Despite getting a very late start yesterday (a bit after 3 p.m.), the writing went well. I did 1,186 words and finished the new piece. No longer is it "Untitled 24." Now it is "A Season of Broken Dolls." Anyway, you can read it in Sirenia Digest #15. Today, I need to start the second piece for #15...something short...an actual vignette, I think. But the subject has not yet fixed itself in my mind.

Dreamsick this ayem.

The Raven Red auction ends in about nine hours. I hope you'll have a look. You can find all the raven auctions here. I thank you, Spooky thanks you, Hubero P. Wu thanks you, and Herr Platypus certainly thanks you. Someone recently suggested that perhaps the platypus is my totem animal. No way, no how. If I have a totem animal, which I kind of doubt, it's not even from this planet.

Looking back at old entries this morning, I came across this paragraph regarding Daughter of Hounds, from this same date one year ago:

Some part of me feels sick this morning. Not germ sick. Some intangible bit of me I can't treat with pills and the like. I'm very, very tired. I feel as though I could sleep a week. At least. We finished with read-through on Daughter of Hounds yesterday. Spooky cried again. It just left me feeling drained and at a loss. Like, okay, here it is. I've done this thing again, this book thing. I'm not sure I know what to make of it, all these stories I keep telling. A little bit after we'd finished, I admit I also got weepy, for the characters, for all the work that's already gone into the novel, for all of it. It's part relief. It's part dread. It's part weariness. Right now, I feel as though I could never write another novel and it would be for the best. Maybe I won't feel that way next week or next month. I suppose we'll see. I've put too much of myself into Daughter of Hounds, much more than I could spare. Now I want to hide it away somewhere, in a closet or beneath the bed. I don't want to see it edited and copyedited and published and reviewed and commented upon by readers. I just want to put it somewhere safe, and it could always be mine and never anyone else's. I don't know that I've ever felt this protective of one of my novels. I just want to keep it safe.


365 days farther in, I think I've resigned myself to the fact that Daughter of Hounds has moved forever beyond my ability to "protect" it. But looking at those words, while some of the urges in question may have diminished in intensity, I still know exactly what I meant.

A very fine walk yesterday, which is why I got such a late start. I was determined to wait until the air temp climbed above 50F, and that meant waiting until about 1:30 p.m. Bright sun. Blue skies. We walked far down Sinclair to Inman Park, then south to Euclid. We saw a hawk, gliding between the trees. We heard a woodpecker but didn't see it. We came back via L5P, and there were a lot of people out. But I miss what L5P was back in the early and mid '90s. These days, it seems so diminished. Anyway, we took a few photos on the walk (behind the cut):




Nice, but not very subtle. I'm thinking, "What Would Huxley Do?" would be way funnier.



Daisy, the finest black dog on Sinclair Avenue.



Signs of spring. Though, it should be noted, this year the dandelions bloomed all "winter."



Sitting in Inman Park, looking west.



Last night's ep of Battlestar Galactica was an improvement, and next week looks like it will be still more space opera, less soap opera. So I shall continue to watch for the time being. Also, the new ep of The Dresden Files was nice enough, but I couldn't help thinking how much better the show would be if Whedon were directing, or if they'd stick with one writer. It needs less bland TV appeal, more genuine darkness, more black humour, an edge that's actually sharp. Later still, Spooky read me chapters 4-6 of The Terror, which I am liking quite a lot so far.

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Back to the Motel this morning. I do not for a fact know that it is a motel. That's just how I've come to think of the white room, the white tile floor damp with rain from a leaky roof, the flickering fluorescents. I think that I am being haunted by this goddamn dream, and I can not begin to puzzle it out. I half suspect it's not even my dream. But I am going to stop writing about it here. It must be getting tedious. Instead, I shall make a short story of the thing. Maybe that will act as a binding and lock it safely away.