greygirlbeast | Entries tagged with wolves

The Weather Channel says "It's a perfect day to call in sick. Did we say that out loud? But seriously, the Northeast will enjoy a beautiful spring-like day." But when I look at today's forecast I see that the predicted high is a paltry 48˚F (it's presently 43˚F), with a mostly cloudy sky. Which to me, to someone who grew up in the South, is about the same as saying today will be a "beautiful midwinter-like day." Tomorrow, the temperature is supposed to rise as high as 56˚F, which is at least approaching "spring-like." But it's going to rain. Fuck you, Mr. Weather Channel.

I'm never going to be who I'm never going to be.

But look who I've become.

Yesterday, I didn't finish the pseudo-vignette that's still titled "Apostate." Instead, I spent the day doing other writerly stuff. Email with my agent, Dark Horse editor, and suchlike. And other stuff. Honestly, I can't even remember much of it, so it truly must have been dull, indeed. My publicist wants to get the book trailer (the "teaser") up on the Penguin website for The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (right now, they don't even have the final cover up), and on the book's Amazon.com page. Which means I need to get him a DVD with "a compressed video file (preferably in .mov format and smaller than 100mb)," or use a legal file-sharing service, such as Dropbox.net. See? Exciting shit.

But! Here's something bow tie. You'll recall that on Sunday, there was the final shoot for book's full-length trailer, Kyle and Brian and Sara in the wilds of winter-stricken Pennsylvania, Sara in a beautiful dress made for the occasion by Kambriel. And here are two of the shots (behind the cut):

( What India Found in the Forest )

And you may purchase prints of these and many of the other stills from the project right here. All proceeds will be used to offset our overages (yeah, we went over budget), and right now Kyle and I (and mostly Kyle) are covering that debt. This particular shot of Sara is on sale, for a short time,

Nothing interesting about the non-work part of yesterday. I had a hot bath. We had left over turkey chili (I am losing weight). We leveled our Twi'lek Jedi to 13. I read about Lyme Regis and 19th Century ichthyosaur discoveries. No more than that.

Today, more email, and I'm expecting the editorial notes of Alabaster #4, and I'll actually finish "Apostate."

Feeling Her Years,
Aunt Beast

Current Mood: odd
Current Location: Australe Sulci
Current Music: Leonard Cohen, "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye"

Cloudy. Drizzly. 50˚F.

The light getting in beneath my office curtain has been drained of any quality to illuminate. It's still light, but a light that drenches and soaks in, rather than reflecting.

A stapler from college. A coffee cup from the Yale Peabody Museum, filled with pens and pencils. Four rocks: Moonstone Beach (RI), Jamaica, Ireland, Oregon. A tin of Altoids. Etc. & etc.

Comments can't hurt.

Yesterday, I wrote almost six hundred words on "Fake Plastic Trees." I very much like this story, but it's bleak. And it's only going to get bleaker. Yesterday, I decided I wanted the editor to read the first half before I write the second half, so I emailed it away. And now I'm waiting for the verdict. Which leaves me wondering what to do in the interim, which might be only a few more hours, but might be another day or two. I suppose I'll turn my eyes towards Sirenia Digest #65. Still hoping to see a few more answers to the latest Question @ Hand, by the way, though the ones I've received, most are keepers. Some made me feel that electric sensation in my gut. One of the highs I chase, night and day.

Two or three people have objected that they can't answer it because it involves my being forced, and maybe I see their point, the point of their objection. But, this is fiction, and, also, I've given my explicit consent to be fictionally forced. So, the objection mystifies me just a little.

CARE package yesterday from SL, who sent me two of the Brown Bird cds I didn't have, Tautology and Such Unrest, which I just loaded onto my iPod. Also, Curt Stager's (a paleoclimatologist) Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth. I read Spooky the prologue last night. And the package also contained Nicky Raven's retelling of Dracula as a children's story, beautifully illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert. So, my gratitude.

Last night, in response to my Danielle Dax post,

stsisyphus posted the video clip from Jordan's A Company of Wolves (1984) for which I'd posted the screenplay excerpt. And here it is:

<

Thing is, as artists we are influenced by things. I've always been aboveboard about the degree to which Angela Carter has influenced my work. She sparks my mind. She sings to me. I sing back. But then, as artists, sometimes, we are influenced by things, and, sometimes, we write (or paint, or whatever), and the influence acts unconsciously upon us. To wit, I was entirely unaware that in writing a significant part of The Drowning Girl I was very much expressing my love of this scene from The Company of Wolves. Imp tells a story, "The Wolf Who Cried Girl," and it derives very much from this scene. But I was entirely unaware what I was doing until I read the screenplay yesterday, and then it smacked me in the face. I'm fascinated by the silent influences, especially when they're so fucking obvious. "These things happen."

"And then,
you shall open
this book, even if it is the book of nightmares." (Galway Kinnell)

---

Good session with my doctor yesterday. New drug today, and maybe things will improve again. Soon, I hope. By the way, as I say in the acknowledgments to The Drowning Girl, without my doctor the novel never would have been written. It almost wasn't written.

Today, I may actually pitch the ParaRom lesbian junkie wolfpire novel to my agent. I would write it after Blue Canary, the first YA book, while she's shopping Blue Canary.

This evening, I have an appointment at RockStar Piercing on Thayer Street, to begin the process of having my earlobes stretched, and to put my labret back in. I need the sort of pain I get from body mods. It centers me.

Last night, we watched Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for the fourth time. It's is a genuinely brilliant film, and he's going to have to do a lot to ever top himself. We played Rift. I read "Enhydriodon dikikae, sp. nov. (Carnivora: Mammalia), a gigantic otter from the Pliocene of Dikika, Lower Awash, Ethiopia" in the latest JVP. You have to imagine a mostly terrestrial otter the size of a bear, which lived alongside Australopithecus.

And I should try to do some work, while I wait for a verdict on "Fake Plastic Trees."

Current Mood: electric
Current Location: Coronae Scopulus
Current Music: Decemberists, "This Is Why We Fight"

Some stuff I forgot to say this morning, and some more Dax. Because, like bow ties, she's still cool.

My two favorite photos of Danielle Dax, behind the cut:

( Blast the Human Flower and Onwards (With Screenplay Excerpt!) )

Meanwhile...

I meant to say there was very good rp with

omika_pearl last night. And, Riftwise, Spooky and I did the Iron Tomb with

stsisyphus and friends. Later, while I was rping, he and she continued to quest together, and rob cairns, and dance with squirrels.

And thanks for all the comments, guys. It truly has been helping. Sometimes, it's good to know the last Martian has all this human company.

* Can't seem to make the superfluous go away.

Current Mood: And then....
Current Location: Harmakhis Vallis
Current Music: Danielle Dax, "When I Was Young"

My journal entries have been a little long-winded recently, so maybe this one will turn out shorter. Or maybe it won't. But, the sun and warm air are back. The tree outside my office window is green.

Yesterday, I did 1,216 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree. Sarah Crowe, I fear, is going to be one of my most autobiographical characters to date. The novel is being written in the form of her journal, which has been edited for publication. That might work, and it might not. Right now, I'm struggling with a desire to use "editor's" footnotes. Also, I determined yesterday that if I can write a minimum of 1,200 words a day until May 1st, I might have a chance of getting this novel done by September 1. Truthfully, I'd like to get that up to 1,500 words per day.

"The Wolf Who Cried Girl" (Sirenia Digest #24; November 2007) has been selected for the 2008 edition of Horror: The Best of the Year (edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz; Prime Books). You'll recall that "Pony" (Sirenia Digest #2; Jan. 2006; but also in Tales from the Woeful Platypus) was chosen for the 2007 edition of Horror: The Best of the Year. It pleases me that the digest is being noticed by editors.

Lots of income tax chaos yesterday, of course. Spooky handles most of that. I just sign my name on the dotted line. Regardless, it did nothing to make yesterday more pleasant. But! I went Outside! All the way to Videodrome and the market with Spooky. I was so proud of myself. Anyway, on something far more perverse than a whim, we rented Kevin Lima's latest Disney outing, Enchanted. You'll recall that, after the Oscars, I had nothing but foul words for the three songs that were nominated. I think "insipid" was one of them. Well, to my surprise, the film itself — with the songs placed in their proper context — is peculiarly charming. And bizarre. And quite charming. And, well, it just sort of works. Also, it is an extraordinarily gay movie (you know, in the homosexual sense). Amy Adams gives an absolutely toe-curlingly creepy performance as a cartoon princess come to life. Timothy Spall is always, always a joy to watch. Susan Saradon seemed to be having fun, hamming it up as the villain. And kudos to Pip the chipmunk. No, I did not smoke crack last night. I did not even have a wee glass of absinthe.

Okay. The tyrant platypus (Ornithorhynchus tyrannus) says it's time to have coffee and make some doughnuts.

Current Mood: I've been worse
Current Location: Crater Kepler
Current Music: R.E.M., "Try Not To Breathe"

So, no small part of the exhaustion which I'm presently trying to recover from resulted from a seemingly endless series of rewrites to the Beowulf novelization, stretching all the way into June (the book was "finished" in February). These rewrites (and cuts) were made at the insistence of the studio folk, who were concerned that the way I'd written the novel gave too much away, spoiling the big reveal. Imagine, then, my surprise at finally seeing a trailer for Beowulf, which does a pretty good job of giving away a lot of the same things I was told the novelization couldn't divulge until the very end (and some not even then). More than that I will not say. No, I'll say one thing more, because I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to demonize anyone. While I was forced to cut a lot of stuff I'd have preferred not to, I was ultimately allowed to leave in a good deal of material that does not appear in the film or in the screenplays.

Yesterday, I did 2,120 words and finished "Anamnesis, or the Sleepless Nights of Léon Spilliaert." I am very pleased with it. Also, I should note this is the most I've written in a single day in a long time. Since sometime back in the late winter, I believe. Please keep in mind, however, that I do not measure whether or not a writing day has been "good" by the number of words written, but by how I feel about the quality of what I did that day. There is no ideal daily word count, and if I have previously given that impression, I'm sorry. More is not better, unless you happen to be able to write a lot without sacrificing quality. Anyway, in this case, it was at least fortunate that I wrote so much yesterday, as I am now able to include "Anamnesis, or the Sleepless Nights of Léon Spilliaert" in Sirenia Digest #20, which will also include "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection," which I wrote earlier this month. And if you are not already a subscriber, you can subscribe this very day and start off with #20. Speaking of which, I hope it will go out this evening, but subscribers will get it tomorrow at the latest.

Also note that Wyrm Publishing has announced a new anthology, Realms: The First Year of Clarkesworld Magazine, which can now be preordered. Edited by Nick Mamatas and Sean Wallace, the book will include a new story from me (as yet unwritten), along with fiction by Holly Phillips, Elizabeth Bear, Jeff VanderMeer, Catherynne Valente, Ian Watson, Sarah Monette, Paul Tremblay, and Many Others.

Not much else to say about yesterday (a familiar refrain). We had a good walk at dusk, when the rain stopped. There was a spectacular number of swallows darting about Freedom Park, and a swarm of enormous dragonflies. Today will be spent reading back over both "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection" and "Anamnesis, or the Sleepless Nights of Léon Spilliaert," and signing a bunch of eBay stuff, and getting the digest ready to go out this evening.

The current eBay auctions end on August 1st, which means it's not too late to have a look.

And I'm once again posting a link to my entry about the Bush Administration's proposed grey wolf hunt and how you can help try to stop it. 700 grey wolves, half the population in the northern part of the Rockies. Let's see — if we were permitted the "harvest" the same percentage of the human population from Idaho and Wyoming, that would be about 893,867 people...

Current Location: Drizzlecomb Linea
Current Music: Placebo, "I Know"

Yesterday, unexpectedly, I wrote 1,128 words on a new vignette, which I'm calling "Anamnesis, or the Sleepless Nights of Léon Spilliaert." Years ago, Jada emailed to say that she'd come across this wonderful word, anamnesis, and that it had to be the title for one of my stories. All these years, I've been looking for the anamnesis story, and yesterday it finally occurred to me. And if I can finish it today, I think it will even make it into Sirenia Digest #20. After the struggle with The Dinosaurs of Mars, and then letting myself not write for a few days, the words came suddenly yesterday. And they seemed to come with only a little struggle. And, mostly, it felt good to let them flow. And I think that's the way it's supposed to be, which is something I forget sometimes.

A few days ago, Frank Woodward sent me a teaser banner for the HPL documentary, which I've been meaning to include in an entry, but keep forgetting (behind the cut). I do not yet have a release date:

( Fear of the Unknown )

My thanks to Bill Schafer for the package, Neil's M is for Magic, illustrated by Gahan Wilson, and a copy of the new subpress edition of Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric.

Other than the writing, there's nothing much to be said for yesterday. It came, it went. There was Second Life and work on the Palaeozoic Museum. After dinner, we tried to take a walk, but it started raining. We re-watched a couple of episodes from Season Two of Deadwood.

If you didn't see my entry last night on the Bush Administration's plan to permit the murder of 700 grey wolves in Wyoming and Idaho, you may reach it here. And just for the record, I do not personally consider grey wolves — or any other species of living organism — to be "resource," valuable only because of some extrinsic quality beneficial to human beings. It is wrong to slaughter these animals, period. This isn't about humans somehow benefiting from restored ecosystems. This is about trying to restore ecosystems because humans had no "right" to dismantle them in the first place. And yes, if you would, please repost this.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Conamara Chaos
Current Music: Placebo, "Meds"

This from National Resources Defense Council:

The gray wolf's extraordinary comeback from extinction in Greater Yellowstone is one of America's greatest environmental success stories. But the Bush Administration is now pushing a proposal that would authorize the killing of some 700 wolves — more than half of the current population in the northern Rockies. Speak out now for wolf protection and help shield the wolves of Wyoming and Idaho from the coming crossfire.

We must stop the Bush Administration's plan to declare open season on the wolves of Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho. Once approved, Wyoming and Idaho intend to begin exterminating up to half their gray wolves — by aerial gunning and other cruel methods — as early as this fall.

Submit your Official Citizen Comment, opposing this disastrous plan, before August 6.

Is it even necessary to justify an objection to this crazy, sick shit? Please, take a moment to read and sign the comment that's being sent Ed Bangs, Western Gray Wolf Recovery Coordinator. You may find it here.

The statement is as follows:

I strongly oppose your recent wolf management proposal — the 10J rule — that would give states a license to kill wolves in areas where big game populations are below objective, possibly leading to the extermination of up to 700 wolves in Wyoming and Idaho combined. This would reverse the welcome gains in recovery of this magnificent species in the Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho regions.

I am especially outraged that your proposal would empower states to begin slaughtering wolves as early as this fall — even before wolves are taken off the Endangered Species list. It is scandalous that you are circumventing your agency's own process for delisting a species.

Wolves once thrived in much of the lower 48 states. Today, they reside in only five percent of their former range. If there is one place in this country where they should be allowed to flourish, it is in and around Yellowstone — our nation's oldest park — and the remote Selway Bitterroot ecosystem in central Idaho.

I urge you not to decimate a wolf population that has only recently sprung back to life and is world-renowned as a symbol of the American West.

I call on you to withdraw your proposal to allow the massive killing of wolves in the northern Rockies.

Please. And thank you.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: they took down all the signs
Current Music: the keyboard