Caitlín R. Kiernan

Another eight hours this morning. I think my body has finally rebelled against my mind and is forcing sleep upon me. If that is the case, I am grateful to this body (and rarely have I ever voiced that sentiment). Now, if I could just find the wake-up switch.

Yesterday, I wrote a very respectable 1,304 words on The Dinosaurs of Mars. And pondered exactly what would (in detail) happen to the human body if suddenly exposed to Mars' mean surface-level atmospheric pressure of only 600 Pa, or less than 1% of Earth's.

We waited until well after dark to take our walk, and so missed the worst of the heat. The moon was wonderfully bright. Afterwards, we indulged in the pleasant familiarity of Firefly and Deadwood. Two eps of the former ("Our Mrs. Reynolds" and "Trash") and one of the latter ("Deadwood").

I spent a couple of very frustrating hours in Second Life. It pains me to see the waste of so much creative potential. It galls me to encounter dozens and dozens and dozens of beautiful, ingeniously constructed worlds that are little more than "ghost towns." I begin to suspect that Second Life is one of those things that humanity is simply not yet, in general, ready for, and maybe it never will be.

Good and welcomed comments to yesterday's entry, regarding Sirenia Digest #19 and other things, so thanks for that. More today would not be so bad. Talking with phosphor voices helps get me from one end of the day to the other.

I am enjoying the new Rasputina album, Oh Perilous World. I think this might possibly be the best yet, overall. And here I think I've run out of blog entry for now. The platypus says that's just as well.

As is the case with most of the southeast at the moment, it's very hot here in Atlanta. Not as bad today as yesterday, when we got very near 100F. So we spent the day indoors, quietly celebrating Spooky's birthday. I only went out for about twenty minutes, just after sunset, but even that late it was still too hot to sit on the porch. There were strawberry cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and for dinner we had a very fine roast chicken, good bread, and an exquisite bottle of Armenian pomegranate wine.

After that, Byron came over with a PC we're trying to hook up to get Spooky on Second Life, so that we can both be inworld at the same time. The two of them worked at getting the Windows box up and running for about two hours. Me, I stayed out of the way, because this nixar knows when she's out of her element. In the end, there was some problem with the router, which Byron is trying to sort out today. Late last night, we watched another ep of Firefly, "The Train Job."

My thanks to Gordon Duke (thingunderthest) for his incredibly generous gift of an LJ permanent account. I suppose this means I just got a life sentence, eh? It's kind of weird, to think I might be sitting here (or somewhere else), still keeping this blog, ten years hence. Also, my thanks to everyone who offered help snagging the Blade Runner: The Final Cut .flv file. I have it now. Frankly, I can't see why Warner's being such an ass about this. Free publicity and all.

I did write on Saturday, better than a thousand words on The Dinosaurs of Mars, but mostly it was a sort of practice run, as I tore the story apart yet again and began putting it together a different way. I just have to find the right way in. The door with the tiger behind it, so to speak. I'm trying not to rush myself, because I need to do this one properly. But, at the same time, the clock is ticking. Oh, for the luxury of a clockless life. The luxury of writing books on no one's timetable but my own. That time is long gone, unless there's a bestseller somewhere in my future, and I doubt that in the worst way. Yesterday, I wrote the prolegomena from Sirenia Digest #19, which should go out to subscribers this afternoon or evening. I am very pleased with "The Steam Dancer," and with Vince's illustration for it.

I would like to point out that Amazon.com is now taking pre-orders for the mass-market paperback of Low Red Moon. Naturally, lots of pre-orders will make my publisher happy, and it's always good to have your publisher happy. Note that you can buy it with Daughter of Hounds for a mere $19.19. The book with be released on August 7, 2007.

Things are going well in Second Life. I believe Nareth Nishi is transitioning from a period of exploration to a period of focused creativity. In Bababge, I have been offered the opportunity to work towards a virtual construction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' never-realised Palaeozoic Museum (I wrote that wiki article, by the way), about which I have long been passionate. I will be working with Sir Arthur and others to make this a reality. I just have to get my building skills up to snuff. And since I only have so much time for SL (less and less, it seems), there will be no more pole dancing and suchlike. I'm a respectable woman, now. My thanks, though, to all those who came out for that, and big thanks for the tips.

Also, Spooky has finished the first in a series of ten mini-Cthulhu sculptures. This one's sold, but seven are still available. You can see photos via her dollwork LJ, squid_soup.

Okay. The platypus is glaring, which means it's time wrap this up. Later, kiddos.

I wish I could begin this entry by saying that yesterday I wrote X number of words on The Dinosaurs of Mars, X being a number greater than one thousand. That is exactly the way I would like to begin this entry. Unfortunately, yesterday was another day of dithering, and nothing was written. I blame the eight hours of sleep. For the first time in quite a while, my mind was clearer, and suddenly the whole epistolary narrative structure I'd created for the story seemed untenable and unconvincing. Never mind the problems it had solved, because it had, I saw, created so many others. So, there was frustration and anger and panic, and I spent the day reading reports on the Mars Direct Proposal (2003) from the Mars Project and reading from the great stacks of books that have sprouted all about my desk and trying to find a new solution. It's not like this has never happened before, having so much trouble getting into a story. It's just that usually, when it does happen, the story gets shelved and then forgotten about. And this time I will not do that. So, I have to find my way in.

I don't know that I have a lot to say here today. There's too much frustration and dread. I wish I could blame what happened yesterday on a deluge of email (there was such a deluge), but that would be a lie.

I refuse to do this story the wrong way, even if that path might be the most expedient. And at this point, with so much work and so many deadlines before me, there's a lot to be said for expediency.

We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were traveling in the night of First Ages, of those Ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign—and no memories. The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free...

(Joseph Conrad)

We did have a good walk at dusk. There were many cats, and swallows, and bats. Spooky found half a turquoise robin's egg. Coming out on Freedom Park at Moreland Avenue, we were greeted by the sight of a blimp over downtown Atlanta, which gave me a not-unpleasant moment of disorientation.

My thanks to Mike, who made me smile this morning by sending me this photo of Nar'eth, which he took at Dragon*Con in 2003. Seems a million years ago. The photo's behind the cut. I think it's actually one of the best I've ever seen of her:

( A rare shot of Nar'eth without her gloves on )

So, I just got news from thingunderthest that LJ is finally going to have another permanent-account sale, beginning on June 21st and lasting for a week. And I must admit, $150 sounds like a good deal for a lifetime account. Which is to say, if the folks who read this blog want to pass around the collection plate, I wouldn't be offended.

Here in the shadows and blinding shafts of light I call home, we are presently "between checks." It's a peculiar state of pseudo-poverty generated by a general slowness on the part of publishers when it comes to actually paying their writers (please note that subpress is exempt from this statement; I'm talking the big NYC houses). So, we reach these interminable stretches of time where oodles of money is due, and/or past due, and I have learned to live in a sort of perpetual "feast or famine" cycle. When there's money, there's money. When there isn't, well, there is the promise of money to string me along. It's kind of like life on the savannas of Africa, what with the very dry and the very wet.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I tried to get back to work on The Dinosaurs of Mars. I returned to the "editor's preface." I even added a little to it. But it still doesn't work for me. I continue to be dogged by self doubt and questions of language in the mid 22nd Century. Always am I plagued by self doubt, but here it is actually preventing me from proceeding with the story. I didn't have this problem with The Dry Salvages or "Bradbury Weather" or "Riding the White Bull," but all that was before the Locus review's comment about my "facile use of shorthand TV-series lingo." Honestly, I'm not even sure what that means. And right now, I don't care anymore. I just want to tell this story. I am not a linguist, and even the best linguist would be hard-pressed to forecast the evolution of the English language over the next 141 years. I should simply put that review out of my mind and write the story and stop obsessing over the voices in which it will be told. I know that's what I should do. It occurs to me that there are people out there who take science fiction far too seriously, in that they forget that it is fiction and that there is no looking glass through which we may catch glimpses of the shape of things to come. Well, other than the predictive abilities of science, but that's another matter. The yardstick by which we measure the success of fiction is story and character and syntax, not predictive success. There's a quote from William Gibson that I would bring up here:

When you write a science-fiction novel set in some sort of recognizable future, as soon as you finish it you have the dubious pleasure of watching it acquire a patina of quaint technological obsolescence. For instance, there are no cell phones in Neuromancer. I couldn't have foreseen them. It would have seemed corny, like Dick Tracy wrist radios.

And Mr. Gibson is a much, much brighter fellow than I am. Well, actually, I don't suppose I'm any sort of a fellow, but you know what I mean. Unless you don't.

Not much else to say about yesterday. Byron dropped by at 7 p.m., and we had a very enjoyable dinner at The Vortex. Thank you, Byron. Sometimes, I think he should just marry me and Spooky and be done with it. Make honest, respectable women of us. Anyway, later there was Second Life...speaking of the future. My flat in Babbage is pretty much decorated and furnished. Soon, I must turn my thoughts to a public exhibition, as one thing Babbage is lacking is a NeoVictorian-Era geological museum. Sir Arthur says Salazar will be around this week to fix the lift, and I think I'm getting new windows, as well. Maybe a shiny new jet pack or a steam-powered Victrola would lift my spirits.

So, yes, I did end up taking yesterday afternoon off. Today, I kind of wish I hadn't, because today, instead of getting back to work on The Dinosaurs of Mars — which is what I want to do, what I need to do — I have to spend the whole day contending with a 301-page CEM (copy-edited manuscript) from HarperCollins which is due back in Manhattan next week (or this week, if you count Sunday as the first day of the week). I'd forgotten all about the blasted thing, I confess, and Spooky reminded me of it last night. That's why she's here, to be sure I remember the things I've purposefully forgotten, but need to recall, regardless. So, all day will be blue pencils and STET and maybe several glasses of absinthe to make it almost bearable.

Anyway, as it turns out, I spent my afternoon off attending to my Second Life. One of the Nareths had a portentous run-in with a certain Doctor and his traveling companion and their (very fetching) ship's cat. Afterwards, I dropped by the steampunk exposition in Caledon Primverness, and then later, at 5 p.m. SLT (8 p.m. EST), I had a meeting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Babbage. I went looking only to let a room in the city, and Mayor Sprocket had told me that Sir Arthur had rooms to let, but...well, as it turns out, in exchange for lending my imagination to the ongoing experiment that is Babbage (and by extension, all of SL), I was generously provided with far more adequate lodgings than a room. It was an extremely pleasant surprise, and I very much look forward to working with Sir Arthur and everyone else in Babbage. After that, I handed SL over to Spooky, and I spent the remainder of the evening reading and watching Moulin Rouge! (2001) for the first time in a long time. Gods, but I do adore that film, top to bottom, stem to stern.

Oh, and the postman, who too often brings nothing but bills and unwanted credit-card offers, brought the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, which this month includes a second volume (Memoir 8) entirely devoted to the Late Cretaceous abelisaurid theropod dinosaur Majungasaurus crenatissimus (from Madagascar). The journal itself seems especially filled with awesomeness, including a description of a new gliding archosauromorph reptile from the Triassic of Virginia, a full description of the new giant phorusrhacid bird (from the Miocene of Patagonia) that recently made the news, and a redescription of the anatomy and phylogeny of the hadrosaurid dinosaur Lambeosaurus magnicristis. Wonderful stuff, as if I was not already hopelessly behind on my reading.

Tomorrow night, I will be the guest author at the Lost and the Damned Chatroom. I go on at 9 p.m. EST and will be answering questions on just about any aspect of my work. Please drop in. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this, and I'm a little nervous. Hopefully, it will go well. I'll repeat this announcement tomorrow morning.

Right. Spooky and the platypus are both telling me it's time to wrap this up and face the CEM (which is much worse than facing the music, I assure you). Deep breaths, Caitlín. This too shall pass. Plus, I think we might be having dinner with Byron this evening, and that gives me something to which I can look forward without shuddering.

I'm a little slow getting started today, but at least I can say I got a full eight hours of sleep last night (even if it didn't start until about 3 a.m.). I cannot even recall how long it's been since I slept eight consecutive hours. A while. I'm groggy as hell, but Spooky's pouring coffee into me, so we have some hope that by the time I finish this entry I will be at least half awake.

Congratulations to "papersteven" for his winning bid in the hand-corrected Silk auction. Thank you very much.

Yesterday, I wrote the first 1,107 words of The Dinosaurs of Mars. But it was a strange beginning, and I am very unsure of myself. I fear that single review of The Dry Salvages still looms large in my mind, and I believe it is leading me to hesitate and to uncertainty. I don't mean the standard to which I hold myself, my own constant self-criticism. That's harsh enough. This is something else entirely. This is what Steinbeck meant by the difference between writing and writing for someone else. Reflexively, some part of me will not stop trying to second guess the likes and dislikes, the prejudices and preferences, of that invisible editor of whom Steinbeck spoke. I know, consciously, that this is folly. That hardly seems to help. Anyway, yes, the first 1,107 words. The bulk of the text is written as the diary of a "civilian observer," a writer chosen to accompany an exploration of Martian caverns in 2132. What I wrote yesterday was the "editor's" fictional "note for the third edition" of the observer's diary, which was recovered near the entrance to a cavern at the base of Apollinaris Patera, a few weeks after the exploratory team lost contact with a nearby base camp. Her diary made it back to an acquaintance at a lunar base, and most of what the world knows about the mission's fate is contained therein. NASA/ESA has so far refused to release most other documents associated with the exploration and are not pleased that Babette Flanagan's handwritten diary somehow slipped through (there are charges of forgery). That's the general idea, and the "note for the third edition" is being written in (I think) December 2148, sixteen years after Flanagan's disappearance.

The idea of having a writer/poet along on a scientific expedition came, I admit, directly from the screen adaptation of Carl Sagan's Contact, when Eleanor Arroway says, "It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I keep saying that, but I can't...my mind can't...words...should've sent a poet." It's been so long since I read the novel, I can't recall if this line is in there or not, but it's something I always loved about the film.

Preparing to write this novella, I have so concerned myself with getting to know Mars inside and out, that, until yesterday, I'd hardly spared a thought to what, in this story, has happened to human civilization and the Earth since 2007. And all those questions came rushing up at me yesterday. What wars have there been? Plagues? Political upheavals? Technological advances (this is manifestly not a "post-Singularitarian future," as has been the case with all my sf)? Ecological degradation? Population growth or collapse? Will print have vanished and all "books" be published via some electronic means? Will the internet have been replaced or evolved into some new medium of communication? Etc., etc., & etc. And then there's the problem of language.

I have always felt this is something that most sf writers gloss over*, and mostly for the reason that however much the English language might drift and/or evolve, the book that's being read is meant to be comprehensible to a present-day audience. This, I believe, is a great flaw in most science fiction, even great sf. Only a few authors have a) been up to the task as linguists and b) risked alienating their potential audience and/or publishers. Anthony Burgess springs to mind as an exception to this rule. One of the (I thought very peculiar) criticisms leveled at The Dry Salvages concerned its occasional use of a sort of future slang (my tip of the hat to this very legitimate problem), which was described as a "facile use of shorthand TV-series lingo." It seems to me that one either a) uses present-day language and simply ignores the problem that language evolves, b) meets the problem partway, adding at least some unfamiliar elements to the vocabulary of the characters (as I did in The Dry Salvages), or c) goes all the way and creates a new and evolved language through which the first-person narrative is told (this problem is far less of a problem if one is writing a third-person narrative). I might add a fourth solution, which would be to employ a highly unlikely "retro" language shift, such, as, say, a 22nd Century Dickensenian vogue that has everyone speaking as though they were in 19th Century London. For whatever reason, it has always annoyed me that most sf writers ignore this problem, and it is one of the points I'm struggling with in the opening pages of The Dinosaurs of Mars (especially given the above criticism of my attempt to solve it in The Dry Salvages). How might people speak and write in the early to mid 22nd Century? All I can say for sure is that it will be somewhat different from how we write and speak today.

I suppose this is one reason that so many sf writers seem addicted to conventions geared towards sf writers, where there are panels where these very problems are discussed. But I find such conventions to be prohibitively expensive, cliquish, and I just don't happen to particularly enjoy the company of other authors. Moreover, and this is the most important part, I want to find the solutions for myself. Art is not science. Even when art is about science, it is still art. There cannot be consensus, in the sense that science strives for meaningful consensus. And unlike science, art is not progressive. Personally, I have my doubts that science can be said to be genuinely progressive, but I'm pretty dammed certain that art is not. Which is not to say that it is not accumulative or accretionary. But the belief that sf writers are out there forecasting the future, that they have some social responsibility to do so, that's malarky, if you ask me. Writers of sf can only, at best, make educated guesses, and usually those guesses are wrong, and clumping together to form a consensus does not in any way insure against history unfolding in one of those other, unpredicted directions. People love to pick out the occasional instances where Jules Verne and William Gibson got it right; they rarely ever point fingers at their miscalls.

Anyway, I am going on, and it's almost 1 p.m.

I'm supposed to speak with producer D today, but I cannot imagine how I will extract myself from The Dinosaurs of Mars and all these questions and switch gears to "Onion," then switch right back to The Dinosaurs of Mars. No idea at all.

*Postscript (6:17 p.m.) — Reading this paragraph five hours later, I think I was indulging in excessive generalization and exagerration, exacerbated by grogginess and the side-effects of generic "Ambien." So, apologies to anyone I might have offended, annoyed, perplexed, etc.