Best I can presently recall, yesterday was a decent enough writing day, but frustrating. Once again, I only managed to do three letters on "The Black Alphabet." The first half was written in only two days. Two rare days when I actually enjoyed writing. The second half is looking as though it will take me four days, and thus far I've not felt the excitement and pleasure that came from composing A-N. Yesterday, I did Q through S. 1,161 words. I'd hoped to make it all the way through U, so I could have some hope of finishing today. But by 5 p.m. I was, as they say, tapped out.
As for the poll, I was surprised to see "Pony" emerge as the favourite piece from Sirenia Digest. Pleasantly surprised. Anyway, I'm thinking that "Pony," "Untitled 17," "Untitled 20," and "pas-en-arrière" will all four be reprinted in Tales from the Woeful Platypus. It's been hard choosing between "Madonna Littoralis" and "pas-en-arrière," but the latter finally wins out because a) I like it more and b) "Madonna Littoralis" is being reprinted in a magazine. So, my thanks to everyone who took the time to vote. There weren't many of you, given the number of subscribers. Those four pieces come, I think (me and math this early, yikes), to 12,330 words. Add another ten thousand or so words worth of original material, and that means a book just about the same length as Frog Toes and Tentacles.
A long walk yesterday evening. And we read Chapter 12 of The Triumph of the Moon ("Gerald's People"). This book would make a fine cure for fluffybunnyism, or what I've taken to calling Llewellynpressism.
My thanks to
Meanwhile, the world continues the scratch its head over the recent red rains in India. There's a new article in Popular Science. I do wonder what Fort would say. And, while I'd personally welcome the discovery that the microbes in questions are of an extraterrestrial origin, I don't trust Chandra Wickramasinghe even as far as the end of my nose. Back in the '80s, he was Fred Hoyle's crackpot co-conspirator in the charges that all the Solnhofen Archaeopteryx specimens were forgeries. An absurd charge, yes, but one which was, nevertheless, very expensive and time-consuming to dismiss. Okay. Time to write. T is for...
Oh, shit. It's June, already.