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greygirlbeastA rainy day here in Providence. It's nice.
Kyle and I have been hammering out specifics on the still photography/book trailer project for The Drowning Girl, and it's a stressful affair. Well, if you're me. I can make stress out of thin air. Anyway, the Kickstarter is going extraordinarily well (166%)...and...Michael Zulli has just come on board to do the actual painting, The Drowning Girl, which, in the novel, was painted in 1898 by an artist named Phillip George Saltonstall. Zulli has become our Saltonstall, which is beyond amazing.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,480 words on Chapter Five of Blood Oranges, and talking through with Kathryn what remains of the story, blocking it (a term I use instead of "plotting," as blocking is much looser), I begin to see that it's not a ten-chapter book, or a nine-chapter book. Probably, it's an eight-chapter book. Otherwise, this becomes gratuitous. And I'll not have that. Regardless, the word count will be somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 words.
Some news regarding Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart (Subterranean Press, 2012). The limited edition will include an extra volume (probably trade paperback), containing The Yellow Alphabet and 10,000 words of new fiction (likely in the form of two new stories). And I'll be working with Lee Moyer again on the cover.
---
A thought last night. Actually, a storm of thoughts whirling into a vortex. But, I'll play nice and call it a thought. Singular and calm. And it was just this: In today's subgenre-obsessed market, Harlan Ellison would be tagged a "horror writer." No, really. Go back and read the bulk of his fiction. Usually, he's writing "horrific sf" (as a disparaging Locus reviewer said of The Dry Salvages, "This is what happens when a horror writer tries to write SF"). Ellison's greatest achievements are almost all, at their roots, horrific. They're not about the sailing off into the stars, or the future, or the possibilities of technology, and finding a better world for mankind. Look at, for example, "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World" (1967), or "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin" (1968), or "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" (1973), or even "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" (1967). Though hailed as one of the most important SF writers of the 20th Century (I'd simply say one of the most important writers, period, and dispense with your fucking qualifying adjectives), if time were scrambled and he emerged into today's literary marketplace, a new writer, Harlan would be pegged a "horror writer." Probably, he would never receive all those Nebulas and Hugos. Being labeled "a horror writer" would define him in the eyes of NYC editors, and this would absolutely have a great influence on what he could and could not sell and see published. And this would be a crime of the first fucking order.
Stop thinking inside the genre paradigm, people. By doing so, you destroy art and opportunity. It's fiction, all of it. It's all literature. We need no other words to accurately define it. We need no reductionist baloney.
---
I don't feel right any longer saying, "Last night I watched television," when, in fact, I streamed video files across the internet from Netflix or Hulu. Anyway, last night Spooky and I gave AMC's Mad Men a try, beginning with the first two episodes. And were very impressed. Then we finished Season One of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and began Season Two. At some point I'll maybe be able to summarize my thoughts on all this L&O stuff. After hundreds more episodes. I also read "New unadorned hardrosaurine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) from the Campanian of North America" (very cool beast, is Acristavus gagslarsoni) in JVP. And we read more of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and I read more of Denise Gess and William Lutz' Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, It's People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History. We're trying to get our bedtimes back to something sane. Maybe 2:30 ayem, instead of 5 ayem. Last night, I was asleep by four, I think. Baby steps.
Giving Genre the Massachusetts State Bird,
Aunt Beast
Kyle and I have been hammering out specifics on the still photography/book trailer project for The Drowning Girl, and it's a stressful affair. Well, if you're me. I can make stress out of thin air. Anyway, the Kickstarter is going extraordinarily well (166%)...and...Michael Zulli has just come on board to do the actual painting, The Drowning Girl, which, in the novel, was painted in 1898 by an artist named Phillip George Saltonstall. Zulli has become our Saltonstall, which is beyond amazing.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,480 words on Chapter Five of Blood Oranges, and talking through with Kathryn what remains of the story, blocking it (a term I use instead of "plotting," as blocking is much looser), I begin to see that it's not a ten-chapter book, or a nine-chapter book. Probably, it's an eight-chapter book. Otherwise, this becomes gratuitous. And I'll not have that. Regardless, the word count will be somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 words.
Some news regarding Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart (Subterranean Press, 2012). The limited edition will include an extra volume (probably trade paperback), containing The Yellow Alphabet and 10,000 words of new fiction (likely in the form of two new stories). And I'll be working with Lee Moyer again on the cover.
---
A thought last night. Actually, a storm of thoughts whirling into a vortex. But, I'll play nice and call it a thought. Singular and calm. And it was just this: In today's subgenre-obsessed market, Harlan Ellison would be tagged a "horror writer." No, really. Go back and read the bulk of his fiction. Usually, he's writing "horrific sf" (as a disparaging Locus reviewer said of The Dry Salvages, "This is what happens when a horror writer tries to write SF"). Ellison's greatest achievements are almost all, at their roots, horrific. They're not about the sailing off into the stars, or the future, or the possibilities of technology, and finding a better world for mankind. Look at, for example, "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World" (1967), or "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin" (1968), or "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" (1973), or even "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" (1967). Though hailed as one of the most important SF writers of the 20th Century (I'd simply say one of the most important writers, period, and dispense with your fucking qualifying adjectives), if time were scrambled and he emerged into today's literary marketplace, a new writer, Harlan would be pegged a "horror writer." Probably, he would never receive all those Nebulas and Hugos. Being labeled "a horror writer" would define him in the eyes of NYC editors, and this would absolutely have a great influence on what he could and could not sell and see published. And this would be a crime of the first fucking order.
Stop thinking inside the genre paradigm, people. By doing so, you destroy art and opportunity. It's fiction, all of it. It's all literature. We need no other words to accurately define it. We need no reductionist baloney.
---
I don't feel right any longer saying, "Last night I watched television," when, in fact, I streamed video files across the internet from Netflix or Hulu. Anyway, last night Spooky and I gave AMC's Mad Men a try, beginning with the first two episodes. And were very impressed. Then we finished Season One of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and began Season Two. At some point I'll maybe be able to summarize my thoughts on all this L&O stuff. After hundreds more episodes. I also read "New unadorned hardrosaurine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) from the Campanian of North America" (very cool beast, is Acristavus gagslarsoni) in JVP. And we read more of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and I read more of Denise Gess and William Lutz' Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, It's People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History. We're trying to get our bedtimes back to something sane. Maybe 2:30 ayem, instead of 5 ayem. Last night, I was asleep by four, I think. Baby steps.
Giving Genre the Massachusetts State Bird,
Aunt Beast
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 06:46 pm (UTC)Oh my! How did this wonderfulness come about?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 06:53 pm (UTC)Oh my! How did this wonderfulness come about?
Bill Schafer asked for it.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 07:10 pm (UTC)Excellent news about Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart. I think I might spring for the limited edition this year.
Completely off-topic: Had a nightmare in which I was watching an internet video you and Spooky had made. And you turned and yelled at me through the screen. It was disturbing.
Also, great beach photos the other day! Keep them coming and stretch out the summer.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 07:12 pm (UTC)Good thoughts again on genre problem. People will always stuff things into boxes for easy classification. If only it wasn't so limiting.
Even biologists are beginning to understand this only creates artificial and worthless categories.
Completely off-topic: Had a nightmare in which I was watching an internet video you and Spooky had made. And you turned and yelled at me through the screen. It was disturbing.
Neat! You're welcome.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 07:33 pm (UTC)I just finished reading The Dry Salvages this morning and I just want to say I really thought it was good. It has some sf elements but it's more about the story and the emotions. I like it.
Good luck on getting to bed before 5am. I never get to.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 07:53 pm (UTC)I think it's so interesting to read about these new discoveries like this hadrosaur and to show how it may give clues about how dinosaurs evolved.
Bingo.
I just finished reading The Dry Salvages this morning and I just want to say I really thought it was good. It has some sf elements but it's more about the story and the emotions. I like it.
Well said, and thank you. I don't think reviewers understood that it wasn't about technology or scientific advancements, but about the, you know, characters.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 07:42 pm (UTC)Thanks for the news! Its exciting that there will be an additional 10,000 words for the chapbook on top of "The Yellow Alphabet!" Most excellent. Can we expect the volume in early 2012?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 07:53 pm (UTC)Can we expect the volume in early 2012?
No. I thinking summer, at the earliest.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 08:59 pm (UTC)Ayn Rand would be stupid because she sucks.
That part is so very true.
As a culture, we're selectively breeding out surprise.
That might just be fucking brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 09:10 pm (UTC)That is extremely cool.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 09:13 pm (UTC)Still has me a little breathless.
Browsing bookstore shelves
Date: 2011-08-15 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: Browsing bookstore shelves
Date: 2011-08-16 04:35 pm (UTC)So I am in the bad consumer catagory.
It's never too late to change.
Ellison Horrorland
Date: 2011-08-16 12:49 am (UTC)Re: Ellison Horrorland
Date: 2011-08-16 04:36 pm (UTC)Harlan is a jealous god, critics beware.
He is my role model....
Reductionism.
Date: 2011-08-16 06:23 am (UTC)Re: Reductionism.
Date: 2011-08-16 04:36 pm (UTC)"All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it."
Yes! Exactly. And I love the icon!