Caitlín R. Kiernan

Okay, so...I sort of swore to myself that I wasn't going to auction any of the ARCs of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, at least not before the book's release. Not sure why I did, but I did. However, turns out we went over budget on the shoot for the trailer, and there's still more to be shot for the final version, and no way I'm going to do a second Kickstarter for the project.

So. We're going to auction a few things related to the book, beginning with the ARC of the novel. Here's your chance to read the novel well in advance of everyone else, and to own a collectible ARC filled with uncorrected sentences! The platypus, dodo, and mothmen compel you to bid, kittens! Also, I only received three copies of the ARC, and it's probable I'll never sell the other two, at least not for a few millenia. I'll sign it and personalize it, as the winner of the auction wishes. The auction begins at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST. So...until then, the link below won't work.

The Drowning Girl: A Memoir ARC Auction!

Going Once, Going Twice,
Aunt Beast

This is one of those rare mornings when I wake freezing, shivering, headachey, just shy of full-blown hypothermia, somehow having divested myself of all the blankets in the throes of this or that bad dream. And then I need two hours to get warm. Only, according to Spooky, I was actually being a bed hog, and if I'm cold it's my own damn fault.

Yesterday, I did an interview. An important interview. But I cannot yet say for whom or where it will appear. I will tell you as soon as I can. But it ate up more of the day than it should have. Also, I've gotten bloody sick of talking about myself. It's a little easier to talk about Imp or Sarah or Dancy, and almost as accurate since they're all overlapping aspects of me, anyway. To all prospective interviewers and would-be biographers of Me, I say to you, the only biography that's worth a good goddamn, the only truth-be-told, must first be filtered and fictionalized. You reduce the lives of women and men down to mere fact and history, and mostly you'll be left with the banal; if you're lucky, you'll get monotonous tragedy. Mythologize, though, and at least tragedy will seem noble, and even mundanity may be transformed and redeemed.

I am a writer, and my lot in life is to lie constantly, all the while never failing to tell the truth.

Today, I go back to work on "The Lost Language of Mollusca and Crustacea," and hopefully finish it. It will come in Sirenia Digest #73, with a great illustration by Vince Locke, plus Chapter Two of the original (scrapped) attempt to write Silk, plus (!, I hope) a new science-fiction story. I hope. Maybe.

Yesterday, I saw the colored pages for one of the Alabaster stories, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg, and wow.

An announcement. Every morning, or early afternoon, or mid afternoon, I spend anywhere from one to three hours on this journal. An hour and a half is about average, but let's say an hour, because round numbers are easier. That means I journalize seven hours a week, twenty-eight hours a month, three hundred and sixty-five hours a year (or about 15.2 days; and, in truth, a considerably larger sum). Think of all the stories or vignettes or work on novels I could get done in that time. And I've been doing this for more than eleven years, almost every single day! So, I'm thinking that after March, after the release of The Drowning Girl, I'm going to cease this every-goddamn-day blogging thing, this wearisome cataloging of the humdrum events of my humdrum life, and reserve the LJ for news of forthcoming books and of occasional interesting trips, saving untold hours that can be devoted to work, waking up, staring out the window, reading the day's news, et aliae. It's unlikely I'll change my mind.

It's looking now like the "teaser" trailer for The Drowning Girl will go live until January 3rd, due to web-design issues. We have everything in place, it just has to be assembled. The new front page of my website, that is. The thirty-second trailer is edited and ready to post (thank you, Brian!).

Yesterday, well, not much else to tell. I read a pretty good story by David Barr Kirtley (whom, I admit, I'd never heard of before), and before bed I read Stuart Moore's graphic-novel story loosely based on Thomas Ligotti's "The Last Feast of Harlequin (2007), as illustrated by Colleen Doran (I worked with her on an issue of The Dreaming, but, offhand, I can't recall which one). I napped. I watched a PBS documentary on the AZORIAN Project and the 1974 attempt to raise the sunken Soviet submarine K-129. I played Star Wars: The Old Republic. And there was other stuff.

And now, I go forth to think on bivalves and cephalopods.

Warm Now,
Aunt Beast

Compared with the day before, yesterday was quiet and uneventful. This is a very good thing.

We completed the edits on Blood Oranges, and I sent the book to my agent. It took me longer to get around to sending her the book after I'd finished it (~65 days) than was needed the write the damned thing (45 days). The manuscript still isn't perfect. Mostly, there are probably a few unresolved continuity errors, but we can catch that in post.

Two more mammoth (no, really; tusks and all) boxes of Two Worlds and In Between arrived yesterday. It's odd to have such a HUGE and, obviously, personally important book out. Finally, after more than a year of very, very hard work beating this volume into shape. The books has received amazing accolades. But, already, it's completely sold out, with no current plans for another edition. This is the beautiful weirdness that is small-press publishing. Meanwhile, my homely books from the titanic NYC publishers just keep chugging along (Silk, for example, has now been in print for thirteen years and five months). Anyway, other than one copy of the limited edition that's been placed on my shelf, the rest of my copies are headed to storage.

Also, the final galleys (page proofs, whatever) for The Drowning Girl arrived yesterday evening, and they have to be back in NYC by November 15th. This is my last chance to make any changes to the text for the trade-paperback edition (due out in March 2012). But I won't even be opening the package until tomorrow.

Last night, I received the final (and delightful) version of Vince Locke's illustration for "Latitude 41°21'45.89"N, Longitude 71°29'0.62"W.", and that means that today will likely be Assembly Day for Sirenia Digest #71. Which means subscribers will have the issue this evening or sometime tomorrow.

Last night, Spooky went out into the cold, bear-haunted Rhode Island night to fetch us some dinner from Mama Kim's Korean BBQ (!!!), a local food truck. If you're in the area, you absolutely have to try Mama Kim's. Follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook to find where the truck's at on any given evening or afternoon. Last night, Spooky had fried beef dumplings and sweet-potato fries, and I had three beef bulgogi wraps. Yum. And THEN, kittens, then we embarked upon a Hank Moody binge of fucking epic proportions...of fucking. Oh, but how I love Hank Moody. I will one day write an appropriately debauched and lovelorn ode to Hank Moody. Both discs of Season Four of Californication arrived on Friday, and we watched the first (eight episodes, 30 minutes each). And then did our dailies in RIFT (mostly Iron Pine Peak). I read a tiny bit of The Log from the Sea of Cortez, and passed out well before three ayem.

Exhaustion has its limits. And, from here on, I mean to be in bed by two-thirty ayem, asleep by three, and awake by eleven ayem (excepting special occasions). No more of this almost killing myself with sleep deprivation. At some point, it ceased to be insomnia and became a simple reluctance to sleep. Blame the dreams, of course, and the clock I hear in my head, counting off the days, hours, minutes of my life. Anyway, yes. More sleep.

Turning Around,
Aunt Beast

So, no Great Trailer & Photo Shoot for The Drowning Girl this weekend. Thank you, Hurricane Irene. Early last night, watching the grave weather forecasts, Kyle and I made the decision to postpone the whole affair. Which means postponing it until early October. Even if we could have reached Moonstone Beach (the area will likely be evacuated), I'd have never asked Sarah (who plays our Eva) to walk towards that surf, much less into it. So, there you go. But I do not argue with forces of Nature. They were here first, and will be here long afterwards. Forces of Nature have seniority.

But yeah, it's looking pretty bad here in Providence, and we'll spend part of the day laying in supplies for the impact. Fortunately, we have storm windows, and the walls of this old house were built with a crisscrossed lattice of steel to protect against this very thing (though it makes hanging pictures a bitch).

I got virtually nothing written yesterday. There was far too much commotion. Confusion. Calamity. All those good "c" words. Mostly, having to figure out, at the last fucking minute, what to do about the Great Trailer & Photo Shoot. Thus, I only managed to write a paltry 698 words on Chapter 8 of Blood Oranges. Nonetheless, I intend to have the book (plus epilogue) finished by the end of the day Tuesday (August 30).

I now have both of Vince Locke's illustrations for The Drowning Girl, and they're marvelous. Sirenia Digest subscribers have seen the first of the two, but no one (outside my publisher's offices) gets to see the second until the book is released next year.

Yesterday, my contributor's copy of The Book of Cthulhu arrived. As did the very beautiful edition of Shirley Jackson's The Sundial I'd ordered. Also, a care package from Madison Colvin in Savannah, Georgia, which included, among many other things, a copy of Angela Carter's Love (one of the few books by her I didn't own). So, thank you, Madison. Very, very sweet of you.

Last night, once the dust of difficult decisions had settled, there was some not exactly very good RP in Insilico, but it had a Season Five Dexter chaser, so everything worked out well. And I think the problem that caused the not exactly very good RP has been identified, so that it won't happen again. Then Spooky read The Stand, and I listened. We reached Chapter 38. And, for fuck's sake, I hate Harold Lauder. Sociopathic, maladjusted, plain ol' disgusting behavior aside, he makes me want to bathe. Oh, back to Dexter, Peter Weller is becoming William Burroughs. Has anyone else noticed that? Meanwhile, Deb Morgan is my latest profanity crush (I know most people don't get those, but I definitely have a profanity fetish; my last profanity crush was Al Swearengen). To wit:

And that was yesterday.

Battening Down the Hatches,
Aunt Beast

Outside, it's 80F and feels like 81F. Inside, 80F. Balance, kiddos.

The last thing I recall saying before I fell asleep this morning is, "Only a dyke would have a crush on Charlie Brown." This is, in fact, a reference to Peppermint Patty. Let's just say I was very tired. Though, that's often when I speak the truth.

This morning, I dreamed I was in some weird sequel to Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." Pretty much all detail is lost to me, but I can assure you it was not the least bit pleasant. The sense of uncleanliness, that it was unsafe to touch, drink, or eat anything, or even to breathe. It reminds me how "The Colour Out of Space" is a perfect parable for environmental degradation.

Yesterday was spent editing Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart and the first four chapters Blood Oranges, finding as many errors in the latter as possible and correcting them. This afternoon, it goes to my agent. Booya. I now know that I'll write an introduction for Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart called "Sexing the Weird." I'm going to ask another author to write an afterword, and I hope to include a lot of illustrations by Vince Locke

Couldn't sleep last night. When I can't sleep, neither can Spooky. So our insomnias align. She read me the first three sections of William Burroughs' Junky (which I've not read since the summer of 1994). Then she turned off the light, about 4:30 ayem. The sky had grown very bright, there on that shortest darkness of the year. I sat at the kitchen table eating leftover pasta salad and watching the dawn. Finally, the pills kicked in, and I crawled away to bed and sleep.

Happy birthday, faustfatale!

Our thanks to Stephen Lubold for the latest care package: Brown Bird's EP "The Sound of Ghosts," and three books: Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and the first two volumes of Mike Raicht and Brian Smith's amazing The Stuff of Legend. As it happens, he also won yesterday's ARC auction.

Good Rifting and rping last night. Thanks to everyone! The guild grows.

And yes, it's Soltice, Midsummer, Lithia, Litha. It is a day that Kathryn and I observe. If you do likewise, I wish you a happy Litha. I won't say blessed. Not sure I believe much in blessings, and even if I did, I would be unable to bestow them. The wheel turns. The shortest night, tonight.

We'll go to this evening to observe the day. We've talked about staying at the shore all night, maybe watching the sunrise over Narragansett Bay. But first I have a lot of work to do.

Comments, kittens!

Traveling the Circumference,
Aunt Beast

The cold hangs onto Providence with a death grip. At least the snow is gone, and there's sun.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,223 words on The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. And realized that I'm much nearer THE END than I'd guessed. It could be finished today and tomorrow. Maybe three days at the most. And the realization is disorienting, to say the least. Also, it occurred to me this morning that one important thing that sets this book apart from my previous novels is that place has never been so unimportant. There is a sense of place, of Providence (and mostly the Armory district), of the RISD Museum on Benefit Street, and the Athenaeum, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and, most especially, of the Blackstone Gorge and Rolling Dam at Millville, Massachusetts. The book also weaves in Boston, Manhattan, and LA, and other places. But almost all of it takes place in Imp's apartment in the Armory. The Drowning Girl: A Memoir could almost be adapted as a stage play with two, maybe three, sets: Imp's apartment, the RISD Gallery, a seashore. Curiously, I didn't include the Blackstone River, the novel's most important locale, outside Imp's home, on that list of potential sets.

I'll write on it today, and tomorrow, and maybe on Monday...and then I'll probably have found THE END.

Also, yesterday we proofed "Hydraguros," which is being reprinted in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2. I wrote this story a year ago, and I'm still in love with it. It's my best sf since I wrote "In View of Nothing" and "A Season of Broken Dolls" in early 2007. And after the proofreading, I printed out exactly 25 copies of "Atlantis," the poem I wrote in August for everyone who donated to Spooky's birthday fund. Each copy is printed in Garamond on Crane's Crest Executive paper, 100% cotton, premium weight (28 lb.). Each is signed and numbered. There will be no more. These will go in the mail on Monday.

I printed and signed a new set of contracts for Two Worlds and In Between. Because one of Bill's cats barfed on the originals. Sorry, Bill, but I had to tell that story. It's just too funny (and I, too, live in constant fear of the wages of cat barf).

I got Vince's illustration for Sirenia Digest #63, and, honstly, it's one of the best he's ever done. It'll appear as the cover. Today, I'll assemble the issue, and subscribers should have it tonight or tomorrow.

So, that was yesterday.

---

After dinner last night, we began reading Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire, the next book after The Hunger Games. Though it was no small feat, Shaharrazad found the last few quests needed to complete the "Into the Nether" achievement. Seriously, I needed almost an hour to find the last four quests I needed. They were hiding in "Area 52," with this Consortium ethereal fuck who looked like he only had dailies (big blue question mark floating above his head), even with low-level quests turned on. In truth, he has a whole string of quests! Thank you, Spooky and WoWhead. I never would have found those on my own. So, now I go back to Shadowmoon Valley and Nagrand, try to finish up Outland, and get the Loremaster title.

I played a couple of hours of Rift. I'm sure everyone's getting tired of me gushing over the game. I'll just say I got Selwyn to Level 17. Oh, and I'll say this, too. It's hard to ignore that in advertising for the game Trion is relying almost exclusively on the "human" Ethian and Mathosian races. In ads, in the quick-start guide, on the cover of the box, almost everywhere...we see Ethians and/or Mathosian (physically, they're pretty much interchangeable). And I call this a pernicious sort of speciesism/racism. There are six player races in Telara, and many of us are not Ethian and Mathosian. Never mind that I see more people playing Bahmi and Kelari than anything else (I have no idea how things look on the Guardian side). And I just heard that the two RP/PVP shards must be filling up fast, as Trion opened a third today, Estrael.

Oh, while I gamed, Spooky streamed The Secret of Kells and the Mythbusters episode about duct tape (I'm sort of sorry I missed the latter).

---

Whatever I'm forgetting can wait until later.

Slowly, the ice and snow are beginning to melt. Just after breakfast, a great slab came free of the roof and crashed to the driveway. You could get hurt out there.

No day off yesterday. Instead, I wrote 1,654 words, the new introduction for Two Worlds and In Between. I like it a great deal more than the one I wrote back in October. I also did more work proofreading the collection, a task that is far from done and will require much of this month.

The "Someday" antique skeleton-key necklace is still available at Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop, though most of the other jewelery has sold. Remember: FREE shipping until Valentine's Day, and this stuff is much better than a box of chocolates.

Though I am entirely at a loss as to why, last night we watched Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables. Yes, I willingly subjected myself to a film directed by Sylvester Stallone. And what a great slobbering penis of a movie it was*, too. Even Jason Statham, Jet Li, and a smirking Bruce Willis cameo couldn't save this one. It was, in fact, the single worst movie I've seen since we made the mistake of seeing Scott Charles Stewart's Legion at the theater this time last year. There's actually nothing good to be said for The Expendables. Stuff blows up. There are guns. There are more guns, and more stuff blows up. Men kick other men in the nuts. Stuff blows up. Unfortunately, there are attempts at dialogue. And there are guns. In fact, that might have been the pitch that sold the penis to studio execs. "Stuff blows up, there are guns, and guys kick each other in the nuts. With dialogue." Bad, bad movie. Please, Jason Statham, don't do this again.

I got Vince's Drowning Girl illustration last night, and it's very fine. I've decided that it'll be the cover for Sirenia Digest #62.

I think the Starbuck icon kick is just about out of my system. I've been wanting to see the whole series, start to finish, again.

Okay...off to make the doughnuts and the negative space within said doughnuts.

*Lest someone say I'm being sexist, there are also vagina movies, and usually I don't like those, either. Or maybe I'm just being some sort of equal-opportunity sexist. Though, I do like good penis movies. This just wasn't one them.

Some bad news, which I'm going to get out of the way up front. For health reasons, I will not be attending Arcana 40 in Minneapolis this October. I saw my doctor yesterday, and she's taken me off Prazosin entirely, as we're still trying to get the hypotension under control. She advised me against making two long-distance trips in October. I will still be attending H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival and Cthulhucon in Portland, OR (October 1-3) as Guest of Honor, and the reason I chose the one over the other probably bears some explanation. Andrew Migliore of the HPLFF first asked in 2007 if I would appear as Guest of Honor, and has asked every year since. This is the first year I've been in a position to accept the offer. Additionally, though I was invited to Aracana 40 in early November '09, I heard nothing else from the con until about a week ago, and I'd begun to assume that something had gone awry and Arcana wasn't happening this year. But it's all been dealt with, and my contact at Arcana has been very understanding, and there are no hard feelings. We're talking about me appearing at Arcana at some future date. So, my apologies to readers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

No writing yesterday. After almost not sleeping the night before, I was doing good to take a bath, get dressed, and make my doctor's appointment on time. Afterwards, I answered a large quantity of email. And Geoffrey (readingthedark) showed up about 5:30 p.m. It was a pleasant evening of conversation. The first few hours were spent discussing The Drowning Girl, and then we talked about Second Life and Insilico, and then we talked about why my science fiction isn't nearly as popular as my dark-fantasy work. There were many other subjects touched upon. He headed back to Framingham about 2 a.m., and I actually managed a good night's sleep.

Today, I have to begin the story based on Vince's latest illustration, for Sirenia Digest #57. You can see the illustration in my entry "Daka, Bodo, Herto, us" from August 20th.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, if you've not already. You might also take a look at Spooky's Etsy shop, Dreaming Squid Dollworks & Sundries, where you will find art, dolls, and many fabulous hand-crafted items. We're a little more strapped for cash than usual just now, as the bills have piled up and I'm waiting on overdue checks. Thanks.

And now, I must do the mothmen's bidding.

Cloudy here in Providence, but we're told the day will be warm. sovay is taking the train down from Boston, and we have to meet her at the depot in about an hour and a half.

Much of yesterday was spent housecleaning (Spooky did much more than I). I read over "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6," which I'd not read since it was published back in 2005. And I also read through parts of "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles," which I doubt I've looked at since I was working on Daughter of Hounds in 2004 or 2005. And I looked at the artwork Vince Locke has done for Sirenia Digest, A is for Alien, Frog Toes and Tentacles, and Tales from the Woeful Platypus, and tried to select a few pieces for the "best of" project. I made a list.

According to the Subterranean Press website, The Ammonite Violin & Others is now entirely sold out at the publisher. Amazon.com likely still has copies, but they won't for long. My thanks to everyone who bought the collection.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thanks.

And now I should go brush my teeth and get dressed and so forth. And finish my coffee.

Still raining here in Providence. Flooding across much of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Fortunately, the West Side of Providence is high enough that we only have to worry about leaking roofs and windows. The rain will be with us one more day, and then, supposedly, be gone. Rivers are flooding south of us. I understand Boston is set to break its rainfall record for the month of March.*

Last night, I slept almost eight hours, without Ambien. Huzzah.

Yesterday was spent formatting Sirenia Digest #52 (and proofreading, and writing the prolegomenon), which is pretty close to being ready to go out. I'm waiting on Vince Locke's illustration for "Houndwife." Last night, he sent me the pencils, and it's going to be gorgeous. I'm hoping the issue will go out to subscribers either tonight or tomorrow. By the way, I was reading over the Sirenia FAQ yesterday, and it really is woefully out of date. I'll try to fix that soon.

My goal for April— write the first two chapters of The Wolf Who Cried Girl, and, of course, produce Sirenia Digest #53.

Have I mentioned The Ammonite Violin & Others?

Late yesterday, sometime after 5 p.m., I decided that the little that was left to do on #52 could wait until today. One rainy day is as good for layout as the next rainy day. And I got dressed and ventured Outside, over to the East Side of Providence with Spooky, to the market. The Providence River was the highest I have ever seen it. Umbrellas were virtually useless. Anyway, Spooky made quesadillas for dinner, and then I spent much of the evening on Second Life, putting together a new avatar for the awakening of yet another copy of the Xiang AI. I'll post some screencaps tomorrow. It really is a beautiful, creepy av.

And I took some photos yesterday, as we drove through the dreary, dreary rain, just in case you ever wanted to see this city on a Very Rainy Day, through the water-slicked window of a moving automobile:

( 29 March 2010 )

*Postscript [1:46 p.m.]: Spooky just came in to tell me that they're talking about closing I-95, that this is the worst flooding Rhode Island has seen in a hundred years, and that the city of Warwick has declared a state of emergency.