Caitlín R. Kiernan

Last night, Spooky and I canceled our WoW accounts and uninstalled the game from our computers (my iMac, her laptop). So, as I said last night on Twitter, the end of an error, September 2008 to May 2011. Shaharrazad and Suraa, disgusted with Garrosh Hellscream and despairing that Azeroth and the Horde will ever get its shit together and stomp the fuck out of the Alliance, retired to the relative peace of Vengeance Landing in Northrend. Suraa plans to fish. Shahrrazad plans to torture small animals, then raise them from the dead to do her bidding. Oh, and I got back almost twenty gigs of memory on the iMac. I still have my beloved WoW actions figures, and my Shaharrazad mousepad. I'll always have the memories of those times before Blizzard dumbed down the game and pretty much ruined the player classes. And here's The Last Screencap (Suraa left, Shaharrazad right):



That said, yesterday was spent polishing "The Carnival is Dead and Gone," writing the prologomenon for Sirenia Digest #65, and doing the line edits for the "Crimson Alphabet" chapbook. The latter was emailed to subpress late yesterday. And remember, the chapbook comes free with the limited edition of Two World and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan, Volume One, which is also the edition with a bonus section of 16 pages of illustrations.

Gods, kittens. Polly Jean Harvey is hot. Her voice could bring me to orgasm. It probably has, in fact. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there.

Back to yesterday, the postperson brought my contributor's copies of Johnathan Strahan's Eclipse Four, which includes my story "Tidal Forces." One thing I love about the Eclipse series is that it harks back to the days of muti-genre anthologies: fantasy, sf, and dark fantasy, all in one book. This is a good thing.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions! Because the world insists money is necessary. Thanks!

Oh, this month looks terrifying. Which probably means I ought not look farther ahead than a day or two. I have to outline a book for Roc (resurrecting the title Blood Oranges for the "werepire" novel/s), and do mountains of research for Blue Canary, deal with the page proofs for Two Worlds and In Between, be in NYC on the 17th, and pray to fuck the editorial letter for The Drowning Girl doesn't show up until June. Oh, and get Sirenia Digest #66 written. Gonna be fun, and then some. Yes, I am being sarcastic.

Filled with the Glory of Polly Jean,
Aunt Beast

If gaming shit bores you, skip this. I won't be offended. I'm mostly writing it for me.

Setting aside the recycled cover fiasco with The Red Tree for a moment, I want to talk about World of Warcraft, and how my time with the game is growing short. I'll be playing for about another six weeks, then leaving WoW.

I've worked out an exit strategy. I'll finish getting my Loremaster title, and then that's it. And, by the way, as most of this entry will be devoted to how WoW has worked so hard the last couple of years screwing the pooch, I'll point out that Spooky and I were both within a hair's breadth of having Loremaster, when the Catacylsm expansion essentially undid all our progress, forcing us to start over. That's hundreds of hours each spent working towards the title (which is a pathetic example of time displacement, I am well aware).

I'll be going to Rift and LoTRO, as soon as I (hopefully) have a laptop later this spring. Spooky's on the Rift beta, and has been playing LoTRO, and they both look far superior to WoW. Rift is blowing my mind.

I did want to post a list of the particular things that have driven me, after three years of intensive WoW play, to jump ship. So, here goes:

1) Blizzard has chipped away at class abilities. Warlocks have lost a lot. Paladins even more. And it's still happening. Just last week, warlocks lost mana drain, a very important defensive spell for a class stuck in cloth armor. And, perhaps even worse than the chipping away, has been the inexplicable reorganization of abilities. Old spells have new names. It's beyond confusing.

2) Changing the talent specialization system. Now, you're forced to place all our talent points in one specialization, until you've spent 30 points, and only then can you place points in other specializations. The old ability to create hybrids has been severely hampered.

3) WoW, which was never a very bright bulb, is increasingly, pandering to the lowest common denominator. This has gotten so bad with the release of Cataclysm that I've come to think of it as the Beavis and Butthead of MMORPGs (and really, that should just be MMOG). It's an endless barrage of lame National Lampoon-style pop-culture satire, faux wit, and endless poop and fart jokes. WoW is now a game for fourteen year olds and forty year olds who never matured beyond fourteen. WoW is sunk almost as low as Second Life. And the game just gets easier, and easier, and easier...and easier. Mounts at Level 20, maps that hold your hand all the way to quests objectives, etc. I'm not even going to get into examples of racism and homophobia.

4) The homophobic hate speech in chat is only getting worse, and if anyone's trying to stop it, there's no evidence of that effort.

5) The game's penchant for forced socilaization and it's disinterest in solo players (or even groups of two or three) is worse than ever. It's aggressive. Sure, we have the random dungeon finder now, which is fine, if you want to take your chances on winding up with a bunch of teenage dounchebags.

6) Dungeons are essentially closed to solo players and small parties. You must be many levels (and sometimes entire expansions) beyond the dungeon's level to run them. And endgame is essentially closed to us.

7) The game has abandoned any pretense at being immerssive (see 3), if, indeed, it ever tried.

8) With Cataclysm, the last vestiges of a coherent ingame timeline has been lost. And the game's lore is, and has long been, utterly incoherent. It's Tolkien, Moorcock, Howard, etc. perverted to utter fucking nonsense. Contradictions are rife.

9) The obsession with mindless "achievements" is truly clogging up the gaming experience, and is one of very many transparent attempts to keep players online long after there's any truly engaging reason to play. I'd say it preys on the human propensity for obsession...but...no, I will say that.

10) WoW's barrage of holiday nonsense, which has never made any sense inworld, and which just keeps getting worse.

11) Watching Spooky play LoTRO, I see a much greater level of maturity among players, but this goes back to item 3.

12) One word: mini-games.

In short, I need a game that takes itself seriously. A joke here and there, fine. But WoW has become a really badly written spoof of sword & sorcery. I adore my main, Shaharrazad. I've been with her, as of this moment, 55 days, 15 minutes, and 35 seconds, since September 27th, 2008. I've invested a lot, in money and time. It's hard to let go of her, but I just can't take the idiots anymore, or the idiotic mess Blizzard has made of the game. Likely, I'll come back for expansions, for two or three week intervals, but that's it. Blizzard could have made it all right with Cataclysm; they did the exact opposite.

Shaharrazad, self-exiled Sin'dorei, servant of Sylvanas and Thrall, veteran of the war against the Burning Legion, the struggle against and defeat of Arthas and his Scourge, and the rise of Deathwing, is exhausted, and sees the world she fought for fall into the ruin and chaos. She will retreat soon to the peace and splendid cold of the Howling Fjord, and make a solitary life for herself in Northrend.

Here in Providence, autumn seems to have come to stay. Trees are going red and yellow. Spooky and I are talking about driving up the Blackstone River valley in a couple of weeks, into Massachusetts, and maybe as far as Vermont, just to see the trees. And, by the way, I'm guessing there aren't many people who dream about finding the axis (2nd) vertebra of a Triceratops, but I did last night.

No writing yesterday. On Monday, I went back to "There Will Be Kisses For Us All," abandoned in December 2008, and began from scratch. I did only 646 words. The prose is dense. And I spent a great deal of time with research. Like becoming obsessed with Romanian words for "whore" and "lover" and "wife." And whether Castle Poenari is on the north or south bank of the River Arges. And Rome's role in shaping the culture of Moldovan and Wallachian culture in the 15th Century. So, that was Monday. Today, I need to screw up my courage (an odd turn of phrase) and go back to work on the piece. But it's as intimidating as it was two years ago.

Only two days remain on the "napoval" auction. One of a kind, people. One of a kind. A piece of my personal history. Also, there are the other eBay auctions.

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The winner of the signed copy of Silk, commemorating seventeen years since I began writing it on October 11th, 1993, is ashlyme. The winner was determined by rolling polyhedral dice. If you are the winner, please send you snail-mail address to Spooky at crk_books(at)yahoo(dot)com, and we'll get it in the mail to you. My thanks to everyone who left comments on Monday. They were great, all those stories about first encounters with the novel. Oh, and also, we're a little behind shipping eBay packages, what with the HPLFF and the taxes and everything else, but they'll be going out very soon, promise.

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Yesterday, for the first time since coming home from the airport on October 5th, I left the House. We drove down to Warwick for a matinée of David Fincher's The Social Network. It's a brilliant film, and Fincher deserves an Oscar nomination this year. Wonderful performances all the way 'round. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score (which I downloaded weeks ago) is superb. Parallels are being drawn between this film and Citizen Kane. They're not inappropriate. Highly recommended.

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Ahem.

Spooky and I have been eagerly awaiting World of Warcraft's next expansion, "Cataclysm," due out December 7th. Yesterday, Blizzard rolled out patch 4.0, and we were excited about that, too. But my excitement came crashing down when I discovered that, among many other inexplicable and fundamental changes to gameplay (some of which I knew were being implemented), most warlocks have lost most of their minions, and had them replaced with...well...impostors. That is, Shaharrazad's succubus, Drusneth is now some hooven slut named Angxia. And her imp, Volyal, has been replaced with a much less agreeable imp named Voltuk. And her beloved felhound Greezun (who was the Reason) has been replaced by some mutt named Bheethun. Only her voidwalker, Zhar'los, was spared the purge. I'd had those minions for two years. Some players had the same minions for five years. And...gods...by the sword of my Dark Lady...I'm pissed about this. There was no sense in it. None at all. It's almost enough to make me give up on WoW. Yes, I know this sounds bloody ridiculous to all you non-warlock, non-WoW addicts. But there you go. The WoW bulletin boards are awash in 'lock sorrow, as we all join in grieving for our stolen minions, and as we futilely beg Blizzard to give us back our rightful minions, to whom we were soulbound. There's this poem, posted last night by a fellow Sin'dorei warlock, Myri (Sisters of Elune):

Ode to a Lost Voidwalker

Twas the night before Cata
and all through the land
Not a player was stirring,
their realms all unmanned.
The warlocks were nestled in Stormwind and Org,
Dreaming of chaos bolts, corruption and more!
Their minions all banish'd, soul shards fully stocked
waiting for Deathwing and his dragon flock.
Then suddenly, out of the gloom came a cry!
Our demons are missing! We have to know why!
In their places are strangers, our friends can't be found
From Icecrown to Stratholme we've scoured the ground.
They left us no messages, no clues to follow
and here we are lost, feeling lonely and hollow.
Oh where have they gone, our faithful fel pets...
A better companion, we haven't found yet.
So begone, all you mages and your elementals
Death knights and ghouls? Hardly sentimental.
The warlocks all sigh, downcast, brokenhearted
For a lock and her demon should never be parted.

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Fortunately, I have a new MMORPG obsession, City of Heroes and Villains. In fact, I have become so obsessed with the game that, after last night, I'm forcing myself to step back from it for a couple of days. But...my magic corrupter, a vampire named Erzsébetta Bathory (yes, you read that correctly), has reached Level 23 and earned her first cape...and I just adore the game. Yeah, the controls suck, badly. But the game is still sort of wonderful, and almost everyone actually fucking roleplays. That's a fact I can't seem to get over. What I did not find in Second Life and WoW I have found in CoX. But I've played about twenty-one hours over the last three nights alone, and that's far too much, so I'm giving myself a short time out. Just until Friday.

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And now...another set of photographs from the trip. While wandering the empty Minneapolis airport on the night of the 4th and the wee hours of the 5th, we happened across a number of stone-inlay murals set into the airport floor. I have yet to determine when or by whom they were created, but they are beautiful. Photos below. Oh, and we also discovered that portions of the airport floor are paved with Solnhofen Limestone (from whence comes Archaeopteryx), from the Jurassic of Bavaria, including the floor around the murals. Spooky and I spotted fossil sponges and ammonites in polished cross-section. I imagine few of the tens of millions of people who pass through the airport ever how often tens of millions of people pass through the airport ever realize they tread on the remains of ancient reefs and lagoons. Anyway, photos:

( H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Part 6, Floor Murals )

And here is the first day of spring, the Vernal Equinox. Spooky and I will be observing Ostara on March 22nd, partly because at least one Wiccan website places it on the 22nd this year, and partly out of convenience. Regardless, today is the beginning of Spring. Fuck you, winter. The sun's out, it's warm, and the office window's open.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,068 words on a new story, "Houndwife," for Sirenia Digest #52. It's sort of shaping up to be a very peculiar "sequel" to Lovecraft's "The Hound" (1922). I like it.

Late last night, I learned that The Red Tree has made the "longlist" for the British Fantasy Award, which pleases me. My great thanks to everyone who voted for it. And I do hope to see it make the shortlist. There's an online voting form here. All members of FantasyCon '09 and '10 are eligible to vote.

Also, I've been meaning to mention that Jeff and Ann VanderMeer have asked to reprint "A Redress for Andromeda" (written in June 2000) in a forthcoming weird fiction anthology (title TBA), which pleases me a great deal. "A Redress for Andromeda," you may recall, is the first story in the "Dandridge Cycle."

Yesterday, Spooky had to go to her dentist in Wakefield. On the way home, she stopped by Pow! Science! (at Wakefield Mall) and found the new Carnegie Museum Tylosaurus. Finally, someone has made an accurate mosasaur figure! I should make a post about all the not-so-good mosasaur figurines that have come and gone over the years. Anyway, as it happens, the new Carnegie Tylosaurus was sculpted by a Rhode Island artist, Forest Rogers, who does truly beautiful things. You should have a look. If I were a wealthy beast, I would be buying original pieces of her artwork. Hell, if I were a truly wealthy bear, I'd be hiring her to do a Dancy Flammarion sculpture.

Oh, and Spooky has lowered the price of her latest doll, Cassandra, which you may see here, at Dreaming Squid Dollworks. You know you want to give her a good home.

My head is full of random things today. For example, on Tuesday, just after I'd "fired my therapist" (long story, do not ask), I saw a bumper sticker that read, "Annoy a Liberal: Work Hard and Be Happy." Shit like that just fucking baffles me. I am baffled at the sheer temerity of stupid, sometimes. Also, we filled out the Census Form and sent it back. Is it just me, or has the census been simplified nigh unto utter nonsense? I mean, they're collecting so little data this time. It seems like it was once far more complex. I think it took me about four minutes to answer the questions.

This is getting long, and I should wrap it up. Last night, Shaharrazad, my blood elf warlock, made Level 80. I created Shah on September 27th, 2008, and I only had to give up 37 days, 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 6 seconds of my life (890+ hours) to get her to Level 80. Which is the cap until the next expansion is released, which is not to say there's not still tons of "Wrath of the Lich King" left to play (though I am dubious of the people who claim the game "really only begins at Level 80," because they're the same ones who used to say, the game doesn't begin until Level 70. And does this mean that when the next WoW expansion is released, later this year, the game will suddenly stop and resume only when you reach Level 85? Anyway...Shah leveled sometime just after midnight, fighting Scourge-struck trolls in Zul'Drak.

And now...work!

Yesterday, I did 1,027 words on "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics." Precisely the same word count as on Sunday, which is odd, but there you go. It's beginning to seem unlikely that I'll have the story finished by tomorrow evening as I'd originally hoped. It's turning out longer than I'd "planned," which is, of course, its prerogative.

I suspect that thing has happened again, that thing that happens almost every December. So far as publishing is concerned, all NYC is on holiday, and I'm left waiting for three checks I'll likely not see until early January, though I needed them in late November.

Really not much else to say about yesterday. I got the page proofs for Black Wings, the anthology of Lovecraftian fiction edited by S.T. Joshi that's reprinting "Pickman's Other Model" (Sirenia Digest #28, March 2008). The anthology is due out from PS Publishing in March 2010, I think.

Last night, we almost went to the Avon on Thayer Street to see Werner Herzog's The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans. We got dressed and were about to leave the house, when I pointed out that it was a film that we'd likely enjoy just as much on DVD, and we've got three films coming up that we have to see in the theatre (Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus). The last few years, we've mostly reserved the theatre for films that need to be seen on a big screen, which is a somewhat shitty thing to have to do, but given the steep price of tickets it's also become necessary. See a film at the Avon for almost $20, or wait a few months and see it just shy of free via Netflix. So...we didn't go to the movie, but we did leave the apartment, which I'd not done since Tuesday of last week, though we only went to the market and to check the p.o. box.

Back home, we watched two fairly awful and all but incoherent episodes of Dollhouse. But at least Summer Glau was hot in sling and black glove. And then there was more WoW, mostly doing errands for the Taunka camp in the Grizzly Hills. We did get to see female Vrykul, and it's good to know they're out there (and just as hot as I thought they'd be). We fought Vrykul shield maidens at Skorn. I think Shaharrazad, weary from all her years away from Silvermoon City, is growing tired of the fight. I can imagine her never going back to the Eastern Kingdoms, deciding instead to remain at Vengeance Landing to continue her occult studies in seclusion and obscurity. Anyway, later still, I read more of Greer Gilman's superb Cloud and Ashes to Spooky, just before bed.

And there are two photos of Hubero on my desk, from yesterday:

( 14 December 2009 )

Yesterday, after sitting in this chair for several hours, I found a new story, and I wrote a few, precious words on a new piece titled "Teratophobia." Hopefully, today will go well.

Subterranean Press has announced the upcoming release, in June 2010, of The Ammonite Violin & Others and is now taking pre-orders.

This will, by the way, be my seventh collection of short fiction since 2000. Well, unless I count Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus, and I suppose I ought to, in which case this will be my ninth. Yesterday, I sat down and tried to tally all my short fiction publications to date, and arrived at an approximate total of 159 stories (since 1993). I am tempted to ask how that's even possible, but I already know the answer. At any rate, that's an average of 9.3 a year. Though, in truth, something like half of them have been written since I began Sirenia Digest in December 2004. In fact, I realized yesterday that the next piece I write for the Digest will be the 70th story I've written for it.

It's no wonder I hardly ever leave the house.

Also, speaking of Subterranean Press, the Fall 2009 issue of Subterranean includes my story "The Belated Burial":



Did I mention it's free?

I'm still waiting on my agent's verdict regarding the Blood Oranges proposal.

Last night, after dinner, Spooky and I had Surra and Shaharrazad (respectively) out in the Eastern Plaguelands, slowly wending our way along the hellish avenues of Stratholme, and we were nearing the end of the dungeon, when the instance server had some sort of seizure and went down. Yes, it was annoying. Now, we have to fight our way through all those ghouls, banshees, warlocks, and whatnot all over again. Anyway, later on, we watched Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom (2008). Previously, I'd been impressed by Johnson's 2005 film, Brick. In The Brothers Bloom we see the promise of Brick brought to fruition. The Brothers Bloom is an utterly adorable, wonderful, and witty film, one of the best I've seen this year. There's also a sort of Ulysses (more James Joyce than Homer) undercurrent that I've not yet completely worked out. Strongly, strongly recommended, this film.

Here are some photos I took yesterday, during the walk Spooky and I had after the blog entry, but before the writing:

( 16 November 2009 )

A wonderful cool day here in Providence today. Only 77F out there as I type this.

Most of yesterday was spent re-reading Arthur Machen, in preparation for writing the introduction for Joshi that I should begin today, but will likely begin tomorrow, after more reading. I'd forgotten how much I adore Machen's "The Great God Pan." It's certainly not his best, and bears all the marks —— good and bad —— of the first important work of a very young author —— he was only 32 when it was first published in 1894, and in those days before the instant gratification of POD, 32 was young for an author. Truthfully, it still is. Anyway, I'd forgotten what a great influence the novella had on Peter Straub's brilliant Ghost Story (1979), which is essentially a 20th-Century retelling of "The Great God Pan" moved to upstate New York and writ large (and minus Machen's rather absurd proto-sf elements). Exchange Helen Vaughn/Mrs. Herbert/Mrs. Beaumont for Alma Mobley/Eva Galli/Angie Maul/Anna Mostyn, and maybe exchange Pan for the Manitou. For that matter, I'd not realized the degree to which Machen's story had so influenced a couple of my own short stories, including "Houses Under the Sea" (2004) and "Pickman's Other Model" (2008). Influences fascinate me, and as I almost never claim any attempt at originality, I have no qualms about pointing out those places where I have borrowed, intentionally or unconsciously, from another.

In Machen's introduction to the 1916 reprint of the story, he writes:

Stevenson [Robert Louis], I think, knew of the emotions which I am trying to express. To his mind the matter presented itself thus: there are certain scenes, certain hills and valleys and groves of pines which demand that a story shall be written about them. I would refine: I would say that the emotions aroused by these external things reverberating in the heart are indeed the story. But, our craft being that of letters, we must express what we feel through the medium of words. And once words are granted, we fall into the region of the logical understanding, we are forced to devise incidents and circumstances and plots, to "make up a story"; we translate a hill into a tale, conceive lovers to explain a brook, turn the perfect into the imperfect. The musician must be happier in his art, if he be not the sorry slave to those follies which mimic the lowing of cattle by some big brazen horn. The true musician exercises a perfect art; there is no descent into the logic of plots for him.

Which rather nicely sums up my thoughts on the artifice and contrivance of plot, the writer's sadly necessary evil, and I love that phrase, "...descent into the logic of plots...."

And today, it has been thirteen years since Elizabeth's suicide.

My thanks to everyone who commented yesterday, as the comments pretty much rendered moot any need for a poll. The journal will stay as is. Also, my great thanks to the few who have taken a moment to comment on Sirenia Digest #32, particularly on "Derma Sutra (1891)." It was one of those stories I was especially reluctant to show the world, and I have been heartened by the responses I've seen so far. More comments are welcome, of course.

Please have a look at the eBay auctions. And if you can, pre-order a copy of the forthcoming mass-market paperback of Daughter of Hounds. Also, be advised that subpress is accepting pre-orders for A is for Alien.

As for the rest of yesterday, not much to it. A quick trip through a thunderstorm to Borders. This dratted constant pain in my dratted face. Spooky made a really fine stew, mostly with stuff from our CSA bag —— green bell pepper, elephant kale, zucchini, tomatoes (fresh and canned), white mushrooms, patty-pan squash, white onion, garlic, chicken, and I won't even try to list the spices, because I'd only forget most of it. Later, we had a bit of Second Life rp in the Tower of Serpents in the "Kingdom of Sand" sim. Later still, we watched the last episode of Angel —— "Not Fade Away" —— as I wanted to see it before reading After the Fall.

I've long since lost track of the times that some sf reader, usually someone in SL, has told me how much hesheit loves the work of Orson Scott Card, and then I've had to explain that, regardless of whatever talent Card may (or may not) possess as an author, I cannot see past his religion-based bigotry to even try to enjoy his work. And, usually, the hesheit in question has no idea what I'm talking about, despite the fact that Card won't stop shooting his mouth off about the evils of homosexuality, the sanctity of marriage, the holiness of het procreation, and so forth. For example, his article for the July 24th issue of mormontimes.com, in which, among many other dim-witted and hateful things, Card says:

If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?

Superstition aside, much of Card's hysteria seems to center on some sort of imagined threat to the human population's ability to continue to crowd out all other lifeforms on the planet, should gay and lesbian marriages be recognized. It would be funny, if it didn't piss me off so much. Let's look at the world population clock. As of right this very fucking second, there are 6,713,684,976 humans on the face of Earth (most living in horrid poverty). That's 6.7 billion, Mr. Card, already far above the planet's carrying capacity for humanity. So, please, shut up and fuck the hell off. May your poor shriveled Mormon wang desire the anus of another man.

Er...but moving along to things that don't make me want to adorn my face with the tines of rusty forks, how about confirmation that there really are vast hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. One has now been named —— Ontario Lacus —— a 7,800 square mile lake of ethane, methane, nitrogen, and other simple hydrocarbons.

Also, my great thanks to Anita Dalton for sending me this link to her analysis of "Caitlín R. Kiernan’s use of child characters in Daughter of Hounds." Reading the article yesterday, I realized that I'd forgotten how much I love that book, how much I love those characters. Truly, it's by far my best novel-length work of fiction, and, you know, as much as no one wants to admit it, authors need to have their egos stroked every now and then if they are to continue authoring (especially us midlist waifs). So, thanks Anita, from the bottom of my wicked heart, because for every reader like you who "gets it," there are a thousand more I leave wondering why they didn't read some tripe by Larell K. Hamilton or Robert Jordan, instead. I think, Anita, that your article has made me resolve to return to Emmie and Soldier as soon as The Red Tree is done (Emmie will be about 12 or 13). Meanwhile, once again, I remind folks to please preorder the new mmp edition of Daughter of Hounds, so I'll have a chance to write such a novel.

Four and a half hours sleep last night, at best. Insomnia keeps me up, then the face pain (from the seizure-cracked molar) wakes me. And today I have a mountain of tedious work ahead of me, whipping Sirenia Digest #32 into shape before it goes out to subscribers this evening. Jesus fuck, I can't even think in curlicues right now. And yet, somehow, I must cross this day productively. Coffee and Red Bull. Anyway, yesterday I wrote 535 words, and found THE END of "Derma Sutra (1891)." Wow, what an angry, sexy, fuck-you sort of story, all wrapped in Lovecraftiana, steampunk, and the sort of coitus that keeps shitwits like Orson Scott Card awake at night. I am rather proud, I must admit. But, the well of anger is deep, and when i was done with the story, it was unexhausted, so Spooky dragged me away from the keyboard about 6 p.m. (there was genuine dragging involved), away to Beavertail and the calming sea.

Usually, we stick to the northeastern side of the point, above the lighthouse, but south of Lionshead. Yesterday, we took a tartan picnic blanket that blu_muse sent us from a trip to Scotland and spread it out on the boulders on the northwestern side of the point. There are beautiful sheltered coves back there, the water all the shades of beach glass. As the sun set, I lay with my head in her lap, just listening, smelling, tasting, feeling the mist against my skin, letting Panthalassa pull me slowly back from the brink. There were cormorants, gulls, rabbits, ladybugs (ladybug sex, even), ripe red hips on the beach roses, beautiful green-white thickets of Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota). The floats from lobster pots bobbed not far offshore. We stayed almost until dark. I didn't want to come back to Providence. I just wanted to lie there by the roaring, sighing bay until the stars came out. I wanted to swim in the cold water. I wanted to be nothing more substantial that the foghorn calling out across the waves. But, that's not the way it goes.

Back home (about 9 p.m.), Spooky made dinner (corn and Annie's "creamy tuna spirals"; we usually avoid processed foods these days, but Annie's is an occasional weakness), and I read more of Fraser's book on the Triassic. Then we read all the way through "Derma Sutra (1891)" (it comes in at 5,254 words total). Later, I managed a few hours of Second Life. Even though the "Kingdom of Sand" sim is turning out to be less wonderful than I'd hoped, it did give me a good scene last night (thank you, Sev, Artemsisia, and Lina). And I finally said good-bye to Toxia once and for fucking all. I dropped in, thinking I might miss the place, but after only five minutes I was so pummeled by lousy rp and utter, mindscathing stupidity that I left and left for good. I'll take away some good memories of that sim, but only a few. There is simply no overcoming the moron factor, and wishing don't make it so. Basically, I desperately aspire to hide out in the Palace in "Kingdom of Sand" as Shahrazad al-Anwar until we can make my own sim a reality. Because I'm tired of hopping from one world to the next, one character to the next, only to be greeted with idiots and stories that'll never be finished. Spooky and I have even chosen a name for the sim (from a rather long list), which will be the Providence of Daughter of Hounds —— "Howard's End" (thank you, E. M. Forster) —— assuming no one takes the name before we can raise the money.

Gods, it's already 11:53. Almost afternoon. Just a few more things. For one, my thanks to Gordon (thingunderthest) for this image. I have no idea what's even being advertised or why anyone would pay $19 for it, but now you can see the horror I wake to every day:



Please have a look at the current ebay auctions. And now, yesterday's six Beavertail photos (behind the cut). Not the best we ever took, but ambient light was low:

( Beavertail, July 30th, 2008 )

Just a little dreamsick this ayem. It's been worse. I think this is actually going to be a shorter post, for a change. A shorter post with no photographs. Huzzah.

Yesterday was a spectacular writing day, certainly the best I've had thus far on The Red Tree. I did 2,201 words, in a mere two and a half hours, and almost reached the end of Chapter Three. I'm sure that I'll find it today.

A few things that I want to remind you of:

1) Don't forget that the KGB Fantastic Fiction Raffle has begun, in support of the readings at KGB Bar in Manhattan. Lots of awesome items, including a complete collection of back issues plus one-year subscription to Sirenia Digest (back issues delivered in CD-ROM), and also a copy of the revised 3rd edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder. Tickets are only a dollar each (!!!), and every ticket gives you a chance to win the item of your choice. The auction will end on July 28th at midnight.

2) Talking to Harlan and to Bill at subpress, it seems that I am only the third American author ever to be fortunate enough to have one of Jacek Yerka's paintings grace the cover of herhisits book. I think Theodore Sturgeon was first, then Uncle Harlan, and now me. And here is a link to the painting in question, so you may have a sneak peek at what A is for Alien will look like (painting No. 19, "Deep Water"). There's an update at subpress regarding the book and its accompanying chapbook here. I'm thinking that the chapbook title will be B is for Basal.

3) The mass-market paperback of Daughter of Hounds will be released on September 2, and you can now order it from Amazon for only $7.99 (or with Threshold for only $14.98). It is, obviously, very important that this edition does well, so I ask, even if you read the book in trade paperback, if you can afford to pick of the mmp, please do so. Thank you.

Not much to yesterday besides the writing. Chinese take-out for dinner. I checked out a Medieval Persian rp sim in Second Life and was fairly impressed. It's a marvelous build, one of the best I've seen, making wonderful use of only one sim. It's also allowed me to dust off and rework Shahrazad al-Anwar, my old Dune character. Now, she's a dark magus (a necromancer who's mute and has amnesia). Anyway, if you'd like to check it out, the sim is called Kingdom of Sand. Candy-colored werewolves not allowed. Oh, and I played a short and delightful scene as Elenore Darwin (the Time Lord "daughter" of Professor Nareth E. Nishi) with the street urchins in New Babage. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that Ellen Datlow (ellen_datlow) has posted a fairly amusing (and Spooky says cute) photo of me from Readercon. You can even see my Sid Haig button.

The weather is still blessedly cool. Cloudy. Rain again last night.