Caitlín R. Kiernan

Don't forget, kittens, today is Krampus Day. Behave accordingly.

Bodies, can't you see what everybody wants from you?
If you could want that, too, then you'll be happy. ~ St. Vincent, "Cruel"

Yesterday, I wrote 1,241 words and so began "Another Tale of Two Cities" for Sirenia Digest. I'm hoping very much that it will be finished on the evening of the 7th, at the latest. It might be called science fiction, but I'd rather just call it weird erotica. And speaking of the evening of the 7th, I'm very much hoping to see more replies to the Question @ Hand #5 by then.

Last week, I stopped myself from buying an iPhone, though I seem to need one. In part, I stopped myself out of fear of another wave of "buyer's remorse," such as experienced recently, immediately after purchasing Kermit the iPad. Which I seemed to need for work. Since that purchase, by the way, I have found about fifty wonderful uses for Kermit the iPad...but not a single one of them has been work related*. Sure, endless mobile Japanese porn – no denying that rocks – but not exactly what my editors mean when they speak of "increased connectivity." In the Elder Days, by the way, we just said "easier to contact." Anyway, I didn't buy the iPhone, because (even though my cellphone is a pile of bantha dung), near as I can tell the iPhone and the iPad do exactly the same thing. Only, the iPhone has a vastly smaller screen and keys (and the virtual keys on my iPad are already too small for my admittedly large fingers), and I'll be damned if I can figure out a single useful thing the iPhone does that Kermit the iPad doesn't already do. Well, except make phone calls. And I hate making, and receiving, phone calls. Besides, technically, the iPad does permit video calls, all Jetson-like, using either FaceTime or Skype. Of course, the thought of a video call terrifies me beyond words. It's bad enough that callers can hear me. Let them see me, too? Anyway, point is, other than the fact that the iPhone is much smaller, and therefore even more mobile...why bother? And, by the way, you know, I hope, that all this increased connectivity nonsense, it's nothing but a) a means for the CIA, NSA, BTFA, DHS, and aliens from Planet X to keep track of you, and b) is being sold to us so that we never have a moment free of the grinding machine of capitalism (yes, excessive socialization aids and abets the agenda of the New World Order).

Damn, that's a long paragraph.

Probably, I ought to stop now. Only, I'll first point out that – following this thread – ebooks do the same thing as books, only not as well, and the ones you buy today will PROBABLY be inaccessible in a few years, and you can't donate them to libraries, or leave them to anyone. Meanwhile, my hard copies might well be accessible five hundred years from now, and can be bequeathed to loved ones. However, "we" are increasingly a selfish and short-sighted species (this makes my life easier = this is good), now more than ever before, so none of this is relevant. But I'm beating a dead horse. Whack, whack, whack.

Staring at Kermit,
Aunt Beast

* Spooky says this is not true, as all of Blood Oranges was proofed on the iPad. I will qualify, and say that actually she only used it to read along while I read the hard-copy ms. aloud and made marks on it. Still, I suppose she has a point.

Because I really didn't want to title this Readercon 22 (III), and I've just awakened from a nap of cataclysmic proportions, despite having slept in the broiling car on the way back from Burlington to Providence. If title must be explained, that's why. I am home, with another Shirley Jackson Award stone to sit upon my shelf. But what matters is I am home.

Shirley Jackson understood the importance of coming home. Eleanor and Merricat, they knew how precious is home.

Still, it was good to see so many people I so rarely get to see, those other authors, those editors and publishers, those others who are dear to me and whom I so very rarely ever get to see. You know who you are. That said, I am no person for crowds. Likely as not, I could go many more months and never find myself in another crowd of human beings and be pleased. I am exhausted, and I need to be alone, just me and Spooky, and, occasionally, the visitation of a friend or two.

I was good this year, and bought only three books: two used hardbacks – Herbert's God Emperor of Dune and LeGuin's The Compass Rose: Short Stories – along with a copy of Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners. Even so, and even though we were frugal, the cost of the con (I kept a careful tally), came to $606.49. My thanks to Stephen Lubold and Cliff Miller, without whose generosity we couldn't have attended.

Though I did three panels this year, I'm fairly certain the first and the third (this afternoon) were precisely the same panel. Certainly, we said most of the same things this afternoon that were said on Friday.

Regardless, I am home, where there is no AC, and only two bearable rooms (and I am not writing this from either of them). I am facing a mountain of work that should have been done two weeks ago, and which must be done despite the heat. The weathermen say this coming week will be the hottest of the summer for us. But, even so, I'm glad to be home.

Here again,
Aunt Beast

Yesterday, I wrote 1,728 words on Chapter Two of The Drowning Girl (which may, on it's title page, bear the parenthetical subtitle "Or, The Wolf Who Cried Girl"). What a strange, strange book I'm writing. I don't mean the characters, or the subject matter. Sure, those things are strange. Of course they are. But what I mean is that the nature of the narrative itself is truly very odd. But I'm happy with it, and this is what matters.

I'd love to hear some more feedback today on "The Prayer of Ninety Cats," and thanks to all who've said something already.

Congratulations to Steven Lubold, the high bidder on the Dancy Box, congratulations and thank you. The box went for about three times what I was hoping, so I'm both surprised and pleased.

I did manage to get out of the House yesterday. So, no setting or breaking records for me just now, thank you. The printer was out of ink, and I was almost out of paper, so we went to Staples. I had no idea you could get underwater digital cameras so cheaply. I saw a couple at Staples, and I'm sort of hoping someone gets me one for my next birthday, so I can take photos below the surface of the sea. Anyway, after Staples, we stopped by the market for stuff (noodles, sardines, Tiger Balm patches, milk), then headed home again. Not an exciting excursion, but better than none at all.

We recluses take our jaunts where and when we can.

Of course, yesterday was mostly about WoW, as the expansion went live yesterday. UPS brought mine and Spooky's copies sometime just after 4 p.m. (CaST; and thank you, benefactor), and after the trip Outside, we rolled our goblins and proceeded to play our fool brains out. I rolled a goblin warlock named Hobsprocket, and Spooky rolled a goblin priest named Hobnutter, so we're the Hob sisters. We proceeded to make thirteen levels in eight hours, which is the quickest we've ever leveled toons. But it was a hoot. As scarletboi said last night, the goblin starting area is a lot like a Disney World ride. Then, once the island of Kezan blows and the goblins flee to the Lost Isles (with a wonderful cinematic in between), the tone shifts. Sort of Final Fantasy meets Super Mario Brothers. But in a good way. And finally, after the battle on the beachhead below the Warchief's Lookout, when we wound up in Orgrimmar again, it just felt like WoW. But eight hours was about four hours too long to play, and I have a bit of an Azeroth hangover today. There are two screencaps behind the cut, taken at Thrall's camp:

( Golbinocalypse! )

As I have said in the past, I do not recognize Veteran's Day. Rather, I recognize Armistice Day. This is not just a streak of contrariness. See Kurt Vonnegut for my rationale.

A sunny day here in Providence. Sunny, but cold.

Nothing was written, though there was a lot of talking about the story I was trying to write. In the end, I've decided to put "Romeo and Juliet Go to Mars" back on the shelf, and write a somewhat different Martian story. Truthfully, I think I'm not a good enough writer (yet, and maybe I never will be) to pull off what I wanted to accomplish in "Romeo and Juliet Go to Mars." If the best I can do is a half-assed job, better I do no job at all. Some will disagree, but in the realm in which my stories are written, I am the sole goddess. So, I have this other story, that I need to make serious progress on. I haven't written anything since finishing Chapter One of The Drowning Girl on Sunday.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thank you.

I feel as though I have forgotten how to sleep. Last night, Spooky was reading me Kelly Link's "Magic for Beginners," and Hubero came into the bedroom and proceeded to lay on my face and purr. It was all I could do to stay awake. As soon as Spooky finished reading the story, I was instantly and completely awake. Story ideas racing through my mind. (Do not try to solve this problem; this problem is seemingly insoluble, and certainly resistant to any simple remedies). I took Ambien for the first time in months. I slept something like six and a half hours, which is good, the way things have been going. As for "Magic for Beginners," I loved it. The whole thing with The Library made me think of the best sort of bizarre and whimsical television fantasy: Doctor Who, Farscape, etc. The characterization in this story's especially poignant. It has all the awkward innocence and too-often unsuspected depth of youth.

There was an amazing sunset last night. The sky in conflagration. There are photos below, behind the cut. And Spooky went to the Knight Memorial Library on Elmwood Avenue to see Kristin Hersh read from Rat Girl and sing. I wanted to go, but knew I shouldn't. When we first saw a flier for the reading taped to the door of What Cheer, I said, "No, I can't go." Crowds just freak me out too much these days. Crowds and fluorescent lights. Spooky got home about 9:30 p.m., and she said "It's a good thing you didn't come. There were too many people, and fluorescent lights. But she sang 'Fish' and 'Your Ghost,' and read about Fish Jesus, and talked about Betty Hutton." Which made me sorry I'd not gone, despite the fluorescent lights. Again, photos below, behind the cut.

You know, I wouldn't be so annoyed at how WoW and CoX and pretty much all MMORPGs force socialization on their players if there were only a good, Mac-friendly MMORPG that took into account those players who just want to solo. Sure, I enjoy being part of a VG in CoX, put sometimes it would be nice to have the option of going it alone.

I have, in fact, begun to wonder if loners are being systematically weeded out of the population, culled from the world. At least in America. Can loners survive in a world of texting, twatting, and virtual social networking, where you can be alone with a thousand other loners? Where words like "shy" and "introvert" are being replaced by psychological disorders (highly suspect psychological disorders, mostly manufactured by pharmaceutical companies that can then manufacture cures to treat them) like SAD (social anxiety disorder) and AvPD (avoidant personality disorder)? You would think we loners posed a threat. I'd say it's a fear we slow production, but America's no longer about production. We outsourced all that, and now we're a nation of consumers. Maybe there's a belief that people in groups consume more than loners. I see far too little emphasis on individual effort and accomplishment, and far too much focus on teamwork. But I ask, why be a cog, when you can be a whole machine, entire and realized?

Six acronyms in only two paragraphs. But, I prattle on.

Gotta write. Here are the photos:

( 10 November 2010 )

And here it is, seventeen years to the day that I began writing Silk. I was living alone in an apartment on Sixteenth Avenue South in Birmingham, Alabama. I only recall that it was a sunny, cold autumn day. I think what amazes me even more than all the time that has passed since that day is the fact that the book has now been in print for more than twelve years (it took five years to write Silk and then find a publisher). Anyway, since no one suggested a contest, I'll be giving away a signed and doodled in copy of the 4th edition mass-market paperback of the novel to someone who comments to the LJ today. I'll draw one of the names at random (and there's your incentive to comment).

Seventeen years ago, I'd hardly even been born.

---

Yesterday was an annoying sort of day. All thinking about writing, but no actual writing. I need to finish four or five stories by December 1st. One for an anthology and the rest for Sirenia Digest #s 59 and 60. So, I'm casting about for ideas. I think the first one, the one I mean to get to work on today, is called "There Are Kisses For Us All," which I actually began trying to write in December 2008, but set aside. I think maybe now I can actually write it.

I've not left the House since last Tuesday (October 5th), the day we returned from Portland. What is that, seven days? Six? I spoke with my psychiatrist about my reclusiveness, expecting her to be horrified. Instead, she only asked if it bothered me. I said no, that it didn't, and then she asked me that, in that case, why was I letting it worry me, that I shouldn't. That was an odd sort of relief, hearing her say that.

---

I will be doing a reading/signing at the Brown University Bookstore here in Providence on the evening of October 30th. I believe it's even going to be a costumed event. I'll probably read from The Ammonite Violin & Others. So, I hope some local people can make it out.

If you've not yet had a look at the "napovel," you may want to, along with the other eBay auctions. Also, Spooky's got Halloween stuff up in her Dreaming Squid Etsy shop, stuff she'll be taking down after Halloween. So please have a look. Thanks.

---

Last Monday night and Tuesday morning, after our flight was canceled and we were waiting sleeplessly for a 6:40 a.m. flight, we wandered the concourses and corridors of the sprawling Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, which was surprisingly interesting. One of the wonderful things we found was a display of bronze sculptures by an artist named Gareth Andrews. Most of them involved whaling: sperm whales, humpbacks, blue whales, bowheads, along with seals and sea lions. There was one fantastically surreal piece, Nine Muses in Boreas' Wood. It is almost impossible to describe, and was harder still for us to photograph. An amalgamation of totem poles and whale and raven and skeleton and men and beavers and deadfall...somehow the whole put me in mind of a Giger design for a wrecked starship, à la Alien. Gorgeous stuff. To quote the artist, "Great whales have always caused us to check our shadows." Spooky and I took photos, but they fail to do the work justice:

( H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Part 5, Gareth Andrews )

Sitting here doing some rather grim math. And I see that in the last twenty-nine days, all of August, I've left the House only four times. On the the second, the tenth, the sixteenth, and the twenty-fourth. I'm not sure I should actually count the twenty-fourth, given that was a doctor's appointment. Even by my standards, looking back and realizing that I've let things get this bad is more than a little disturbing. We'd planned to leave the House today...except I was sick last night, and...

I didn't find THE END of "Fairy Tale of the Maritime" yesterday. I wrote less than eight hundred words, was probably working on the final paragraph, and began to have serious doubts about how I was wrapping it up. So, I stopped, hoping I'd come back today with a clearer understanding of what's going on. But no such clearer understanding has presented itself to me. But I've got to finish it, either today or tomorrow, because I have to get Sirenia Digest #57 out.

It would seem I shut Sméagol in my office at about four-thirty a.m.. The insomnia's come back, and I was up alone, playing WoW, and apparently he crept quietly into the office without me noticing. But he's fine, and the office is fine, so no harm done. No apparent kitty trauma.

Very hot here in Providence again, and I think I'm going to get just a little work done, and then we'll head south to the shore. I've not left the House since last Monday (a full week inside), and my ankle's much better, so...yeah. Time to go Outside.

Most of yesterday was spent working on the table of contents for the "Best of" volume. I read over several stories. "Emptiness Spoke Eloquent" didn't make the cut, but "Stoker's Mistress" did (though I'm removing all evidence it was originally written for a "Vampire: The Masquerade" anthology). I decided I'm only including one story from the Dandridge Cycle, so I cut "Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea (1957)" and "A Redress for Andromeda." I'll be using "Andromeda Among the Stones," the best (and longest) of the three tales. But I got hung up on whether to use "Breakfast in the House of the Rising Sun (Murder Ballad No. 1)" or "Lafayette (Murder Ballad No. 2)." And "The Road of Pins" or "Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)." Hence, last evening's poll. The results are interesting, and will definitely be factored into my final decision. If you have an opinion and have not yet voted, please do. I am having some weird trouble determining precisely when some of the earlier stories were written, those from the nineties, before I began dating the hell out of everything, but we'll sort that out. With any luck, I'll be able to post a preliminary ToC sometime in the next couple of days.

It's strange. This feels like I'm editing an anthology, not compiling a collection of my own work.

Last night, after egg salad for dinner, we watched three or four more episodes from Season Three of Nip/Tuck. It's kind of fascinating how pretty much everyone in the show but Christian has turned into a total douchebag. I spent a sizable chunk of the evening on rp in Insilico. It was good rp, not like that mealy stuff you get at Wal-Mart for $4.99 (plus tax). It's weird to be so immersed in that world again, but, for now, it's a good weird. And that was yesterday.

No lists. No numbers this ayem (aside from the entry title). My mind will simply have to cope without itemized lists.

Yesterday, I received a copy of Dead Reckonings #6 (Hippocampus Press), which includes a review by S.T. Joshi of The Red Tree. It's one of the finest reviews I've ever received for any book by any reviewer. I'd quote it here, but I think modesty actually forbids. Yeah, who knew I had a scrap of modesty anywhere in me? Anyway, yeah...wow. Maybe I'll post part of it later, once this acharacteristic attack of virtue subsides.

I went Outside yesterday, having discovered— thanks to Spooky —that I'd last been out on the 22nd, not the 23rd, which meant my 12th day was Wednesday. We only went as far as the market, over on the East Side. All those faces, all that light, all the movement, it left me dazed. But I intend to venture out again today.

I hope everyone who is a subscriber to Sirenia Digest has received their copy of #50. Feel free to comment here on the issue, if you'd like.

I've reached the point where I have to face up to the fact that I'm taking far too long to get the next novel written. I'll be talking to my agent early next week, to try to figure out how to get the train back on the tracks.

Amazingly good rp in Insilico last night. This sim continues to amaze and please me. I think it will, indirectly, birth many new stories, simply by keeping that part of my brain so stimulated. There's a screencap from last night, behind the cut:

( Abeus and Xiang )

As of today, I have not left the House in 11 days. If I don't leave tomorrow, I shall have broken my old record.

I am very pleased to see that The Red Tree, A is for Alien, and "Galápagos" all three made Locus Magazine's 2009 Recommended Reading List.

My great thanks to Geoffrey (readingthedark) for making the drive to Providence the last two days to keep the shut-in invalid lady company while Spooky was stuck in jury duty (which is now over, thank fuck).

Work on Sirenia Digest #50 continues, and it should go out tomorrow night. My thanks to all the subscribers for their patience this month.

1. As of this morning, I have not left the House in nine days. My record is, I think, eleven. I'm tempted— given the weather and this mountain of work —to go for twelve and set a new record. I think the only thing that bothers me about my tendency to be content inside for long stretches of time is the fact that it really doesn't bother me.

2. A very good writing day, helping to make up for Thursday and Friday. Yesterday, I did 1,547 words on the new science-fiction story, "Hydrarguros." At this point, I'm thinking I'll finish it tomorrow or maybe Tuesday (we have to see how much Spooky being sentenced to jury duty upsets my scehdule), and then I can get Sirenia Digest #50 together and out to subscribers.

3. I've been catching up on sleep the last two nights. I think I may have gotten a full eight last night, and they were desperately needed.

4. Insilico continues to make me a happy little Mandarin android. It's hard to believe I only started roleplaying there on January 23rd, or that Xiang has experienced so much in such a short span of time.*

5. Yesterday, I finished reading "Eotheroides lambondrano, new middle Eocene seacow (Mammalia, Sirenia) from the Mahajanga Basin, northwestern Madagascar."

6. Yesterday, Spooky drove down to Kingston to see her parents. Her dad's been away in the Philippines, doing anthropologist stuff. I stayed here and wrote. She returned with Cephalopodmas presents we were meant to get a month ago, including the collected works of Beatrix Potter and a set of flannel sheets.

7. Geoffrey (readingthedark) will be arriving this evening, and I'm looking forward to it, as I've not had company since he left on the 16th, after the trip to Brooklyn.

8. The platypus says I'm "burning daylight," and the dodo concurs and adds "Giddy up, pilgrim." Really, I have to stop letting those two stream old westerns via Netflix.

*Soon, things would begin to (as they say) go to shit.