"Mysterious Whisper"
Though we were promised sun today, the drizzle and gloom and cold lingers. Currently, it's 40˚F, windchill at 34˚F, misty, foggy, shitty.
No writing yesterday.
I did manage to finish Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. And that was a herculean effort, sheer fucking force of will, stubborn determination, slogging through that wretched novel. I sorta, kinda liked The Golden Compass (née Northern Lights), even though Pullman's simplistic, evangelical atheism is plainly apparent by the novel's end. But after the first novel, the trilogy is a dismal affair, the sort of atheism that makes me ashamed of being an atheist. By the third book, the story has taken a backseat to Pullman's unceasing proselytizing. I hear people talking about how a book made them want to throw it across the room, and mostly I take that sort of talk as hyperbole. But, truly, The Amber Spyglass made me want to, literally, throw it across the room. To quote Dorothy Parker, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."* And that's enough said about that.
This morning, I did manage to attend to three weeks of back-up email, including Subterranean Press, S.T, Joshi, my publicity person at Tachyon, and one of my agents at Writers House. Small victories.
Last night, we saw the first two episodes of Season Three of True Detective, and I loved it.
Not much else to report just now. Did I mention how I'm sick of rain?
I leave you with moss dripping from a sandstone outcrop, a photographed by Spooky.
Later,
CRK
1:11 p.m. (yesterday)
* An alleged quote of uncertain provenance.
No writing yesterday.
I did manage to finish Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. And that was a herculean effort, sheer fucking force of will, stubborn determination, slogging through that wretched novel. I sorta, kinda liked The Golden Compass (née Northern Lights), even though Pullman's simplistic, evangelical atheism is plainly apparent by the novel's end. But after the first novel, the trilogy is a dismal affair, the sort of atheism that makes me ashamed of being an atheist. By the third book, the story has taken a backseat to Pullman's unceasing proselytizing. I hear people talking about how a book made them want to throw it across the room, and mostly I take that sort of talk as hyperbole. But, truly, The Amber Spyglass made me want to, literally, throw it across the room. To quote Dorothy Parker, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."* And that's enough said about that.
This morning, I did manage to attend to three weeks of back-up email, including Subterranean Press, S.T, Joshi, my publicity person at Tachyon, and one of my agents at Writers House. Small victories.
Last night, we saw the first two episodes of Season Three of True Detective, and I loved it.
Not much else to report just now. Did I mention how I'm sick of rain?
I leave you with moss dripping from a sandstone outcrop, a photographed by Spooky.
Later,
CRK
1:11 p.m. (yesterday)
* An alleged quote of uncertain provenance.