Dear Sweet Filthy World

Sunny again today, but still with some clouds. Our high was, and presently is (so our high so far), 87˚F, with the heat index at 92˚F.

I woke at six this morning, which was earlier than I'd intended. But what the fuck, I'd gotten to sleep by midnight, so I figured I'd get up, have some breakfast, then get to work. And, instead, I fell the fuck back to sleep and woke at 8 a.m. Because I am a creature of excruciating habit, or excruciatingly a creature of habit, this threw the whole day into a less than productive tailspin. I finally gave up and played Guild Wars 2 and tried not the think about the words I did not get written today.

What am I writing? Fuck it, I'll tell you. The novel is called The Night Watchers, and it is essentially a new and more supernatural incarnation of the novel that would have been Interstate Love Song (based on the short-story of the same title). I really like it, all of it that's in my head, and that's a lot of it. If I can quit fucking around, it could be done by the end of the summer. The print and ebook versions will be published by Subterranean Press, and hopefully there will be an audiobook. Likely there will. It's set mostly in and around north-central Alabama, but spans many, many decades. The title is borrowed from Peter Straub's Ghost Story, one of my favorite books of all time, ever.

But you knew that about me and Ghost Story. I mean, if you are one of those Constant Readers.

But I gotta admit, balancing the fiction, no matter how much I like the novel at hand, with the sudden and marvelous paleontology opportunities is a challenge. But. Fiction keeps the rent paid and the lights on and food on the table. Paleontology just, you know, makes me feel like I'm doing what I was put on earth to do. And it's all sort of ironic. For me - as frustrating as I might find it, as much as I would usually rather be doing something else - writing is easy as pie. On the other hand, paleontology is fucking hard work – and I'm not talking about physically demanding fieldwork and fossil preparation. I'm talking about the intellectual rigor, discipline, and plain ol' smarts involved. So, I'm going to be busting my butt to do the fairly easy thing that pays the bills to earn the luxury of busting my butt to do the very hard thing that pays not one red cent. Irony. But, that said, I am just grateful for both opportunities, at this point in my life and at this point in history.

By the way, SubPress has announced Vile Affections (and the accompanying chapbook Cambrian Tales), and you may see the cover. In fact, you can now place preorders! Right here. Note: Only those who bought the signed numbered edition of Comes a Pale Rider may preorder the signed numbered edition of Vile Affections at this time. Anyone may preorder the trade hardcover.

And here's some crap I posted today to Twitter and Facebook:

I'm just waiting for one of these anti-COVID vaccine yahoos to realize that, in effect, every time they use any medication they are – in the eyes of pharmaceutical companies and medical science – essentially guinea pigs or lab rats or Rhesus monkeys, FDA approval or no.

~ and ~

Fact: When you are so afraid that you can only win an election when fewer people vote, so you try to make it harder and harder for folks to vote, especially those whom you suspect won't vote for you, you've failed democracy.

~ and this, which someone else said and which I retweeted ~

Let's perfectly clear...Democrats do not want to de-fund the police. Dems want to demilitarize and de-brutalize the police.

I leave you with my level 80 holosmith (an elite engineering specialization), Mandy J. Wolowitz (née Hansen), at Timberline Falls. Yes, she has a lightsaber.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




3:50 p.m.

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Another rainy day. Monotony is setting in. We were under a flash flood watch for much of the day. As you can see from the photo below, it was not an idle threat. The high was only 71˚F (!).

There was a time in America when, more often than not, we pulled together and did what was right. It's how we beat polio. It's how we helped defeat the Nazis. It's how Nixon was removed from office. This is not some idle Greatest Generation/Baby Boomer wishful-thinking myth. We were a functional collective, not a nation of whining idiots declaring "you can't make me."

No real work yesterday. The weather drags me down. A nice royalty check came, and we can always use those. I stared at the galleys for Vile Affections and the stared back at me. I talked with Spooky about the novel I'm about to start. I pulled a new Pleistocene sample from the Lane cabinet to begin work on soon. Today, there has to be realwork. I will not be like the QAnon-Trumper idiots and wait until someone has to try and force me to do what is right.

Sorry. I'm so mad at those assholes right now...

Last night's episode of The X-Files was "Squeeze," introducing the awesomely creepy Eugene Tooms (who shows up again later in the first season).

Later,
Aunt Beast (who's gonna get some shit done, and screw depression, and screw this rain)




4:11 p.m.

The sun came back today. I woke to it, and it's always easier waking from my nightmares to bright sunlight. But the cooler weather is slow to leave; we only reached 66˚F, and it's currently 52˚F.

I was able to work today, to really work, for the first time in weeks. I did some good paleo' writing. Hopefully, tomorrow I can do some good fiction writing. I see articles about how, in the face of Covid-19 and in the stress and worry, the uncertainty and all that is happening, how we should no fear to be unproductive. We should not be shameful if we are not working. But I do fear being unproductive, and I am shameful of the times I cannot work. I'll always be that way. And there are bills to be paid, and there are stories owed.

Anyway, later I played GW2 and Black Desert Online with Spooky. I must say, Black Desert Online is a visually stunning game, and it's possibly the most satisfyingly visceral game I have ever played. But it's written for shit. I'm pretty sure this is what happens when bad Korean writing is translated badly into bad English writing.

Later, we finished Part One of Season Six of Vikings Episodes 6 and 7 are genuinely, heartbreakingly beautiful. Even if I haven't enjoyed all of the series so far, it would have been worth it just for those two episodes.

---

Last night, the Alabama Department of Public Health counter hit 999 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and...locked up. I suspect that whoever wrote the code never imagined we would need four-digit numbers to tally the stricken. Finally, it started ticking off cases again this afternoon, though I don't know if it any longer reflects our knowledge of the infected in Alabama as well as it did before it stopped last night. As it stands, the ADPH reports 1,108 confirmed cases in the state, with 305 in Jefferson County and 89 in Shelby County.

I was able to speak with Jun Ebersole this afternoon, and that helped some. I am missing Jun and McWane and my work in the lab terribly. And Winifred the tylosaur. Her, too. Okay, her most of all.

Later,
Aunt Beast




1:36 p.m.

Gonna try to keep this short. I'm tired, despite a Red Bull. It's been a dispiriting, above and beyond Covid-19.

Currently, it's 70˚F and storm here in Birmingham.

As of today, the state now has 242 confirmed cases, 91 in Jefferson County, 27 in Shelby County. Keep in mind, bungled Ala. tests aside, Alabama has confirmed more Covid- 19 cases in 10 days than Oregon has in the past three weeks. Oregon have tested ~4,600 people, while Alabama has tested only half that number. Meanwhile, the Birmingham City Council has unanimously passed a "shelter-in-place" order that is now in effect.

I did not write today. I am struggling to get started on something, whether new fiction or new science writing, because my only defense against the fear and anxiety and uncertainty is work.

“I never reread what I’ve written. I’m far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I’ve done.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges

If I owe you an eBay book, it'll go into the mail sometime in the new day or two. I signed a bunch today. Also, Kathryn and I are going to try to get eBay going again in the next few days, so please watch for that. And if you're worried about contamination via mail (and obviously I do), remember that the virus can only live on cardboard or paper for about 24 hours. So, I would recommend setting any packages from us aside for one day and night before you open them, which is what I'm doing with packages I receive.

Take care, and listen to scientists and healthcare experts, not Donald Trump.

Later Taters,
Aunt Beast




9:10 p.m.

It's late, and I think I'll do not much more than post a photo for this day. I'll make an actual entry regarding today sometime tomorrow evening (along with whatever happens tomorrow). No, I didn't write, but it was not an unproductive day. Sometimes, I need to remind myself very forcefully that there are many more ways to fashion a productive day, and to measure the goodness of a day, than by how ever many words I have or have not piled up.

Later,
CRK




11:46 a.m.

Overcast this morning, but kind of warm. Currently, it's 59˚F, no windchill, and I have the office window open.

I sorta got back to work yesterday. Not much, but a start. Mostly catching up on email. I hope to get a bit more than that done today. The inconvenient job I mentioned on the 22nd, well – someday I'll maybe tell that story. But I turned it down, because given who I am it was the smart thing to do. Still, that it went that way left me angry and annoyed at myself and even more depressed than I was before the opportunity arose. And that's one of the things I'm getting over right now. The job I did not take.

Yesterday was fairly decent, which was nice after Wednesday being a goodish day. Maybe today will follow suit, what with the warmth and all.

We're beginning to make packing plans. I've never lived in a place as long as ten years before (my previous record was a paltry four), but when you've lived in a place that long it's not an easy thing to extract yourself and all your junk. We are dug in, so to speak.

Lydia's on my desk, her nose pressed to the screen, smelling the outside world. This House has been sealed up against the winter for a good five or six months now.

Yesterday, I signed signature sheets for a limited edition of Steve Jones' Best New Horror 28. And I read "An enigmatic marine reptile—the actual first record of Omphalosaurus in the Muschelkalk of the Germanic basin" and "A well-preserved new mid-Paleocene penguin (Aves, Sphenisciformes) from the Waipara Greensand in New Zealand" from the most recent Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Time to make the doughnuts.

Later,
Aunt Beast




12:53 p.m.

I have a headache this morning, but I slept better last night, and the sun came back yesterday afternoon. So, headache or not, this is a vast improvement over yesterday. Currently, it's 82˚F. Summer has come back.

There's work, just nothing I feel like discussing right now.

TTFN,
Aunt Beast



1:31 p.m.

Mostly cloudy here, and currently it's 68˚F.

I think I have decided I have to set aside "Three Monsters Walk Into a Bar" and try to come back to it at the end of July. The tooth drama, being sick from the antibiotics, other stuff have have conspired to throw me off, and I need to get some distance between it and myself. I need to get something finished for Sirenia Digest No. 137. Though I may also include what has been written on the story thus far in that same issue.

God, I want my old motivation and energy back, the sort of motivation and energy I had back as recently (and as long ago) as 2010 and the first half of 2011, before the chaos and disappointments and bullshit of Dark Horse and Quinn and the movie deal and the screenplay for The Red Tree and the Gabapentin and all the rest of it happened to me. And now these rotten goddamn teeth. Before all that, I had the work ethic of a goddamn Puritan. Before all that, I could write two goddamn novels in a year.* Well, I did that just the once, but still.

Yesterday, I received a very nice letter from the John Hay Library, and with it my copy of the deed of gift for my papers. The letter describes them as "Twenty-Three Linear Feet of Manuscript Materials, Including Correspondence Journals, Manuscripts, and Publications, Circa 1970-2015**, In Print, Electronic, and Web-Based Formats." Really, twenty-three feet? Damn.

Last night, I finally saw the season finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, and I was very pleased that Sasha Velour won. It was such a lackluster season, but there at the end, Sasha really shone. I've got this weird thing with the show. My favorite has won every year since Season Three. If only I had that sort of luck with presidential candidates.

Later Taters,
Aunt Beast



11:22 a.m.


* That would be The Drowning Girl: A Memoir and Blood Oranges.
** That should read 1970-2017.

Sunny this morning. The temperature is currently only 43˚F.

I tried to stay busy yesterday, trying to get back into the swing of things. Post-apocalypse life. There was some personal email, to my mom and Geoffrey. Mordicai Knode at Tor.com had forwarded a request for an interview, from Stefan Fergus over at Civilian Reader, and I agreed. Katharine Duckett at Tor had forwarded a "holiday-themed" request from ReadItForward.com, asking authors to answer this question – "What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a present and why was it so special?" So, I wrote about the night in Hollywood that Christa bought me a copy of Katharine Dunn's Geek Love, back in May 1996. S.T. Joshi is reprinting "Dead Letter Office" (from Sirenia Digest #113, June 2015) in a Dark Regions Press anthology, Nightmare's Realm: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic, and I had to proof the galleys for the story. I did. Then I had to go over the final-most galleys for Agents of Dreamland, so I did that and sent the four small problems I found to Jonathan Strahan. The postman brought a box from Subterranean Press, and I assumed that they were the signature sheets for Dear Sweet Filthy World, so I figured I would finish the day by signing those. But when I opened the box I discovered it actually contained my copies of the ARCs for Dear Sweet Filthy World, instead. They look good, but I must warn all reviewers that this is the most abominably error-riddled ARC I have ever in my life allowed to be released, and for that I am sorry. "Uncorrected" does not do the situation justice. But Tran's cover looks great. Also, vanilla Cheetos.



I'm trying to get back on that horse.

Late in the afternoon, before dinner, I played Guild Wars 2.

We finished watching Goliath last night, the new series on Amazon with Billy Bob Thorton and William Hurt, and I liked it quite a lot. We also finished watching Season Three of RuPaul's Drag Race. I'd expected Raja to win, and she did. But, all in all, Season Three was a bit dull, lackluster, a pale shadow of the marvelous things to come in seasons Four, Five, Six, Seven, and Eight. I'm not gonna bother with Season Two (and Season One is unavailable).

I went to bed around 2:30 a.m., but had trouble sleeping. Too much anxiety, too much fear, too much anger.

And that was yesterday.

TTFN,
Aunt Beast

Jesus, but I fucking hate the cold. Currently, it's sunny, 39˚F, with a windchill of 34˚F, which is, of course, a vast improvement over the last two days. But it's still cold as hell.I feel as if my whole life has become about just living long enough to be once more in a place where winters are no so brutal.

“There's something horrifying about having your memory become part of the public memory.” ~ Mary Karr

“When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.” ~ Jean Rhys

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Because even in winter I have bills to pay.

I'm wearied by the "There would be no joy in my life if I could not write!" folks, especially the ones who've not spent two decades with no other means to make a living. I have never loved writing, which usually surprises, and sometimes angers, people to hear, but it's the truth. Most often, I have loathed writing. But it's what I'm good at. So, it's what I do. There's no romance, no mystery, no pie in the sky. It's my job.

And that's it for now.

Later Taters,
Aunt Beast