Wednesday, January 26, 2005
There was a major snafu with the Ambien last night, and today I feel...well...it's a fine combination of sleepy, seasick, and pissed off. I woke about 4:15 and couldn't get back to sleep. I took a second Ambien and got up and tried to work (shouldn't this land me in Guinness under "most stupid act"). I spent the next hour and a half or so reading "Valentia" again and beginning work on the book's index. Finally, about 6:17 (I looked at the clock), I noticed that the words I was typing weren't "real" words and that the keyboard had a distinctly velvety sheen to it. "Go the hell to bed, you silly bitch," I said. Which I did. And proceeded to have riduculous, horrific, hilarious, Kafkaesque nightmares. I woke a little after eleven, feeling like this. Better living through chemistry. Hell, yeah.
Thanks to everyone who took time to comment or e-mail about the revisions to the stories that will comprise To Charles Fort, With Love. Though I must remind you that art is not a democracy, that it is, instead, a tyranny, a butt-ugly little banana republic filled with drug lords, vampiric catfish that swim up your urethra, and muddy tracks of deforested rainforest. Half the time, round here, they'll shoot you just for opening your mouth, then leave the carcass for the feral pigs. Nonetheless, I listened to what was said. And I have decided to leave the stories essentially as they were originally published — compounderations, sentence fragments, missing commas, neglected hyphens, and all. I think I was at last swayed by a couple of e-mails comparing my actions to George Lucas' constant dicking about with the orginal Star Wars trilogy. To quote Mike Bracken, "Changing them [the stories in my collection] now isn't much different than George Lucas screwing around with Star Wars." So, okay, fine. Point taken. Besides, I wouldn't want all those frelling assholes who've spent so much energy and time whinning about my unconventional use of the English language to feel like maybe they're getting through to me.
And speaking of things that people say, or, the be more perspicuous, have said, here's a beauty from a moderately recent Amazon.com "review": "I've never read Poppy Z. Brite, so I can't compare this to her books..."
...what? Is that like a prerequisite now or something?
It put me in mind of a discussion I chanced across a while back. I don't recall where it was. Some website somewhere, and people were comparing me to Poppy and Poppy to me. There seemed to be three camps. Poppy's better. Caitlín's better. They both stink. I searched in vain for the camp daring to suggest that these two things, the Caitlín and the Poppy, are really very, very different beasts, now more than ever, and all this comparing was almost entirely an exercise in missing the point, of conflating apples with oranges, insects and birds, the Lower Triassic with the late Eocene.
Anyway, some reviewer once compared me to Dean Koontz, which was far more riduculous. So, I suppose it could be worse.
Maybe I should puke a few times and then start this entry over. I think I was way more more awake at 4:15.
Today, I'm going to pack up the iBook and go hide somewhere there are no telephones, somewhere I cannot check my e-mail, and work on editing this collection and on writing it's preface. Someplace quite. With better heating (though, to be fair, we're expecting mid-sixties today).
Oh, here's something I found very amusing yesterday, so I'm quoting it. I'm not sure how serious robyn_ma was being, because I never am, with her or with anyone else. But hating LJ/pager/IM-speak as I do, this warmed my foul, misshapen heart:
What is it with LJspeak? LEARN FUCKING ENGLISH. I mean, when I use it, I do so ironically. Most of the people on my friends list do, too. But when you seriously go out of your way to type 'teh'? And it's not for ironic effect? THE WORD IS 'THE.' TEE AITCH EEE. What's next, 'eht'? And what the fuck is up with DOZENS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS WITH THE OCCASIONAL 1 AND THEN 'ONE'?? I KILL YOU AND THEN SLAP YOUR CORPSE, YOU SILLY ILLITERATE ENGLISH-RAPING NO-EDUCATION-HAVING HAT OF ASS
Thank you. It's still frelling funny.
I sent Chapter Two of Daughter of Hounds to my editor and to my lit agent yesterday.
And that pack of Camels I bought back in early January, when the book was stalled on me? I smoked three and tossed the rest of the pack. I'm pleased to say I'm still quit.
1:57 PM
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