Caitlín R. Kiernan

Here in Rhode Island, we're having a marvelous April.

So, I have long been an admirer of the awesomeness of coilhouse, but, of late, they've been dropping these "(trigger warning!)" PSAs into lots of their posts. What the fuck, guys? To start with, this is fucking Coilhouse, home of the weird, brash, and bold. And secondly, when the hell did sudden, unexpected emotional responses that resonate deeply because of traumatic personal experiences become a Bad Thing that one should be warned against? And – no shit – I say this as someone who's struggled with severe PTSD since before it was a goddamn acronym and who's still medicated for it. And yet, here I am, the personification of TRIGGERING, the very idea of TRIGGERING MADE FLESH. Has the concept of catharsis passed from the world? I can't help but suspect that coilhouse has bowed to the pressure of the Whiners. Butch up, people. There is no fucking shelter from the storm. Worse still, the storm has only just begun.

I will not be a member of the congregation of the Church of Protect Me From That Which Might Make Me Cry.

Yeah, another grumpy day.

But I have to get over it, because tomorrow is Spooky's birthday, and I think I'm going to be in Boston on Saturday evening...so...maybe the Good Fairies of Sunshine and Pink-Pony Cupcake Sprinkles will show up and pull some cheer forth from my ass in time to save the day.

---

Yesterday was spent editing Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, answering email, sending email, waiting on email, and not much else. Today, I begin a vignette for Sirenia Digest #67. It's all in my head.

My thanks to oldfossil59 for making sure I got a copy of Publisher's Weekly 258/24, in which Two Worlds and In Between not only received a starred review, but appeared on the Table of Contents page as their "pick of the week." It really is amazing, holding that in my hands, seeing the final version of Lee Moyer's cover in color. So, thank you, oldfossil59.

So few people would ever guess that "Houses Under the Sea" was inspired by R.E.M.'s song "Belong." And that just goes to show you how useful expectations can be. "Oh, that story was inspired by Lovecraft!" Well, actually...

---

Okay, here's another one to help me purge the angrification gremlins. If you're running a writer's conference at a well-respected liberal-arts college some 70 miles from my home (and that's as the crow flies, so it probably more like 125 miles), because you want me on ONE panel, then you're going to have to offer me a hell of a lot more than lunch and breakfast. Like an honorarium, and travel expenses, and a hotel room. Offer me those, and I might think about it. Maybe. It's nice to be asked, yes, but it's rude to put someone (a freelancer, at that) in the position of having to say no to what only seems like an honor, in a world where gas is edging towards four dollars a gallon. And ys, I appreciate the conference doesn't have a lot of money, but that's not my problem.

Hold on...be back in a second. Spooky is channeling her inner australopithicine. No, really. Monkey noises.

---

Round 3 of the Big Damn eBay Auction has begun. Right here. Please bid if you are able and interested! Thankses, Precious.

---

Last night, we made up for the lousy Hal Hartley film by watching Terrence Malick's impressive debut feature, Badlands (1973). Somehow, I'd never seen it before. Then there was Rift, and the blowback from the Big Patch, 1.3, which has loads of cool shit, but they messed up guild vaults, so we still don't have one, and all the talent trees were reset. Still, we managed a very good rp scene in the Spire of Orphiel. Later, Spooky read aloud from Junky, and then I read back over "The Maltese Unicorn," in Supernatural Noir. I really am exceptionally happy with this story, and thankful I was given a chance to write it. Now, I proceed to the other tales in the book!

Oh....here's something interesting at NPR: The End Of Gender?.

Ambiguously,
Aunt Beast

I'm pretty sure I'm not up to making this entry. I got to bed at 2:30 a.m., but didn't get to sleep until after 4 a.m. So I will try to keep this short, for my own sake.

All of yesterday was spent putting the finishing touches on the ms. for The Ammonite Violin & Others, but there are still finishing touches that need doing. Just a few.

That's what I'll do today.

It's a rainy day, here in Providence.

Also, yesterday, I received my comp copies of Ellen Datlow's new anthology, Lovecraft Unbound (Darkhorse). It's a gorgeous book, and includes a reprint of my story "Houses Under the Sea," which is still one of my favorite stories by me (sort of amazing, considering I wrote it in 2004), as well as lots and lots of stories by other fine writers. Please pick up a copy.

I'm sitting here contemplating my day planner. I'd hoped things would lighten up after August. Then I hoped that after September things would be easier. Nope. This month, I have to get a book proposal to my agent (for the next novel), which is quite overdue. I have to write the YA Mars story. I have two public appearances and two interviews. I have to produce Sirenia Digest #47. November is free of interviews and public appearances, but I have to write a short story for the chapbook that will accompany The Ammonite Violin & Others, and produce Sirenia Digest #48, and actually get the new novel started (assuming I don't start it this month). December will be Sirenia Digest #49, plus a short story for a Robert Silverberg tribute anthology, and work on the next novel. If I'm lucky, things might lighten up just a little in January.

One should never, ever complain about having too much work to do.

Here's the link for the Escape Pod podcast of "Ode to Katan Amano" again. I gather a lot of Escape Pod's regular listenership was rather put off. Fuck 'em. Which, not inappropriately, is almost the same as saying "Fuck me," except there's no apostrophe, and the "m" and the "e" are transposed.

Last night, more Weeds, and a good deal of World of Warcraft.

I think this will be a short entry. The Mordorian Death March resumes in earnest today, and I have only ten days remaining to find its conclusion.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,473 words on "Untitled 27" and finished the vignette. If I could pick but a single word to describe the piece, I think that one word word be intense. If nothing else, it is intense. It doesn't woo you, doesn't hold your hand and buy you candy and flowers and take you to a movie. All in all, it's more like the pieces in Frog Toes and Tentacles, I suspect. I would like a different title, and maybe I will find one. This evening, I'll do a little editing on it and send it away to Vince to be illustrated. Sirenia Digest #18 will also include my long "short" story "Houses Under the Sea."

I have zero enthusiasm for this stroll into the grey wastes of Nurn, and I see nothing to be profited by lying about a thing like that. Belatedly, it occurs to me I might have found a boat willing, for a price, to take me across the Sea of Núrnen to Thaurband or Nurngost and I wouldn't be taking the long way around. But I shall not now cry over spilled milk. Just shut up and walk, Kiernan. You have only ten days left, which is both the good and the bad news.

Down the way, the road's divided;
Paint me the places you have seen.
Those who know what I don't know
Refer to the yellow, red and green.

A decent enough walk yesterday. And after dinner, an episode of Nature I'd not seen about an herpetologist's search for very large crocodiles in Asia, Africa, and Australia, specimens over twenty feet, and the question of whether or not the trophy slaughter of crocodiles before hunting bans and restrictions began might have removed the "giant gene" from various populations, since the largest specimens were (artificially) selected against. And then I was up until three thirty reading the Steinbeck biography. If nothing else, Steinbeck's misadventures and general shiftlessness during his twenties and early thirties make me feel a little better about having been such a grand fuck up during that portion of my own life.