Caitlín R. Kiernan

The writing went well yesterday. I did precisely 1,800 words. This puts the Word Bank at 2,196. I call that breathing room, should the need arise. At this point, it's 16 down, 15 days to go. Which sort of made yesterday the top of this tall hill. I am now headed down the other side and shall let gravity do what gravity does.

Good news from my editor yesterday. Daughter of Hounds is still on the Barnes and Noble SF/F trade paperback charts, at #30. If it makes my editor happy, it must be good. I have been disappointed, though, that there have not been more reviews.

Yesterday, the signature sheets for Tales from the Woeful Platypus went away to the printer in Dexter, Michigan. Subpress now has the cover posted, by the way. Those who have preordered the book should have it before much longer.

A nice e-mail from yesterday, courtesy Alan F.:

First things first: I'm a huge fan. I loved Daughter of Hounds, which came as no surprise at all, though when I think about the book now it's this sentence from p. 21 that will always come immediately to mind:

'His eyes are like spoonfuls of fire.'

God, I love that. The humour, too; Odd Willie made me laugh out loud at least half a dozen times (trust me, for me that's impressive).

About your forthcoming SF collection; I agree with one of the posted comments, A is For Alien is a great title. Although - and assuming the story will be in there - what about calling it Bradbury Weather & Other Stories, which strikes me as a good way to pay homage to the man? Then again, going by the titles of your previous collections, maybe one ending in ...& Other Stories doesn't really work for you...

Thank you. I rather like Bradbury Weather & Other Stories. Or maybe just Bradbury Weather. Anyway, I have some time to figure all this out.

After the writing yesterday, I got dressed and left the house (insert collective gasp here). The weather had turned windy and bitter. Blegh. We drove over to Borders and picked up a copy of Mitch Cullin's Tideland. Gods, bookshops depress me. Then we stopped by Whole Foods for kava. Back home, Spooky made chili for dinner, and then we watched Sam Wood's splendid adaptation of Ernest Hemigway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). I so adore this film — not as much as I adore the novel, but enough to land it in any longish list of my favorite films. And Gary Cooper always does it for me. Plus, Ingrid Bergman at 28 made a perfectly delightful 19 year old. Later, we read the first six chapters of Tideland, which I am happy to report is every bit as wonderful as Terry Gilliam's film version, though they are rather different approaches to the same story. The major difference so far is that while Gilliam's POV is clearly that of a child, Cullin's novel strikes me as a narrative written by an adult about events which occurred during childhood. Cullin may be joining the ranks of my favourite authors.

I've put a bunch of Concrete Blonde on my iPod. They were my favourite band from about 1991 until 1994 or so. I've hardly listened to Free or Bloodletting or Walking in London for ages now, as all these songs take me back to places I'd usually rather not recall. But. Now I'm listening. The music and lyrics hold up marvelously after all these years.

John Lennon, Doctor King, Harvey Milk —
And all for goddamn nothing.
God is a bullet. Have mercy on us everyone.
— Concrete Blonde, Free