Wednesday, January 22, 2003
I used the long drive into Birmingham yesterday to try to catch up on some of my reading, so I wouldn't feel like I'd lost the entire day. On the way home, in a rather heavy rain, Thryn and I used her iBook (it has a larger screen than mine) to watch the DVD that came with the Dead Can Dance boxed set. Don't worry. Jennifer was driving. I made it through all the videos, but dozed through most of the performance/documentary film.
Home again, home again.
David Bowie on the headphones. "Slow Burn."
And I'm trying to find focus. I think I'm very close to having discovered the heart of Murder of Angels (and that it may require a different title after all). It came to me late, late, late last night (synonymous with early, early, early this morning). And let that be a lesson to those of you who place your faith in deceitful, perfidious outlines. The truth of a thing may not be found until ms. pg. 114. Or not until the final chapter, as was the case with Threshold. The truth of a novel is a truth that has to be looked for to be found, and the search is best done in the writing, not in any formal planning. It's an impromptu alchemy, a moment-by-moment, word-by-word magick, and "formulae" are best left for simpler sorts of chemists, mathematicians, astrophysicists, and romance novelists. But having found it, at least believing that I've found it, gives me relief and will help drive me forward, through Chapter Three and on to Chapter Four and Five and beyond. The discovery also calls for research I haven't yet done, but almost look forward to doing now.
On Monday, I only wrote about seven hundred words, but they were seven hundred good words. Fifty good words trumps a thousand so-so words, any old day. Regardless, today I will do my one thousand, at least.
If all goes well, Thryn and I may do a club tonight. It's been a while and dancing would be nice.
There's a nice little review of Dark Terrors 6 in the new issue of Locus, which gives a much-appreciated nod to my short story "The Road of Pins." You should pick up a copy of Dark Terrors 6 from Amazon. It's available in hardback and will soon be available in trade paperback. "The Road of Pins" is one of my three or four favorites of my own work at the moment, but the anthology also includes great stuff from Ramsey Campbell, Christopher Fowler, Tim Lebbon, David J. Schow, Tanith Lee, Graham Masterson, Kim Newman, Michael Marshall Smith, Basil Copper, and many other very fine authors.
And here's your mid-week reminder not to miss Farscape this Friday night. Also, check out the Variety ad at SaveFarscape.
Oh. And I am drawing my plans against the leafblower men and all their clamorous erosions.
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