As predicted, no writing yesterday, but plenty else. And, best of all, Spooky's mom (whose name is Carol) emailed her to report of her field trip, on my behalf, to the Moosup Valley area of western Rhode Island. Here's a quote from the email:

Actually, I've been working on the "journey" all day--gathering old plat maps, topos, putting photos in contact sheet format, etc.

The trip itself was fine. It's very rural and wooded out there. About the only outstanding features along Moosup Valley road were in Moosup Valley, which consisted of a large graveyard, library, church and grange. All of which I photographed. The whole area is an historic preservation district, so there are old places around. Just not too many out by the road. I did photograph the Mount Vernon Tavern ca 1760 along Rte 14, and then all the buildings in "town." There was a house opposite the end of Barbs Hill Road, which I photographed. It was probably 1800's. No date visible. Barbs hill road itself is a narrow gravel road which I decided not to go down. Heavily wooded on both sides and I know that some people out there are really touchy about people using their private roads as a "cut through". I'm a coward.

If you go to Terraserver (put in Moosup Valley road as the location) and look at ariel photos of the area you will see that the whole area is heavily forested, so you don't see a whole lot from the road. The photos were taken when the leaves were off of the trees so it's possible to see the distribution of white pines among the predominantly oak trees. There are also hickory and red maple and cherry. The latter two are probably more prevalent in the swampy areas. There are alot of swampy areas at the bases of the large hills. I am going to send you some topo maps that show the size of the hills. Just like what you encounter out along 102 as you go west past 95 and into CT. The hills are totally boulder strewn down their sides with the trees growing up amongst them. The higher places, along the tops of the ridges, or hills, have more soil and seem to be good farmland. Every low spot seems to have a swamp filled with skunk cabbage.

So, I'll write one more piece for the May issue of Sirenia Digest (#30), then get the last bit of work done on the A is for Alien ms., and then it's back to work on The Red Tree. Maybe in as little as a week. Of course, the pace of packing is picking up, and sooner, rather than later, that's gonna start seriously messing with my ability to writing (and never mind the thousand other moving-related things that have to be done by the end of May). Ah, and Spooky's dad (Richard) has returned from Thailand.

Yesterday, we read all the way through the new piece, the one for Sirenia Digest (#30). It works much, much better than I thought. And Spooky likes it a lot. But it is brutal, even by the standards of the digest. I sent it to sovay, and she helpfully read it and wrote back (and I hope she doesn't mind this quote), "I don't know all the reasons it worries you, but if one of them is because the piece might not work as a story, that at least is unjustified. It's probably the most brutal of any of the pieces I've read for Sirenia and it works very well: 'We need not note the screams.' I actually really like it...If you are more comfortable locking it away in a drawer, I cannot argue with that. But as a piece of story, it is certainly worth the reading." In response to my trying to second guess my readership, the digest's readership, and my fears that the piece is too dark, Sonya replied, "However the audience reacts is its own responsibility. Yours is to the story." Which is a) true, and b) not especially comforting. It still needs a title.

Also, I packed four more boxes, mostly old issues of National Geographic, because I never throw anything away.

After the work, there was dinner at the Vortex (@ L5P) with Byron, and, then, back home, we watched the (for us) new episode of Doctor Who. And I just gotta say, of the companions we could presently have — Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Sally Sparrow, and Astrid Peth — we get, instead, Donna Noble. Who just annoys me. Hopefully, she will annoy me less, as time goes by. Byron left, and we watched the new Battlestar Galactica, which was good, but somehow felt like it should have been better. I think commercials simply ruin the flow of this show. I finished reading "New bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from the late Eocene and early Oligocene, Fayum Depression, Egypt" in the new JVP, and we read more of House of Leaves, Navidson's attempt to rescue Holloway's doomed expedition. Later, there was some work on the Palaeozoic Museum in New Babbage (Second Life). My interest in the Museum project has been reawakened, now that some of the sculpty software (namely, Archipelis) has caught up with my needs, as regards creating /recreating SL facsimiles of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' Crystal Palace/Palaeozoic Museum dinosaurs. There was a brief "absence" seizure last night.

Coffee. Red Bull. Speed. Cocaine. Whatever you got, platypus, throw it my way.

More than eight hours sleep, thank the gods of 21st-Century generic pharmaceuticals. But it left me filled with dreams (mostly of Mordor, apocalypse, and collecting Triassic archosaurs) and disoriented — pause here, because Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press called, and we talked a bit. Er, where was I. Okay, who cares. Next.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,073 words on "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection," without absinthe. I hope to finish it tomorrow. I would be finishing it today, probably, but Spooky has proclaimed that we will be seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today, and I can think of no compelling reason why that should not be so. Nymphadora rocks my socks (worry not, any spoilers will be placed behind cuts, at least on LJ). And after the film, we have dinner with Byron, who we have not seen in a couple of weeks.

Good walk last night, though the humidity was a monster. I erected my first attempt at a building in Second Life, just to start getting the hang of construction. Two adjacent walls, a first and second floor, a bit of roof, and then I tore it all down again. Before I can actually begin the Palaeozoic Museum, I must sit down and draw out a plan (based somewhat on Hawkins' sketches). Spooky's learning Wings 3D, a sculpting programme that we will be using to build the actual dinosaurs and such. Oh, and she's talking a trilobite stained-glass window for the atrium. My concept is sort of a steampunk cathedral dedicated to 19th-Century paleontology. Meanwhile, of course, there are the the rp travails of Nareth Nishi, which is that other part of my Second Life and which you may follow by reading her journal.

In this First Life, Spooky has just about finished her second Elizabethan owl sculpture (a commission), which you may get a peek at here.

Oh, and another episode of Deadwood last night before bed, "No Other Sons & Daughters."

Okay, I need coffee and a bath, so I think that's it for now. Other than a reminder of the current eBay auctions.

As is the case with most of the southeast at the moment, it's very hot here in Atlanta. Not as bad today as yesterday, when we got very near 100F. So we spent the day indoors, quietly celebrating Spooky's birthday. I only went out for about twenty minutes, just after sunset, but even that late it was still too hot to sit on the porch. There were strawberry cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and for dinner we had a very fine roast chicken, good bread, and an exquisite bottle of Armenian pomegranate wine.

After that, Byron came over with a PC we're trying to hook up to get Spooky on Second Life, so that we can both be inworld at the same time. The two of them worked at getting the Windows box up and running for about two hours. Me, I stayed out of the way, because this nixar knows when she's out of her element. In the end, there was some problem with the router, which Byron is trying to sort out today. Late last night, we watched another ep of Firefly, "The Train Job."

My thanks to Gordon Duke (thingunderthest) for his incredibly generous gift of an LJ permanent account. I suppose this means I just got a life sentence, eh? It's kind of weird, to think I might be sitting here (or somewhere else), still keeping this blog, ten years hence. Also, my thanks to everyone who offered help snagging the Blade Runner: The Final Cut .flv file. I have it now. Frankly, I can't see why Warner's being such an ass about this. Free publicity and all.

I did write on Saturday, better than a thousand words on The Dinosaurs of Mars, but mostly it was a sort of practice run, as I tore the story apart yet again and began putting it together a different way. I just have to find the right way in. The door with the tiger behind it, so to speak. I'm trying not to rush myself, because I need to do this one properly. But, at the same time, the clock is ticking. Oh, for the luxury of a clockless life. The luxury of writing books on no one's timetable but my own. That time is long gone, unless there's a bestseller somewhere in my future, and I doubt that in the worst way. Yesterday, I wrote the prolegomena from Sirenia Digest #19, which should go out to subscribers this afternoon or evening. I am very pleased with "The Steam Dancer," and with Vince's illustration for it.

I would like to point out that Amazon.com is now taking pre-orders for the mass-market paperback of Low Red Moon. Naturally, lots of pre-orders will make my publisher happy, and it's always good to have your publisher happy. Note that you can buy it with Daughter of Hounds for a mere $19.19. The book with be released on August 7, 2007.

Things are going well in Second Life. I believe Nareth Nishi is transitioning from a period of exploration to a period of focused creativity. In Bababge, I have been offered the opportunity to work towards a virtual construction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' never-realised Palaeozoic Museum (I wrote that wiki article, by the way), about which I have long been passionate. I will be working with Sir Arthur and others to make this a reality. I just have to get my building skills up to snuff. And since I only have so much time for SL (less and less, it seems), there will be no more pole dancing and suchlike. I'm a respectable woman, now. My thanks, though, to all those who came out for that, and big thanks for the tips.

Also, Spooky has finished the first in a series of ten mini-Cthulhu sculptures. This one's sold, but seven are still available. You can see photos via her dollwork LJ, squid_soup.

Okay. The platypus is glaring, which means it's time wrap this up. Later, kiddos.