Behind the storms of Saturday night and Sunday morning came an enormous wind. The breath of the sky, blowing across Atlanta. Cooler weather, too. A low in the forties (F) last night, and only the low seventies today. Warmer tomorrow. But this wind is impressive, and there were gusts last night to 35 mph. (or 56.32 kph). Today, it's still blowing strong.

And speaking of that which blows...or sucks...or both...

Tomorrow, I have to be in Birmingham for a noon dental appointment (that's my one pm), which means leaving the house by ten ayem, at the latest. And maybe this molar, the one that was cracked in the Great Seizure of October '07, will be pulled, and maybe it won't be. Hopefully, we'll be back in Atlanta before sunset. However, if I return one more tooth shy, I'll be out of commission for at least a couple of days, which means no writing and no packing. We only have 15 days until we go back to Birmingham to get everything that's in storage there (and has been since November 2002) and only 18 days until the move to Providence. There is not time for mouth trauma, but that means nothing to how things will be.

Yesterday...a very bad day. But, and still, we read through all that has been written on Chapter One of The Red Tree. It's better than I recall. Maybe I can get back to work on the chapter late this week, after the dentist. That's all the writing-work there was to yesterday. I had a very hot bath. We packed and packed and packed, mostly books. I had to order a new battery for my iBook ($139.02, so ouch), and Spooky had to reserve the U-Haul truck for the 27th. About six pm, I left the house and walked to (ugh) Starbuck's, because our landlord needed to show the place to a prospective tenant. I sat and drank, overpriced mediocre coffee and finished Chris Beard's book on the origin of anthropoids. A rather good last chapter, largely devoted to the problem of Henry Fairfield Osborn's racism and also to the ongoing issue of "pithecophobia"* An hour later, I walked home again, to learn that the prospective tenant never fucking showed, so I'd exiled myself to an hour at Starbuck's for naught. After dinner, more packing, until, finally, I begged Spooky for a comfort movie, so we watched Serenity again. I was in bed by three, a little late, but there you go. Seven hours sleep.

As for today, I expect I'll wash my hair, then spend the rest of it working on the Palaeozoic Museum in New Babbage and, well, packing. Only about half the books in my office are boxed. There's no chance I'll get any writing done today, between the distractions and the impending dentistry, and I'm not up to that sort of futility — sitting here, struggling to write through the chaos. And I need to drop Vince an email about Sirenia Digest #30. That's a tiny smidge of work, I suppose.

Yesterday, jtglover asked me, "What do you think is your best story? Top three?" And I said I'd think about it and post a reply today. It's damned difficult, and the list changes so frequently. But right now, I'd say they are:

1. "Houses Under the Sea" (from Thrillers II, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2007; to be reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Vol. 19).

2. "La Peau Verte" (from To Charles Fort, With Love, Subterranean Press, 2005).

3. "In View of Nothing" (Sirenia Digest #16, March 2007; to be reprinted in A is for Alien)

I would also list, among my "best" short stories, "The Ape's Wife,", "The Steam Dancer," "Andromeda Among the Stones," "The Road of Pins," "Riding the White Bull," "A Season of Broken Dolls,", and "So Runs the World Away." Your mileage will vary, as this is a terribly subjective question. And there are several stories I feel guilty for not including. Anyway, Herr Ornithorhynchus just showed up with my coffee, steamy hot and not mediocre, so I shall wrap this up.

* A psychological disorder that paleontologist William King Gregory sardonically "discovered" to account for those suffering from an irrational fear of apes and monkeys, stemming from the truth of humanity's own common ancestry with them ("Two views of the origin of man," 1927; Science 65: 601-5). The term derives from the Greek (pithekos ape + phobos fear). Sadly, it's probably as common now as it was is Gregory's day. Hence, creationism and its gussied-up stepchild, "intelligent" design.

Yesterday, by some miracle (I don't actually believe in "miracles," sensu loaves and fishes, etc., so what I actually mean is by some statistically improbable, but not impossible, turn of events), I wrote a measly 869 words, and finished the preface for The Red Tree. The preface is written by the fictional editor who has come into the possession of Sarah Crowe's manuscript. The editor is strangely fond of footnotes, some of which are rather pedantic. Today, no writing, but, instead, Spooky and I will read back over what I've written of Chapter One to be sure it jibes with the preface. Already, I've caught one inconsistency. In Chapter One, the "red tree" grows on "the Old Jenks place," but in the preface, it grows on the "Battey Farm." I'll be going with the latter.

My thanks for the many comments and emails yesterday, though, of course, that's not why I said the things I said. I wasn't fishing for pep talks. And all the attention and well wishes in the world cannot change what I know to be true. I cannot go any easier on myself. Indeed, I am not going hard enough on myself. It's a goddamn hardscrabble life, pimping the playtpus, selling my dreams, growing corn on bare stone, making all these blasted words. It's not likely to ever get any easier. There is no retirement plan. There are only the words, from here until The End. One reason I am so reluctant to describe these times when it goes from bad to worse is simply because I have this inherent fear of being seen as weak, or whiny, or whatever. But I also loathe not telling the truth. Anyway, yes, thank you for the sentiments, because it's good to know someone cares, but nothing changes. Not unless the big space rock comes tomorrow, or Panthalassa rises up to stomp us all flat with tsunami paws.

I re-read Salman Rushdie's introduction to Angela Carter's Burning Your Boats yesterday, and he writes:
"...but the best of her, I think, is in her stories. Sometimes, at novel length, the distinctive Carter voice, those smoky, opium-eater's cadences interrupted by harsh or comic discords, that moonstone-and-rhinestone mix of opulence and flim-flam, can be exhausting. In her stories, she can dazzle and swoop, and quit while she's ahead."

And I think I know exactly what he means, for so often have I wished that I could make a living writing only short fiction. I do it ever so much better than novels, with their absurdly drawn-out plots and contrived twists and turns. I have never written a novel even half as good as my best short story, but, in the end, this is about the pay check. Of course, I should also note, to be fair, that Rushdie adores Carter's novels, and bemoans the werewolf novel she never wrote. It's just, as an author, I think the short story is the better form, and poetry better still. Distillation, as it were. Less usually is more.

What else to yesterday? I re-read "A new aigialosaur (Squamata; Anguimorpha) with soft tissue remains from the Upper Cretaceous of Nuevo León, Mexico" in the March 2008 JVP. We live in age of riches, when it comes to the discovery of basal mosasauroid lizards — Dallasurus, Hassiophis, Tethysaurus, Haasisaurus, Judeasaurus, et al., and now Vallecillosaurus. Anyway, I packed many boxes of books. My office is looking bare. Spooky has been craving Tom Baker, so we watched the four-part old-school Doctor Who, "The Hand of Fear" (1976). Mostly, Baker's Who is just too hokey for my tastes, and I find Sarah Jane unbearable. But I like that steampunky old TARDIS, and Eldrad was a pretty cool alien. Christopher Eccleston will always be my Doctor, and David Tenant's not so bad, either. After four eps of Doctor Who, I wandered into SL for a rather nice rp with Omega and Pontifex. I was in bed by 2:30 ayem, I think. Seven hours sleep. That was yesterday, pretty much. Oh, very fine thunderstorm last night, late. I sat here at my desk, the window open, trying to hear the thunder over the Xtians who were wailing and hooting (at 11:30 p.m.!) like they were trying to summon Great Cthulhu. Beautiful lightning. I feel asleep to the rain.

Ah, and a screencap from SL, another one that may put some readers in mind of "Flotsam." These days, Nareth sleeps beneath that old tanker:

( Nareth in the sea )

So, my thanks to everyone who emailed to let me know about the new study published in Nature, regarding the sequencing of the genetic code of Ornithorhynchus anatinus, otherwise known as Herr Platypus. I've not yet had time to sit down and read all the reports, but there's some weird and wonderful news coming out of this study. For one, we now have genetic evidence that monotremes originated as far back as the mid-Jurassic Period, 170 million years ago (though the actual platypus fossils date only as far back about 100,000 years). This suggests that the Order Monotremata is quite a bit older than the earliest-known member of the group, Teinolophos trusleri, discovered in the Lower Cretaceous (approx. 123 mya) strata at Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. But far stranger is the discovery that ye olde platypus possesses "five X and five Y chromosomes..." which in theory "...means there are 25 possible sexes, though in practice that doesn't happen." A bloody shame, says I.

All hail the noble platypus, and hisherit's formidable toxic spurs!

And though it has nothing much to do with platypuses, you really should check out the James Gang. Some things are better heard and seen than described. So, have a listen. But, in the words of the Gang:

The James Gang is an updated 1920’s Vaudevillian throwback-style group of three magical entertainers that sing songs, dance, ride unicycles, perform magic and blow fire to name just a few of the things they do in their full show. There are (3) main performers with more background performers to come as the movement grows. T J G consists of Jellyroll James, Deacon Boondini and the Great Gatsby “for short we go by Jelly, Deacon and Gatsby” This group dresses in a high fashion style that is not seen today in music. They have many looks that range from 1920’s suit jackets with knickers, bow ties and knee high argyle sox to all denim jackets and pants tucked into Equestrian knee high boots with Barret and Poorboy hats armed with wooden canes. Think Harlem when they dressed really regal. It is the mission of the group to restore real performances back into the African American community and the world community at large.

Booyah!

A couple of paleo'-related news items i wanted to pass along. First, a new confuiusornithid bird (avian theropod) from the Early Cretaceous Dabeigou Formation (131 Ma) in Fengning, Hebei Province, northern China. It has been named Eoconfuciusornis zhengi. This fossil is about 11 million years older than all previously known confuiusornithids, such as Confuciusornis sanctus, which are known from the famed Chinese Liaoning fossil deposits. In May 2001, I was fortunate enough to be at the American Museum in NYC, examining mosasaurs these, when an exquisite feathered specimen of the dromaeosaurid Sinornithosaurus millenii (a non-avian theropod, also from the Liaoning deposits) was briefly on display. In fact, there's even a rather fuzzy, low-rez photo of me with the specimen (I swear, my nose doesn't actually look like that):



Part and counterpart.


Also, paleontologists at Brigham Young University have discovered evidence of dermestid beetle larvae having fed on the carcass of a Late Jurassic-aged ornithopod dinosaur Camptosaurus. Cool stuff!

Seems one of the cracked teeth has refused to heal. Dr. Booth warned me this was very possible. The damage was just too great. I awoke at 5:45 ayem or so, in something at least approaching agony, and it was near 7 am before I was asleep again, and the only thanks to pain pills and Ambesol. So, in all likelihood, I'll be going to have this tooth extracted sometime in the next two weeks, right in the middle of packing and all these deadlines, and I'll be losing at least a few days to recovery when I should be packing and writing.

I've been meaning to mention that "A Season of Broken Dolls" has been selected for a forthcoming trade paperback "sampler" of stories from the online version of Subterranean Magazine.

No writing yesterday, not really. We took Hubero outside on his leash, and it was good to be out in the spring sunlight, listening to the blue jays and the robins. We had someone from United Van Lines coming to give us an estimate on the cost of the move to Providence. He needed access to all rooms, and I knew I couldn't work through that, so I took a book and went to (boo, hiss) Starbuck's (and they may not have enough sense to use the apostrophe, but I do). I don't remember how many months ago it was that I laid aside Chris Beard's The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans (University of California Press, 2004), but shame on me. It's a wonderfully written thing, and I sat there and drank a white-chocolate mocha (too sweet, but not bad), and read Chapter 6 ("The Birth of a Ghost Lineage"), which was mainly about collecting fossils of the omomyid primate Shoshonius cooperi from the late Eocene Willwood Formation of Wyoming's Wind River Basin. Meanwhile, Spooky got our estimate from a guy named Ron Goodbub, a retired Pepsico salesman from Kentucky who grew bored with retirement and went back to work (I think it's very suspicious that LJ knows how to spell Pepsico, but not Shoshonius; hell, it can't even spell "Starkbuck's" without the apostrophe). Here's a bit from Chapter 6 of Chris Beard's book I wanted to quote:

"It hardly ever makes sense to refer to a given species — whether living or fossil — as being 'more primitive' than another, for reasons that go beyond any value-laden connotations the comparison carries along with it. Tarsiers are more primitive than humans in having three premolars on either side of their lower jaws and in lacking a complete mandible formed by bony fusion at the chin. Humans are more primitive than tarsiers in retaining a separate tibia and fibula and in having much smaller eyes. The important distinction here is that, while entire species can rarely be arranged from primitive to advanced, individual features usually can be. In fact, paleontologists rely on exactly these trait-by-trait comparisons to decipher the biology of extinct organisms, as well as to reconstruct how they fit on the evolutionary tree."

Myself, I prefer to speak of character states being more and less derived from a given ancestral state than to ever use the word "primitive" or "advanced," as any given organism's evolutionary "status" can only be assessed or judged relative to how well it is adapted to its environment. Tarsiers have been around a lot longer than humans (by tens of millions of years), but they are no less well adapted to their environment than are humans, and therefore no more "primitive" (which, of course, is just another way of saying what Beard is saying above). Yes, that was a tangent.

Mr. Goodbub took longer with the estimate stuff than expected, and it was after 4 pm before I got back to work. I read over the pages I did on "Rappaccini's Dragon" on Monday and Tuesday, made some corrections, and then decided I'd spend the rest of the afternoon packing, give up a Friday off, and plan to finish the story today. I packed something like seven large boxes of books, hardly the tip of the fucking iceberg. Then again, Mr. Goodbub was telling Spooky about having just moved a mathematician who had 500 boxes of books, which makes me feel a little better.

How I'm going to cope with my schedule this month — especially with the bum tooth — is sort of beyond me. I have to finish "Rappaccini's Dragon" for Sirenia Digest #30. I have to do the line edits and introduction on A is for Alien, and an introduction for an Arthur Machen collection that's being edited by S.T. Joshi. I have to get back to work on The Red Tree and make some real progress. I have to go to Birmingham and have a tooth pulled, then recover. And Spooky and i figured out yesterday that it's likely the pace of packing will have become so hectic by the 20th that I'll be forced to stop working. We will probably leave here on May 29th, a Thursday. It's insane, truly. I'd wait and have to tooth pulled after the move, but after the pain last night, that may not be an option.

I was in bed a little after one ayem, and we read more of House of Leaves, because I needed to hear the words. I was asleep by 2:30, only to be awakened a few hours later, which is where we came in...

Ah, and only a few weeks until I hit -4, on May 26th. I do have that wish list at Amazon.com, even if it does mean more packing. Distractions are always welcome, even when i have no time for them.

Coffee, platypus. Coffee, you fool!

Spooky just told me that the foreclosure rate in the US has jumped 112%, on average more than doubling over the last year, with Nevada, Florida, and California being the hardest hit. Actually, the increase in California was 213%. And so it goes.

So, yesterday I was Distraction's bitch. You know Distraction, right? One of the nine of the Seven Deadly Sins of Writing. Anyway, I think I left myself wide open by getting up too late, then spending too much time on my LJ entry. After that, well, there was the lease for the new place in Providence (mailed off yesterday), and there was research I should have done days and days ago, and there was lunch, and there were questions about when the moving company is coming to give us an estimate, and there were hydrothermal vents on Mars, and there was news of the new Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album — Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! — and there was email, and there was a sudden obsession with figuring out which of my British Museum prehistoric animals had come from Philadelphia in 1986 and which from London in 1997. And so forth.

The research, for "Rappaccini's Dragon" (for Sirenia Digest #30) concerned tracking down the following quote from Robert Burton's very, very lengthy The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Historically, Opened and Cut up (1621):

“Mithridates by often use, which Pliny wonders at, was able to drink poison; and a maid, as Curtius records, sent to Alexander from King Porus, was brought up with poison from her infancy.”

Now, I knew that bit about Porus (Parvataraja) sending the tainted woman to Alexander came from Burton, but finding my way through that maze to discover that, in fact, it came from the First Partition, Section 2, Member 2, Subsection 1, that was another matter. And I start reading, and I keep reading, even when I know Distraction has intervened and I am no longer seeking the relevant passage, but just reading. Oh, and on top of Robert Burton, there was also a related bit from the Hindu Pranas I needed to find, and that led down another avenue of Distraction. In the end, I wrote a meager 268 usable words yesterday.

Then I took a damn bath. I did not leave the house yesterday. Spooky made a pot of chili for dinner, and we watched the eleventh episode of Millennium. And then, despite AADD-afflicted Leetspeaking dumbasses who choose names like Ferretfart Frog (I'm not making that one up), I spent a few hours on Second Life, rping with Pontifex and Ardere. Imagine a film co-directed by Alex Proyas, David Lynch, and Joss Whedon, in which demons congregate in a deserted nightclub in 22nd Century Tokyo, throw in lots of blood and a trippy cyberlounge soundtrack, and there's the rp we did last night. I think the MMPA would have rated it Z. But, I was a good nixar and made it to bed by 2 ayem. I think I was asleep well before three. Go me.

One of the very few good things about packing is finding things you'd thought you'd lost. A few days ago, it was my copy of Animal Ghosts, a book I ordered from one of those Scholastic Books fliers back in 1973 or '74, when I was in fourth grade. The book was actually published in 1971 by Xerox Education Publications, and produced by Walt Disney. Its an odd mix of actual and fanciful paleontology and neobiology, with a smattering of cryptozoology thrown in. I think what made it one of my favourite books for several years were the better than average black-and-white illustrations — lots of old-school dinosaurs and such, often portrayed in rather dynamic (if sometimes absurd) situations. Anyway, yeah, book not lost. There are a couple of scans behind the cut (but, again, I warn you that they are LARGE):

( Animal Ghosts )

Also, Spooky just (humglum) posted her photos of the dinosaur-washing ordeal of Sunday, which you can see here. And yes, that is the magical Liopleurodon that can show us all the way to Candy Mountain (hiding behind the Brachiosaurus).

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.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I finished reading "New information on the skull of Keichousaurus hui (Reptilia; Sauropterygia) with comments on sauropterygian interrelationships" by Robert Holmes, Yen-Nien Cheng, and Xiao-Chen Wu (JVP 28:1, pp. 76-84). Keichousaurus is a neat little beast, first recognized from the Triassic of China back in 1958, but poorly understood until recently. It now appears that Keichousaurus is probably a basal member of the Sauropterygia, the group of semi-aquatic and aquatic reptiles that included nothosaurs and plesiosaurs. It also occurred to me that I never show off any of my own thousands of fossil specimens in the journal, and it just so happens that I have in my collection a young specimen of Keichousaurus hui. I bought it in Manhattan back in the summer of 1997 at Maxilla and Mandible on Columbus Avenue. This tiny skeleton (behind the cut) measures about 17 mm., but is missing the tail. I did most of the preparation on it myself, exposing more of the pectoral girdle and fore- and hindlimbs than were visible when I purchased it. It likely came from Xingyi area of China's Guizhou Province, from beds of late Middle Triassic age (the Zhuganpo Member of the Falang Formation), dating from about 237 ± 2 Ma — 228 ± 2 Ma (million years ago), back when the dinosaurs were just getting their start on land. The basal dinosaurs Staurikosaurus, Guaibasaurus, Saturnalia, and Unaysaurus all date from roughly this stage of the Triassic, I believe. Anyway, yes, images behind the cut (photos by Spooky):

( Keichousaurus hui )

First, apologies for having screwed up the link to Sirenia Digest in two successive entries. I have fixed those links, and the one I just gave is also correct, and yes, if you subscribe this week, before Sunday at midnight (EST), you will be receive #28 ("Pickman's Other Model," "Pickman's Model" by HPL, and "Madonna Littoralis") absolutely FREE. It says a lot about my questionable mental state the last few days that I screwed up that link twice and did not catch it. My thanks to those who did and who then let me know. Also, my thanks to those new subscribers who have taken me up on this offer, and somehow managed to reach the subscription pages despite my blunders.

The chief reason that I have been so especially scatterbrained the last week or two, aside from trying to find a place to live in Providence, dealing with seizures, and the incessant insomnia, is that a short while back I called my agent (Tuesday, March 25th) and told her that there was simply no way I could have Joey Lafaye written by September 1st, and that I would not ruin it trying. I suggested, instead, that I first write the second book on this contract, which is, for now, called The Red Tree. It's a book much more like Daughter of Hounds (without the guns and poker-playing demon), much more familiar territory. So, I had to write up that proposal, submit it, and wait. This morning, I got the go ahead on The Red Tree, which I shall begin immediately, as I have only four and three-quarters months to write it. While keeping the Digest up and running and moving from Atlanta to Providence. But, yes. The next novel will not be Joey Lafaye, but The Red Tree. Consider yourselves warned.

And, once again, I want to direct readers who are interested in the mass-market paperback of Murder of Angels to Barnes & Noble, as they are actually being bothered to sell the book. And, please, do be interested. I'd like to see this book, and all the others, still in print this time next year. Also, here are the correct links to purchase the other novels and, also, Tales of Pain and Wonder. Thank you. Please feel free to repost these links in your journals:

Daughter of Hounds

Silk

Threshold

Low Red Moon

Tales of Pain and Wonder

---

Very little to say about the last couple of days. I mean, yeah, the insomnia. Spooky forced me out into the bright springtime on Tuesday, and we walked as far as Freedom Park before spreading the red plaid picnic blanket blu_muse gave us some time ago. I lay down, staring first at the sky and then the dandelions, and then I proceeded to fall asleep. Later there was Thai food, which would have been better had I not been to sleepy to taste it. Yesterday, we walked down Sinclair, and the foliage is a comfort, the foliage and the woodpeckers and the mockingbirds. I did manage to read, over the last two days, another JVP paper, "A new aigialosaur (Squamata; Anguimorpha) with soft tissue remains from the Upper Cretaceous of Nuevo León, Mexico." I've tried to drown the insomnia with Ambien and Kava and Diazapam and Second Life, none of which have been especially effective. But, as for Second Life, I stepped back a bit from Toxian City to explore a dark sf rp called Necronom (at Hypnos), which has to be one of the most gorgeous builds I've ever seen anywhere in SL (but then, I don't get out much).

Oh, that reminds me, I have not forgotten you, Sirenia Players. I've just been too stupid from sleep deprivation and stress and meds to do anything constructive. I'll try to make amends in that regard sometime in the next week, and at least send everyone a notecard (an inworld nc, so you'll have to log into SL to get it). I just want you to know I haven't given up on the project, and to say thanks for your patience.

Platypus says time to get to work. But, remember, subscribe to Sirenia Digest before Sunday at midnight (EST), and you will be receive #28 FREE.

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 I did 1,065 words on "Pickman's Other Model." Another good writing day. I'm really starting to fall in love with this story. I'm guessing I'll likely be able to finish it, at this rate, by Sunday or Monday. By the way, if you are unfamiliar with Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model," you may now read the entire story online (though I still recommend reading it from an actual book).

People who pre-ordered the new Subterranean Press edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder should be receiving their copies any time now. And if you haven't ordered, I think there might be a hundred or so copies left at the publisher.

This is, I think, actually going to be a genuinely shortish entry. Huzzah.

After the writing yesterday, we had a walk in Freedom Park. It was a little chilly for my liking, but the sky was filled with wonderful clouds. After dinner, we watched the first three episodes of Season Four of Angel, and I think the series is really starting to hit its stride right about here. And it was great getting Alexa Davalos as the "electrifying" Gwen in "Ground State," as I'd enjoyed her as Kyra ("Jack") in The Chronicles of Riddick. And getting to see a green Fred wasn't so shabby, either (in "The House Always Wins"), at least not if you are given to the sorts of...oh, never mind. I read "Dinosaur teeth from the Cenomanian of Charentes, Western France: evidence for a mixed Laurasian-Gondwanan assemblage" in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (Vol. 27, No. 4). Later still, I had Second Life rp as Nareth the cyborg Nephilim in Toxian City. First, there was a bit of fetish magick and phylactery, raising a protective sentry for the Omega Institute, and then Nareth had some issues with absolute zero and temporal flux, and, finally, she was granted the ability to cry (whether she wanted it or not). There's a screencap behind the cut. That was yesterday.

( Nareth and Larissa )

And just in case you have not yet heard about the discovery, from a Welsh lobster pot, of the first-known "hexapus", well, now you have. As for me, I've no time for any 'pus at the moment but Herr Platypus, who needs a breath mint, I think.

Another very excellent day off yesterday, and I hardly ever get two very excellent days off in a row. Today it is back to the word mines, but at least I am rested. More than eight hours sleep again last night, so I'm feeling considerably less zombiefied. The warm weather helped (60sF), though it turned rather blustery yesterday, and then we had rain last night.

As for yesterday, first I spent three and a half hours editing a Dune: Apocalypse roleplay transcript from Monday night. I know that doesn't sound like the sort of thing that a writer would do on her day off, but I find editing rp transcripts oddly relaxing in their need for precision and patience. And this was just such a great scene. You can read the transcript here. Anyway, when that was done, I got dressed and we finally made it over to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. I think we got there about 4 p.m. (CaST). I've been reading the description of a new species of Carcharodontosaurus (C. iguidensis) in the new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and there were some features on the Gigonotosaurus mount I wanted to see again up close (Gigonotosaurus is a close relative of Carcharodontosaurus, both part of a radiation of giant allosauroids during the Cretaceous Period). The staff was setting up for a banquet or some such, which always seems to be the case when I visit, and it hampered my access to the skeletons just a little, but not so much to have made the trip a waste. Afterwards, we just sort of wandered about the museum, visiting "old friends." There are photos behind the cut:

( Fernbank stuff )

After the museum, we got noodle bowls at our favourite Thai restaurant. Later still, we watched two more episodes from Season One of Angel ("Under Your Skin" and "Prodigal"), and then I did a little light rp on Arrakis, but nothing to match Monday night. I was actually off SL before one a.m., and in bed before two a.m. Small miracles.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. I really do have to find some alternative to eBay for selling my comp/PC copies, as they've just announced another hike in the cut they take, and it has become unacceptable. No, etsy won't work, as it does not permit auctions. And now I remember there was actually a little bit of work yesterday, as I had to approve the final cover layout for Tales of Pain and Wonder, and send a updated biography for the back cover flap.

Anyway. The platypus says shut up and get to work, so, here we go again...

So, wonderful images continue to reach Earth from MESSENGER:

MESSENGER Reveals Mercury’s Geological History

Shortly following MESSENGER’s closest approach to Mercury on January 14, 2008, the spacecraft’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) on the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument acquired this image as part of a mosaic that covers much of the sunlit portion of the hemisphere not viewed by Mariner 10. Images such as this one can be read in terms of a sequence of geological events and provide insight into the relative timing of processes that have acted on Mercury's surface in the past.

The double-ringed crater pictured in the upper right of this image appears to be filled with smooth plains material, perhaps volcanic in nature. This crater was subsequently disrupted by the formation of a prominent scarp (cliff), the surface expression of a major crustal fault system, that runs alongside part of its southern rim and may have led to the uplift seen across a portion of the crater’s floor. A smaller crater in the upper left of the image has also been cut by the scarp, showing that the fault beneath the scarp was active after both of these craters had formed.

This MESSENGER image was taken from a distance of about 18,000 kilometers (11,000 miles) from the surface of Mercury, at 20:03 UTC, about 58 minutes after the closest approach point of the flyby. The region shown is about 500 kilometers (300 miles) across, and craters as small as 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) can be seen in this image.

And...

A truly gigantic new species of the dinomyid rodent Josephoartigasia, christened J. monesi, has been discovered from the Pliocene of Uruguay. The skull indicates an animal roughly three metres in length and weighing about one tonne, making it the largest known rodent.


Josephoartigasia monesi

So, yes, I did end up taking yesterday afternoon off. Today, I kind of wish I hadn't, because today, instead of getting back to work on The Dinosaurs of Mars — which is what I want to do, what I need to do — I have to spend the whole day contending with a 301-page CEM (copy-edited manuscript) from HarperCollins which is due back in Manhattan next week (or this week, if you count Sunday as the first day of the week). I'd forgotten all about the blasted thing, I confess, and Spooky reminded me of it last night. That's why she's here, to be sure I remember the things I've purposefully forgotten, but need to recall, regardless. So, all day will be blue pencils and STET and maybe several glasses of absinthe to make it almost bearable.

Anyway, as it turns out, I spent my afternoon off attending to my Second Life. One of the Nareths had a portentous run-in with a certain Doctor and his traveling companion and their (very fetching) ship's cat. Afterwards, I dropped by the steampunk exposition in Caledon Primverness, and then later, at 5 p.m. SLT (8 p.m. EST), I had a meeting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Babbage. I went looking only to let a room in the city, and Mayor Sprocket had told me that Sir Arthur had rooms to let, but...well, as it turns out, in exchange for lending my imagination to the ongoing experiment that is Babbage (and by extension, all of SL), I was generously provided with far more adequate lodgings than a room. It was an extremely pleasant surprise, and I very much look forward to working with Sir Arthur and everyone else in Babbage. After that, I handed SL over to Spooky, and I spent the remainder of the evening reading and watching Moulin Rouge! (2001) for the first time in a long time. Gods, but I do adore that film, top to bottom, stem to stern.

Oh, and the postman, who too often brings nothing but bills and unwanted credit-card offers, brought the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, which this month includes a second volume (Memoir 8) entirely devoted to the Late Cretaceous abelisaurid theropod dinosaur Majungasaurus crenatissimus (from Madagascar). The journal itself seems especially filled with awesomeness, including a description of a new gliding archosauromorph reptile from the Triassic of Virginia, a full description of the new giant phorusrhacid bird (from the Miocene of Patagonia) that recently made the news, and a redescription of the anatomy and phylogeny of the hadrosaurid dinosaur Lambeosaurus magnicristis. Wonderful stuff, as if I was not already hopelessly behind on my reading.

Tomorrow night, I will be the guest author at the Lost and the Damned Chatroom. I go on at 9 p.m. EST and will be answering questions on just about any aspect of my work. Please drop in. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this, and I'm a little nervous. Hopefully, it will go well. I'll repeat this announcement tomorrow morning.

Right. Spooky and the platypus are both telling me it's time to wrap this up and face the CEM (which is much worse than facing the music, I assure you). Deep breaths, Caitlín. This too shall pass. Plus, I think we might be having dinner with Byron this evening, and that gives me something to which I can look forward without shuddering.

Things have been crazy busy around here, and it's only going to get worse before there's any hope of it getting better, but I'll make a decent entry in the morning. Meanwhile, a couple or three of tidbits for your consideration:

A large swath of a Carboniferous-aged forest has been found preserved in an Illinois coal mine.

The forest is composed of a bizarre mixture of extinct plants: abundant club mosses, more than 40 metres high, towering over a sub-canopy of tree ferns, intermixed with shrubs and tree-sized horsetails. Nowhere elsewhere on the planet is it possible to (literally) walk through such an extensive swathe of Carboniferous rainforest.

It was discovered by Dr Howard Falcon-Lang from the University of Bristol, UK, and US colleagues, in the underground workings of a coal mine, in Illinois, USA. The results of this work are published online today in Geology, by the Geological Society of America.

The fossilized forest was preserved following a major earthquake 300 million years ago. The quake caused the whole region to drop below sea level whereupon the forest became buried in mud, preserving it forever.

Also, the long-enigmatic fossil "plant" taxon Prototaxites has been determined to be a gigantic fungus, 20-feet tall, just as Francis Hueber suspected way back in 1919.

Lastly, as you may have heard, a rocky "earth-like" planet, designated Gliese 581 c, has been detected orbiting a red dwarf in the constellation Libra, more than 20 light years from Earth. Of course, one should keep in mind that this definition of "earth-like" would include the planet Mars, and calling the place "habitable" is probably a just a little rash. But it is an awesome discovery, even if it was also an inevitable one.

Okay. To bed with me, even if I can't find sleep.