bittersweet---
It's bitterly cold Outside. What an unspeakably nasty winter this has been (and will yet be), here in Providence. It's 38˚F out there, 29˚ with windchill, but it looks more like 15˚. I think it's hovering right about 15˚ in my office. It's sunny, but the winter always seduces the sun into telling lies. And as I said to
sovay this morning, winter 2005 gets an "F" for "farce."Yesterday, I wrote nothing new on "Iris." I tried, but I couldn't get started. Instead, I attended to another Alabaster-related interview (six now, plus two related to The Drowning Girl, in the space of about a week, ugh, and more are incoming). Spooky went out into the freezing weather (I think it actually was below freezing). After the interview was finished, and some email had been answered, I had a short nap while Kathryn fixed dinner. After dinner, I had a very hot bath. We got caught up in an obsessive search for photographs taken in 2005. That was a terrible fucking year, and very few photographs were taken. I think I get a cursed year once each decade. 1995. 2005. Though, 1985 was actually halfway decent. Anyhow, we found a few photos, two of which I posted on my Facebook page (search for Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan, and send a friendship request, or whatever they're called). Oh, and I'm @auntbeast on Twitter (but, well...that's Twitter; then again, Facebook is fucking Facebook).
When the obsessiveness, arctic basement-searching, dust-disturbing, box-opening frenzy had subsided, we finished Season Nine of Law and Order: Criminal Intent (just like two old women should). I was very happy with the third from last and last episodes of the season (the sweet, sad, Agatha Christie-esque "Palimpsest" and "Three-In-One," respectively). Then I read more on Transylvanian dinosaurs, paleoflora, and faunal insularism until I was sleepy enough to sleep. That was likely around four ayem.
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You say one thing, some people hear another, and wires get crossed, and misconceptions are born. That is, I never said this LJ was "going away," or even "ending." What I've said is that I can no longer do these rambling day-to-day recaps of the day before (most of which spend a lot of space saying nothing much at all). Yesterday's entry was 838 words long (they average about a thousand), which is its own sort of exhausting. I rarely write more than 1,200 words of fiction a day, and that's my actual "job." My hope is that by taking back the one to two hours I spend early each afternoon making these entries, it will help me put more energy and time into that which I get paid to write (and there's more of that than ever there was before). But the blog is going nowhere. All these thousands of entries (and the ones on Blogger going back to 2001) are going nowhere. And I'll continue to make posts here. But not every day, and only very rarely at such length. Mostly, I'll use the LJ (augmented by Twitter and Facebook) to keep my readers abreast of new books, release dates, eBay auctions, public appearances, etc. Sometimes, if there's been an interesting trip, I'll post photos. News of important paleontological and astronomical discoveries. If some Republican son of a whore wins the White House in November, you'll hear a lot from me then. Stuff like that. There may also be occasional guest bloggers, but that seems unlikely, as I'm not part of the "popular kids' speculative fiction club" where stuff like guest blogging happens.
I will admit that a part of this withdrawal results from the fact that the "blogosphere" simply isn't what it was a few years ago. In this age, people only build things to tear them down again and replace them with inferior constructions. Daily blogging, though not extinct, has given way to the instant gratification and minimal time and energy investments of Twitter and Facebook, et al. Only three or four of the people on my LJ friends list still post regularly. Most fled a year or two ago. Many of these were people who once regularly commented here, and I enjoyed their comments. So, yes. That's a big part of it.
It's a bittersweet move (to quote Bowie, "a razor-sharp, crapshoot affair"), pulling back. Yes, it makes me a bit sad. But there's also an enormous relief. I need the time desperately, and I've been doing this for more than ten years. It's going to take me a while to adjust, but I know I'm doing the right thing. I want to thank everyone who followed me for so long, and everyone who only showed up more recently (and everyone in between). I reserve most of this gratitude for those who read the blog, then began reading my books. And those who were already fans when I began blogging. But. Those who only read the blog, or who read the (free) blog, but disliked my fiction, you guys sort of piss me off. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. But most of you, most you folks rock. I am happy to say I never had to ban more than ten people.
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Sirenia Digest will continue for the foreseeable future. On February 22nd, you get the first real taste of Alabaster in Dark Horse Presents #9. In only 22 days, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir will hit the bookshops (actually, it'll likely show up a week or so earlier in some), and look for the audiobook from Audible.com's "Neil Gaiman Presents" series. The full-length trailer for the novel will be out (I hope) on March 1, with enormous help from
briansiano. Alabaster #1 will be out in April, and Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart and The Yellow Book will be released in May (and if you've not, please preorder now,, and same with The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Please and thank you). In July, I'll be a Guest of Honor, along with Peter Straub, at ReaderCon 23 in Burlington, Massachusetts. I'll be writing the second book in the "Siobahn Quinn" series in August, with the first, Blood Oranges, to be released by Roc in 2013. So, a lot is coming. A lot. I do hope you enjoy it.But now, it's time to make the doughnuts.
Ba da ba ba,
Aunt Beast
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