Thursday, July 29, 2004
Here I sit, waiting for UPS to deliver copies of Murder of Angels. I just called my mother and told her I won't be coming to visit until next week. In a few hours, I'll have in my hands copies of the book I began way back in 2000, and spent all last summer and autumn finishing. The hardest, strangest book I've ever written (and then some). The story I began with Silk in October 1993 comes to an end in those pages (though, as I said yesterday, other doors were unavoidably opened in the process). I'm sitting here waiting. Excited. Scared. Disappointed. Eager. Reluctant. Anxious. I'm going to push this book like I've never pushed a book before, the way I should have pushed Low Red Moon, only I was too busy writing Murder of Angels.
My office is a mess. Filing that should have been done six months ago is heaped about. Maybe I'll file while I wait for the UPS dude and my child-bearing package from New York.
I promise, however you think it all ends, it won't be what you expect. In that way, I hope this novel is true to what I've learned of life.
My right eye is throbbing. It's always my frelling right eye that threatens to burst from my head and go squirming away across the desk. My left eye would be a nice change of pace.
Today, I need to firm up plans to attend the 2005 World Horror Convention in New York City. This will be my first WHC since Chicago in 2002. Peter Straub has kindly offerred to let me stay at his place, so I don't have to worry about booking a room, at least. What else today? Oh, yeah. We're moving ahead on the next short story collection, To Charles Fort, With Love. Originally, it was to be released after a second sf novella from subpress, but I've asked that the two be swapped, as I'll need more time with the novella, and I really want to get the next collection out there. I've pared it down to about 96,000 words, 14 stories, and there will be a preface and one new story (the final word count should be about 105,000). It'll have a Ryan Obermeyer cover and interior illos. by Richard Kirk (this will be my fourth book with the amazing Rick Kirk; I like that sort of symmetry and continuity). Later, when I'm absolutely sure of the table of contents, I'll post it here. I'm leaving out my sf stories (for a later all-sf collection), one or two I just don't quite love, and a couple whose rights have not yet reverted to me following their initial sell. This book will be shorter than Tales of Pain and Wonder, but longer than From Weird and Distant Shores. Bill Schafer is trying to keep the price down to about $20, which is a very good thing. We're looking at a Summer 2005 release date.
By now, a number of you will have received ARCs of The Dry Salvages. I've been getting some great feedback from readers, especially from the ever-eldritch Derek cf. Pegritz, some of which I'll be incorporating into the final, printed version of the novella. Sending out the ARCs to readers was Bill's idea, and I think it was a very fine one. I expect we'll do more of this in the future.
Ah. What else. Uh. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Lou Anders, the editor of FutureShocks. He loves "The Pearl Diver," so apparently my worries were for naught. So, there's some news. That should catch us up for a little while, at least.
Todays news pollution (courtesy Yahoo): Krispy Kreme is facing an SEC investigation. I swear to whatever foul beings keep the orbs spinning in the heavens, if this Atkins-diet carbophobia bulldren kills Krispy Kreme, blood will flow.
12:19 PM
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