A day of relief and some small bit of rejoicing yesterday, as we learned that we got the apartment near the Armory district in Providence that we were hoping we'd get. It is very, very good to know, again, where we will be sleeping two months from now. We plan to leave Atlanta, probably, on Friday, May 30th, and arrive at the new place on June 1st, just about the time the movers arrive with our furniture. It's a wonderful apartment, in a building dating back to 1875. This is the move I wanted to make in 2002, when we landed in Atlanta, instead, so it feels like some long-delayed goal has been achieved. Our five (going on six) years in Atlanta have not been a total waste, just awfully close to a total waste, and I'll be glad to be shed of this city. Of course, now we have less than six weeks remaining to pack everything.

Byron will be driving up with us, to drive Spooky's car while she drives the van that will transport more fragile belongings (fossils, computers, Hubero, framed pictures, etc.) that we don't trust to the movers. It's good to know we won't be on the road alone. He'll take a plane back (though we have hopes that Providence will seduce him, as well).

A decent writing day yesterday, though it took me forever, or so it felt, to get started. I did 1,131 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree. As for the footnotes vs. endnotes thing, I think I have (after many comments from readers) come down on the side of footnotes. We'll see how it goes when I finish this chapter and backtrack to add them in, see if footnotes look and feel right.

Email yesterday from Frank Woodward of Wyrd Co., to let me know that the editing on the documentary, H. P. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, is finished, and wanting to know if I'd like to be one of the first to see it. Of course, I said yes. And I cannot recall, offhand, who it was, back during the medical/dental crisis of February who bought letter "L" of Tales from the Woeful Platypus (plus Beanie platypus #4), and for whom I promised a letter "L" limerick, but I apologize for not having gotten around to it yet. Yesterday, Spooky shoved the Beanie platypus at me and threatened death if I did not take care of this. So. It's on the list for this weekend, promise, and I thank you for your patience. Spooky has decided, by the way, that there shall be no more eBay until after the move.

Last night, Byron came over for the premiere of Series Four of Doctor Who, and I thought it was a very excellent episode, indeed (of course, UK folks saw it about three weeks ago, I guess). A good start, though I would so have loved Astrid to have become the new companion, if we can't have Sally Sparrow or Martha Jones. I was not, however, impressed with the The Sarah Jane Adventures. Maybe if I were twelve. But the new episode of Battlestar Galactica was also quite good, with a nice tummy punch there at the end. Byron did not stay for BSG, as he still holds a grudge against the SFC for canceling Farcscape, and says that Doctor Who is one thing, since it's actually produced by the BBC, but BSG is another. I hold the grudge, as well, but fell in love with BSG on DVD and couldn't help myself. Later in the night, some good rp in Second Life.

Someone got me thinking that today was Darwin Day, when, in fact, Darwin Day was February 12th (his birthday). Today is actually the date of his death in 1882. However, since I missed Darwin day this year, I shall recognise it today:



I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

—— Charles Darwin, from Autobiography (1958, edited by Darwin's granddaughter, Emma Barlow)

I do not want this journal to become a whining catalog of my physical infirmities. But when those infirmities have a direct bearing on my ability to think, to work, to sleep, to fucking write, the one concern overlaps the other. Things that I have always considered too personal to place in a public journal become central to my public endeavors. It has grown very confusing. What to say, what not to say. The worst seizure last night since October, probably, and it must have been about 3:30 or 4 ayem when it happened. Just hit like a jet plane landing inside my head, no warning, and then I was afraid to try to go to sleep. I was up until a little after six. The sound of the mockingbirds finally drove me to bed, and I slept through nightmares until about one, to wake feeling not the least bit rested. To wake feeling even more exhausted than when I fell asleep.

Seizure: "act of seizing," 1482, from seize (q.v.). Meaning "sudden attack of illness" is attested from 1779. Or, Epilepsy: 1578, from M.Fr. epilepsie, from L.L. epilepsia, from Gk. epilepsia "seizure," from epi- "upon" + lepsis "seizure," from leps-, future stem of lambanein "take hold of, grasp" (see analemma). Replaced the native name, falling sickness. Of course, my seizures are not exactly epilepsy, they're just pretty much indistinguishable from epileptic seizures.

More reading yesterday, more of the New England vampire book.

I do think, after looking over yesterday's comments, that I have resolved to make the protagonist of The Red Tree the same age as me, which will be -04 for most of the time I'll be writing the book. How far in the Pit has American publishing sunk when it's afraid of middle-aged and older characters? Afraid or simply disinterested. Whatever. I'll make the weird girl who lives in the attic of the house , the painter — who was going to me a man — a twenty-something. Maybe that'll make people happy. But I discovered, when I wrote "Salammbô Redux (2007)" last summer, that it was something I needed to do, writing older characters. So, there. Thank you for the comments yesterday. You tipped the scales.

Here's a cool little thing. Jeff VanderMeer writes about ghouls (and I get a mention, alongside HPL and Brian McNaughton), and there's a link to an article of the origin of HPL's ghouls (which are, more or less, my "Hounds of Cain"). Thank you, sovay, for bringing this to my attention.

Last night, a sort of half-hearted "Kid Night," we watched the last three episodes of the final season of Angel. Seasons Four and Five were really quite good. The series was just hitting its stride. Wesley's death and that final scene — marvelous, but it was a hard ending to take. And then we watched Battlestar Galactica, which was good, and gods, but I do adore Katie Sackoff. However, I think commercials really do this series grave harm. The suspense builds and is then deflated. I'll likely watch the whole series over on DVD when it's done. Later, some very frustrating Second Life, nothing to write home about.

I did not leave the house yesterday.

I'm going to go now and try to get some reading done.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,080 words and finished "Flotsam." I am very, very pleased with the piece. It is possessed of the sort of economy and density I achieved in "Untitled 17" (in Frog Toes and Tentacles). It is a true vignette, a scene (though the narrator's mind wanders a bit in time), and it's so rare that I'm actually true to the original mission statement of Sirenia Digest.

In response to my request for comments regarding "Pickman's Other Model," I received a rather marvelous email from one Mr. Tim Huntley, who writes:

The lines from the Ovid in Part 3 drew me to thinking about transformation but also about the particular morphē that changes. What, for me, was particularly well written throughout "Pickman's Other Model (1929)" was the notion of change and development. I touch on nothing you didn't intend, I'm sure, but I find that there is an interesting development from the paintwork and photography of Lovecraft's own mode of revelation into the charcoal sketches and cinematic reels of the mode of grotesque revelation in your own piece.

The role of cinema is very well placed though. Having read Sirenia Digest #28, I looked to some Lovecraft letters and found a Sept 1935 note where HPL bemoans missing a screening of Caligari. Yet cinema is a mode not in Mr Blackman's favour: he is a man of the theatre, favouring "living actors." As such your story gives rise to thinking on the oppositions of metamorphosis and body; of theatre and cinema. The performance one becomes gives way to what one is, a fixity surely put in question by any notion of acting. However, for all the doubt Mr Blackman casts on his own authorial veracity, Lily nonetheless casts him as "a persistent fellow such as you".

In short, "Pickman's Other Model" takes up the ways in which popular folk myth, cultural gossip, horrors, and memory endure. It takes them up and scatters them through a myriad of forms. (On a lighter note, dare I say that Thurber's presence at the screening ("Now, do you understand?") seems to have the hint of a nod to that moment in Landis' An American Werewolf in London, where Kessler sits with Jack Goodman...) There was also an echo from your own work: I loved the ground that seems to stretch from the private arcane collection of Silas Desvernine in "Estate" to the corporeal arcanum of the Hounds' film. Between these two stories there was an interesting shift from introspective real estate to projected industrial product: the cinema film (played, nonetheless, underground by the Harvard Square collective). And the relaying of the Durand Drive events was superb – for me it was inlaid perfectly: like a miniature inset of "The Call of Cthulhu" part II.

Finally, I have to say, Lillian Margaret Snow is a splendidly defined ghost, shifting through the whole of the piece. "Pickman's Other Model (1929)" is a piece for which you should be proud.

Danke schön. Actually, though I do see your point about Jack Goodman, I think what was actually going through my head at the time was a line from Poe's "Hey Pretty" ("Do you get this gist of this song now?"), which, of course, leads back to Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Also, Sean writes:

I'd never read it ["Pickman's Model"] before with thoughts towards the unreliability of first person narration, but I think the points from your prolegomena are well taken. It did seem like Thurber was about to come off the rails completely before his account was finished. In that light, it seems perfectly logical that he might have later committed suicide. Your story did seem to leave one unanswered question though in regards to Thurber — what, if any, was the extent of his contact with Vera Endecott/Lillian Snow? Did he merely get the sketches from Pickman, or did they meet during the time she modeled for Pickman? What exactly was the final straw that broke his mind is also somewhat shady. Perhaps you left these things ambiguous on purpose and, in any case, the story didn't suffer for it.

To which I reply, I always try to leave as many questions unanswered as answered, and thinking on it now, answering your questions would make another good story (and no doubt lead to new questions, because this regression is infinite). Anyway, my thanks to Sean and Tim, both.

I'm taking the day off, going to the picture show with Spooky. There was a very small seizure late yesterday, the sort that is usually called "petit mal" or "absence" seizures, which mostly just leave me feeling odd for a few hours. But the insomnia and stress is piling up, so, yeah, a day off to try to get pointed to true north once more. But, first, these marvelous images, courtesy thingunderthest (behind the cut):

( Farscape definitions )

*Just a word to the wise, from me to a certain "Tristan Pennell," should he actually be reading this (by way of the Dresden Dolls, of course).

I've been making myself go to bed at 2 ayem the last two nights (or mornings), and slowly I am catching up on all the sleep I've lost. Still, here it is 1:12 pm, and I'm still groggy. It's cold in Atlanta this afternoon, but we got marvelous thunderstorms yesterday, and the warm will be back tomorrow, so that's not so bad.

Yesterday. Let's see. It was all about getting Sirenia Digest #28 put together. I did the corrections to "Pickman's Other Model" that I marked when we last read through the story on the 18th, but had not yet made. I have a feeling I'm going to have to read over this one one more time before I send it out into the world. Anyway, that took about an hour and a half. Then I snurched HPL's "Pickman's Model" from Wikisource and spent a bit of time making sure the formatting matched HPL's original (there were some discrepencies), because I want Sirenia readers who haven't read "Pickman's Model" to have it on hand. I gathered up some images I want to use in the issue. I wrote the prolegomena, which is mostly about inspiration. So, it's looking like #28 will go out tomorrow. I still have to do the layout today, and I'm waiting on Vince's illustration. Oh, and this issue will also include, for all those new subscribers, one of the older stories, one of my favourites, "The Sphinx's Kiss" (from #14, January 2007). I think I will be very happy with this issue.

Also, yesterday, the contracts for the German-language editions of Threshold and Low Red Moon arrived. Of course, the IRS still hasn't sent me the forms I need to send to my German publisher to prove that, yes, I really am an American citizen (in order to avoid the hefty German taxes). The post also brought a package from Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, because Spooky had ordered a bottle of their Baghdad for me (amber, saffron, and bergamot, with mandarin, nutmeg, bulgar rose, musk, and sandalwood), plus a bunch of "imps" (and I'm not gonna list them all, but her faves are Zombi and Séance). Baghdad is the new smell of me.

Last night, there was Manhattan-style clam chowder for dinner, followed by a pretty good episode of Torchwood and a very good episode of Angel ("Damage"). I started reading another JVP paper yesterday — "Cranial anatomy of Ennatosaurus tecton (Synapsida: Caseidae) from the Middle Permian of Russia and the evolutionary relationship of the Caseidae" — but didn't finish it.

Another casualty of the March 14th-15th tornadoes, one I have not yet mentioned, was the second of the two trees in Freedom Park that played an important role in a dream I wrote of way back on March 8th, 2006. Somewhere, there's an entry with a photograph of the two trees standing, but the journal's gotten so long, I'll be damned if I can find it. Anyway, one of the two trees was already dead and fell in storms last year. These two oaks were a bit special to me, because of the dream, and because we'd done some magick there, and they were just very fine trees in their own right (which is the most important thing). There's a photo, taken late on Thursday, behind the cut:

( Fallen )

My thanks to furrylittleprob for pointing me to more LJ icons by artist Liz Amini-Holmes.

Yeah. I hear ya, platypus. Where's my damn coffee?

Postscript (2:34 p.m.) — Thanks to cliff52 for pointing out that the photo of the two trees can be found in my March 10th, 2006 journal entry (third photo down).

Yesterday was a decent enough writing day. I did 1,125 words on "Pickman's Other Model" and finished the third section of the story. HPL never gave first names for either Eliot or Thurber, and after looking into names that were popular in the late 19th Century, when Thurber (narrator) of "Pickman's Model" would have likely been born*, I have settled on William Thurber, who, it turns out, had an older sister named Ellen (I think).

Have I mentioned how much I love the 3rd edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder. I do not generally tend to look at my books very much once they are published, but I'm making an exception with this one. It's been such a long road, turning this collection into a book I'm happy with, I feel I should try to savor it. This edition more than makes up for the mess that Meisha Merlin foisted upon me (and everyone who bought the book). This is probably as near to what I'd originally intended it to be as I can ever hope to come.

Byron dropped by last night, and we did dinner at the Vortex, and broke the news to him about the move to Rhode Island. I'm going to make a very short list about the things in the South I will miss, and Bryon is on that list. He took it well. Of course, I wish we could just haul him north with us. Anyway, after dinner, we watched Austin Powers (1997), which I'd never seen, and Spooky had only seen while stoned. I fear I was not impressed. I tried to be impressed, but it just seemed like the same only faintly humorous line delivered again and again. For spoofs of sixties spies, I'll stick with James Coburn and Lee J. Cobb in Daniel Mann's Our Man Flint (1966). After the movie, we happened to catch the infamous scientology episode of South Park (which I'd only seen once), and I swear, that one episode is such a tremendous service to mankind that Trey Parker and Matt Stone deserve a Nobel Prize.

Sometime back, I decided it was best for this blog to steer clear of politics, but Hilary Clinton's behavior the last couple of weeks has finally pushed me to break radio silence on the subject of the 2008 US presidential election. Specifically, her bizarre attempt to convince voters that, if worse comes to worse and she doesn't get the Democratic nomination, that the Republican's McCain would make a better President than would Barack Obama. Has any Democratic candidate ever made such a twisted, desperate bid to sway an election? It's very hard to listen to her campaign rhetoric and not come away with the impression that what she's really saying here comes down to, "Yes, McCain's the enemy, but at least he's white." So, though I hate sounding like a reactionary, I have chosen what is, in my opinion, the lesser of two evils, or, more specifically, Hilary Clinton's actions have made the choice for me. The Obama sign goes up in the front yard next week. Besides, he's kind of cute, and we surely can't say that about McCain or Clinton, and I think he's more likely to get the country out of Iraq than is the somewhat hawkish Hilary Clinton. As usual, Olbermann does not mince words:



Anyway, don't forget that Sunday everyone switches back to Caitlín Standard Time (which is sort of annoying, as I will no longer be early for everything).

* I draw this conclusion based upon Thurber describing himself as "middle-aged" and the assumption that the story is contemporaneous with the time that HPL wrote it (September 1926; published October 1927).

I was up a wee bit too late last night (but thank you Lorne and Larissa), and then there were the nightmares, so I'm presently somewhat dazed and disoriented. I'm awake, I'm just mostly elsewhere.

Yesterday, I did 1,070 words on "Pickman's Other Model." The writing started out slowly, but then built up some momentum. A much better day of it than I had on Wednesday. If it'll just all hold together, in terms of the story's historical authenticity, I think I'm going to like this one.

I want to say again how happy I am with the Subterranean Press edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder. My thanks to everyone who has ordered a copy thus far.

After about half a dozen people expressed an interest in participating in the Second Life "Sirenia Players," I went ahead and established the group yesterday evening. At this point, four people have been invited in, three have accepted. More invitations will go out this evening. We'll probably have an informal get-together in a few weeks, to talk through the basics, lay some ground rules, and so forth. If you're interested, I need your SL username, otherwise I can't find you to send you an invitation, and the group is invite-only.

A good walk yesterday, down Sinclair Avenue to talk to Daisy Dog and the dinosaur. The Narcissus and camellias are blooming. I'm going to miss these Southern springs, but I figure it'll be more than fair, the trade off. Speaking strictly in terms of climate, it's a bloody shame the great industrial (and cultural) centers of this country were not founded in the southeast, instead of the northeast. Oh, fickle fucking happenstance. Anyway, after dinner, another two episodes of Angel. I enjoyed "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," but "Supersymmetry" was just a little too something.

And really, I think that's all for now. Time to dance with the platypus in the pale moonlight (of..um..day).

Yesterday, I did 1,144 words on "Pickman's Other Model," and I think it's going well. It is an especially daunting undertaking, as I'm writing it in first person, set in 1929, which means these have to be the thoughts of someone alive in 1929. The piece is told from the POV of Eliot, the man to whom Thurber is telling his story of Pickman in Lovecraft's tale, though this story actually concerns Eliot's search for a film actress named Alma Endecott. "Pickman's Other Model" will be appearing in Sirenia Digest #28.

I have what is, at least to me, some fairly momentous news. Our lease here is up on June 1st, and with the generous assistance of Spooky's parents, we will be moving from Atlanta to Rhode Island. We do not yet know where in Rhode Island, though we're talking about places in Westerly, Newport, Peacedale, and Providence. Just about any part of the state (except Woonsocket) is a possibility. I've known this was likely coming for a couple of months, but I've wanted to hold off saying anything about it until we were absolutely certain, since there have been false alarms dating back to 2002, when I'd first hoped to make the move to New England. A big part of this is that we both loathe Atlanta, and Spooky's very homesick, and it'll be easier on her being near her family as we try to cope with all the bullshit from my PNES. So, we will be moving at the beginning of June, right in the middle of my writing Joey Lafaye, which will make for all sorts of chaos. And, one thing is certain, this journal should get quite a bit more interesting as the days go by.

A good walk near Freedom Park. Someone was flying a kite, and there were happy dogs everywhere. Last night, we watched Danny Boyle's Sunshine. And my third viewing (I saw it twice last summer in the theatre) only served to confirm my conviction that it is a breathtakingly sublime and beautiful film, in all ways. My thanks to wolven for gifting me with the DVD. Later, I had rp in Second Life, the Nareth who is Nephilim, and lessons on pain in the Omega Institute's library with the help of one of Lorne's apprentices, Larissa. I think we got to bed about 4 am. I seem to have shifted onto some odd (for me) schedule, whereby I go to bed between 3 and 4 am (CaST) and get up around noon. Which means I usually get seven to eight hours sleep (more than I'm used to), and then begin writing about 2 p.m. It seems to be working just fine. Still, it's odd.

Congratulations to Rev. Margo, who had the winning bid on the Japanese translation of the Beowulf novelization, and also to Cliff Miller, who snagged the Tails of Tales of Pain and Wonder chapbook. Thank you both!

This morning, I need to email Joshi and see if he knows the name of the theatre in Providence where Lovecraft once worked the box office selling tickets. I know it's in H.P. Lovecraft: A Life somewhere, but I can't find the page, and I can't find it on the internet, either. Also, I need to get the signature sheets for Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy back in the mail to Joe Lansdale.

Postscript (5:06 p.m. CaST): I have just learned via several people on my LJ friends' list that Gary Gygax has died at age 69. On one occasion, early in my publishing career, Gygax and I had stories appear in the same anthology — Pawn of Chaos (White Wolf's short-lived Borealis imprint, 1996). I never met him, and I've not played D&D since 2005, but it's a bit sad hearing that someone who invented a game that has given me so many hours of nerdy joy (in my case, since 1979) has passed.

Regarding my quote yesterday (from a March 2, 2005 entry) on the ease with which one may find my books via the internet, ariander writes:

To add to that, if people are really bent on buying through their local bookseller, said bookseller has all sorts of access to ordering systems and will most likely order whatever people want if those people make the effort to ask for it rather than wandering the aisles, giving a shrug when it can't be found, and walking back out the door.

This is, of course, entirely true, and I was remiss in not mentioning it. Don't see what you want at your local bookstore? Just ask them to order it. Easy as pie (whatever that means).

The latest round of eBay auctions will be ending later this afternoon, including the only copy of the Japanese translation of the Beowulf novelization I am likely ever to offer on eBay. Ever. So, please, have a look and bid if you are so disposed and able. Thank you.

Yesterday, while I did not actually write, I did manage to prepare myself to write today. Sometime last week, a title came to me — "Pickman's Other Model" — and so yesterday I reread "Pickman's Model" for the thousandth time and did various other bits of research related to the story and 1927 Boston and a slew of artists (from Goya to Sidney Sime), and I think today I am ready to begin the piece (which will appear in Sirenia Digest #28). I'm pretty sure it will be set not in Boston, but on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, and that it will be a first person narrative written by "Eliot," the man who is being told the tale of Thurber's encounter with Richard Upton Pickman in Lovecraft's story.

Also, I have been invited to participate in ReaderCon 19 in Burlington, Massachusetts this July, and I am going to try to actually attend.

A good walk yesterday. The weather was fantastic. Tank-top weather. We walked through Freedom Park, and I took photos of things that were budding and blooming. I meant to include some of the photos in this entry, but forgot until this very moment. Maybe I'll get them in tomorrow. Oh, and I washed my hair, which is always a chore. And, Second Life aside, that was yesterday.

First things at the beginning, right? Yesterday I wrote 1,236 words and, I think, made a very good start to Chapter Two of Joey Lafaye. And that is a huge relief, just having the novel moving forward again. Spooky loved the pages, and I have to take that as a good sign. As soon as Chapter Two is finished, I'll be sending the first part of the ms. to some of my "first readers," including my lit agent, to get their thoughts.

Also, I have been told that I can announce I will be a Guest of Honor at the 2009 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon (first weekend of that October), which is one of the coolest things I have ever been asked to do. Details TBA, but this is very far in the future, so don't expect them too soon.

Thanks to those who have bid in the latest round of eBay auctions. Right now, we have copies of the trade hardbacks of To Charles Fort, With Love, Alabaster, and Frog Toes and Tentacles up, and yes, all these collections are long sold out. Please have a look. I will note that I am holding back on offering the last two paisley platypuses, as eBay sales have been a bit sluggish of late. Also, if you haven't already preordered Tales of Pain and Wonder, today would be a fine day to do so.

Anyway, we actually managed to get up and out of the house in time to make the 1 p.m. matinée of Cloverfield, and my thoughts are behind the cut, as they do contain spoilers:

( Cloverfield )

So, here I am at 4:42 p.m. (CaST), trying to fight back a migraine that I woke with so that I can attend to the final-pass page proofs for Tales of Pain and Wonder. Right now, my money's on the headache.

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.

These musical fixations come and go and swing and sway and rise and fall and then come back again. Suddenly Placebo has given way to Rammstein, though I think Placebo's on their way back, because I've just tapped into the new album, Meds.

Yesterday, I did 1,049 words on "The Steam Dancer" (for Sirenia Digest #19), and I'm still feeling very good about this piece. Though it's set in the 1896 of some alternate history Colorado, I'm trying to keep most of the alternate history stuff way in the background. The piece has, I think, a nice economy; spare, pared down, yet lyrical. After the writing and after dinner, when the sun had set and it was at last cool enough that the birds had begun to sing again, we dared venture outside. Spooky and I walked over to Videodrome to return a DVD. On the way, we met a pretty little snowshoe Siamese, about half Hubero's size, who was probably much too friendly for its own good. Everything after that is a blur of Second Life. The tips were good last night though; I brought in more than $800 Lindens (after the club's cut). And I discovered Nareth Nishi #4, who I'm presently thinking of as Samurai/Road Warrior Nareth.

This comment to yesterday's entry by mech_angel, regarding my remarks on the subversive nature of my erotic writings:

At risk of sounding like a gibbering fangirl, that dissolution—I've never seen it as subversion, personally—of barriers is what I've loved about all your work. The idea that, if you look just right, the barriers aren't really there, they were just limits in your perception.

As with all things, the perception of barriers lies along a continuum. Each person perceives barriers from herhisits subjective point of view, a pov born of the unique complexities of each perceivers private, personal history. Most people seem to be very wedded to perceptions wherein the boundaries between, say, plant and animal are absolute, wherein the boundaries between solid and liquid, good and evil, particle or wave, male and female, or (one of the worst) human and "animal" are possessed of some objective, external reality. I would argue this is because such a perception is somehow especially beneficial to the maintenance of the sort of society we live in and so is selected for. Society shapes a status quo perception that will not threaten it, or that will at least threaten it only rarely. So, when I say that the pieces in Frog Toes and Tentacles or Tales from the Woeful Platypus or Sirenia Digest are subversive, I mean that they subvert these perceptions. They are transgressive relative to that way of perceiving which needs to place things here or here. It may be that this infinitesimal fraction of the multiverse we inhabit is defined only by the illusions of boudaries, and if so (and we may never have an objective, empirical means of determining this, of course) then fiction that treats the boundaries as fluid and mutable is in some sense truer to Nature than that which does otherwise. But when I'm speaking of subversion, I'm speaking of the effect the works in question may have upon the minds of the perceivers (readers), how its gestalt may clash with that of the reader. And, I like to think, how it might lead readers to question their own ideas about boundaries, which would make it actively subversive.

I've had a number of people wanting more details about Frank Woodward's HPL documentary, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, the one I was interviewed for back in April. Frank keeps a blog here, and, I think, is doing regular updates as the documentary's production proceeds (and talking about lots of other weird and wonderful stuff).

Okay. Herr Platypus is showing me them venomous spurs, so I gotta go. Later, kiddos.

Since everything I try to get done today seems bound and determined to go to shit (probably this Mordorian air), I thought I'd share this, a silent-film style adaptation of Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930), in three parts. It was submitted to the Convergence 13 film festival by jaborwhalky, but, alas, did not make the cut. It's a little stiff, but not bad for two weeks work. I have got to get off my ass and get a gorramn video camera...



Part One


Part Two


Part Three

Enjoy. iMovie rules.

I had some crazy thought that I might get the last bit of work on Sirenia Digest #17 done this evening, so that the issue could go out tonight or tomorrow. But we were at Oakland until almost 6:30 p.m., and I appear to have seriously underestimated the tiredness that would follow. Still, I've had a Red Bull and pizza and am now working on a cup of coffee, so it might happen. However, please do forgive me if you don't get the new digest until Monday. It's been a hell of a week.

I had makeup at 2:30 p.m., then met Frank and Jim at Oakland Cemetery at 3:30. The whole thing went off so much more painlessly than I expected. The weather was cooperative, though there was a blustery wind that we hadn't felt yesterday and had not anticipated having to deal with. There were also freight trains and MARTA and helicopters, which made for frequent interruptions. All things Lovecraftian were discussed, maybe two and a half hours of interview for the fifteen or so minutes that will appear onscreen (though I've been told much more will appear with the DVD release). I think this is going to be truly stupendous documentary, as it will also include interviews with Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, Stuart Gordon, S. T. Joshi, Guillermo del Toro, Robert M. Price, and, I believe, John Carpenter. Oh, I also did a little "welcome to the Lovecraft Film Festival" spot. All in all, there was far too much flattery today, though now I have been told that I have Angelina Jolie lips and apparently bear some eldritch resemblance to Cate Blanchett. Hawks sailed by overhead, and woodpeckers and mockingbirds and a very tiny jumping spider also kept us company. All in all, I am utterly exhausted, but glad I did it. Huge thanks to Frank and Jim, and also to Fawn Ortega for coming to the rescue with makeup.

There are some photos behind the cut, thanks to Spooky, including gratuitous cemetery shots, because a number of people said they wanted to see more.

( Oakland again )

There is a very generous new review of Daughter of Hounds over at The Green Man Review, which you may read in its entirety by following this link. I adored this bit — "At one point I decided that the book is best described as 'What if John Bellairs had written Pulp Fiction?'" I must admit, there is a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when someone so obviously "gets it."

We met with Frank and Jim at Oakland Cemetery at three this afternoon, to decide exactly where we'll be shooting tomorrow, and ended up sitting among the tombstones and mausoleums talking for two hours about everything from Lovecraft to Dita Von Tease. I am glad we were able to meet today, as it has put me at ease about tomorrow. On the way to Oakland, we stopped by Psycho Sisters at L5P, and I got a drad new pair of pirate suspenders, because, you know, pirates can't be having their trousers falling down in the midst of all that pillaging and whatnot.

Last night, Jim (different Jim) and "Hannah" dropped by, and we were on our way out of the house for dinner at the Little 5 Corner Tavern when Jim slipped on the wet steps (storms yesterday) and gashed open his left palm. And before all was said and done, they sat in an ER until 5 a.m. waiting to see a doctor, at which point they gave up (still eleven people ahead of them), went home, and saw Jim's doctor this ayem. At which point too much time had passed for stitches. We can't even figure out how he gashed his hand open, as there was nothing sharp anywhere on the steps. I more than half suspect this rotten old house may have bitten him. At any rate, I feel horrid about the whole thing. From now on, all invitations to visit will be prefaced with a warning.

Okay. I must go wash my hair, then it's back to HPL...

Eight hours sleep last night. That seems nothing short of miraculous, and I didn't even have to use Ambien, and today I do feel somewhat better.

I am accustomed to being busy. I generally much prefer being busy to not being busy. But, since December or so, the level of busy has taken on brobdingnagian proportions. I guess it began with the Forced and New Consolidated marches, but now there is no end in sight. I am having to learn new ways to work, new ways to write, as there is so much that has to be written and in such a time-frame that does not allow for my work habits of yore. Was a time, not so long ago, I wrote one thing at a time then moved along to thing number next. Now, this seems like a grand luxury, a leisure I can no longer afford. Maybe in a couple of years I will be able to afford it again. But like I've said, when it comes to work, too much is to be preferred always over none at all. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is true.

I do have some very cool news. Since November, I have been talking with a producer in LA — we shall for now call him simply D — who contacted me via my film agent at UTA to learn whether I'd be interested in writing a screenplay based on "Onion." And I am. And any day now I will finally be starting work on it. Of course, being asked to write a screenplay does not even begin to guarantee there will be a film, but it is a step in that direction. The first part of the process is figuring out how to expand the concept, how to open up a 12,000-word short story into an approx. 120-page screenplay for a two-hour film. But D is acting as mentor, and I am hopeful that it can be done.

Meanwhile, I have The Dinosaurs of Mars to write for Subterranean Press. Spooky and I spent part of yesterday working out the remaining plot wrinkles. This is a good example of how I'm having to learn to write a different way, as, before, I never would have spent time puzzling through the plot prior to actually writing the story. Granted, The Dinosaurs of Mars seems to have become a particularly complex story, but it still feels very strange working out a plot a priori. Anyway, also meanwhile, I have to write "The Ape's Wife" for Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy, and there's a June 1st deadline on that. I need to begin Joey Lafaye by early July, as I have an April '08 delivery date on the book, and I never know how long a novel will take to write. And, of course, there's Sirenia Digest. Someone asked, when I announced that there would likely only be one more erotica collection, whether that meant the digest would also be ending. The answer is no, it does not. I suspect the digest will continue as long as people are reading it, as I have grown very used to having it there as an outlet for those stories that might not otherwise find a home.

The meanwhiles continue. Corrections for the forthcoming Murder of Angels mass-market paperback are due on May 15th, but I've handed that manuscript off to Spooky to proofread. I have an interview for an article on Edward Gorey to finish by Tuesday (generally, I only do interviews by e-mail). And I've promised a short story to Clarkesworld Magazine, which I hope to write late this summer. Plus, there's going to be a rewrite following from the marches of January and February, and I'll likely have to drop everything and attend to that in May. We're waiting on the last round of notes from the relevant production company, as I already have my notes from my editor at HarperCollins and from the people at Paramount.

But looming most large of all these is Frank Woodward's Lovecraft documentary. Yesterday, before the work on The Dinosaurs of Mars, Spooky and I drove over to Oakland Cemetery where Frank wants to film. It is truly a beautiful place, filled with great Victorian mausoleums, enormous magnolias, and graves dating back to the Civil War. I realised yesterday that there must surely be a ghoul necropolis below Oakland, so perhaps that's the story I'll be writing for Clarkesworld Magazine. Anyway, I'm meeting Frank there about three o'clock tomorrow afternoon to find the best spot to shoot the interview, which will actually be filmed on Saturday afternoon. He's flying out today. This is the sort of thing I look forward to and dread at the same time.

So, yeah, that's a fair idea of what my life's going to be like for the immediate future. I'll be spending today reading Lovecraft, which is a pretty fine way to "have" to spend a day. I know I'm going to be asked questions regarding a couple of stories I'm not so familiar with ("Herbert West: Reanimator" and "The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward"). Last night, I read "The Call of Cthulhu" aloud to Spooky, though I know it practically by heart. It just seemed like a good way to get this thing started. Oh, and time was spent yesterday writing the prolegomena for Sirenia Digest #17. I have Sonya's story, "Odd Sympathy," a fine bit of steampunk, and Vince is working on this month's illustration. I hope to have the digest out to subscribers on Monday. And I also spoke with my new editor at Roc, Anne Sowards, for the first time yesterday.

Okay. HPL and the platypus beckon. I need to get moving, as we have dinner with "Hannah" and Jim this evening. Behind the cut, you will find some photos I took yesterday at Oakland Cemetery.

( Gardens of the Dead )

Only half awake, because that's what happens when I can't get to sleep until sometime after 4 a.m., then wake up at 10:30 a.m. But, here at La Casa de Hubero, we can type in our sleep. It's an acquired taste.

Sorry the Digest hasn't gone out yet. I decided that both "In View of Nothing" and "Untitled 26" could stand a little more work, and that consumed almost all of yesterday. But I have now reached a point where I can say that I'm very happy with both stories. In theory, Sirenia Digest #16 will go out this evening. Also, I've been working the last couple of days on the copy of the Silk limited (Gauntlet hardback, 1999) that I will soon be auctioning via eBay. This involves transferring all the edits (hundreds upon hundreds, it seems) from the photostat that's being used for the Roc mmp to the hardback copy, as well as adding other smart-ass comments and little squiggles and suchlike. I think this may wind up being one of the most interesting things I've ever auctioned. Coming soon.

Some good news! Turns out, our Canon PowerShot A75 died because of a defective part (the DCC image sensor or something like that) and Canon is fixing it for free. If only this thing with my feet were that simple, and I could just stick 'em in a box and UPS them back to the manufacturer.

If you have not yet heard, the Spring 2007 issue of Subterranean Online includes my story "A Season of Broken Dolls," along with stories by Joe Lansdale and Neal Barrett, Jr., and it's 100% free. If you should enjoy "A Season of Broken Dolls," please consider a subscription to Sirenia Digest, please and thank you.

A good walk late yesterday through Freedom Park. I had a very close encounter with one of the local hawks. It swooped down directly in front of me, passing no more than a few feet from my face. Amazing. I could see every detail of its face. Back home, Spooky made spaghetti with roasted red peppers and baby porta bellas, and we accompanied it with a cheap but serviceable Italian merlot. We spent most of the evening finishing up Sweet Thursday, which, along with Cannery Row, I could praise for pages and pages and never praise it strongly enough. Always, I am in awe of John Steinbeck.

On April 28th, Frank Woodward and crew are descending upon Atlanta to interview me for his upcoming documentary on H. P. Lovecraft, and it has me a little freaked out. Not only have I never done this sort of thing before, and not only is Howard Hughes slightly agoraphobic and somewhat camera shy, I have the fear that I will simply not be able to think of anything to say. Last night I told Spooky maybe I should dress as Quentin Crisp and relate my recurring dreams of eldritch Cyclopean ruins on abyssal plains, wherein I have glorious tentacled sex with with HPL while the Old Ones watch on. Yes, I know HPL would not approve. But still. In my dreams he approves. Anyway, somehow, this led to a conversation about boys wearing dresses — a subject of which I never seem to tire. Which is a shame, because I doubt Frank Woodward wants to hear about my thing for pretty boys in frocks. Ah, well.

The platypus says times up, I'm burnin' daylight, no one's getting any younger, those words won't wait forever, so I guess I should wrap this up. Now, if I could just decide where I should put my New Bedford Whaling Museum sticker...