"The Z Word" appears to have (against all odds) grown into an actual story, the sort I have to finish, because Spooky likes it a lot. Yesterday, I did 1,325 words, which is a very decent writing day, but I made her read the whole thing to herself (usually, one of us reads the day's pages aloud to the other), as I had serious misgivings. She pronounces it different from anything else I've done, in a good way. Though, the ABBA blaring from my office was driving her insane, so I had to go back to the iPod and the ear buds. Then she only had to listen to me singing ABBA off key. So, yes, Sirenia Digest #33 will include a zombie love story, built around ABBA songs. All of this rampant perversity has the platypus in fine spirits. Me, I feel sort of dirty. Oh, the issue will also include the deleted "frame" part of Daughter of Hounds, in which the reader sees that the whole story is a bedtime tale being related by one of the Hounds to her changeling and ghoul cub wards in the warrens below College Hill. Plus, Geoffrey Goodwin (readingthedark) appears to have lined up an interview with a very excellent Russian photographer whom I adore (it's secret until the issue comes out), so I'm thinking #33 is going to be a grand issue.

Because I am an idiot, it was 4:30 ayem before I got to bed. You know, if I was out all night playing poker or hanging out in titty bars, like any self-respecting dyke, no one would think this the least bit strange. But no. I am a goddamn geek, and so I was up working on the Howards End sim, then just hanging out with Misi and Jimmy and Joah and Hya in the skybox, talking about movies and shit, and then I "had" to get over to Corvinus, where my Ravnos antitribu Nareth had to a) attend to the ghouling of her "cleaner," b) arrange a meeting between her Master —— who happens to be a Templar of the Sabbat and a Tzimisce kuldun —— and the head of the local Followers of Set, then accompany her Master to said meeting at a Sabbat-owned nightclub, because you never know when "meeting" is codeword for "ambush." Never mind that Nareth has been afflicted by some mysterious hypersenativity to all light, and her skin is a mass of seeping welts and oozing blisters. So, yeah, 4:30 ayem. But, Sonya (sovay) has revoked my vampire-privileges over a (very bad) pun I made in the comments to yesterday's entry, so maybe that will save my ass.

My thanks to Beq for passing along a link to this review of Low Red Moon by Ryan Cole of Waterstone's. It made me happy, being called "...one of the finest and most criminally disregarded authors writing today."

Also, there was truly wonderful email from Cliff Miller (cliff52), regarding "The Ape's Wife," but I want to ask his permission before I post it here.

The "weird tales" involving Swan Point's security continue to trickle in, and I should really go now, because there is email to answer before I can begin writing. It seems that news of mine and Spooky's harrowing encounter with the soul-guarding rent-a-cop has reached Roger Avary in Paris, and Neil in China (where, he says, the internet is really dodgy).....