Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Since the condominiumization of this place began, the loft that the realtor assured me would be quiet and peaceful, perfect for a writer, has been in a state of perpetual hullabaloo. Today, they're tearing up something out front. The sound of hammers is sending shockwaves through the building. I have iTunes up as loud as it will go, and still the noise gets through the headphones. In the last two months, we've endured painters, architects, roofers, people with shovels and picks and crowbars, people with blueprints and chain saws. They've hacked down innocent bushes (for no apparent reason) and removed windows for repairs (said repaired windows were then immediately painted shut - ha, ha, ha, you stupid frelling bozos). Last week, the roof was sprayed with some sort of polystyrene-looking sealant that drifted down in great, toxic clouds and laminated the back porch and everything else within a ten-foot radius of the building. All I can say is anyone who's willing (and dumb enough) to pony up a quarter of a million dollars for this place, which is the asking price, can have it. I just dread the move to come. That'll be December. It'll be here in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, I endure conditions that I think would give even Stephen King writer's block.
It may be the noise, disruption, and desecration that have the ghosts a lot more active than usual. For at least two or three weeks (remember the "night terrors entry") we've been having a lot more weirdness than usual. Day before yesterday, I woke up about 8:30 a.m. and lay staring at the wall for a bit, listening to the music we sleep to. I finally rolled over to wake Spooky, ten or fifteen minutes after I'd awakened, and a small child-like figure was standing at her side of the bed. It immediately ducked down out of sight and there was no further evidence of it. I woke Spooky, but didn't tell her about it until we were out in the kitchen. Even Jennifer, the house skeptic, has had a sighting, one of the people we see reflected in the windows from time to time.
But the haunting is the least of my problems.
Keeping myself motivated, forcing the words from me, that's the greatest of my problems.
No, that's not true. Finding a way to make people love the words, that's the greatest of my problems. I've been leading horses to water for twelve years now, but I still can't figure out exactly how you make the damn things drink.
Yesterday, I spent a good portion of the day locked in mortal combat with Final Draft, but finally managed to get the upper hand and wrest free from its binary jaws the fifteen pages of screenplay that my film agent in LA was waiting for. Now I'm waiting to hear what he thinks before I continue with Alabaster. The waiting is the worst. The waiting is the worst. If you are one of those fools who wants to be a writer, go at once to a tattoo parlour and have tattooed upon thine fool brow, "I will wait, and wait, and wait." It is the one constant of writing.
The new Publisher's Weekly has an article on the state of horror in publishing today, "Tomes of Terror and Trepidation" (there's a title to make you wet your nickers, proof positive that alliteration can be a weapon in the wrong hands). I get a brief mention. The author writes:
NAL/Roc, now merged editorially with Berkeley/Ace, broke award-winning novelist Caitlin Kiernan out of small press and comics with Silk (1998) and published her third novel, Low Red Moon, last fall.
Never mind that my first comics weren't released until after I finally sold Silk, or that I never really sold much of anything to small press until after I'd become an established novelist and comic-book scripter. It's the publicity that counts, such as it is. Thanks to Rick for sending me this quote , which I wouldn't have seen otherwise. (Hell no, I don't read Publisher's Weekly. I spend every day writing, and the last thing I want to read about is publishing. Or writing, for that matter.)
Last night, my brain half-liquefied from the day's ordeals, I played Beyond Good and Evil until I could no longer avoid going to bed. Jade has flown to the moon Selene, rescued Pey'j from the Domz, transmitted the truth about the Alpha Sections to the people of Hillys, and is now engaged in her climactic battle with the head alien. I'm impressed with just about everything about this game, including its overt subversiveness. I'll finish it tonight.
Oh, Spooky was successful in procuring a copy of Frustration Plantation, and my favorite songs so far are "Possum in the Grotto" and "If Your Kisses Can't Hold the Man You Love."
This post means to go on forever. So I must stop it. But, before I go, congratulations to Poppy on the release of her new novel, Liquor, and all the buzz it's generating. And, lastly, a reminder that the Species of One shop is open and chockfull of stuff you don't yet know you can't live without.
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