busyAfter yesterday's entry, I realized that I'd completely failed to provide any idea of the actual storyline for The Red Tree. It simply did not occur to me to do so (and the Old Timers know how I hate synopses). I'd say it's a vampire novel, but that would be utterly misleading, as it's hardly in the "traditional" vampire mode, whether, to you, that means 'Salem's Lot, Dracula, Anne Rice, Lost Souls, Laurell K. Hamilton, Sonya Blue, or even The Five of Cups. It won't be like any of those sorts of vampire novels. There may or may not be any actual vampires, for one thing. If you've caught some of my treatments of vampirism in Sirenia Digest or Frog Toes and Tentacles, well, it'll be a little like that, at least in tone. I'm thinking of pieces like "Ode to Edvard Munch," "Untitled 12," "Orpheus at Mount Pangaeum," and maybe even "The Bed of Appetite." The protagonist, Sarah Crowe, is drawn to a fallow plot of farmland in Massachusetts (or Rhode Island) on which grows a tree, an ancient oak, with a very unsavory history. It's about history, and insanity, lost love, and hauntings, werewolvery, peculiar paintings, witch trials, and maybe even the Hounds of Cain. And yet, in some thematic sense, it will mostly be a "vampire novel." I want to make the protagonist 45 or 50, but marketing would probably have a coronary, so I'll probably settle for 37. She will likely be a lesbian. And more than that I can promise with no degree of certainty. Well, except it will be much darker and less whimsical than Daughter of Hounds.
If you've not yet seen the new interview at Fearzone, it's here.
Also, Daughter of Hounds is eligible in the "Best Fantasy Novel" category in the 2008 Locus Poll and Survey, and your votes would not be unappreciated, should you feel it is so deserving. Also, Tales from the Woeful Platypus is eligible in the "Best Single-Author Collection" category, but you'd have to write it in, as it's not in the drop-down menu thingy like Daughter of Hounds. And, of course, various of my short stories and "novelettes" are eligible. I'd especially like to point you to "The Ape's Wife." You do not have to be a Locus subscriber to vote, but if you are, it'll net you a free issue, I think.
Yesterday, I read the first two chapters of Michael E. Bell's Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires (2001), which begins with the whole Mercy Brown affair in Exeter. Then we got a call informing us we were on the guest list for Colin Meloy's solo show at the Variety Playhouse, and knowing this might be our last chance to see a show at the Variety before the move, we stopped everything and got dressed. A quick dinner at the Vortex (fish and chips and pink lemonade for me). There are a couple of photos from the show behind the cut. The one of Mr. Meloy is awful, because it's very low light and I absolutely cannot hold a camera still. A wonderful, sweet show, despite the performer being stricken with an awful cold. We were introduced to Cornwallis the Crystal and Consquela the Mermaid.
After the show, well, stuff, and then Spooky read me the first chapter of House of Leaves again, because I needed to hear it, and then I did not fall asleep until five ayem.
And I shall remind you, 'cause Herr Platypus says I should, that if you subscribe to Sirenia Digest by Sunday at midnight (EST), you will receive issue #28 FREE. And now I drink the coffee.