Caitlín R. Kiernan

Note that I will make a post just after midnight (CaST), probably just a few words, and then this journal will "go black" as a protest against SOPA/PIPA. The blackout will end at midnight (CaST) on the 19th. No, I don't think it will change a thing. The whole internet going black won't change a thing. That's not the point. Sometimes we tilt at windmills because it's the right thing to do. We have also been assured that President Obama will block the legislation, and there's word Congress is already preparing to shelve it. By the way, my book sales are being seriously harmed by internet piracy, and I still oppose SOPA/PIPA. You do not burn down a fucking house to kill a termite.

And, more good news. Believed lost for some 165 years, hundreds of paleobotanical thin sections, once owned by Charles Darwin, have been rediscovered in the archives of the British Geological Survey.

If I do not leave the house today, it will have been eleven days since last I left the house. This is becoming serious. Again. And I have to face it and get out of here.

When we went to bed about 3:30 a.m., there was a very light dusting of snow on the ground, already beginning to melt.

I had a dream, this morning, that one of my molars fell out. This isn't unusual. I frequently have dreams of breaking and shattering teeth. I have bad teeth, and, moreover, many psychoanalysts believe this a sign that someone – whichever dreamer in question - feels they have lost, or are losing control of...well, whatever. In this case, I point to Alabaster #4. As I near the end of the next to last issue of the first series, I am terrified I am making missteps, that I was never cut out to write comics. And I cannot fail in this. Every single word matters, and, in many ways, this is a far, far more difficult undertaking than writing a novel. Yesterday, I wrote three more pages, 16-18 (manuscript pages 27-29, 951 words), which is probably more than I should have written yesterday. Likely, I will finish the three remaining pages today.

Please be reminded of the auction of ARC of the The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. By the way, if you haven't seen Publishers Weekly's STARRED review of the novel, you ought. Sure, too much time is wasted on synopsis, but too many reviewers these days don't know the difference between a review and book report.

Oh, and here's a photograph Spooky took day before yesterday, when I was washing my hair. All my life, I've known I had a birthmark on the back of my neck, just at and under the hairline. This is the first time I've ever seen it (behind the cut).

( Birthmark )

After the writing, I curled up on the chaise in the middle parlor, in front of the fire place (it only sounds a tenth as cozy as it actually is), with the iPad and finished watching the National Geographic pterosaur documentary. It only got worse. Aside from Kevin Padian and David Unwin, actual experts on pterosaur paleontology were generally ignored (where was Peter Wellnhofer, for example, or Chris Bennett, or Dave Martill?). The science went from slipshod to fanciful. In short, whoever wrote this thing just started making shit up. Assemblages of animals were shown coexisting in the same environment, even though we know they belonged to different faunas separated by tens of millions of years. At least a third (and maybe half) of the documentary was wasted on an attempt to build a mechanical scale model of a pterosaur that would fly as a pterosaur flew. But it didn't work, even though the designers cheated right and left on the design (adding an elaborate "rudder" to an anhanguerine, for example, a group that all but lacked a tail, and certainly didn't use them for stabilization during flight). No, no, no. Bad science. This is National Geographic? My advice, stay away from this one.

Later, before sleep, I read Bruce Sterling's "Maneki Neko" (1998), a somewhat dull bit of cyberpunk. Near as I could tell, it was hellbent on showing that just as there's truth to the "ugly American" stereotype, there's also the "ugly Japanese." No shock there. The story's most interesting aspect is it's view of what the internet would become, but, in the ensuing fourteen years, has failed to do so.

And it's getting late. And I should scoot.

Scooting,
Aunt Beast

Better late than never. Well, that's always been a dubious adage, but whatever.

I begin to see a trend. When I was writing The Red Tree I became, in some sense, Sarah Crowe. When I was writing The Drowning Girl, I became India Morgan Phelps. And now that I'm writing Blood Oranges, I find myself becoming Siobahn Quinn. No, this didn't used to happen.

Yesterday, as predicted, was spent pulling the Digest together, writing the prolegomenon etc. Finding the cover image, and the ending for the back page. What the fuck is wrong with LiveJournal that is doesn't fucking know how to fucking spell "prolegomenon"? Anyway, I also took care of some last minute details regarding Two Worlds and In Between, which goes to the printer any day now.

Red Bull and benzodiazepines. Two great tastes that go great together. Oh, look! LiveJournal can't spell "benzodiazepines," either. Ah, the brilliant internet.

Hot Outside, here in Providence. Well, hot for Providence.

Good RP in Rift last night. Thank you, stsisyphus. You guys don't know what you're missing. If we're gonna let these computers ruin our lives, and change what it means to be human, we might as well have some fun with it, right?

---

Just back from a matinée of Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens. And I loved it. Almost unconditionally. You know what I said about how we need B-movies? Well, it's true. But this film unexpectedly transcends a category I expected it to fall within. It's simply a good movie. Maybe not great cinema, but a good movie. And, right now, I'll settle for that. The cast is marvelous, top to bottom: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford (who actually does more than play Harrison Ford), Clancy Brown, Olivia Wilde, Keith Carradine, etc. Someone was mouthing off on IMDb about (Oh, it can spell "IMDb"!) this being the "worst idea for a film ever." It is nothing of the sort. Why assume alien invasions would always come in the present (or, perhaps, the future)? Anyway, as to the central premise, to quote Stephen Hawking:

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

A point which is touched upon in the film. The Native American bit, I mean. Obviously, the subject of the film is an alien race seeking to exploit the Earth, and willing to commit genocide to do it. Wait. There has to be another word, one for wiping out an entire, particular species to get what you need. Sure, the end result is extinction, but there ought to be a word for the process. Ah. Extermination. That will do.

Anyway, yes. A very, very good, fun, and moving film, working both as a Western and an SF film. I recommend it unconditionally. Unless you're too jaded for the fundamental concept and go into the theatre needing to be convinced. Here we are now, entertain us. If that's your attitude, save the price of admission and stay home. But I give it a solid two thumbs up.

---

I think Frank the Goat is feeling better. Now if someone would just teach him how to spell.

Up to Here,
Aunt Beast

I suppose I ought to start a journal entry now, having spent the last half hour instigating fights on Twitter and Facebook (but mostly on Twitter, from which I aspire to be banned for championing the English language, or any language, over that ZOMGWTFLOL shit). No, "lolspeak" isn't The End of the World®, but it does make you look like a moron.

Um...yesterday. Well, I'm still trying to get Sirenia Digest #64 out. By late this evening, for sure.

I wrote and edited, edited and wrote, formatted, wash, rinse, repeat.

There were very many wonderful comments, and I might have blushed a time or two. I think Martians blush, but I've lost the user's manual, so I'm not entirely sure. More wonderful kylecassidy photos to come.

Anyway...here we are on Tuesday, April 5th in the year 2011, and it's time to announce the next book in Aunt Beast's Book of the Month Club thingy. This month, it's Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). I'm not going to go on about how very good it is. But it is. Even though we're not finished reading it yet. It's a good, and true, and important book, and there are too few of those. So yes, the official selection of the month:



READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK

---

I look at the few wind turbines we have here in Rhode Island, and I can't help but be amazed at how humanity has a sky full of wind and sunlight. But, instead, we drill holes in the ground for hydrocarbons and build nuclear reactors that release isotopes that will still be deadly hundreds or thousands of years from now. Instead, we dam rivers and destroy habitats.

---

paranormal (par·a·nor·mal): Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.

paranormal ≠ PR ("paranormal romance"), exclusive of all other applications of the word, no matter what "teh internets" might imply. For example, "reviews" on Amazon declaring that, say, Turn of the Screw isn't paranormal, because it isn't part of the current shitwit PR craze (even though it is, in fact, a novel exploring both paranormal and romantic themes).

---

Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four-figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it’s really given us is Howard Dean’s aborted candidacy and 24-hour-a-day access to kiddie porn. People…they don’t write anymore - they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it’s just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King’s English.
— Hank Moody

Sad thing is, not many even blog anymore. Blogging takes too much time and energy, so there's Facebook and Twitter. You know, for kids.

Yeah, well. As Quentin Crisp said, "It'll get worse." And it has. And it will again.

Think Only Happy Thoughts,
Aunt Beast

I didn't think so, but it never hurts to ask. Wait, yes it does. It often hurts to ask.

Um...

So, we're still at Code Yellow. Yesterday, I wrote a rather surprising 1,357 words on "Romeo and Juliet Go to Mars," and there was some brief debate about standing down to Code Green. But I have no idea if what I wrote yesterday will lead to another thousand or so words today, or if it was any good, or whatever...so we're holding at Yellow.

More good comments yesterday. I thought this one from sovay hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head:

For me, it all keeps coming down to entitlement—to be allowed glimpses of someone's life is to be invited to participate in it is to be authorized to change it, and heaven forfend if you do not wish your life to be changed. You asked me in, didn't you? We're all the same sort of people.

I don't think it's anything new; expectations of privacy have been eroding for years. But the internet promotes the illusion of intimacy where nothing more than the exchange of pixels exists, and it seems to be felt by many of its—practitioners?—as a compulsion rather than a choice. I mean, we are not all the same sort of people, but we're all supposed to be...

Yes. Nail. Head of Nail. All of that. But something else. The arrogance required of someone to believe that hesheit has the ability to change my life, or even my mood, via the goddamn internet. Oh, it could happen. An email from my agent informing me that The Red Tree was just optioned for a fat six figures by [insert dream director here], and I can stop writing and spend the next ten years on the next novel...that would definitely change my mood. But when I post " I would love to write a story or novel and not think, every single day I work on it, 'If I kill myself, I won't have to finish this.' Just once..." to Facebook, and twenty people reply with assorted "Oh, buck up, little buckaroo" nonsense...no. That only makes it worse. Though, I suppose, by making it worse, those people have changed my life.

That's fucking brilliant!

---

Last night, we watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009). And at least it was better than the second Underworld film. I mean, I didn't nod off, as I did during Underworld: Evolution (2006). It didn't put me to sleep. That's a compliment, right? Also, I watched it in the comfort of my own home, and didn't have to pay to see it, and those things probably also prejudiced me in its favor.

By the way, if you're interested in Spooky's Halloween figurines, be warned that they are only available through Halloween. Come November 1st, everything Halloween will be removed from her Etsy shop until next October. So, consider yourselves notified.

Only slightly late, Sirenia Digest #46 just went out to subscribers. My great thanks to Vince, Spooky, and Gordon. I do hope that everyone enjoys "Charcloth, Firesteel, and Flint" and "Shipwrecks Above." If you are a subscriber, #46 should be in your in-box. If you're not a subscriber, that's easy to fix.

Not much to say about yesterday, as it was mostly spent getting #46 together. Lots of work, just not very exciting. I wrote the prolegomena, proofed and corrected both stories, laid the issue out, etc. Oh, that reminds me. We're trying a slightly different format this month, to allow vertically oriented images to appear on the cover page. Hope you like it.

---

Near as I can tell, there are actually people who think that artists (writers, musicians, painters, etc.) somehow manage to subsist without relying on money. Yes, money. Mammon, that "dirty" word no one seems to want to think about in connection with art. Or, they only want to think about it on some indirect, subconscious level. Recently, Amanda Palmer has drawn a lot of flack for her very aggressive, somewhat guerilla approach to making ends meet. Here's an excerpt from a recent blog entry, which she titled, "Why I Am Not Afraid To Take Your Money":

Listen. Artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art. Artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye. Artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks. Please welcome them. Please help them. Please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money. Dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve surely noticed that artists ALL over the place are reaching out directly to their fans for money. How you do it is a different matter. Maybe I should be more tasteful. Maybe I should not stop my concerts and auction off art. I do not claim to have figured out the perfect system, not by a long shot. BUT…I’d rather get the system right gradually and learn from the mistakes and break new ground (with the help of an incredibly responsive and positive fanbase) for other artists who I assume are going to cautiously follow in our footsteps. We are creating the protocol, people, right here and now. I don’t care if we fuck up. I care THAT we’re doing it.

Amen.

Now, to bring the whole matter a little closer to home, that is closer to the issue of literature and publishing (as Amanda is a musician and performance artist), here's a second excerpt from "The Reality of a Times Bestseller" by Lynn Viehl (I may not care for what she writes, but that does not invalidate her points):

Here is the first royalty statement for Twilight Fall, on which I’ve only blanked out Penguin Group’s address. Everything else is exactly as I’ve listed it. To give you a condensed version of what all those figures mean, for the sale period of July through November 30, 2008. my publisher reports sales of 64,925 books, for which my royalties were $40,484.00. I didn’t get credit for all those sales, as 21,140 book credits were held back as a reserve against possible future returns, for which they subtracted $13,512.69 (these are not lost sales; I’m simply not given credit for them until the publisher decides to release them, which takes anywhere from one to three years.)

My net earnings on this statement was $27,721.31, which was deducted from my advance. My actual earnings from this statement was $0.

My advance for Twilight Fall was $50,000.00, a third of which I did not get paid until the book physically hit the shelf — this is now a common practice by publishers, to withhold a portion of the advance until date of publication. Of that $50K, my agent received $7,500.00 as her 15% (which she earns, believe me) the government received roughly $15,000.00, and $1594.27 went to cover my expenses (office supplies, blog giveaways, shipping, promotion, etc.) After expenses and everyone else was paid, I netted about $26K of my $50K advance for this book, which is believe it or not very good — most authors are lucky if they can make 10% profit on any book. This should also shut up everyone who says all bestselling authors make millions — most of us don’t.

This is pretty close to my own experience with my books from Penguin (though my advances are significantly less hefty, and I fall into that not-making-a-profit category). And the reason I'm posting this, getting into all this unsightly money talk, is because it is becoming evident to me, largely watching some of the negative reaction to Amanda's efforts, that an awful lot of those who partake of an artist's work have very little, if any, idea regarding the realities of our financial situations. They are bleak. Even when lots and lots and lots of people read or listen or whatever, they're usually still bleak, those situations. And I'm not even getting into problems like health and life insurance, self-employment tax, and so forth.

A point that Viehl does not address, but which I shall, pertains to royalties. In all my thirteen years of writing books for Penguin, I have received exactly one royalty check. One. And it wasn't for very much. I hear from many readers who want to know how they should purchase books in order to maximize my cut from each copy. And I have to tell them, again and again, it doesn't matter, because, in truth, I get 0% of each copy sold. Sure, in theory those sales go to work off the "debt" of my advances, and if those "debts" ever are worked off, I might see tiny, little, baby checks. But it won't ever be worked off, and I know that. This means, my advances are, essentially, all I ever get from my novel sales to Penguin. So, it doesn't matter how you buy the book, hard copy or electronic, online or brick-and-mortar shop, it's all the same. Also, keep in mind, when Penguin gives me that advance, it includes electronic rights, audio, and British rights. I do not own those, for any of the novels.

And it can get even worse. When I did the Beowulf novelization for Harper in 2007, it was, essentially, "work for hire" (as was all my work for DC/Vertigo, by the way). That is, I got the advance, with no hope of ever seeing any sort of royalties. And the rights will never revert back to me if the book goes out of print (as they may someday with Penguin). But the worst part of the Beowulf deal was the fact that I was forced to include all foreign-language translation rights in the package they got for their advance money. Now, by forced I do not mean someone drove from NYC to Atlanta and held a fucking gun to my head. I mean that, after I'd written the book, my agent was told this, and we were given a "take it or leave it" option. Give up translation rights or all those months of work were wasted and I'd get zip. Beowulf was, of course, translated into about a dozen languages, selling well overseas, but I saw not one penny from any of those deals. Harper was nice enough to send me complimentary copies of the foreign editions.

Personally, I spent many, many years resisting a rebellion against "business as usual." I'd grown up with the Old Way, pre-internet, and was willing to give it a shot. But. By late 2004, the Old Way had left me all but bankrupt, and I found it necessary to join those who are trying to reinvent the wheel. I started Sirenia Digest, and thanks to the amazingly loyal readership that the digest has found, I keep my head just above water, most of the time.

I'm not exactly sure how to wrap this up. Inevitably, I have left many questions unanswered, and opened the door to very many questions that have not even occurred to me. Or that have only just occurred to me, such as, "Is it different working with Subterranean Press?" Quick answer, yes, and I do much better with subpress, but I think that's also part of reinventing the wheel. Anyway, that's another subject, for another time.

Mostly, I am appalled at the people ragging on Amanda for trying to make a living via inventive, new marketing strategies. The worst of these detractors are just trolls, attracted by the brouhaha. Some are simply ignorant of the facts. Some are laboring under outdated, romantic notions that no longer work (if they ever did). And I felt I should say something.

Gods, I did not sleep enough, and I don't even know why. I could have slept late. Latish, at least. No writing today, because there's an appointment to have my hair colored smack in the middle of the afternoon, but I got up anyway. As Spooky would say (no, really; I have heard her say this), "The bags under my eyes have carry-on luggage."

And speaking of eyes, last night I rubbed Tobasco sauce in my left (blind) eye. That was some fun. Boy, howdy.

Ever wondered what it would be like to see a Jack Chick pamphlet written by Lovecraft? Okay, truth be told, atheist or not, HPL never would have done this. He was far too couth. But it's still so true, and funny as hell. I have to print it out, then staple it together, so I can have an actual hard copy.

Er...writing. Yesterday, I only wrote 701 words on "The Sea Troll's Daughter," but that brought me to the end of Part One (there are two halves to this story), and I had to stop and ponder. Plus, I was very excited about The Ammonite Violin & Others, and that kind of slowed me down. Plus, I had a headache. And a note from Spooky.

Um...auctions. eBay. Books you need, even if you already own them. Here. You guys know the drill.

The jury's still out on Twitter (where I am, of course, greygirlbeast). I am enjoying twats from William Gibson and Moby. And I've made it to 441 followers, which means I only have 559 more to go before July 31st. Anyway, I'll post the 7th micro=excerpt from The Red Tree as soon as I finish this rather meandersome entry. Anyway, I'm sticking with Twitter for the time being, and I abandon MySpace in a few days.

Gotta get some more coffee. And find out why the platypus is wearing a lampshade on hisitsher head.

Hey...who the hell let the sun out?

And that post on Spooky's birthday left me needing more Concrete Blonde:

Barely four hours sleep last night. I woke just before 7 a.m., took another half Ambien, but to no avail. Anyone planning to attend ReaderCon should be forewarned: The stress and insomnia and seizures and winter have all taken a toll. You may or may not recognize me.

No writing yesterday, but that was planned. What wasn't planned was that the day would spin insanely out of control, devolving into an utter shitstorm of wasted time and frayed nerves. So, yesterday gets a big fat "L" in the day planner. Less than nothing was accomplished.

And yeah, I'm still twatting (tweeting, whatever). There I am, @greygirlbeat. As of this moment, I have 281 people following the...what do you call a stream of tweets? A tweetstream? A feed? No idea, but anyway, that's not bad for the first 24+ hours. I'm hoping to reach 1,000 by the end of July. It's a sort of goal I've set for myself. To determine whether or not Rachael is merely an experiment, and nothing more. And here I am now, on Blogger, LiveJournal, Myspace, Facebook, Dreamwidth, and, now, Twitter. Which makes me incalculably more connected than I would be, were there not this necessity for promotion. Were I only Thomas Ligotti or Thomas Pynchon, or if the blasted books would sell themselves.

One thing that worries me —— and I cannot say this is new, as it has worried me for years, since I started the blog over at Blogger (and probably Usenet before that, back to '94), probably: All of this networking and reporting on the ups and downs on my day-to-day life, the ongoing, ceaseless catalog of profundities and the mundane, it changes that which it records. For so long now, I have been aware that I'll do a thing, go to a museum or a concert, a movie or the sea, and all the while I'm thinking, in some part of my mind, won't this make a good blog entry (or conversely, too bad this won't...). And how could I make it an even better blog entry. It's a bit like the old problem of wave-particle duality, or the trouble any anthropologist will encounter, attempting not to change the thing she observes. How different would each of these experiences be, if I were not aware that I would be reporting them to the world? I can't know, of course. X = the change wrought by my foreknowledge that I am living a life others will watch, even if only in a highly edited form, online. It worries me, and I'd be a liar if I said otherwise.

But it seems to have become inescapable, especially for those of us who are authors, or musicians, or painters, or some other art that needs the Word to Get Out There. If we ignore these technologies, our art may suffer, though we can never know that how or by how much. We can call that part of the equation N. The value of uncertainty. And, of course, just as awareness of the blogs and tweets to come will perforce alter various experiences, so to will they alter the things we write and paint and photograph and compose and so forth. Call that unknown value Y.

Just thoughts I cannot help but think. And yeah, this problem existed before the internet, but the last fifteen years or so (and especially in the last five or six, as these communication technologies accelerate towards...whatever) it has worsened dramatically.

A book I need to find and read: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage (1998), on 19th-Century information overload.

Today, though I am not awake, we will go forth and seek the tree that will stand in for the eponymous red tree, and which will appear in the trailer for The Red Tree. Or, I may say fuck it all and go visit with Louis Agassiz' cabinet of wonders at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. That's not such a long drive, and perhaps my tree is somewhere in Boston.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. And, again, I ask that you might pay especial attention to the hardback copy of The Merewife (Subterranean Press, 2005), as you are not likely to ever see me auction another. There's also a PC copy of the leather-bound and numbered state of Tales from the Woeful Platypus up now. Bid if you are so able, and so disposed. All proceeds go to my attending ReaderCon next month. Thank you.

Now, I think I will go find caffeine, or throw up, or just look in a mirror and watch my eyes bleed.

Trent Reznor has decided to leave Twitter. You may read his reasons here. I'm mostly posting this because a) I'm a fan of NIN and b) I've now lost count of the people who've listed him as one of the three or or four people whose "tweets" I absolutely MUST start following or risk death by explosion or some such, and c) it articulates some of my own observations about the failure of social-networking sites.

Kudos for this quote: "Cutter's tip for my friends there: remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff."

Also: "Anyway, we're in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience."

And this whole thing got me to thinking again, not so much about Twitter, but about how artists are perceived by fans, whether the artists in question are musicians or writers or whatever. I've reached the point where some people read Silk, which I wrote between 1993 and 1996, and they expect me to still be the person I was back then, still writing in the voice I wrote in back then, and, what's more, to resemble, in real life, various characters from the novel (usually whoever happens to be hisherits favorite). They learn I'm someone else, instead, and they get...weird. Or angry. Or bitter. Because, you know, writers and musicians and painters and dancers and what-the-hell-evers, we're all supposed to be bugs in amber, waiting patiently for someone to find us and identify with us, so that we may validate their existence.

Admittedly, near as I can tell, these folks are in the minority of my readership, thankfully, but they have megaphones.

There was a seizure last night, but fortunately, I was already lying on the bed when it hit. I bit my lip, but not badly. These damn things have become such a part of my life, they hardly even scare me anymore. Spooky much more so than me. But still, they do have a way of kicking a day or evening in the groin.

Yesterday, I read back over "Fish Bride," and polished it a bit. It was strange, going back to it after having finished "Galápagos," and it's weird in general, given this was a story I started trying to write three years ago. But now it's finished. Also, Vince's illustration for the piece came in, and I love it. Perfect. So, I will spend today assembling the file for Gordon to PDF, and, hopefully, Sirenia Digest #42 will go out to subscribers this evening. Remember, this issue will also includes the very detailed synopsis for mine and Poppy's unwritten X-Files novel, Dead Kids, plus a new poem by Sonya Taaffe. So, it would be a good place for new subscribers to jump onboard. Just click here (and, yeah, the FAQ's a little antiquated).

A lot of yesterday went into planning various bits of promotion I'm going to undertake for The Red Tree, and most of it's new ground for me. Some cool stuff, though, and I'll be able to talk about this a little more in a week or so.

I've been spending a lot of time over at deviantART lately (wonderful site), and I'm surprised at how so few of the professional artists there use their actual names for their accounts. Almost none, really. It's one of the peculiarities of Facebook, and something I like about it, that most users do use their names. Then again, I use "greygirlbeast" on both LJ and MySpace. But, than again again, my name is right there alongside the pseudonym. Is that even the right word — pseudonym — in this day and age, when speaking of the internet? Anyway, I just found it odd, but I find most things about the web odd.

---

Last night, Spooky and I watched Bryan Singer's Valkyrie (2008). Not a great movie, but not a bad movie. Mostly, a movie that should have been much better. A great cast, including Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, and Eddie Izzard. Tom Cruise was only moderately annoying. Mostly, I was annoyed that hardly anyone but the actor playing Hitler could be bothered with a German accent. Cruise couldn't even be bothered to affect the British accent sported by most of the cast. Is a German Resistance more palatable to American moviegoers if they don't sound like Germans? Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography was quite good, the best thing about the film.

And we read more of Andrea Barrett's The Voyage of the Narwhal.

And now, it's time to make the doughnuts.

I spent yesterday not writing, but searching for the next story to be written. So, I didn't really do much better than I did on Monday, despite the best of intentions.

---

Don't know how many of you have been following the Google Books fiasco. The Author's Guild and various publishers reached a settlement with Google back in October, under which Google is required to pay out $125 million dollars to the authors who have had (or soon will have) their copyrights infringed by the Google Books project. It's not much of a settlement. $60 per book, and if you don't claim your copyright and go along with the plan, Google will use your work, regardless. To quote Wikipedia, "In return, Google will be able to index the books and display snippets in search results, as well as up to 20% of each book in preview mode. Google will also be able to show ads on these pages and make available for sale digital versions of each book" (italics mine).

I mean, if this is the best the Author's Guild can manage, authors are well and truly screwed.

You can opt out, of course, and choose to file your own lawsuit against Google, but that's not much of an option. I haven't the money, the time, or the legal savvy. Anyway, there's now a website up that allows authors and publishers to "claim" copyright of their books that Google has already digitized. I've found sixteen of my own works listed on the website. Most are still in print. Oh, and I'm not counting those books of mine on the list that were done as "work for hire" (The Dreaming, Beowulf, etc.), as the publisher legally holds those copyrights.

I spoke with my agent on Monday regarding my options, and she replied I should accept the settlement, unless I plan to file my own lawsuit. So, Google Books has become a compulsory enterprise. I do not have the option I want, which is simply to deny Google the rights to display or sell anything I've written. And how this is possible is beyond me. This is my work, and I own the copyrights, and what Google is undertaking is blatantly illegal, and will seriously jeopardize my ability to make a living off my work, but I have no choice. In the end, I have to admit this mess baffles the hell out of me. To simply quote four lines of poetry in a novel, I have to jump through countless legal hoops. But no one is able to stop Google from forcing every living writer to be a part of this scheme. It makes me ill. It makes me want to never write another fucking word.

---

The last few months, I've had numerous people ask me why I'm not "twittering," or if I plan on "twittering," or will I please start "twittering." Back on February 3rd, I spoke my mind on Twitter, and nothing has changed. I started a blog in 2001 at the advice of my agent and other authors (most notably Neil), who thought it might help to promote my work. And it has. I began mirroring the blog at LiveJournal (originally, I was at Blogger) in April 2003, because, for whatever reason, people seemed to be flocking to LJ. I made a major concession to my lack of interest in the whole social-networking phenomenon a couple of years later by starting a MySpace account. Unlike the blog, whether or not MySpace has had any positive affect on the sales of my work is unclear. And then Facebook came along, and I reluctantly started an account, because, once again, I worried that if I didn't, I'd miss an opportunity to promote my writing. So...Blogger, LJ, MySpace, and Facebook.

And now I'm being told that I need to add Twitter to the list. After all, all the cool kids are doing it. It's the new wave of the future. But I find that I just don't care. Which is to say, no, I will not be joining the Twitter craze. I am already more "connected" than I wish to be, and I can think of nothing more insufferably dull than sending out trivial details of my life, trying to broadcast my every trivial thought (or reading the trivial acts and thoughts of others). I've already come dangerously close to doing this with the Facebook thing, and, for that matter, with the online journal. I have no more time for distraction. No more time for the latest internet fads. If anything, I'm more inclined to begin withdrawing somewhat.

I'm having one of those "Emperor's New Clothes" reactions to Twitter, and I think it's time to trust my instincts, which I too often ignore.

I do not do text. These days, I rarely even use the telephone. I will not "twitter."