• Location: Shalbatana Vallis
• Mood: hungry
• Music: Patti Smith, "Summer Cannibals"

"We bless our spoils, and we're gone, we're gone."

Yesterday, I eased back into work. I think at this point, the worst of the extraction recovery is not being able to eat much of anything that isn't liquid or only semi-solid. Mushy food. Protein shakes and vitamins are keeping actual malnutrition at bay, but my mind is convinced this is a famine.

So, yesterday, I sat on the sofa in the sun in the front parlour and did the nine Monster Doodle drawings (for the recent eBay auctions). Spooky was off at the DMV in Pawtucket with her mom, attending to annoying automotive things that needed attending to (new driver's license, plates, etc.). What with one thing and another, I've not driven since, I think, December 2002. I last had a driver's license in 1993. Which is a shame, as I actually used to love driving. But yes, I did the drawings, fought with the cats, and exchanged email with my agent and my editor at Penguin.

The editorial letter for The Red Tree came yesterday. As soon as I'm done with this entry and another coffee, I have to sit down and begin puzzling it out. It signals the beginning of a month-and-a-half marathon of work that lies ahead of me, during which time I have to write the novel's still unwritten epilogue, deal with all the editing to it that has to be done, and produce two issues of Sirenia Digest. The corrected manuscript for The Red Tree is due in mid February, so I figure I can come up for air the first week of March.

Since people always ask, I will say, right now, if you want to know how you can most help out, what's presently most important to keeping this working writer working, I will direct you to A is for Alien, my first sf collection, due out next month from Subterranean Press. Please, if you have not yet ordered the book, it would be greatly appreciated. It contains some of my best short-story work to date, which means it contains some of my best work to date. And it's going to be a beautiful volume:



The other thing would be subscribing to Sirenia Digest, which has pretty much become the "bread and butter" of my income. So, if you want to help, there you go, and I thank you ahead of time. If you've already done both these things, you rock.

Anyway, this book isn't going to edit itself, so...let's wrap this up. Spooky says to mention to those who purchased books in the recent eBay auctions that the books will be going into the mail in the next couple of days. It would have been sooner, if not for the Extracted Tooth.