Friday, December 17, 2004
Yesterday, I sat here and stared at the screen of my iBook until blood flowed from my eyes and my teeth had been ground away to dust. And for that I have about two hundred words, maybe a page, that I probably can't even use. Chapter One is going to be a breach birth. It's comin' out sideways, at best. Emmie Silvey is on a school bus, and it's January in Providence (it was late November in the prologue). She's thinking about things that might hide behind the winter sky, and about the house on Angell Street she shares with her father, and I have no frelling idea what happens next, and then next, and then next after that. Oh, I know what happens in Chapter Three, and Chapter Five, and so forth, but Chapter One, the necessary and indespensible beginning is a blank slate. I love the character, but getting deep enough inside her head is no mean feat. She's a very weird kid, but she's still a kid, an eight-year-old kid, and I've never done this before.
This is going to be a short, chaotic entry because a) I was up until frelling four a.m. playing Halo 2, and thus b) slept way the hell too late, and, also, c) I have to write at least one thousand words today, one thousand words that I can use.
I've grown annoyed by almost all the music in my iTunes library, and this morning I dug out the "Cait's Big '70s!" swap CD I made when we did the last CD swap on the phorum (or it was the swap before last). Right now, it's working for me. Later on, this might start buggin' me, and I'll have to switch to Tom Waits or Nick Cave or Belly or something.
Here's a cool little review of Murder of Angels by Bond, Gwenda Bond. We were once trapped together in the bowels of a volcano with a hundred Polynesian dancers and their thundering drums, so she knows of what she speaks. Thanks to Sonya Taaffe for bringing it to my attention last night.
Yesterday, I took time to listen to the new EP by The Endless, which they were kind enough to send me this week and which is very wonderful. You must visit this band's website and listen to their music and shower them with praise and cash. I say so.
Mike Bracken (with whom I used to correspond back in the Days Before Silk, and who went on to, among other things, fill the roll of Horror Geek on Comedy Central's Beat the Geeks) writes:
I've been following your journal, which I really dig, too. I found it interesting to read that you're playing Halo 2 — don't ask why, but I never figured you for a video game fan for some reason. Aside from the film stuff, I write game reviews for a bunch of different places — and I LOVED the segments in Halo 2 where you play as the Arbiter (which is at least partially because Keith David did the voice work — I have a special place in my heart for John Carpenter's The Thing, and the character of Childs is one of my favorites). Most of the gamers I know bitch about having to play him instead of Master Chief, but personally, I found the Arbiter segments far more compelling than anything else in the game. I guess I say this to sort of make a point about your comments on your readers and your "difficult" style. We see this same reaction in all the mediums now, I think — gaming, movies, books, music —people are consumers who simply buy things because we're supposed to. Most of us don't have a whole lot of passion for anything, so when something comes along that isn't a generic version of the generic flavor of whatever E! tells us was hot last month, we freak out. I spend half my time explaining why people should see Mario Bava films instead of a Texas Chainsaw remake...
And speaking of John Carpenter's The Thing, which I worship as one of the finest horrific Weird sf films ever made...as though the Sci-Fi Channel hasn't already done enough damage, between cancelling Farscape, giving us Tremors: the Series and Scare Tactics and Mad, Mad House, and taking a big steaming dump on Ursula K. LeGuin, now I hear they're going to air a two-part mini-series remake of...wait for it...John Carpenter's The Thing. And you know it'll suck, because suckage is what the SFC is all about, and I can't think one one good goddamn reason to remake this film. Yes, kids, Bonnie Hammer is evil incarnate and dumbed down for mass consumption.
Frell. This is going on longer than expected... *sigh*
And thanks to Feedster, my newest addiction, I have this bit from the LJ of Ciri, from a very brief report on Fiddler's Green: Caitlin Kiernan I took for a crossdresser (still no final conclusion)... I have no idea why this amuses me so much, but it does. Of course, I am a crossdresser. Why, just yesterday, I wore velvet and latex at the same time, and if that's not crossing my dress, I don't know what would be. Anyway, I love Feedster. Ciri, though, might need to broaden those horizons.
Okay. I'm gonna stop now. There's an unwritten novel waiting to mock me.
1:36 PM
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