, we write (or paint, or whatever), and the influence acts unconsciously upon us. To wit, I was entirely unaware that in writing a significant part of The Drowning Girl I was very much expressing my love of this scene from The Company of Wolves. Imp tells a story, "The Wolf Who Cried Girl," and it derives very much from this scene. But I was entirely unaware what I was doing until I read the screenplay yesterday, and then it smacked me in the face. I'm fascinated by the silent influences, especially when they're so fucking obvious. "These things happen."
"And then,
you shall open
this book, even if it is the book of nightmares." (Galway Kinnell)
---
Good session with my doctor yesterday. New drug today, and maybe things will improve again. Soon, I hope. By the way, as I say in the acknowledgments to The Drowning Girl, without my doctor the novel never would have been written. It almost wasn't written.
Today, I may actually pitch the ParaRom lesbian junkie wolfpire novel to my agent. I would write it after Blue Canary, the first YA book, while she's shopping Blue Canary.
This evening, I have an appointment at RockStar Piercing on Thayer Street, to begin the process of having my earlobes stretched, and to put my labret back in. I need the sort of pain I get from body mods. It centers me.
Last night, we watched Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for the fourth time. It's is a genuinely brilliant film, and he's going to have to do a lot to ever top himself. We played Rift. I read "Enhydriodon dikikae, sp. nov. (Carnivora: Mammalia), a gigantic otter from the Pliocene of Dikika, Lower Awash, Ethiopia" in the latest JVP. You have to imagine a mostly terrestrial otter the size of a bear, which lived alongside Australopithecus.
And I should try to do some work, while I wait for a verdict on "Fake Plastic Trees."
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 06:56 pm (UTC)This is why I find idiots who think such a thing as an "original idea" actually exists very irritating.
For years, I've been saying that the quest for "originality" in art is on beyond foolish, and that the criticism that X or N is "unoriginal" is a fallacious criticism. We write what we write because of what we have seen, read, heard, and so forth. It is impossible not to be influenced to such a degree that our work is a conglomeration. And, besides, given the billions of humans who've existed since the evolution of our species, the conceit that no one has previously expressed this or that idea is patently absurd.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 06:56 pm (UTC)I had a prof in undergrad talk to me-one of the Grand Old Men types-and he said "I don't care for her. You will love her." He was right, too.
He also introduced me to Borges, so in that area, I sure got my education's worth.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 06:57 pm (UTC)He also introduced me to Borges, so in that area, I sure got my education's worth.
Indeed you did!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 07:24 pm (UTC)If you think of it, next time you're at the library see if they have Dave Barry's "I'll Mature When I'm Dead" essay collection. He includes his own pararom parody, "Fangs of Endearment", that still makes me giggle when I read it.
Best of luck with the new med!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 07:35 pm (UTC)I suspect that the pararom wolfpire would indeed make your fortune.
Well, let's not go that far.
I'm equally sure that you could write it as a total send-up, but in a way that would make earnest pararom readers think you meant it...while those of us who know your work would enjoy it for a whole different set of reasons.
This is what I'd try to do. Given I can't, myself, take it seriously.
If you think of it, next time you're at the library see if they have Dave Barry's "I'll Mature When I'm Dead" essay collection. He includes his own pararom parody, "Fangs of Endearment", that still makes me giggle when I read it.
I'll look for it.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 02:01 am (UTC)I'd love to read something you've written with tongue firmly in cheek. Perhaps something in a future "Sirenia" as a practice run?
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 08:03 pm (UTC)Actually, upon a sudden moment of reflection, I think you should write the ParaRom satire. Then write the "real", more honest story once that's in the bag. Allow the readers to compare/contrast. A kind of Justine/Juliette duology.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 08:32 pm (UTC)For me, I find that every writer I ever liked acted as an influence. It's mostly been Tanith Lee and M. John Harrison; I doubt I'll ever stop being inspired by them. Having said that, your stuff is creeping in as well.
Yeah, that aspect of the Question bothered me, too. I couldn't warp you enough, I think.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 05:34 pm (UTC)Jef was amazing. Really friendly and sweet, which is how one should be when one is the hand behind the hole making. But I'm sure Cait will talk more about it today.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 11:23 pm (UTC)Please write this monster if only to confuse the art director. "How the fuck do I explain this cover to creative?"
That's great that you can thank your doctor
Date: 2011-04-20 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 07:24 pm (UTC)Before I read, or had known anything about, your novel LOW RED MOON when it first came out, I dreamt of Narcissa for three nights straight. I'm starting to wonder if these things are not coincidence. I had a dream about you once where we were both caught in some kind of storm in and around a little house, and I coudln't leave. The garden kept changing, and I kept passing out... that's all I can remember. You kept picking me up and telling me to keep going.