Wednesday, July 27, 2005
So, what do you get when you combine two brightly coloured tree frogs, a black umbrella, and a raw sheep's heart? An aborted shoot for the author's photo for To Charles Fort, With Love, that's what. It seemed like a simple enough concept. But little, picky things kept going wrong, and I was exhausted and didn't feel like sitting on a hard wooden chair half-naked under hot lights holding a hunk of raw, drippy, slimy meat, and there was the frelling cat, and at 10:40 p.m. I said enough's enough. We'll use the Stegosaurus photo or something else that's pre-existing. The sheep's heart is still in the fridge. I suppose it needs to go down to the garbage today.
I only wrote 1,004 words on Chapter Seven yesterday, because my agent called. We talked about YA fiction in general and the strategy we'll be taking with my YA novel, in particular. She's on her way up to Maine to hide from the heat in NYC for the rest of the summer. We talked about the happy endings I never write. We talked about my desire to write under a pseudonym. And by the way, yes I would continue to write short fiction, novellas, etc. as Caitlín R. Kiernan — a number of you asked that yesterday. My agent's not entirely sure why I want to take on a pseudonym, and I found that I have a hard time explaining it to her (or anyone else). It just feels like what I ought to do. Of course, in the end, this will most likely be up to an editor somewhere. If they want a YA novel by the "Caitlín R. Kiernan" construct, then that's probably what I'll have to give them. I'd just like to write as someone else for a while, and, as I told Merrilee yesterday, I'd like certain witless people to stop thinking of me as "that person who can't write in complete sentences." Anyway, the conversation was mostly encouraging. Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press called immediately afterwards. Too much telephone for one day.
I've been pleased to learn that a lot of those copies of the Charles Fort ARC that went to BEA this year actually made it into the hands of people I wanted to have copies — Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, Gwenda Bond, Holly Black. All people I was getting ready to mail copies out to, only to discover they have them already. That was a pleasant surprise. I still need to send one to Neil, but I think that's about it.
Later today, we'll be adding a couple of things to the eBay auctions, including copies of The Dry Salvages (both trade and signed editions) and the recent chapbook, The Worm in My Mind's Eye. Watch for those, please, as income from eBay is rather important to me at the moment, and do not hesitate to write Spooky at CRK_books@yahoo.com if there's something you'd like, but don't see it on our current auction list.
Back to yesterday, as if things needed to get weirder after the frogs and the umbrella and the heart, Spooky and I watched The Witch Who Came From the Sea on DVD, which was, perhaps, weird beyond measure. I'm not sure how one would describe it. One part Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, one part David Cronenberg, one part '70s skin flick, one part William Hope Hodgson, one part...oh, never mind. It was actually better written then I'd expected, but inexplicable, nonethless. Not the thing for right before bed, but there you go.
11:49 AM
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