Thursday, December 23, 2004
Thanks to the Ambien, I've been recalling fewer of my weird dreams lately. But the amnesia is not perfect. This morning I dreamt that Neil was inexplcably refilming The Lord of the Rings and, even more inexplicably, had hired me as a storyboard artist, apparently not knowing that I can't draw for dren. As I tried to fulfill the duties of my employment, it quickly devolved into one of those ultra-anxious naked-in-front-of-the-classroom kind of dreams. But there was a neat part where we had Gandalf the White's staff and a mock-up of the entrance to the mines of Moria and were trying to figure out something about how the head of the staff would match with the Elven runes (which were drawn on the mock-up in white chalk). Right.
Yesterday afternoon, my editor called to tell me he had read and was pleased with the prologue for Daughter of Hounds, which was a huge relief. We talked about editing, about Ipswich and the location of Innsmouth Harbour, about how this book relates to my earlier ones, and so forth. Generally, I've written my books and then handed them over to my editor, who would then make some comments regarding desired rewrites, which I would then summarily ignore. But I think I'm going to have a better working relationship with my new editor (he became my new editor during the production of Murder of Angels), which is more reassuring than I'd have thought.
But I didn't write yesterday. The weather was still too warm. So, I get another week in Purgatory, I suppose. My sins multiply like horny sea urchins in an ocean devoid of starfish. But there were other things to which I needed to attend. And I finally made it to Fernbank. Apparently, Tuesday's busted water main had been fixed. By the time we reached the museum, though, it was 4:15 p.m., and closing time is 5 p.m. We spent only a little time in the atrium with the huge Argentinosaurus and the Giganotosaurus, and, instead, visited with the humble Stegosaurus. I was in a stegosaurusy sort of mood, I guess. Afterwards, we just wandered about the place a little. The floors of Fernbank are tiled with beautiful brown, yellow-brown, and grey polished slabs of Solhhofen Limestone, the Jurassic-aged rock formation wherein the remains of the dinobird Archaeopteryx have been found. Anyway, the tiles are filled with cross-sections of invertebrate fossils, and Spooky is especially fond of seeing what we can spot on any given day. Yesterday, we saw lots of Hibolites hastatus (the internal skeleton of a squid-like cephalopod called a belemnite), some beautiful ammonites, and many sponges (Tremadictyon sp.). The Solnhofen was deposited in a system of lagoons in what is now southern Germany.
For dinner, I made a pot of chili, using liberal amounts of tequila, lime, and fresh jalapeno. Most of the evening was spent on my notes on Nebari history and magick, with a little Halo 2 very late.
But I did think about Daughter of Hounds quite a lot. I talked about it a lot. I was still talking about it when Spooky was trying to go to sleep at 2 a.m. I know so much of the story now, so much I didn't know as recently as last week. Of course, knowing it is one thing, writing it all down is another. I'll get back to that today. When last we left Emmie, she was on a train bound for Manhattan...
There's really far too much to be done just now (that's the refrain). I owe Marvel a synopsis, which they won't be getting until after the...what's that word? Oh, yeah. The holidays. The dratted, frelling holidays. I need to get some stuff out to the Nyarlathotep guys for the website they've done for the CD which will accompany the lettered edition of The Dry Salvages. I still need to rework the end of "Bradbury Weather." There's the Nar'eth winter manga script thingy. And so forth. I should keep myself parked at this computer for the next five or six days. I won't, but I should.
This seems like a reasonable place to end this rambling entry, so...
11:22 AM
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