awakeI think I would be somewhat more disposed to look kindly upon the whole "rapture of the nerds" Singularity silliness if I could just find a reliable printer. I sat nursing this one all damn day, printing in 30-page increments lest it became overwhelmed, feeding it paper, extracting jammed sheets of paper, etc. & etc. And it's not like it's some knock-off piece of dren machine. It's a new Hewlett-Packard, still shiny from the box. Oh, how I miss my old Mac LaserWriter 300. What a marvelous machine that was. Never jammed or broke down, and an ink cartridge lasted almost forever. Alas, Apple got out of the printer business, and I had to stop using the LaserWriter when I moved from the venerable Color Classic to the iBook in 2001 (though the printer was still in tip-top fucking shape, mind you, even though it was eight years old at the time). But, yeah, me and this idiot excuse for a printer until about 8:15 p.m. last night, and now I have a 441-page "typescript" that has to be edited, and it doesn't even include the new and as yet unwritten story or the new intro.
My writing schedule has become a nightmare. Again, even with Beowulf out of the way. Somehow, I have to finish Dinosaurs of Mars (only one-third written), keep the digest going, edit this new edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, go over the Silk mmp page proofs, write the new S. Desvernine short story, and get Joey LaFaye started (because it's due in April 2008, and I need at least nine months to write it). All between now and the end of August. I only need one more me, and co-consciousness, so the two Caitlíns do not have to waste time with verbal communication. There are writers who could do this in their sleep, I'm sure. But I'm slow, and rarely good for more than 1,200 words a day. And I have one functional eye. And chronic insomnia that leads to periods of uselessness. And yet, it will all get done, because it always all gets done. I can seek solace in the fact that no matter how awful my schedule might look right now, this isn't anywhere as terrible as the Bad Old Days when I was writing for Vertigo.
Howard Hughes must love her work, on some level, as it's surely not making her rich or healthy.
Spooky made a grand stir fry last night, lots of asparagus and red bell pepper and fresh basil and shitake on jasmine rice. Then there was a thunderstorm that delayed our walk until well after sunset. But Freedom Park was full of bats, swooping and flapping and chittering. We could still glimpse the thunderhead to the east, glowing with lightning. There was a little Second Life, and we are so very near to being finished with the great steel and glass structure that will house the Palaeozoic Museum. You can see some in-progress photos here, thanks to
blu_muse (in some of the shots, you can even see me, the grey-skinned, red-haired Victorian hovering in the sky). If I do say so myself, snapshots cannot do the space justice. You have to "stand" inside it, inside the 25-meter-high atrirum. My inspiration was, obviously, taken from the Crystal Palace from the Great Exhibition of 1851. Before sleep, Spooky read aloud the next chapter of The Ersatz Elevator.Do please have a look at the new eBay auctions, if you have not already. Or look again. Note that I have only a very few copies of Daughter of Hounds on hand, and as I foresee no signings or con appearances in my immediate future (who has time or money for that shit?), this will be one of your only chances to get a signed, personalized copy.
Where's my brain, please...?