Thursday, April 29, 2004
this bridge was written to make you feel smittener
with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
can you extract me from my plastic fantasy
i didn't think so but im still convinceable
I rarely ever write about my own dreams in my online journal, much less anyone else's. But this morning Spooky woke from a nightmare, which she immediately related to me, and I just have to share. I have, of course, secured her permission beforehand. She dreamt that I'd had an abortion and I showed her the fetus, which I'd kept and dried. She said it was a shriveled greyish tadpole sort of a thing, with a tiny human skull covered by a membrane. There were spots along its tail. When I showed it to her, I confessed to having the abortion and started crying. She says I was very sad and distraught. Then she told me, "If you're going to play with boys, you should use protection." Make of all this what you will. I believe perhaps I should rethink my trip to Innsmouth this summer.
Yesterday, "Faces in Revolving Souls" stalled out on me utterly. I'd written a single paragraph, maybe 65 words, and whap!, there's the frelling wall. Instead of doing the smart thing and imbibing in some intoxicant or another to get me over the hurdle, I spent the afternoon wallowing in anger and despair. Better drunk than pathetic, that's something every author should have tattooed on her forehead so she sees it in the mirror at least once a day. I'm vain, so I'd see it about a hundred times a day. Today, I have to do better. The story has to move forward. Nothing else matters until it does. The editor has graciously granted me an extension and I have to write the story. I have to make it a good story, because I've never written a story I was ashamed to see printed. I won't start now. I can deal with the angst when I'm sixty or seventy. Now, I just have to write the story.
Last night, we watched Angel, and I think it was really one of the better episodes. A shame we're about to lose the last good dark fantasy on television. Then Spooky fell asleep, and I watched The Bridge on the River Kwai on TCM. I'd forgotten what an utterly brilliant film it is. And then, though it was about 2:30 a.m., I read Clifford D. Simak's "Huddling Place," which helped get the unpleasant aftertaste of the Merril and Blish stories I'd read the night before out of my head. Simak put the characters first, kept the tech and high concept in the background, and, most importantly, was capable of good prose.
Quite a few people seem to be choosing to read the blog at its LiveJournal Mirror, which is cool. It helps me justify all the silly clicking and listing I've engaged in since beginning the greygirlbeast account on the 16th. You should all "friend" me immediately. I always need more click-and-list cyber-enablers.
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