A Pompeian Beauty, Raffaele Giannetti
Doing the Nano two-step with a jig or two in between. It’s early days yet, but I’ve passed the 8,000 word count mark.
Have decided to send out Auno’s Widow again to a new market since I’ve not heard at all from the last place, and it’s been many months since it winged its way through cyberspace.
I think that room outshines her!
Just a quickie post, as I’ve got to get to the writing. Back from the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose–it was fabulous. The panels were excellent. I took many notes and walked out of each one with much food for thought. I got to speak to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro who writes the Saint-Germain vampire series and she kindly autographed my copy of A Dangerous Climate. I was so delighted to see her I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper! I attended a panel where Ellen Kushner was one of the speakers, but I had not brought my hardback copy of Swordspoint, unfortunately. It was great to put faces to the names of the movers, shakers, and lights of the fantasy genre–Ellen Datlow, Ellen Kushner, Peter Straub, Michael Swanwick, Anne and Jeff VanderMeer, Guy Gavriel Kay (whose intricate historical fantasies are wonderful reads), Jane Lindskold, Tim Powers, and so many others. I’ll post a bit more later, and I’ve got a couple photos too.
San Jose is a charming city with a more artistic than business air about it, and Michelle and I had fun getting slightly lost in the streets while looking for this or that restaurant, but everything was relatively close so it was just a matter of turning in the right direction–a bit of a problem for the direction dyslexic.
Congratulations to the winners of the World Fantasy Award.
Today is Day 2 of Nano, and the last day of my vacation, and I’ve got to get busy with the November novel–soon as I have another cup of coffee and rustle up some sort of breakfast.
Day 1 count: 2,059.
The Green Lizard, Charles Perugini
One day to go! I’m mostly packed, must print my boarding pass tonight, set up Levi’s food and water, and oh yeah, get directions to the overnight parking lot ’cause I’m leaving Junior there–usually I take a shuttle to the airport but since I’m leaving from Long Beach’s, my little Yaris can wait for me to come home. For some reason, I don’t mind leaving the car at LB’s airport but I won’t leave it at LAX’s overnight parking.
Spent the past couple days editing A HAUNTING OF ROSES and getting it ready for fresh writing in December–that’s going to be my end of the year project after NaNo. I’ve got 2010 partially planned out, already thinking about the GDR’s for next year.
Yesterday the winds gusted strongly through the Westside, sending rough billows through the building garage, strong enough to ruffle and buffle the potted palms.
Five days, zombie run free–yay!! Hope the weather’s nice in San Jose.
Knave of Hearts, Maxwell Parrish
Short time for me at work this week! Vacation–going to the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, so looking forward to that. It’s been many years since I last went to one. Three more days and I’m winging my way to San Jose. Michelle’s coming with. It’s going to be fun celebrating Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday!
Yesterday, on a visit to Office Depot, found a dvd of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, and watched it last night for the 3rd or 4th time. It’s got one of the best horror movie endings in the history of horror movie endings. Definitely tops my list of favorite horror films. That movie makes me tense no matter that I’ve viewed it at least 3 times before. Its mood, setting, the savage vampires, the heroic sheriff of the snowbound Alaska town caged in night for 30 days, and the nihilistic crucible in which the people are trapped waiting for the sun to rise again makes it impossible to watch without a chill in the gut.
Let’s see, what are my favorite horror films, in no particular order:
30 DAYS OF NIGHT
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
ALIEN
ALIENS
THE SIXTH SENSE
STIR OF ECHOES
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
And that’s it so far. Oh yeah–I hate zombie films and will not watch them. Don’t read zombie books either. I’m fond of the undead, not the walking dead.
Met with Janet yesterday for our monthly lunch, brainstormed a short story that she’s trying to write about one of her book characters. Her latest novel is out from Whiskey Creek Press–Wanted: True Love, a humorous tale about a young witch searching for true love with no luck thanks to an amorous, dastardly warlock who placed a curse on her.
I’ve got my NaNo novel idea sketched in story notes. Created a journal for it yesterday–I like to give all my novels their own journal–and I always pick a particular artist or artistic movement to use to ornament the entries. For Castle in the Air, I’m using Maxwell Parrish’s paintings. While I wait for November, I’m back at work on A Lamentation of Swans. Sweet Taboo is in a holding pattern somewhere in the creative ether. I’m so close to the end, but can’t find the words to get me there.
Judging by the luminous fall of light through the window, looks like it’s going to be a beautifully sunny day, but don’t know if I’ll make it outside at all today. I’m weeding my overgrown garden of manuscripts and story files stuffed in copy paper boxes. I really wish I’d stop creating duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate versions of everything!
The Afterglow in Egypt, William Holman Hunt
Can’t bring myself to look at Loose Daddy. That poor novel has been languishing for months–completed, final, done, and still I can’t do the final read-through so I can compose the synopsis. I’m afraid of my own words. I’m afraid I’ll only see the flaws, i.e., the flaws I create, discreditng all my effort.
Too much to do writing-wise in this final quarter of the year so Loose Daddy will have to wait until 2010.
Meanwhile, I’m preparing for NANO. Castle in the Air is the working title for this year’s November Novel.
I’m remembering a cartoon…a little creature walks into a wall, backs up a step, walks into it again, backs up, walks into it again, as if walking into that wall over and over would eventually cause it to disappear…that sort of resembles me and Sweet Taboo. But I’m smarter than that little creature, I figured out to get the story engine running again, I need to write more about Deidre and Randall’s relationship (mortal + ghost) and balance it against Deidre and Demario’s friendship. Must focus on points of contention between Deidre and Randall and points of sympatico between Deidre and Demario. Must back away from the wall, turn and take another path in the story labyrinth.
The weather is gradually turning cooler–while summer wrestles with winter, punching the old man with warming trend after warming trend, but wind is evening the score, blowing rough and cold through the day.
I’m all signed up for NANO, and October is story notes and outline month for this year’s November Novel, tentatively titled, Castle in the Air. I hope to be ready come November 1st!
The Storm Spirits, Evelyn Pickering De Morgan
October 1st, started working on the outline for this year’s NANO novel, temporarily setting Sweet Taboo aside. I’m stuck at a certain point anyway, although I like to think that I’m not. I’ve made my 50,000 word rewrite goal, and the story has expanded some so I’ve reset the manuscript to 60,000 and I’m word by wording my way to that final scene, already in place.
Meanwhile, I’m working on two short stories, one science fiction and one steampunkish. I also submitted another short story to market and have one more ready to go–that gives me five submissions this year–two which were published. A record year for me. Usually, I’m doing good to get one out the door.
So it’s October, Time’s scythe has sliced into the last quarter of the year. November is going to pass in a haze of pages, but still, hoping to complete ST.
Gulnare, Arabian Nights, Maxfield Parrish
50,025, Sweet Taboo. Alrighty then! Now we’re moving into the final sequence. I’m at Chapter 14. Happy dance!
Bacchante, William Bouguereau
48,664, Sweet Taboo. Just finished reading Caitlin Kiernan’s The Red Tree, her latest novel. Enjoyed it, was fascinated by it, the strong, beautiful writing and the story of obsession and haunting based on New England folklore. I was a wee bit unsatisfied by the ending, but I already knew from the beginning the fate of the main character, Sarah Crowe. The story is neatly framed and told in journal form, Sarah’s journal, drawn from another journal–that of a parapsychologist obsessed with New England folklore. Much of Caitlin Kiernan is in this book and that adds to my fascination. Daughter of Hounds and The Five of Cups remain my top favorites of her books. Low Red Moon drew me into her fiction; I’ve yet to read Silk.
Today is the first day of a 3-day weekend. Monday is Yom Kippur and the office is closed. I’ve a writing agenda:
I didn’t add the Simon story to the list, but I’d like to spend some time with it as well. Don’t know if I will though–the plate is already full, especially with reading Loose Daddy, though that isn’t something I can do at one sitting.
Now that I’ve finished The Red Tree, I’m going to read Neuromancer, which is on my 100 books, 5-year reading list.
Bright and sunny outside, going to be another scorching September day.
Going to Business, James Jacques-Joseph Tissot
Got the contract for The Horror Zine anthology. Been working on Sweet Taboo, inching along story-wise. Told myself that when this draft is done, I’ll set it aside for a little while, let it grow cold, and then re-read it. Meanwhile, I’ve got plenty of contenders lined up for the next novel.
No work on the Simon Doro science fiction story this week. Really want to get back to that, and I’ve got a new vampire short story in the works too. Way too many ideas, way too little time.
42,804/80,000
53.5%
50,000/50,000
100%
New goal: 25/60,000
