Caitlín R. Kiernan

Snow as far as the eye can see, which isn't very far, not if you're me. Oh, look. I made a rhyme. Anyway, more snow on the way, flurries. A world made of ice.

Especially wretched dreams this morning, and I'm still trying to shake them off.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,701 words on Chapter 5 of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Most of it was a letter from 1897, which is always fun. I inadvertently learned a lot about the history of postcards.

Last night, there was rp in Insilico. These days, rp pretty much always consists of me and one other, maybe two others, hidden away in a nook where we'll not be bothered by the scuttlefish. Later, Spooky and I watched Robert Schwentke's Red. It was fun. And no, I haven't read the graphic novel, and the first person who tells me it was so much better than the movie gets an unpleasant visit from a platypus brandishing red-hot weenie tongs.

Over and over and over,
Aunt Beast

1. More snow. And still more on the way. We should have gone to the market last night and we didn't, so somehow we have to manage that trick today, though the driveway hasn't been shoveled. By the way, in the comments to yesterday's entry— after my quip about it being colder in Antarctica than Providence— amandakcampbell noted "According to the Weather Channel's website, McMurdo [Station,] Antarctica is 12˚F today, with a windchill of -5˚F." Admittedly, it's presently summer in Antarctica, but still.

2. Yesterday, I wrote 1,139 words on Chapter 5 of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, and reached the far side of the very difficult and pivotal scene. This morning, I feel sort of ambivalent about the scene, and I have no idea whether or not I did it right. But today I will proceed to the next scene. Also, yesterday, my editor and I spoke about the novel, via email. The tentative release date is March 2012. The title is now set in stone.

3. And now, without further adieu: Spooky and I have embarked upon our very first experiment with crowd-sourcing. For a long time, we've been talking about doing a picture book sort of thing based on her raven dolls and paintings. Hopefully, with the help of Kickstarter and your participation, we can make it happen. To learn all the details about The Tale of the Ravens Project, follow this link. It's all pretty self-explanatory, but I'll gladly answer any questions you may have. I've been very impressed, seeing what can be done with Kickstarter, and if this works, there's a second and more ambitious project, a non-publishing project, I hope to be able to fund for 2012, but only if this first effort succeeds. So, please do have a look. Give us all your money, and we'll make something marvelous for you in return.

Note that your card will not be charged until and unless the project is completely funded. Regardless, you won't be charged until on or after March 26th. You also have to register at Kickstarter to donate.

4. The plan had been for readingthedark to drive down from Framingham tonight for a visit, but I think this weather is going to prevent that.

5. After dinner last night, I proofread the text for the Kickstarter page, so Spooky could hit the launch button. Also, I watched the first ten minutes or so of Jaws, as it's relevant to the next bit of The Drowning Girl, to what I'll be writing this afternoon. I'd forgotten that the first attack takes place at sunset. I remembered it happening at night. Which is why we research.

6. Last night started with WoW, and, after about two hours, Shaharrazad, my blood-elf warlock, reached Level 85*. Suraa reached 85 night before last. Anyway, booya and all, but it was a bittersweet sort of achievement, as it occurred during the idiot "Harrison Jones"/Goblin Hitler fiasco. There were a couple of comments yesterday that I thought did a pretty good job of touching on why I've lost patience with Wow. laudre wrote:

I mostly enjoyed the Raiders pastiche, but the things that I didn't like, I really didn't like; by the time I went through it with a second character, I was sick of the nigh-constant deprotagonization and the endless cut-scenes. My characters -- one, a green-skinned dervish of elemental fury, and the other, a shapeshifting master of natural power who stands and holds the line against endless waves of enemies, who have faced down giants, dragons, demons, and eldritch horrors that would shatter lesser minds -- would not cower in fear of a self-important, pissant goblin with a fucking rocket launcher. Let alone need to be "saved" by Harrison fucking Jones.

And lee_in_limbo wrote:

I haven't progressed very far in it, but I find I rather like LoTRO. It's not quite as addictive as WoW, but at the same time, it seems to move at more my speed (something my wife isn't as keen on), and I haven't run into the kind of uber-jock mentality that was putting me off high-end WoW content. I'm sure it's there, but there's less drive to reach end game content in LoTRO for me, because I don't know anybody there, and don't particularly care at this time. I just want to be immersed in an interesting environment with interesting storytelling. WoW keeps almost getting there, but then smirks and ruins the whole thing. I love humour, but this cheeky NatLamp attitude loses its appeal.

The comparison with National Lampoon is apt, as is the "uber-jock mentality" bit. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm isn't a heroic fantasy MMORPG, but an MMORPG that has become, at best, a crude low-brow spoof of heroic fantasy. There's a whole essay in this, about, among other things, the inability and unwillingness of gamers to suspend disbelief and about those who cater to the lowest common denominator. But it'll have to wait for another time.

Anyway, after WoW, I had a few good hours of rp in Insilico, with yet another incarnation of the Xiang AI, who's run afoul of a bounty hunter (thank you, Tracy). Molly and Grendel have, for now, returned to London.

And now...doughnuts (no, not literal doughnuts).

Today's a good day for comments.

Yours If You Can Stand Me,
Aunt Beast

* Total actual time played to reach Level 85: 52 days, 19 hours, 36 minutes, and 18 seconds.

Yesterday I didn't leave the house. The weather was crappy, and I was writing, and then the weather got worse. Maybe this evening. Right now, there's snow on the ground, but the roads are clear. I need the snow. As I've said, it smooths the ugly sharp edges from the bleak urban winter landscape.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,670 words on The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. My goal is to write chapters 4, 5, and 6 this month. Yesterday, I reached ms. page 150. Or 32,206 words. This novel will be only as long as it needs to be. I might be a third of the way through it, or half, or only an eighth. We shall see.

I will be including Chapter 1 in Sirenia Digest #63 (February 2011).

I took a nap in the middle parlour before dinner. Then, this morning I slept more than seven and a half hours. The Seroquel conquers the insomnia, but it's nothing I want to take long term.

Last night, I read the first story in Jacques Tardi's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec, 1976), "Pterror Over Paris." Utterly delightful. And it set me to wondering why the hell Luc Besson's adaptation of the comic hasn't yet been released in the US. It premiered in France on April 14th, 2010, and has shown in oodles of countries, but not the US. Anyway, I also watched Herbert G. Ponting's 90° South, a film documenting Scott's second Antarctic expedition (1911). The film has a long and complex history, having begun as a series of silent shorts that eventually became a narrated feature in 1933. Later this year, I'm supposed to write a prequel to Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness," and I've begun the research.

And there was rp in Insilico last night, and will be again tonight.

That's all for now.

Yours in January,
Aunt Beast

Last night I might have slept close to eight hours, the most I've slept at a stretch in weeks. And I feel much better. All it required was having my Seroquel script refilled. I see my doctor on the 19th, and we're going to talk about Lunesta (Seroquel isn't actually a sleep aid; that's just a fortunate side-effect I've stumbled upon). Probably, it's not couth, or particularly prudent, or even interesting to talk of one's pills online. Probably, I shouldn't do it. Casual excessive disclosure is a dangerous new phenomenon, and I ought know better.

I'm not at all surprised that LJ can't spell couth. The whole concept has likely fled from the world.

The weather is grey and cold, and more snow is on the way.

Yesterday went pretty much as planned. I signed the signature sheets for Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2. With Spooky's help, I made it through the galley pages for "The Collier's Venus (1893)" and sent the corrections off to ellen_datlow. There was quite a bit of email.

Spooky figured out how to block all those goddamn idiotic "-ville" game apps in my Facebook account, ending a daily deluge of bullshit.

Today, back to work on The Drowning Girl: A Memoir.

I've left the house three days running. Yesterday, we went by Staples (I needed cardboard file boxes), and the pet shop (cats needed wet food), and the market (dinner), and, finally, the drugstore (chemist really does sound much better). Not an interesting trip Outside, but I'm beginning to understand that if one is to venture Outside on a regular basis, one must also accept that most of those trips will be uninteresting.

Last night, much needed rp in Insilico, Molly and Grendel. And then a little WoW after I took the pill to make me sleepy. Oh, and, in case Blizzard's reading (of course, they aren't), giant cockroaches and giant maggots do not isopods and sea slugs make, respectively.

The current eBay auctions end in a couple of hours, so please have a look. Bid if you are able.

Any thoughts on "—30—"?

Yesterday was yesterday. Today isn't.

Which ought to be obvious, but there you go.

People do nice things for me, and it will never cease to amaze me. All I do to deserve this is make shit up.

Yesterday, as I was saying, we did some housecleaning. It was, theoretically, an off day. We went to the market and drugstore ("chemist" just sounds so much cooler, but I bow to regional convention). We stopped Outside of White Electric Coffee on Westminster and bought a marvelous green ceramic bowl from Unkle Thirsty's Cups. They'd set up a couple of tables on the sidewalk in front of the coffeehouse, and it was so bitterly cold...and I needed a good ceramic bowl for the gull and cormorant bones from West Cove and Moonstone. They were playing music and dancing around trying to stay warm. The sky was slate.

Back home, I did more work on my next painting, my painting in progress, Black Ships Ate the Sky, and yes that's a direct reference to the Current 93 album. I used a great quantity of Napthol Crimson and not much else. Thus far, it's about the only color I've used on the painting.

There was more of Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and The Kraken: An Anatomy, reading and listening. Someone wanted to know if the footnotes are included in Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; they are. After dinner, we watched more of the most recent season of Deadliest Catch. We're taking this season slow, knowing what's coming. I don't think of Deadliest Catch as "reality television." It's much more like an ongoing documentary. Which raises interesting questions, which are probably easily solved. Still later, there was very good rp in Insilico. Grendel is moving towards what may be a very terrible moment or may be her salvation, and only time will tell. She's trying hard not to bolt and run, which is what she's always done before. But before she was never pregnant with a human child. And after the rp, because Spooky and I are bad kids, and because I never want to ever sleep (except I do), we played WoW, and Shaharrazad and Suraa reached Level 82.

Today, I have to work.

Slept halfway decently last night, but, still, I'm not awake this early, early afternoon (it's only just eight past noon for those of us on CaST). And the bitter cold lingers, 30F (feels like 21F), and likely will...maybe until spring, which comes in late June. I'm wearing too many clothes, which is never pleasant.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,875 words on Chapter Three of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. It was all ravens, Scottish witches, and pretend sea monsters. michael_b_lee commented to yesterday's post, as regards the interauthor, first person as artifact, and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir:

In this particular case, I think trying to explain how the artifact came to the attention of the reader would actually work at cross-purposes to what you're trying to achieve. Nothing should be explicated. The reader should at no times be certain of her footing.

And I agree, which is why, in this instance, the reader won't learn how it's possible they've gained access to the artifact.

Comments have fallen off again. I assume this has more to do with "the holidays" than it does with the ever-dwindling pool of LJ devotées.

But, yes, the cold weather. I mentioned that part already. After the writing, we had the last sad dregs of the "Five Legged Stew," and watched the first episode of Twin Peaks (1990). That is, the first one after the pilot. It is a strange fact that I have somehow never seen the series, but I'm remedying that now. Fish coffee and the log lady. And lots of bad 80s hair. There was WoW. Oddly, Spooky and I have not yet begun leveling our main toons, Shaharrazad and Suraa, to 85. On the one hand, we've been distracted by new races and new lower-level quests and whatnot. On the other, we've both been working towards the title "Seeker," which comes with having completed 3,000 quests. Spooky got it a couple of nights back, and I likely will tonight. There wasn't any IS rp last night, because I just wasn't up to it emotionally. Playing a pregnant fugitive AI in a flesh-and-bone body ain't as easy as it sounds, you know. Especially not when her human girlfriend has just gone back to work for the Benignly Evil Megacorp and the pregnant AI is beginning to suspect she has developed gestational diabetes. So, Twin Peaks, WoW, and then more Angela Carter before bed. Also more Susanna Clarke yesterday, but no China Miéville. Gotta catch up on him today.

It's that time of year when everyone decides I don't actually need to be paid until sometime after the New Year, bills or no bills. Which I suppose is the true meaning of Xmas.

There are contracts (short-story reprints) that I need to get into the mail today.

Just thinking, truly a shame that jealousy, sorrow, regret, and the need for vengeance do not necessarily have expiration dates. But, then again, if they did what would possibly serve as adequate motivation to keep me writing? I blame Elvis Costello for my having said that last part aloud.

The insomnia hit me hard last night. I didn't get to sleep until after five a.m., and then only with the help of Ambien, that nasty fucking shit. I had this plan, you see, heading into this long trip and the HPLFF. But...on the subject of plans:

I think a plan is just a list of things that don't happen. (Parker, The Way of the Gun)

What you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar. (Jayne Cobb, Serenity)

So, I'm left wondering if the airline's going to consider these bags under the bags under my eyes as carry-on luggage. Because, as Thom Yorke reminds us, "...gravity always wins." And anyway, when the fuck did airlines start charging for any and all checked bags? At twenty-five bucks a pop. Granted, I haven't flown since 2004, but this is ridiculous.

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All of yesterday was spent on the layout for Sirenia Digest #58, and in writing it's prolegomenon, which ended up being 737 words long. I think it turned into a sort of rough draft for the keynote speech I'm supposed to give the first night of the HPLFF. How I found Lovecraft abandoned on a school bus in 1981.

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How is it that so many (note, I did not fucking say all) Xtians are so goddamn opposed to charity? I mean, isn't that like a scientist being opposed to observation and experimentation, or a Mormon being opposed to bicycles? Or a Scientologist being opposed to lousy science fiction movies starring John Travolta? Oh, okay. The teabaggers would say, we're not opposed to charity. We're opposed to enforced charity, compulsory charity. Which means, we're opposed to our tax dollars going to help people of color, and poor people, and people who aren't Xtians, and researchers who've proven that high-fructose corn syrup increases the rate of obesity and diabetes, and also no tax dollars to bums and junkies (liberals call them "homeless people"), or evolutionists, or environmentalists, or people without health insurance (because they're irresponsible), or people what don't think like we do. But...hey, it's totally okay if our money goes to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever else America wants to fuck up the rectum with a broken bottle, to getting all those American soldiers killed in the name of Coca-Cola, and getting all those Iraqi and Afghan soldiers killed in the name of Big Oil, and all those Iraqi and Afghan and Pakistani civilians killed in the name of Spongebob Sqaurepants. Yeah, that's okay. Because Jesus, we know he had a hard on for war. And he hated poor people who weren't responsible enough not to be poor. And he also hated brown people, even though he was one.

You fucking people make me sick. No, not you. You.

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It occurs to me that I should post my itinerary for the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, just in case anyone wants to show up to marvel at the Woman Who Cannot Sleep. But first I have to download it and read it. Hold on.

Well, that took ten minutes, and oh look, it's a spreadsheet. I suppose that's appropriate, spreadsheets being all about forbidden knowledge and wrong geometry and driving people insane. Anyway, it's something like this:

October 1st, Friday 3:30 p.m. Dark Horse reception for Lovecraft Unbound (Hollywood Wine & Espresso; across from where the festival takes place)
Friday night (main screening room): festival opening ceremony, keynote address.

October 2nd: 1:30-2:30 p.m. "Riffing on Lovecraft" (no idea what that means)
2:30-3:30 p.m. "The Cosmic Horror Movement"
4:30-5:30 p.m. "Brief Readings from Lovecraft Unbound"

October 3rd: 1:30-2:30 p.m. My reading.

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Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, please, so I can buy more sleeping pills, please.

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Four hours or so of astounding roleplay in Insilico last night. Just Grendel and Molly. Four hours of emotionally grueling rp. In which Grendel's pregnant human body finally gave up the ghost, and Molly removed her AI and put it back into the Xiang Prime shell (returned to them by Fifth a couple of nights ago). And then really bad stuff happened.* I don't know whether or not we've gone as far into the middle of this sf story as we'll be able to go. I'm just glad to have had the bumpy ride this far. This is what roleplay was meant to be. Catharsis. Gut-wrenching, mind-bending, self-searching catharsis. I couldn't care less for ideas of SL community and "rp events" and suchlike. I'm there for these beautiful, horrible little stories, that are only little if you're on the Outside looking in.

Gotta go now.

* This develop was almost immediately redacted, and the scene described above was treated as a dream sequence.

The "best of" collection is coming together. I'm very happy to announce that pretty much all the artists on my wish list are now on board for the volume. The limited hardback edition (as opposed to the trade hardback edition) will have a bonus section, sixteen pages of reprinted illustrations that have accompanied my stories over the years. Artists include Richard A. Kirk, Vince Locke, Ryan Obermeyer, Ted Naifeh, and Dame Darcy. So, that's one more way this book is going to rock.

An utterly atrocious writing day yesterday, thanks to the insomnia of the night before. I barely managed 587 words. In light of all this not sleeping and not writing enough, I'm postponing my trip to NYC until October, after we return from Portland and the HPLFF.

Speaking of which, first off, if you're wanting to buy tickets to the festival, here's the link.

Secondly, gods, I'm exhausted. And I look it. The combined of effects of insomnia, several years of illness, and the meds I take for all that crap, have left me...brittle. And I have this fear that people will be going to the HPLFF expecting to see that person I was three years ago when I was interviewed for Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, or, worse yet, the person I am in the author's photo (taken in 2003) up on the HPLFF website. Yeah, I know it's silly and shallow and petty of me to worry about shit like this. Sure, I know. This is all meant to be about the writing, not about the writer's physical appearance. But it's one thing to know this, and another thing to feel this. Mostly, I feel terrified. I ceased being a "public" person years ago. I sit in my office and I write. Which is what writers do. Writers aren't supposed to be celebrities (as Kristin Hersh says in Rat Girl, "Fame is for dorks."), and we aren't supposed to worry about how we fucking look at public appearances. That mindset is anathema to being a writer. And yet, all I said about this dread is true. We are all victims of the beauty myth and the cult of youth, even when we have declared ourselves its worst enemy. I want to be read, not seen. That's the way it's supposed to work.

Last night, I resorted to the Seroquel, and slept about eight hours. I just couldn't go another night without sleep; I was all but insensible yesterday.

But before the Seroquel, there was very good rp in Insilico. I begin to fear Grendel Ishmene feels more like me than I feel like me. The ego and superego subsumed by the alter-ego. And Spooky and I did what felt like a metric shit-ton of battlefields on WoW, Alterac Valley over and over, because Alterac Valley was "Call to Arms" this weekend...and...you know. Goddamn geeky shit like that.

Anyway...fuck...I need to get to work. But please have a look at the eBay auctions, and Spooky's Etsy shop (with new Halloween ornaments!). Thanks.

Today is the official street date for the mass-market paperback edition of The Red Tree. So, there you go. Smaller, cheaper, and printed on actual paper.

Warm, but not hot, here in Providence. There's a nice breeze from the south/southwest, about eleven mph. The sun is bright through the office window, shining through the leaves of the tree we saved.

Yesterday, I had to get my passport photo taken. My passport is my only form of photo ID, as I don't have a driver's license. In my old passport photo, taken in January 1996, I look maybe twenty five, though I was, in fact, thirty two. Looking at the new photos, taken fourteen years later, I look, at the very least, my age. Every year of my forty six are there in the photo, and maybe a few more than that. My preternatural youth slipped away at some point, some moment, or over however many years, when I wasn't paying attention. More than anything, I look at these new photographs and see exhaustion, of several different varieties.

Being sick the last few years has surely taken its toll, as have the insomnia, so much time spent in front of this computer screen, one particular person who shall here go unnamed, my general inactivity, and, well...yeah, I'm not a kid anymore. I wasn't a kid anymore in 1996, but some part of me still thought I was and would be for fucking ever and ever. Looking at the photos last night, 1996 and 2010 side by side, I resolved to stop playing that game. Here I am. I was born in 1964, and here I am today. I will age with dignity, and not cling and claw desperately to something I lost a long time back, just because society has a hard-on for youth.

So, that was yesterday. That was the important part of yesterday.

There was also some very good rp in Insilico, Molly and Xiang (X 1.5, id est Grendel) in their squalid, cluttered little room in the Skygate Motel. I think, after six months, the Xiang AI has achieved its primary directive, and ended the beginning of its journey towards humanity. It's actually a pretty good story, half forgotten and half scattered through a hundred rp transcripts. Xiang is, I suppose, the inverse of what the transhumanists think they want. She is a transmachinist. Molly's something else, something broken and left for human, and still has a long road ahead of her.

Spooky and I slept more than eight hours last night, which is nothing short of miraculous. We didn't wake until after noon. And here is today.

Monsieur Insomnia is back with a vengeance, and has been for at least the last week or so. Many factors are likely at play here. My having stopped taking Prazosin. Never leaving the house. Not getting sufficient Vitamin D. Taking the Lamictal at midnight, instead of earlier in the day. Stress. And, well, the fact that I've suffered from insomnia on and off my whole life. Anyway, I feel like ass this ayem (no, wait...it's already peeyem). Laid down about 3 ayem last night. Got up again at 3:30 ayem. Took an Ambien. Went back to bed about 4:40 ayem. Got to sleep around five. Up at about 11:15 ayem. Not much more than six hours. Mostly, I worry about all this not sleeping setting off seizures.

Anyway...

Yesterday, I shelved "Deep Ocean Vast Sea" and wrote 1,027 words on a very, very strange and peculiarly whimsical piece that presently has no title. I'll go back to "Deep Ocean Vast Sea" next month, when I have a little more time, as it means to be a longer story. Maybe it will appear in Sirenia Digest #58. I'm hoping that #57 will go out to subscribers on the last day of August.

And there's so much else that has to get done over the next couple of weeks, my head spins.

A brief (but good) bit of rp in Insilico after the writing yesterday (thanks, Ann). Later, Spooky and I caught the first two episodes of Season Three of Californication. Gods, I love that show. It's such a grand "fuck you" to...well, lots of stuff that pisses me off on a daily basis. It's gritty, nasty, raunchy, sexy, hilarious, rude, and unrepentantly perverse (but with a heart of gold).

Also, Spooky and I managed our final five quests in Icecrown last night. My thanks to brimstone, Redearth, and their guild, Ishu Por Ah, for offering to assist. But, as it happens, we pulled it off on our own. Now, I suppose we'll go back and do all the Outland dungeons we couldn't do at level 70, while we wait for the "Cataclysm" expansion. Spooky says, "Booya!" (But she said it very demurely.)