productiveYesterday I did an very respectable 2,264 words and finished "Metamorporphosis A," which will appear in Sirenia Digest 12 late this month. The total word count came to 3,714 (in just two days). It all began with the aforementioned word game that Spooky and I play. I asked her for a word. She gave me "dirigible" (probably because I'd been singing The Decemberists' "Sons and Daughters" at the top of my lungs all damn day). It's a strange piece, and having finished it, I was entirely uncertain how I felt about "Metamorphosis A." It seems bleak and brutal, even for me. I read it to Spooky, and she liked it, comparing it to one of David Lynch's early short films. I asked Sonya (
sovay) if she'd read it, and she liked it, too, and said that it reminded her of "Persephone" and "Riding the White Bull." And I suppose it does share some common ground with those two stories. I suppose it's sf, in some sense. But I think it more fair to say it's what Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) and I were calling eco-gothic, only in a more intense and personal and claustrophobic way. An organic dread. A horror of physical transcendence. Something like that. I'd meant for it to be something rather different, but it turned out to be one of those shopping carts with one wobbly wheel that pulls me the way it wants to go. And that's where I let it take me.Sonya and I have decided to postpone our second collaboration until Sirenia Digest 13, next month. Which means I still have one piece left to write for SD 12, and it will be the retelling of the Pied Piper that I mentioned earlier. I hope to start it today.
Locus has the long-delayed Thrillers 2 anthology listed for a December 2006 release. I hope some of you will pick it up. Edited by Robert Morrish and published by Cemetery Dance, it includes new fiction by Gemma Files, Tim Waggoner, and R. Patrick Gates. My contribution includes "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" (one of the stories that inspired Daughter of Hounds) and "Houses Under the Sea" (the first Jacova Angevine story). Both of these were pieces that I really wish could have been included in To Charles Fort, With Love. Ah, well. I suppose that's what 2nd editions are for. Together, my two stories for Thrillers 2 come to more than 20,000 words, so you might want to track it down.
The eBay auctions ended late yesterday afternoon. The Daughter of Hounds ARC sold for much more than I'd expected. Unfortunately, the lettered edition of Alabaster with chapbook and Spooky's doll failed to make our reserve by about $33. I'm pretty sure that's the first time we've ever had that happen. Spooky has not yet decided whether or not she wants the doll relisted. Personally, I'd prefer she didn't sell it. But there will be other eBay news forthcoming, today or tomorrow.
A rainy day today. There was wonderful rumbling thunder a few minutes ago.
Today, the featured article on Wikipedia is J. R. R. Toilkien. Drad.
And now, kiddos, it's time to make the doughnuts.
