gorramn determined
dethbird) for sending me the following Raymond Chandler quote from The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959 (Atlantic Monthly Books; 2002), from one of Chandler's letters to Blanche Knopf (March 15, 1942), in which he replies to his critics:"From now on, if I make mistakes, as no doubt I shall, they will not be made in a futile attempt to avoid making mistakes."
I think I'm going to write this on my forehead with a Sharpie.
Let me see if I can piece together yesterday into some semblance of a narrative. We proofed Chapter Eight ("Intersections") of Daughter of Hounds. Chapter Eight has been the most difficult for me, as it is riddled with "action scenes," which I despise writing, yet seem determine to burden myself with at every possible turn. But Chapter Eight of Daughter of Hounds is the closest I've ever come, I think, to getting an elaborately choreographed "action scene" just right. I didn't cringe when I read it yesterday, which is, i think, I good goddamn sign. There are parts of the chapter which I genuinely adore. Oh, I used the quotations around "action scenes" because, of course, all scenes are action scenes, sensu lato, but here I mean "action" in the running, jumping, falling down, shooting guns, magickal duels, punching people in the face, blowing shit up sense.
It was my intention (almost always good, my intentions) to also proof Chapter Nine yesterday, but Spooky and Byron lured me out into the hazy, smoggy evening to see Snakes on a Plane, which, I must admit, was frelling hilarious. Now I must find a copy of Christa's (
faustfatale) novelization, just for good measure. As I usually do not see comedies, I can honestly say that I haven't laughed this hard in a theatre in...I have no idea how long. A long gorramn time.Oh, before we left for the theatre, UPS hurled two boxes of Alabaster and the Highway 97 chapbook onto the front porch. I think it's time to complain. The boxes impacted with such force that the walls and windows shook. Hardly surprising, considering that each box weighs more than thirty pounds!
Later, of course, we watched Project Runway 3, and I rejoiced at the axing of Angela, which, for my part, came several weeks too late. I still call this season lackluster, but the last couple of episodes have been an improvement. I still have no clear favourite among the designers. I suppose it's a tie between Michael and Jeffrey, though Laura is my favourite personality. I want to grow up to be Laura Bennett, only without the six frelling children. She's a year older than me; there's still time. And I can only hope that Kayne is the next to go, with his Elvis-Liberace mash-up nightmares. Sorry. Please forgive me my vapid indulgences. I have so few of them.
After PR3, we watched two more eps of Firefly ("Our Mrs. Reynolds" and "Jaynestown"). About halfway through the first ep, a marvelously tremendous thunderstorm blew in. We stood on the porch, oohing and ahhhing at the lightning, so bright that it kept fooling the streetlights into thinking that it was daylight.
Someone noticed yesterday that the new Threshold cover is up on Amazon.com. Sadly, you can only view it as a thumbnail, as far as I can tell. I'm going to try to get the finished cover from my editor today, and I'll post it tomorrow. And no, this is not Dancy the way I saw her. But if it sells books, hey, whatever. I can live with a hot, gothedy alternate-universe Dancy Flammarion, if it helps keep the damn book in print.
Ah, there's more, but we're going to finish with these galleys today, so it'll have to wait until later. I will, however, remind you that the current eBay auctions end tomorrow afternoon, so please, please have a look. Spend some money. We're going to post more photos of the leather-bound Low Red Moon later, including photos of the traycase, and hopefully that will inspire a few more people to bid.