greygirlbeast: (slytherin)
Okay. This morning I know that I have a hangover.

A good writing day yesterday. I did 1,268 words (bringing the total to 14,263) and finished the thirteenth section. "XIII. The Weaver's Retreat" was especially taxing, but I think I did right by it. And for anyone who hasn't already figured it out, yes, "Bainbridge" is the story that links all the Dancy Flammarion stories to the hemispherical world of Murder of Angels (currently available from Amazon.com for only $4.99, by the way). I can only hope that I've not been overly ambitious with this story. It's a piece that's trying to interweave three narrative threads, two Southern Gothic and one something resembling "traditional" fantasy. At least if I fail, it will be what the Bear recently referred to as an "ambitious failure." I very much need to contact Ted today and see how his work on the art for Alabaster is progressing.

Afterwards, after all the writing, it was late and the sun was setting. But it was warm enough outside to open a window in the living room. I dressed hastily for a walk to the park. There were brilliant clouds, great cumulus Maxfield Parish clouds — enormous, roiling banks of pink and orange, blue-grey, purple, bluish-white, patches of what I can only describe as a cotton-candy blue-green. Spooky took a bunch of cloud photos. It was warm enough that I was able to wear my biker jacket over a tank top, instead of having to bundle up in wool. Sadly, I knew the gorgeous cloudbank was being pushed away west by cold Canadian air. I tried to call them back, but rearranging clouds and halting the advance of a cold front is entirely beyond my magickal abilities (or anyone else's, for that matter). But I called to them anyway. I told them I was on their side. There were flashes of lightning deep within the clouds, and I pretended they were answering me. We stayed until the last of the sunset tints faded from the highest of the clouds. Today, it's cold again.

Spooky and I were awakened night before last by one of the loudest thunderclaps I've ever heard. I'd meant to mention that yesterday and forgot. It was wonderful.

Okay. It's time to announce the winner of December's monster doodle sculpture (MDS #5), the Nebari ice skipper. It is (drum roll) Elizabeth Harrington. Presumably she's reading this. Elizabeth, Spooky needs your snail-mail address. Please send it to her at zquid_zoup@yahoo.com, and she'll get your monster into the mail ASAP. See? This is what comes of subscribing to Sirenia Digest. Free monster doodle sculptures.

Spooky's finished the "cozy" slipcase for Frog Toes and Tentacles letter X. It'll go up on eBay in the next hour or two. No "buy it now." Bids only. This will be a ten-day auction. There are photos behind the cut. The bag is black crushed velvet lined with red silk. The letter X is hand embroidered. I cut the fabric, and Spooky did the design and all the sewing. The winning bid will also get a copy of the chapbook, False Starts. Click here to go directly to the item.

Letter X and it's handmade 'cozy' slipcase )


And, of course, there are other goodies up at eBay. Like The Dry Salvages and one of our last remaining copies of In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers (illustrated and signed by Dame Darcy). And there's Sirenia Digest. Click here to subscribe now and be eligible for the next mds giveaway, coming later this month! Stop being a slacker.

By the way, if there are people on my friends list who live in or are familiar with the Salem/Marblehead area of Massachusetts, drop me an e-mail (at lowredmail@mac.com). I know [livejournal.com profile] kambriel is in Salem, but I don't know about anyone else. This will be our last year in Atlanta. I'm sick of living in the South, and I'm sick of living in a city with no identity beyond a common desire by its inhabitants to make money. Really. I've been amazed, reading Poppy's post-K entries, how New Orleans has behaved like a community of people instead of like a place where a whole bunch of people just happen to live. If Atlanta were struck by a disaster, I really doubt you would see people fighting to stay. Anyway, yeah, I'm interested in Salem and Marblehead.

Spooky and I finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last night. I almost forgot to mention that. I enjoyed it muchly. Okay. Today I'm going to finish this story...

Anne Sexton

Jan. 1st, 2006 01:11 pm
greygirlbeast: (chi2)
I was sitting in the living room watching Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World (1951) on TCM when 2005 faded away and 2006 began. If you can get past the anti-scientific, pro-military subtext, it's really one of the better sf films of its time.

A decent enough writing day yesterday. Apparently, what I wrote on Friday was better than I'd thought, because I read through it and made hardly any changes. Then I wrote the eleventh section of "Bainbridge," which is called "The Dirty Work of Angels." It came in at 1,005 words. THE END is close now, though it may be Tuesday instead of Monday, since I'm getting such a late start today. Perhaps tomorrow I can pull one of those rare days when I write more than two thousand words in a single afternoon and reach THE END. That would be nice.

Except for the new vignettes for Sirenia Digest, January is to be a month of editing. I can edit anywhere. A bloody shame I can't pack up the laptop, my thesaurus, and the iPod and spend the month editing in Jacksonville or Neptune Beach or St. Augustine. What's the point, I'd like to know, of all this mobile technology if one cannot be mobile with it? Perhaps a long-lost aunt in Jacksonville will call today and offer me her beach house for the entire month of January (but I'm not holding my breath).

Monster Doodle Sculpture #5 is finished. Today I'll find out who gets it. I'm particularly fond of this one. It's a 1/2-scale model of a Nebari ice skipper. Actually, this is the crenelated ice skipper, which is more restricted in its range than the common ice skipper. You can tell the two apart by the morphology of the dorsal ridge which is distinctly notched in the crenelated ice skipper, but forms a single blade-like structure in the common ice skipper. I have this on the best authority. Both species are delicious, once they've been roasted and extracted from their thick exoskeletons. This is the first time I've attempted to model a Nebari species, and I'm quite happy with it. Anyway...


The Crenelated Ice Skipper (Nebari Prime) )


Yesterday, I forgot to mention this week's Kid Night movies. We started off with some peculiar little collection of shorts by three different filmmakers based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe (The Edgar Allen Poe Collection: Volume 1, Annabel Lee and Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Lurker Films). George Higham's stop-motion/puppetry version of "Annabel Lee" was visually so-so, but the narration was hamfisted and rendered the whole thing almost unwatchable. There was an adaptation of "The Raven" by Peter Bradley, and it was marginally better than Higham's "Annabel Lee." The raven puppet was interesting, but, again, the narration was terrible and the woman playing Lenore looked like a cheap hooker. Finally, there was an adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" that was so dull I can't even remember much about it, except that it was in Spanish with English subtitles. Blegh. Fortunately, we also rented Dark Water, Walter Salles' 2005 remake of Hideo Nakata's Honogurai mizu no soko kara (2002), which was actually a pretty decent little thriller. Good performances by Jennifer Connelly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postlethwaite. The script wisely relied more on dread and disquiet that jack-in-the-box shocks. Nicely atmospheric. Now I will never move to Roosevelt Island (not that I would have anyway). This film probably deserves more attention than it got.

If you haven't yet subscribed to Sirenia Digest, just click here. Also, have a look at our eBay auctions. Thanks. Hopefully, we'll have letter X of Frog Toes and Tentacles up by tomorrow afternoon.

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Caitlín R. Kiernan

February 2012

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