It's downright balmy here in Providence. Currently, the mercury reads 49˚F. There's heavy rain on the way. But, at least for the time being, the horrible cold weather is behind us. The snow is rapidly melting. I can let myself begin to thing about Cold Spring again. In Birmingham, the first post-winter greens are probably popping out. I lived most of my life with late February being early Spring. In Rhode Island, it's early to mid April.

I slept for shit. Maybe five hours.

“If you can hoe corn for fifty cents an hour, day after day, you can learn how to write a novel.” ~ Jim Harrison

Yesterday, at precisely 4:20 p.m., after several more hours editing and attending to loose threads, I sent the ms. for Mythos Tales away to Jerad Walters at Centipede Press. It is now largely out of my hands. Thank goodness. No more huge collections for me. At least not for, let's say, a good ten years. Round about 2026 I might be up for that again. By the way, I decided a couple of months back to shorten the title from Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales to Mythos Tales, in case anyone's been wondering. The final ms. – before the introduction and afterword, which I thankfully am not writing – comes to 195,798k words, after I cut "Paedomorphosis." It is a huge relief to have this one out the door, this one and Cambrian Tales, too.

“Fiction is experimentation. When it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.” ~ John Cheever

Now, I have a short story to write for a Subterranean Press anthology, a story based on a Dave McKean painting. And then I have to write something for Sirenia Digest #121.

We didn't watch the Grammys last night, though I actually stopped watching the Grammys after 1994, the year they hurried Frank Sinatra offstage, inciting Bono Vox to drop of shit ton of F-bombs. I do not miss the freak show. And these days I care so little for the mainstream than I have no idea who even a third of those people are. Adelle? Kendrick Lamar? Meghan Trainor? Kanye West? I have no clue.

And now I must go, until tomorrow.

TTFN,
Aunt Beast