Caitlín R. Kiernan

Somehow, about 7:30 a.m., I wandered into the bedroom and managed to fall asleep, listening to Spooky sleep, listening the Rachel's Selenography. I'm not entirely sure what happened in the two and a half hours preceding that. I know that I seriously considered getting dressed, taking the camera, and wandering Federal Hill taking dawn photos. Of course, when the drugs finally did kick in (as they evidently did), I'd have fallen asleep beneath a tree or in a storm drain, and right now Spooky would have the Providence PD out looking for me.

Things I can do at dawn thirty, fucked up on meds, unable to sleep: print fliers, go into WoW and put stuff up in the auction house on the Exodar. I can also take photos, post them to the internet, and make two blog entries, and talk to the cats, and urinate, and twat about ceramic cephalopods. Wait. Maybe that last part was before I began trying to sleep.

I love you, Nathan Fillion.

Tip: While good intentions are noted, it's a bad idea to tell the insane, sleep-deprived lady whose been an insomniac since grade school all the various home remedies you know for getting to sleep. Trust me. If you've thought of it, so have I. If you've read it somewhere, so have I. I've tried it. A thousand times, along with a thousand other clever and ineffective things I thought up on my own. Yes, even that one. And that one, too. Thank you.

I think my present mental state might best be described as manic quasi-consciousness. Good thing I only have one thousand things I need to do today.

Correction to yesterday's ReaderCon schedule: My Sunday reading is not thirty minutes long; it's one hour long. Two to three p.m., Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday...we went to Warwick and saw Michael Mann's Public Enemies (fictionalized from a non-fiction book by Bryan Burrough) which was actually quite good. Depp and Bale were both excellent. Lovely cinematography. Great soundtrack and score. But, we meant to attend the 3:15 show. We even bought tickets for the 3:15 show. But when we went into that "auditorium," we discovered it was actually a closet with a tiny little screen, and none of the seats actually centered with the screen. Worse yet, it smelled like cat piss. Or an abandoned baby diaper. So, we went back to the ticket booth and told them we could not possibly enjoy Johnny Depp and Christian Bale shooting at each other with machine guns on that tiny screen in a room that stunk of cat piss. The nice woman seemed very understanding and exchanged our old tickets for new tickets to the 3:45 showing, in a huge auditorium with a huge screen and centered seats and no cat-piss smell. Yay. It only smelled like old popcorn. So, yeah, good movie.

Since I have been awake (almost an hour now), only one thing has not brought me acute pain. Simon & Garfunkel. Go figure.

I should do something responsible now, like post a link to The Red Tree, and remind you that unless the sales those first few weeks are really good, I'm moving to Kamchatka to live in a hollow stump. No kidding. These things happen all the goddamn time. You think writers just get tired of writing and go into some more fulfilling and profitable line of work, like the food-services industry. No. They go to Kamchatka. There's a Russian word for them, but I've forgotten it. Oh, and if I were responsible, I'd say please subscribe to Sirenia Digest, 'cause these days, it keeps a roof above mine and Spooky's head.

Which reminds me, I think Readercon 20 has totally missed the boat on programming. Don't get me wrong, these are all marvelous panels, the one's they've scehduled. At least, they would be, in an ideal world. Which this isn't. So, where's the important stuff that writers need to know? Like, "Why are we letting Google Books ass rape us and not even putting up a fight?" and "Friends don't help friends become freelancers," and "A writers guide to home dentistry"? Especially the Google Books thing, because, you know, fine, information might want to be fucking free, but until groceries want to be free, and electricity wants to be free, and water, and rent wants to be free, and health care wants to be free, and we all live in a happy green cyber-hippy utopia ruled by our benevolent King Moby, I need to get paid. It might not sound very artistic of me, but it's the goddamned truth.

Platypus: Caitlín?

Me: Yeah? What?

Platypus: You need to stop now.

Me: Oh. But....

Platypus: No buts. Go sit over there and suck your thumb. I'll erase the death threats against Google execs, and all that stuff about having sex with vacuum cleaners. Go. Now.

Platypus: Sorry guys. She gets like this. Move along. Nothing here to see.

I need to thank a few people for recent gifts. First, Kim Turner who sent me a copy of Windsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913). A huge and beautiful and wonderful volume, and I am extremely thankful. Also, Stephen Spector sent a CD with various Decemberists rarities. And then, this morning, the USPS brought me a package from Poppy (docbrite) containing a small box of absinthe-flavored chocolates from New Orleans' own Sucré. Watch it, people. You're going to spoil me.

Yesterday was a genuinely remarkable writing day, and I managed 1,820 words, and finished "The Thousand-and-Third Tale of Scheherazade." This is the first of my two "Poe tribute" stories for Sirenia Digest #38. Today, I will begin the second story.

My thanks to Sonya (sovay) for figuring out that Crowley's Hudson River "Aesopus Island" is now (and may have been then) "Esopus Island."

I ventured out into the world yesterday, into Outside, and hardly any of the snow has melted. We crossed the Providence River on our way to the market, and it remains partially frozen. Since the Epic Extraction (January 10th), I'd only really left the house once, for the drive to Moosup Valley (on January 16th). I realized yesterday that, over the course of some 16 days, I'd been Outside maybe five hours, total, which is bad even for me. I have resolved to do better. My world is out there, not in here.

Last night, we watched the newest episode of Battlestar Galactica, "A Disquiet Follows My Soul." It was, all in all, a solid episode, but I can't help but point out that, with the story drawing to a close, it's time to stop introducing more subplots and devote the available time to addressing those that are pre-existing. Afterwards, we watched Gil Kenan's City of Ember, an adaptation of Jeanne Duprau's novel (which I have not read). On the one hand, it's a beautiful film, to be sure, and Ember is a marvelously realized world. But, on the other, many of the cast members seemed to be set on autopilot (the older actors, mainly), and the plot holes were so numerous that even I couldn't ignore them. I do try, normally. Plot is not usually foremost on my mind. Other things interest me more, and, usually, if a writer or filmmaker has done a sufficient job tending to such matters as mood and characterization and worldbuilding, I'm willing to overlook a shoddy job of plot construction, that thing Margaret Atwood referred to as "a what and a what and a what." (Exact quote, from "Happy Endings", "That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.") In the end, I wanted to like City of Ember much more than I actually could.

Sorry to keep harping on this, but, if you have not yet ordered a copy of A is for Alien, I hope that you will do so today. Just look at the cover. How can you possibly resist?



Spooky has decalred I cannot legally change my name to "La Bête Gris." I mean, I could, legally, but she forbids it. So, maybe it will be a nom de plum for certain of my writings to come.

And the platypus says the dodo says that's enough journalizing for one day, and I'm wondering, since when does the platypus do the dodo's bidding?

I think the snow that fell on New Year's Eve has no intention ever of melting. It's a hard white crust laid over half that portion of the world that is visible from the many windows of the house. I've not left the house since the storm, which means I've not left the house this year. Today the sun is brilliant, and the sky is utterly blue. There is no warmth, though.

I did some tallying this morning, and see that I've done 53 pieces of fiction (vignettes, short stories, etc.) for Sirenia Digest over the past four years, since December 2005. During that same time, I've written only 5 short stories that were not intended for the digest; I also did the Beowulf novelization and wrote The Red Tree. The number of non-digest stories climbs slightly if I include the original pieces for Tales from the Woeful Platypus (as opposed to the reprints). If I include those, the number comes to 10. Still, 53 to 10. Plainly, the vast majority of my short fiction these days is being written for the digest. I just hope that quantity has not overwhelmed quality. That is one of my greatest fears.

I have an email from Mat Winser, who asks:

I think a few years ago, you wrote a story for an anthology based on Absinthe. Did that collection ever see light of day?

The anthology did not, which is a shame, as I was to be paid, in part, with Mari Mayans. However, the story I wrote for the anthology, "La Peau Verte," was published in my collection To Charles Fort, With Love, and also won the International Horror Guild Award for "Outstanding Achievement" in mid-length fiction. It was also reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (vol. 17), edited by Steve Jones.

All of yesterday was spent getting Sirenia Digest #37 together, and it went out to subscribers late last night, at 11:12 p.m. (CaST). If you have not received #37 and are a subscriber, please write to Spooky at x.squid.soup.x(at)gmail(dot)com, and she'll make it right.

Last night, we had a sort of Nicolas Cage binge, and watched Vampire's Kiss (1989) and Moonstruck (1987). Nothing much else to yesterday.

I did 1,550 words yesterday.

I also obsessively checked the Amazon.com sales ranking on Daughter of Hounds at least once every hour. The book made it all the way up to 8,014 at one point. By the way, the platypus says that the 5th of January, should it happen to fall two days after the full moon, is the best date of all to order a copy of Daughter of Hounds. Hesheit is an amazing beast, the platypus, filled with wisdom and wit, piss and vinegar. Hesheit claims to have once lived beneath the desk of Isaac Asimov, and I wouldn't put it past himherit. One must never short-change a platypus.

There's a great wall of thunderstorms barreling down on Atlanta as I type this.

Last night, we watched Neil LaBute's 2006 remake of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man, and, really, the less said the better. This film would have been right at home in some mid-70s TV line-up, it was just that dull. Long have I said that Nicolas Cage makes two sorts of films, the brilliant and the abominable. This falls squarely into the latter camp. And just about anything else I might say about the film would only open one of those cans of political worms, and I've better things to do. After the wretched film, we read quite a bit more of Gregory Maguire's Lost, which grows more interesting.

—————

This morning I escaped a severe bout of dreamsickness by the merest fraction of a hair. I woke just after 10 a.m. (CaST), an hour later than I would have liked, from some cybernoir fiasco. There was snow the colour of rust. I may be able to blame The Road for that part. I'd lost a syringe of some sort and all manner of nonsense depended upon my finding it again. There were interminable conversations, and I cut my hand (I can't recall which one) on a broken bottle. The "plot" of this thing, Margaret Atwood's dreaded "a what and a what and a what," has faded almost beyond recollection. And that's a good thing, I suspect. But there were robots — not androids, but robots — none of which seemed to work quite as they should. I had a tiny, unheated apartment garishly lit by exposed fluorescent tubes that seemed to flicker incessantly. The floor was always wet. Not damp, but wet tile. I had sex with a very beautiful legless albino woman, and she had whole galaxies in her blue eyes. There was something that happened on a rickety fire escape overlooking a sort of gigantic excavation. I don't think I ever did manage to get the syringe back, so that's probably why I wound up back here, pecking at this keyboard. That dream me was probably murdered by a corporate hit man or North Korean double agents or a legless albino woman. I will never know.

Yesterday we did only a single chapter, Chapter Six. It has a title, but not one I like or intend to keep, so it's best considered presently untitled. Soldier and Odd Willie trapped in the warrens beneath Woonsocket, Soldier as a child being led up to the attic of the yellow house on Benefit Street. And now the Zokutou whatchamadoodle looks like this:

404 / 691 (58.5%)

With luck, we'll make it through chapters seven and eight today. At this point, counting today and the day the ms. is supposed to be back in NYC, I have only fourteen days remaining before it's all pumpkins and mice again. And I shouldn't count the day it's due back, even though I am being allowed to e-mail the edited ms. back to Penguin. So, less than two weeks.

As we've been reading the novel this time, Spooky and I have been playing the "casting the movie" game. Here are our picks and blank spaces, our dream cast (so far) for a Daughter of Hounds film adaptation:

Emmie Silvey (eight years old) — uncast
Soldier (as adult) — Katee Sackhoff
Soldier (as child) — uncast
The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles — uncast
Deacon Silvey (now in his fifties) — Steve Buscemi
Sadie Jasper (now in her early thirties) — Clea Duvall
Odd Willie Lothrop — uncast
Saben White — uncast
The Bailiff — Jim Broadbent
Madam Terpsichore — Alice Krige
Sheldon Vale — uncast
George Ballou — Wilem Dafoe
Esmeribetheda — uncast

Hmmmm. I'd thought we had fewer blank spaces than that.

We had a very pleasant Beltane. We picked flowers late in the day. A huge feast for dinner and then the ritual around eleven p.m. During the ceremony we had blueberry cornbread and fresh, locally grown strawberries with lambic ale flavoured with black currants. I'll post the text of the ritual later, behind a cut, if anyone's interested. Still, I wished we could have been out on a field or a wood or on a beach somewhere, a bonfire and all. Ah, well. Someday. Someday, we'll see the Edinburgh Fire Festival, which is Beltane frelling done right. This afternoon, we'll take the last of the ale and bread and a few of the berries to the two oaks, the ones I posted a photo of earlier, the ones from my dream.

And now we have now reached that dread part of the year when May 26th looms vast and ugly on the horizon, and I'm beginning to fear that -2 will be an even traumatic birthday for this particular nixar than was -0, and, you know, gifts always seem to help to soften the blow. Should you be so inclined, there's this Amazon wish list thing.

Hold on, platypus. I'm coming....