I think I'm fairly infuriated at the makers of FTP Thingy. I was running the original freeware version on my iBook, and it was a great programme. So, when I got the iMac, I downloaded the new version. But now it's nagware, and it's nagware that doesn't really work unless you pony up the registration fee. Frell that. I'll find some way of uploading images to my website URL without paying for the privilage. Blah, blah, blah. Never mind. There's a whole lot of annoying this a.m., following from insomnia and nightmares and the fact that there's so much to be written that we're having to pass on New England this summer, even though the same accommodations were offered to us as last summer. Maybe we can make it up sometime in the autumn, maybe.

Yesterday, I did 1,577 words on "The Steam Dancer," which is sort of funny, because I'd made a note in my day-planner to write today about how nice it is to only be doing about a thousand words a day again, now that all those marches are behind me, but then the story had to go and have an Unexpected Conversation. So that's another never mind. The story's working out well, though. I'd planned it to go to four-thousand words, but now it's going to be at least five. Still, it needs to be finished by this evening, so that I can get started on The Dinosaurs of Mars. Also, there's a meeting with producer D tomorrow about the "Onion" screenplay, and I'd like this story to be done by then. I cannot think about more than three stories at a time, and right now I believe I have about seven in my head. This will, by the way, be my first Second Life story. Which is to say, that I've found that the sim has considerable potential for inspiration and character development, and this is a story that wouldn't have occurred to me had I not started taking part in Second Life during the late lamented vacation.

This comment from robyn_ma, following from last night's Steinbeck quote about writing, as opposed to writing for someone:

There's another school of thought, though, that all writers write with an Ideal Audience in mind. Could be a spouse (I think Stephen King considers his wife to be his Ideal Reader); could be oneself or someone like oneself. In any event, it doesn't seem as though you write with any particular thing in mind, but rather go with wherever The Writing goes — more organic and flowing than plotted-out and set in stone — so I imagine you don't sit down with the thought of pleasing some hypothetical reader, as ideal as s/he might be. Though I do wonder if, after having finished a particular passage, it occurs to you to think, 'So-and-so will like that bit.'

It is true that I have an Ideal Audience in mind. Me. I am my only Ideal Audience, and there are only rarely exceptions.

And returning to the subject of subversion in my writing, wolven writes:

The subversion of the standard concepts, and the subsequent dissolution of boundaries and blockages seems like something integral to everything you do. It's an intent like breathing, that then gets coupled with any and all other intentions, in your work. Or so it seems to me...

You are right, I believe. I was thinking about this after my response to unknownbinaries, and it's very hard for me to think of a story or novel or comic or novella I've done that does not somewhere and at some level display the intention of breaking down or, more truly, simply disregarding the boundaries that most people seem to live by. Which gets back to the whole problem of writing for anyone but myself. I write from my private internal perspective, and oftentimes this means I do not even know that I'm disregarding barriers (say those between dreaming and waking consciousness, or those between past and present and future) because my native perception of them is so different than that of many people who will likely be reading what I'm writing. To write for anyone, I would have to stop and learn how other people think about these things, a prospect which bores me to tears. If I'd wanted to study how human beings think I'd have become a well-paid psychotherapist or neurophysiologist or politician or marketing exec instead of a poorly paid writer. Now, this does not mean that I do not appreciate my audience, because I do. Very much so. But they have to accept me on my own terms, the terms by which I am able to write fiction. I cannot invert that model in hopes of gaining a wider readership. Not only would the attempt make a liar out of me, I just would not be able to do it, not with all the workshops and theory and method and seminars in the whole goddamn world.

Too hot here yesterday. We're trying not to run the air conditioner any more than necessary, both to keep the power bill down and help minimize our carbon footprint. Thank Edison for ceiling fans, and it helps that this place has very high ceilings (maybe 12', though I miss the 18-20' at Liberty House). We're having to take our walks after sunset. The parks are dry and brown. Anything else about yesterday? I've been hogging our only portal into Second Life (though soon this should be remedied, the having of only a single portal), so I let Spooky have the iMac all evening and I went back to the long-neglected Steinbeck bio, and had a cool bath, as well. I didn't have to dance until midnight (9 p.m. SLT). Despite certain annoying customers, I earned something like $1,300 Lindens in tips before I logged off about 3 a.m. I remain transfixed by SL. Captivated. It only increases my fascination that my dancing there has come to feel like a real job.

My thanks to everyone who recommended the latest Placebo album. I think "Meds" might be my new theme song. I've even loaded it onto my MySpace profile page.

Okay. Time to make the doughnuts. And here's the link to the hand-corrected Silk auction, which I forgot to repost yesterday.