Sunny today. Sunny and cold.

No novelizing yesterday, and I didn't get quite as far with the work on Sirenia Digest #63 as I'd hoped I would. I wrote the prolegomenon and edited together the answers from the Question @ Hand challenge (I'd really like to make this a semi-regular feature, maybe once every three issues; I like the idea of readers taking an active part in the digest).

Vince has shown me the sketch for his illustration, which is going to be gorgeous and will be the cover this month; I'm now waiting on the final version, and I still have to do the line edits on the second chapter of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Late in the afternoon, we proofed "Estate" for Two Worlds and In Between

And I find myself, rather unexpectedly, working for Suicidegirls. I'm not at liberty to say more, but I will later, when told that I can.

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I forget stuff. Well intentioned, I make promises and then forget I made them. They just slip my somewhat addled mind. For example, I owe about twenty-five people a copy of a poem they were promised last summer. And I owe ashlyme a copy of Silk. Stuff like that. Right now, I'm rounding all these things up and making good on the promises. I've sworn I'll be better about this sort of thing in the future.

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timesygn suggested the "Aunt Beast Book Club." The idea was amusing enough to appeal to me. So each month, I'll name one book, and that will be the book of the month. I will not actually review it, and there likely won't be much discussion. Basically, I say, this book is brilliant. Read it. And you can if you wish. And you may like it, or you may not. Might be a new book, or a book that came out several years ago, or a classic. Might be adult or YA. Might be genre, might not be. I'll try always to choose a book with a paperback edition (no Kindle promises, though). That said, the book for the month of March 2011 is Grace Krilanovich's The Orange Eats Creeps (2010).



On February 11th, after finishing the book, I wrote of it: I'm going to be processing this novel for quite a while. It resists any quick and easy assessment. But my first thought would be that I've encountered a shattered mind, that finally becomes incoherent, as madness increasingly refashions the world in the mad woman's image (unless it's the other way round), and I refer you back to the Joseph Campbell quote above. It's a very good novel, though it may not be at all what you'll expect going in, if all you expect is some weird shit about punk rock hobo junkie vampires drinking Robitussin and riding box cars around the Pacific Northwest. It sheds that skin fairly quickly, and moves into infinitely weirder, darker territories.

So, read it, beastlings.

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Lots of gaming thoughts I didn't put down yesterday, and now it looks as if I'll have to save them for tomorrow.

Because now, my friends, it's time to make the doughnuts.

Yours in Ink & Pixels,
Aunt Beast