So, even though there is absolutely no time for being sick, I'm sick. Hard to tell yet just how sick, but sick enough. It started off yesterday morning as a scratchy throat. Thing is, Spooky's been sick for almost a week, and every time I'd ask her about it, she'd tell me it was just allergies caused by the dust we're stirring up packing. To me, she looked sick, not allergic, but hey, she ought to know. So I didn't worry about catching it. But now I'm sick. Last night, fevers and chills. We have to hope this fucker is short lived, because here it is May 6th, and we leave Atlanta on Thursday, May 29th for Providence. And there is all the packing, and a mountain of work, and deadlines and scheduling that simply can not be Put Off Until Later. I used up all my sick time, back in February. And, possibly the worst problem here is that colds and flu often (since the mid '80s) leave me with a severe cough that can last, literally, for months. After I had the flu in February, I coughed an additional six weeks. And the bad tooth cannot be pulled if I'm coughing, because then it won't heal properly. So. Yeah. It's sort of a disaster.

Yesterday. We spent eight hours (1-9 pm) working on the corrections to A is for Alien, and we're still not done. So, that will be today. We also need to take books back to the Emory University library, but that may have to wait until tomorrow. Today, I get more misplaced or missing commas, fact checking, clumsy word repetitions, and other assorted tedium. Oh, and a good example of why sf writers should worry only just so much about the science in their sf stories. When I wrote "Zero Summer" in the summer of 2005, Saturn was believed to have 43 moons, but now, revising the story in 2007, I know that Saturn has more than 60 confirmed natural satellites. But the story is set in the nearish future. By then, we may know that Saturn has 80 moons. Do I stick with 60, knowing that astronomers consider that number provisional? Do I "guesstimate" ahead? Do I revise the story again in a few years? Frankly, the facts are hardly relevant to the truths of the story, so screw it.

My thanks to robyn_ma for pointing out that I can now actually see Isabella Rossellini's "bug porn" (Green Porno) at the Sundance Channel website. Yesterday, the site wasn't letting me in; today it is. Oh, and yes, I have downloaded the new, free NIN, and I'm listening to it now.

At some point yesterday, I left Spooky alone to work on the corrections to A is for Alien. I lay down on the sofa, thinking I could at least read the next chapter of Chris Beard's book on primate origins, but, instead, the best I could manage was an hour of being half asleep, dreaming though I was partly still awake. Later, late last night, Spooky read me more from House of Leaves, the terrible scene on the staircase, Navidson trapped alone at the bottom when it suddenly grows to impossible proportions, Tex's story of the sinking of the Atrocity. Not the perfect thing before bed, so then she read me Robert McCloskey's Time of Wonder (1957), which won a Caldecott Medal and is one of my all time favourite children's books. "Where do hummingbirds go in a hurricane?" Beautiful.

I got the following from Alan S. Montroso, via email, "...As was your story "Concerning Attrition and Severance"; its imagery and majesty have haunted me through the weekend. I understand why you felt it belonged in the obscurity of a closed drawer, but I am also grateful such a cruel creature has been unleashed." Thank you, Alan. It's good to see these reactions, because the story's out there now, and there's no pulling it back in. Comments on Sirenia Digest #29 are still welcome, by the way.

I haven't given the list of books in print in a while, so here it is again. And, though it might be cheaper and the "green" thing to do, buying used copies of my novels from Amazon, sadly, in no way helps my sales figures. Sadder still, I have to actually think about shit like sales figures:

Daughter of Hounds

Silk

Threshold

Low Red Moon

Murder of Angels

Tales of Pain and Wonder

And here's the Amazon wish list, because, after all, this has been declared my Royal Birthday Month and -04 is a mere 20 days away.

There's a lot more of substance I wanted to write about this morning, but I feel like unto butt, and somehow I have to make it through the remainder of the corrections to A is for Alien.

I would think that by just about any sane measure, I would count as a very prolific writer. At times, somewhat too prolific for my own good. And with this in mind, it seems inevitable that there will be these dry spells. These times where I sit and stare at the keyboard until I must either find some suitable diversion, some work substitute, or start breaking things. Yesterday, I spent a good portion of the day trying to write. I found a title. I found a good portion of the story — here, behind my eyes. But all that made it from my brain to the screen of the iMac was the title: "The Ape's Wife." This is the aforementioned Kong story, which I have decided is not destined for Sirenia Digest, but for the pages of Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy, an anthology which will be published by subpress. So, there, I have a title and I know some part of the story, and today, with luck, it will not rain, but the words will come, which is really the same thing.

When I could no longer stare at the keyboard (I think it was about 5 p.m.), I distracted Spooky from working on the taxes (gathering receipts for Herr Accountant) and read her an Angela Carter story, "Wolf Alice," one of my very favourites. Then I read her one of my favourite Bradbury stories, "Tyrannosaurus rex" (originally published as "The Prehistoric Producer"). And then we had a walk. I needed a sweater, which seemed odd as we've been having days in the high seventies and low eighties (and it's even cooler today). Nothing remarkable about the walk. Down to the end of Seminole where the skateboarders hang out, where their ramps, geometrical oddities of plywood and particle board, sit abandoned on days they're not using them. Days like yesterday. There was a chilly wind, but the sun was bright and warm. We walked as far as Videodrome, which really wasn't very far, not as far as we should have walked. I'm trying to do better with this whole exercise thing, dull though it may be.

Back home, UPS delivered the signature pages for the hardback edition of Subterranean Magazine #6, which includes a new sf story by me, "Zero Summer." I decided I would wait until tonight to deal with the signature sheets. After dinner, we watched Brian W. Cook's Color Me Kubrick, which I found wonderful in a ghastly way, or ghastly in a wonderful way — one or the other. I downloaded new wallpaper for the Unnamed iMac from the National Geographic website. At midnight, we watched a new Nova documentary on cuttlefish. And that, near as I can recall, was yesterday.

I have yet to decide how I feel about the news of a film adaptation of Edward Gorey's "The Doubtful Guest." I see so many ways this could go very wrong.

In yesterday's entry, I forgot to mention that on Tuesday I had to proofread the galleys for a reprinting of "So Runs the World Away." I am still very fond of this story, and I found myself wondering if I might want to write a story about Dead Girl and Bobby after they leave Providence. I still am undecided.

The Canon has been repaired and, even now, is on its way back to us, so soon there will be photos again.

And I think that's it for now. But, wait...the platypus says this would be an exceptionally good day to pick up a copy of Daughter of Hounds, and the platypus, it should be noted, has a damned uncanny sense about such things.

Yesterday I did "only" 1,528 words, and I felt guilty for not having written more. But I made my goal, and the Word Bank even gained 28 words. Also, we proofed the galleys of "Zero Summer" for Subterranean Magazine #6. And then there were e-mails and phone calls. And I finally crawled away down the hall and hid in a tub of very hot water.

Speaking of words/per day, matociquala was remarking on "the fast writer/slow writer debate," which I did not even know, previously, was a debate. Some people write fast. Some people write slowly. But apparently there are those who would be prescriptive in these matters. That is, those who believe slower writers are more likely to produce good books than those who write fast. And I will admit, I do tend to be skeptical of writers who turn out two or three novels a year. A big part of that's envy, though. I freely admit to that. I am a very, very slow writer. That's why this whole 1,500 words per/day every day thing is such a big deal for me. Until 2002, my average was 500 words/per day. Since then, it's been 1,000. But, as for how long it takes me to write novels, factoring in research, stewing in my skull time, inexplicable stalls, and such like, they usually take me at least a year or two. Daughter of Hounds needed more than two years. Low Red Moon was written in only about eight months. Threshold took forever (something like three or four years), and I think Silk required at least 27 months. It takes me as long to write a novel as the novel requires. But, yes, generally, I am a very slow writer. And rarely am I good for more than four or five hours writing on any given day. There are numerous reasons for this. Having only one functional eye. What some have described as "sentence-level writing" (doesn't everyone do it one sentence at a time? One word at a time?). The fact that I really do not enjoy writing. And so forth. Frankly, if someone told me I had to write two or three novels in a year, I'd probably murder them on the spot. But if there are people who wish to do such a thing, well, that's hisherits business. I will say that some of my best short stories have been written in only a few days, though some others have taken many weeks. Things take time, the time that they require. And though I am slow, a veritable writing tortoise, I should not be prescriptive, as hares are quite nice, too. But, I think, one should not ever think this is a race, the writing. It is not a race. Speed is mostly irrelevant, unless we are to concern ourselves solely with matters of deadlines imposed and finances and other things that actually have very little to do with writing.

Last night we finished Mitch Cullin's Tideland. What a wonderful, wonderful novel. A few observations. Terry Gilliam's movie, despite a marked difference of POV, is amazingly true to the book. And Cullin is the rare sort of author who pulls me in so completely that I am not distracted by that aforementioned problem, the magician watching another magician, trying to figure out how it's done or remarking how I could do it so much better. I doubt I shall ever be half this good, and I know it, so I am content to be swept along...which, I think, is the whole point of a novel. There are some beautiful details in the novel that didn't make it into the film, such as those describing "the Hundred-Year Ocean." Brendan Fletcher did such a marvelous job in Gilliam's film of bringing the character of Dickens to life that only that portion of the novel seemed in any way less amazing than the screen adaptation. And it has occurred to me that there are some interesting parallels between Tideland and another of my favourite novels, Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Okay. Gotta make the words.