Caitlín R. Kiernan

Er...yeah. I just wasted half an hour searching for a Martha Jones icon. It's what I do. Well, it's the sort of thing I do. Sometimes. Like this morning.

Yesterday, was a bit like the day before yesterday, only less so. Still mostly the busyness of writing, and too much email, but not as much too much email, and with the added burden of waiting. Few things in the world are as evil as waiting. I'm pretty sure that there's a whole level of Dante's Unabridged Inferno (to be published in 2019) where the damned suffer an eternity of...waiting. Nothing else. Just waiting. Yesterday, the waiting mostly involved Alabaster, and deadlines, and the impending vacation. Oh, and I went through the thirty-second "teaser" trailer for The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, literally frame by frame, then sent a few notes to Brian Siano. He's doing the final editing this weekend. It's almost perfect.

Then, just after dark, Harlan called to thank me for sending him a copy Two Worlds and In Between (he'd called and asked for one), and he went on and on about how much he loved Lee's cover. Which is cool, because I was inspired to go in that direction by several of Harlan's covers which incorporate him as an element of a fantastic scene (see The Essential Ellison, for example). And then he read me the first part of "Rats Live On No Evil Star," and...well, these are the moments writers live for, aren't they? When our literary progenitors, those without whom we would not be, speak our own words back to us, words they helped, without intention, to fashion? Yes, I think these are those moments. Anyway, Harlan was generous and sweet and funny, as always.

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Demons run when a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun,
When a good man goes to war.

Friendship dies and true love lies,
Night will fall and the dark will rise,
When a good man goes to war.

Demons run, but count the cost:
The battle's won, but the child is lost. ~ River Song

Which is to say we watched two more episodes of Doctor Who last night, two more from Series Six: "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler." And I will just say that, wow, "A Good Man Goes to War" redeems Series Six and back again. Damn, that was some good Who. And, as ashlyme predicted yesterday, I truly am enamored with Madam Vastra and Jenny. But some actual Victorian lesbian lizard-on-human action, please. Unmistakable innuendo is nice and all, but full on...um...I'm losing my train of thought. It is an excellent, excellent episode, as is "Let's Kill Hitler." There might yet be hope for Matt Smith (but not for Rory, who is only Xander recycled).

Also, more Rift last night (as per usual), leveling (Indus to 37) in the Moonshade Highlands. Later, I read a very, very good story, Angela Slatter's The Coffin-Maker's Daughter. I'd never read Slatter, but the story was very good, and was, indeed, about a coffin-maker's daughter, Hepsibah, who was herself a maker of coffins, and also a lesbian. What's not to like? Oh, plus Slatter was inspired by two Florence + the Machine songs, "My Boy Builds Coffins" and "Girl With One Eye." Then I read a new Stephen King story, "The Little Green God of Agony." As I've said, I don't care much for King, but I liked the title. And the story has a certain strength, and wasn't bad, if only the ending hadn't veered off into such clichéd creep-show horrors. If your stories fall apart when the monster appears on stage, stop writing about monsters. I drifted off to sleep sometime after four ayem, watching Frank Borzage's 1932 adaptation of A Farewell to Arms, which really is better than Charles Vidor's 1957 version, and not just because Gary Cooper is cooler than Rock Hudson.

Also, because I was admonished in yesterday's comments by mizliz13 for using the recently overused and perverted adjective awesome, and admonished rightly so, from here on I shall use "bow tie" in its stead.

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Today is an assembly day. I must pull Sirenia Digest #72 together, and try to get it out before midnight (CaST). By the way, "Question @ Hand #5" will be the last "Question @ Hand." Indeed, I've half a mind not to run it, but that would be a sleight to the few people who did write pieces (and the one who wrote two!). I think that the decline in replies (#1 had over 30, about a year and a half ago; #5 had 10 responses) is further evidence of the dramatic changes here on LJ.

And now, the platypus.

Don't Get Cocky, Kid,
Aunt Beast

Over the many years that this LiveJournal has existed (since 2004), I have said repeatedly that I do not allow contentious comments. Comments, yes. You may even feel free to disagree, briefly, so long as it is evident (to me) you're not, clearly, aiming to start an argument. In short, we do not debate. Ever.

This blog is NOT a public forum, regardless of my inviting comments. Think of it like visiting a friend. This LJ is my house. And I expect people to behave in a civil fashion while in my house. This is, I know, asking a lot, as we do not live in a civil age, but I'm asking it, anyway.

If I find a comment argumentative or offensive, as has always been the case, I will delete it. I don't often delete anything. And I almost never ban anyone (maybe five, ever).

Furthermore, if it is obvious that I feel especially strongly on a subject, take that as a cue not to poke me with a pointy stick. It's common sense, guys. So, when I make angry, damning comments about ebooks, for example, that's my opinion. Disagree? You have the whole internet, except this blog, in which to express your dissatisfaction with my comments. That seems fair

As of tomorrow, the LJ will no longer be mirrored at FaceBook, as Facebook no longer allows users to turn off comments.

Not Open To Debate,
Aunt Beast

I've been sitting here for half an hour trying to wake up enough to write a blog entry. I had my breakfast of goat food and milk, and I'm still working on the morning Red Bull (coffee truly is for pussies). My body visited eight hours of sleep upon me last night, rather unexpectedly. I suppose it was needed. I am becoming hypnophobic, I think. That is, sleep frightens me. It took me a bit to puzzle out the why. Sleep has been intensely unpleasant for a long time – because of the dreams that are too vivid – but now I have pills that dim the dreams from three-color Technicolor to the older, kinder two-color process. But, I digress. Maybe. Anyway, no. It's not the dreams. It's the amount of time that sleep deducts from my conscious life, from what I have remaining of it. This is, of course, a Land of Unknown Variables. Life remaining to CRK might = N, let's say, and time deducted by sleep during N might = n, but...never mind. I'm too sleepy for algebra, I think you'll get the picture; time is always running out.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,829 words in the Mars story that is now known as "The House of Glass Coffins." It began as an idea for a vignette, and grew into a full-fledged short story, though...I think it wanted to be a novella. Today is assembly day for Sirenia Digest #69, which may, if we're all lucky, go out to subscribers before midnight EDT.

Oh, look. Now LJ's preview feature isn't working. Surprise! I've got to find some place to move this blog before the Russians, or whoever-they-ares, destroy LJ completely. I don't want to leave, but once the rats have all gone (and, mostly, they have), you gotta start making contingency plans. I'm considering both WordPress and TypePad. Equally stupid titles, but no worse, I suppose, than LiveJournal (though LJ is at least accurately descriptive). And before you suggest it, Dreamwidth is no longer an option, as I've learned much too much about the fascists who run it.

Where was I before I tried to preview this entry?

Oh, yes. This month's book of the month. After completely making an utter mess of things last month with Carrie Ryan's (so I quickly learned) laughably lousy The Forest of Hands and Teeth, this month I'm staying on firmer, more familiar ground. I kept meaning to create a graphic and post it, the cover of The Forest of Hands and Teeth with a red circle and slash around it. Anyway, this month's selection is Shirley Jackson's The Sundial (1958). It's one of Jackson's less well-known works, and I hope you'll join me in reading it. The novel has become hard to find, and if you can't find a copy to purchase (new or used), try the library (remember those?), or an ebook (I'm going to the Special Hell for that last suggestion, that anyone dare read a Shirley Jackson novel as *shudder* an ebook)*:



And that brings us to the Kickstarter for mine and kylecassidy's The Drowning Girl: Stills From a Movie That Never Existed. The Kickstarter has only four days to go, and we're at $2,846 pledged (or 237% funded), which is rather impressive, considering we were only aiming for $1,200. However, wouldn't it be a shame if we came this close to $3,000 and missed that nice round number by a mere $154? And it's not like we won't put the money to good use. So, consider a donation, if you haven't already. I wish I had more signed copies of the book to offer as rewards. Wow. Now I know that, if necessary, I can sound like a televangelist begging for money in the name of Jay-zus.

And now, kittens, it's time for you to comment, and for me to make a virtual digest out of its constituent pixels. Come on, platypus.

Hypnophobically,
Aunt Beast

* I am relieved to see that The Sundial is not available on Kindle.

Okay, so this is not an actual entry-type-entry. I'm making this now because of my oath to make at least one entry every day for six months. And as the hacker buddies of the Kremlin have been so busy, again, launching DDOS attacks against LJ, I'm taking advantage of this window of opportunity.

Just glad we're not trying to do eBay at the moment.

Now, Spooky and I are going to watch Rango, because lizards, like bow ties, are cool.

Okay, what the fuck is up with the LJ banner today? Is this a reference to the Rapture flap?

No sleep until after six ayem, so fuck you, Mr. Insomnia. I was in bed at 2 a.m., to no avail, and this is what I get for trying to sleep without pharmaceutical backup.

Yesterday's first day of quasi-vacation bore no resemblance at all to an actual day of quasi-vacation. Which is to say work stuff kept me at the desk most of the day. Oh, and I installed Adobe Photoshop Elements on my iMac. Adobe Photoshop Elements has to have the most idiotic installation disk ever.

It's almost warm out there today.

Still no word from my agent. I think the "warning label" might be at the root of the quiet.

Last night we saw David O. Russell's very impressive The Fighter. And read Under the Poppy. And played Rift. And why the fuck is my left ear ringing?

And there was The Dream this morning, and that's enough for now.

And suddenly, here it is, my 2,500th LiveJournal entry. I was relatively late coming to LJ. I began an account here April 15th, 2004, intending it only as a mirror for my Blogger account. And that's what it was for a while. But, for one reason or another, I eventually switched over to LJ exclusively. I'm not even going to try to "guesstimate" how many words I've written on LJ over the past six years. An awful lot. And if you go back and add in the Blogger entries, which began on November 24th, 2001...well, it's a lot of words, and spans the better part of my career as a writer. On November 24th, 2011, I'll have been blogging for an entire decade, which seems almost impossible.

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I'm utterly overwhelmed at the response to yesterday's "Spooky Birthday Present Fund" proposal. I'd thought that we might get fifteen donations by late June. As of this morning, we have twenty five. About an hour ago, I took down the PayPal button, and we started turning people away. This means that I'll be producing twenty-five copies of the new poem, instead of fifteen copies. My great thanks to everyone who's taking part in this (including the people we turned away). You guys are unbelievable. While most donors were in the US, we also have people in Canada, England, and Australia. Now, of course, I have to write a very good poem. So, yeah, wow and thank you. We have all your snail-mail addresses, and the signed and numbered copies of the poem will be mailed out late in June.

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Today, I'm going to begin writing "Tempest Witch," my Frazetta tribute, which will be appearing in Sirenia Digest #54 later this month. As soon as this piece is done, and as soon as I've read A House is Not a Home, I'll be beginning work on "The Maltese Unicorn."

I'd like to remind you that, although the limited edition is sold out, there are still copies of the trade hardcover of The Ammonite Violin & Others available from Subterranean Press.

There was a mild seizure yesterday evening, which took me by surprise, as I've not had one in...well, at least a month.

Night before last, we finally saw Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans. It's a brilliant film, despite having two sets of colons in the title.

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.

Does it seem to anyone else that LJ has been kind of quiet lately? I've noticed it mainly in fewer comments to my entries. I hope this isn't a sign of some great exodus to MySpace. Right now, I'm mirroring the blog over there, but I'd truly hate to think it's actually The Shape of Things to Come. Between the seizure-inducing adverts and the general meat-market atmosphere, I can't imagine it ever becoming the main site for this journal. I just don't think I could make that switch. Anyway...for those reading this from Blogger or MySpace, here's a link to the elf pr0n photos I posted last night. I was entirely too tired to mirror the entry. Comments welcome. I mean, I do read them. Often, I reply. Some days, they even help me keep my head above the rising water.

Though this latest issue of Sirenia Digest was especially difficult to get out, it also seems to have had the fewest difficulties on the distribution end of things compared to past issues. By the way, next month — well, actually, this month — Sirenia Digest 12 (which may also be counted as issue #11 or #13, depending how one chooses to count these things) will include one solo piece by me and a new collaboration with Sonya Taaffe (sovay). I very much hope that it will be out by the 21st. By the way, Herr Platypus says that anytime November 2nd should happen to fall on a Thursday, it's very good luck to subscribe to Sirenia Digest.

I had no idea that Ray Bradbury's short story "The Homecoming," long a favorite of mine (and the basis for his 2001 novel, From the Dust Returned), had been released as a hardback illustrated by Dave McKean. I spotted it last night at Borders, and it's frelling gorgeous.

Still working at the second reading of House of Leaves. Chapter IX, in which Danielewski manages to construct a labyrinth from text and footnotes (and the footnotes that some footnotes require).

The weather, which had warmed up a bit, is turning cold again.

Not much to be said for yesterday. I grow tired of posting daily word counts, as I'm sure you've grown weary of reading them. There was a documentary on the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Dinner from the deli at Whole Foods. Too much candy I shouldn't have eaten. Fun with Hubero. A perfectly humdrum sort of day.

If you've not yet pre-ordered Daughter of Hounds, Amazon.com is still offering it bundled with Alabaster for a mere $27.70.

That's it for now. I need more candy...