Friday, April 05, 2002
Last night's admittedly delirious post inspired a number of readers to send e-mails assuring me that yes, you can indeed die of insomnia. How kind of you all to set my mind at ease.
Actually, I slept last night, a little better than eight hours, which is a veritable attack of narcolepsy by my standards. It was the Valerian. But they only work for two or three nights. After that my insomnia always seems to figure out what's up and finds a way around the stuff. So I only take it about once a month.
I kept my promise and wrote the first 500 wds. of Chapter Four today. Indeed, I did somewhat better than that and wrote the first 645 wds. It's good to have it moving again. I'd like to finish this chapter before I leave for the World Horror Convention in Chicago next week, but that seems very unlikely. If I'm lucky, I'll get halfway through it before the trip. I've spent days lost in the necessary research for this chapter - books on pregnancy, police procedure, serial killers, numerology, FBI profilers, and alcoholism - and it's finally something of a relief to at last get down to the business of writing. I've come to see that Low Red Moon is going to be one of those stories that pushes my own willingness to face certain aspects of terror and horror to its limits. This time out the worst of the monsters may be all too human, and having to have them and their deeds rattling around in my head day and night is enough to give anyone insomnia, I'd think. I've had this problem a few times in the past, when I wrote "San Andreas" and ""Lafayette," for example, stories that required me to take characters places I didn't particularly want to go. I wonder if Miss Leatherman would ever believe I possess such strong feelings for my characters?
In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers is back from the printers and I hear it's a gorgeous little book. If you preordered, I'd imagine your copy will be along before too much longer. If you haven't preordered, there's still time to correct that oversight. I won't get to see the book for myself until Saturday.
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