1, 2, Horse
Not a bad day. Sunny and warm. Our high was was 78˚F, which is our current temperature.
I was up at 6:30 a.m., and after a breakfast of instant oatmeal and coffee (mostly sugar and milk), I laid of the tentative prospective Table of Contents of Bradbury Weather twenty-six words (including three novellas) which, taken together, total ~220,869 words. Like a said a BIG fucking book. It will be to my science fiction what Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales is to my Lovecraftian stories.I was sitting here contemplating the author's introduction that I need to write, and it occurred to me that even when writing what is ostensibly science fiction I'm still writing the cosmic weird (of course, we see that same crossover in Lovecraft). I am not, as a science-fiction writer a futurist or someone using the genre to confront issues of social justice. There's almost no optimism. I am too much a student of human history to allow for optimism in my science fiction. Indeed, it occurred to me that I treat technology as merely another force for our undoing, just like asteroids and ancient evils and murderous impulses. Indeed, technology becomes, in my work, an especially pernicious force, perhaps the greatest of all cosmic horrors, as it is a force completely of our own creation that may wipe us out at any moment. So...yeah, I sorta see what my introduction will be saying: It's only a matter of time.
Obviously, this is one reason my science fiction is not more popular; it's not there to give anyone hope, to make anyone feel better about themselves or their fellow men or our prospects for survival as a species.
Anyway, I also went into McWane, but I forgot my damn close-up glasses, and I can't do a lot without them. So...I did not get a lot done. I hope to be back at the museum on Thursday. I'm in a crunch. I need to try, hard, to get rough drafts of my two plioplatecarpine papers hammered out by the end of May. One describes a new species of an existing genus. One describes a new genus and species. Two new mosasaurs.
Meanwhile, I need to get some work done for photographer Nan Goldin. More on that soon, but it's a cool job (that unlike my work on mosasaurs pays green folding money). And I need to write a vignette this month for Sirenia Digest 195 (April 2022). Oh, and, coming full circle, I need to write a brief bit for a forthcoming book on Alabama fossil collectors about two tylosaurs I found in in 1983 and 1984, including my chonky gal Winifred. So, yeah, my plate is fucking full.
Today I signed books for people who bought the people who bought copies of Vile Affections/Cambrian Tales off the Big Cartel shop. Oh, and Spooky will soon be adding five copies of the ARC of Comes a Pale Rider to the shop, so keep an eye out for those. Oh and oh again, a poll on Facebook says a Winifred tshirt would be popular, so I may design one soon. Finally, if you are a subscriber, look for Sirenia Digest 194 creeping about your inbox late today or early tomorrow.
Later Tater Beans (and Baby Raccoons),
Aunt Beast
12:52 p.m. (mastodon tooth on the left, mammoth tooth on the right, both found here in Alabama)
I was up at 6:30 a.m., and after a breakfast of instant oatmeal and coffee (mostly sugar and milk), I laid of the tentative prospective Table of Contents of Bradbury Weather twenty-six words (including three novellas) which, taken together, total ~220,869 words. Like a said a BIG fucking book. It will be to my science fiction what Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales is to my Lovecraftian stories.I was sitting here contemplating the author's introduction that I need to write, and it occurred to me that even when writing what is ostensibly science fiction I'm still writing the cosmic weird (of course, we see that same crossover in Lovecraft). I am not, as a science-fiction writer a futurist or someone using the genre to confront issues of social justice. There's almost no optimism. I am too much a student of human history to allow for optimism in my science fiction. Indeed, it occurred to me that I treat technology as merely another force for our undoing, just like asteroids and ancient evils and murderous impulses. Indeed, technology becomes, in my work, an especially pernicious force, perhaps the greatest of all cosmic horrors, as it is a force completely of our own creation that may wipe us out at any moment. So...yeah, I sorta see what my introduction will be saying: It's only a matter of time.
Obviously, this is one reason my science fiction is not more popular; it's not there to give anyone hope, to make anyone feel better about themselves or their fellow men or our prospects for survival as a species.
Anyway, I also went into McWane, but I forgot my damn close-up glasses, and I can't do a lot without them. So...I did not get a lot done. I hope to be back at the museum on Thursday. I'm in a crunch. I need to try, hard, to get rough drafts of my two plioplatecarpine papers hammered out by the end of May. One describes a new species of an existing genus. One describes a new genus and species. Two new mosasaurs.
Meanwhile, I need to get some work done for photographer Nan Goldin. More on that soon, but it's a cool job (that unlike my work on mosasaurs pays green folding money). And I need to write a vignette this month for Sirenia Digest 195 (April 2022). Oh, and, coming full circle, I need to write a brief bit for a forthcoming book on Alabama fossil collectors about two tylosaurs I found in in 1983 and 1984, including my chonky gal Winifred. So, yeah, my plate is fucking full.
Today I signed books for people who bought the people who bought copies of Vile Affections/Cambrian Tales off the Big Cartel shop. Oh, and Spooky will soon be adding five copies of the ARC of Comes a Pale Rider to the shop, so keep an eye out for those. Oh and oh again, a poll on Facebook says a Winifred tshirt would be popular, so I may design one soon. Finally, if you are a subscriber, look for Sirenia Digest 194 creeping about your inbox late today or early tomorrow.
Later Tater Beans (and Baby Raccoons),
Aunt Beast
12:52 p.m. (mastodon tooth on the left, mammoth tooth on the right, both found here in Alabama)