" Don't you know that I could make a dream that's barely half-awake come true?"
Oh, by the way...
Some sun today, some rain. Our high was 79˚F, and it is now 71. We still have a flash flood watch.
I was awake at 6 a.m., out out of bed half an hour later, when it was clear there would be no more sleep. I did a little paleo'. I made some notes for The Night Watchers. I am toying with this book being, in part, sort of in the background of the novel, in its hind brain, what fascist America will be like. Note, I do not say what it would be like. I say what it will. Because, barring a miracle, 2024 is the end of American democracy as we know it. Or hey, maybe I'm just a loon. Or both.
But we are now in a world where those who do not think like us, or look like us, or see the same solutions, or...whatever, have become The Other, and the only way to deal with The Other, as so many monster movies and horror novels have taught us, is to destroy it utterly.
Something I almost posted to Twitter today, but only almost: "We have sunk so far that it is futile to say (esp. on social media) that our survival as a nation depends entirely on stepping back from the precipice of Them vs. Us, that the keystone of democracy is now & always has been compromise. And yet...I am saying it again."
Also from Twitter, ""Now that you're a paleontologists again, are you still a writer?" Two part answer: 1) I was never NOT a paleontologist and 2) YES. Short fiction aside, I am currently at work on my next novel, The Night Watchers, which I hope will be out late in 2022. How? I never sleep."
~ and ~
"Someone asked if, at some point, my storytelling will return to Rhode Island. I honestly don't know. After 3 novels & maybe 150 short stories set in New England, I begin to feel I can exhaust a locale. The Night Watchers is set primarily in Alabama, where I grew up."
...but anything I could have said I felt somehow that you already knew.
I stopped working - then writing/paleo' work - and did something that I've been needing to do for a couple of weeks. I cleaned the nook of this room devoted to the preparation of Winifred the Tylosaur. Jesus, the chalk dust. Photo below. I spent about an hour and a half on that. It's not a perfect job, but it is now much better than it was, and we put new paper down on the table, as the old paper had turned brown and crispy.
You know, they call it bipolar for a good reason. Late morning, I was almost ecstatic, giddy, almost joyful, for no particular reason. By 3 p.m., I wanted to cut my throat. For no particular reason. And yes, I am very medicated for this. But the medication is far from perfect.
Here's this stuff again, and please have a look. Thank you: Are you one of those old timers who remembers my "monster doodles"? On and off, I have offered them via eBay, drawn them in people's books, and so forth, going way back into the 1990s. Well, Spooky got the idea of rounding up some of the best of the hundreds lying about, and she's taken my black and white doodles and put them into living color. Soon, they will be available in her Red Bubble shop on everything from stickers to T-shirts. For example, "The Ugliest Cat in the World," which I drew waaaaaaay back in 2004 and which was sold to Robin Hazen, who is kindly allowing us to use it for this. Here's a link to the monster doodle collection thus far, ink by me, color by Spooky. Also, in Spooky's Etsy shop, the last remaining eight copies of the sold-out trade edition of The Variegated Alphabet, if you should be so inclined.
And there's the usual eBay auctions. Thanks, because the taxman cometh.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
10:20 a.m.
Some sun today, some rain. Our high was 79˚F, and it is now 71. We still have a flash flood watch.
I was awake at 6 a.m., out out of bed half an hour later, when it was clear there would be no more sleep. I did a little paleo'. I made some notes for The Night Watchers. I am toying with this book being, in part, sort of in the background of the novel, in its hind brain, what fascist America will be like. Note, I do not say what it would be like. I say what it will. Because, barring a miracle, 2024 is the end of American democracy as we know it. Or hey, maybe I'm just a loon. Or both.
But we are now in a world where those who do not think like us, or look like us, or see the same solutions, or...whatever, have become The Other, and the only way to deal with The Other, as so many monster movies and horror novels have taught us, is to destroy it utterly.
Something I almost posted to Twitter today, but only almost: "We have sunk so far that it is futile to say (esp. on social media) that our survival as a nation depends entirely on stepping back from the precipice of Them vs. Us, that the keystone of democracy is now & always has been compromise. And yet...I am saying it again."
Also from Twitter, ""Now that you're a paleontologists again, are you still a writer?" Two part answer: 1) I was never NOT a paleontologist and 2) YES. Short fiction aside, I am currently at work on my next novel, The Night Watchers, which I hope will be out late in 2022. How? I never sleep."
~ and ~
"Someone asked if, at some point, my storytelling will return to Rhode Island. I honestly don't know. After 3 novels & maybe 150 short stories set in New England, I begin to feel I can exhaust a locale. The Night Watchers is set primarily in Alabama, where I grew up."
...but anything I could have said I felt somehow that you already knew.
I stopped working - then writing/paleo' work - and did something that I've been needing to do for a couple of weeks. I cleaned the nook of this room devoted to the preparation of Winifred the Tylosaur. Jesus, the chalk dust. Photo below. I spent about an hour and a half on that. It's not a perfect job, but it is now much better than it was, and we put new paper down on the table, as the old paper had turned brown and crispy.
You know, they call it bipolar for a good reason. Late morning, I was almost ecstatic, giddy, almost joyful, for no particular reason. By 3 p.m., I wanted to cut my throat. For no particular reason. And yes, I am very medicated for this. But the medication is far from perfect.
Here's this stuff again, and please have a look. Thank you: Are you one of those old timers who remembers my "monster doodles"? On and off, I have offered them via eBay, drawn them in people's books, and so forth, going way back into the 1990s. Well, Spooky got the idea of rounding up some of the best of the hundreds lying about, and she's taken my black and white doodles and put them into living color. Soon, they will be available in her Red Bubble shop on everything from stickers to T-shirts. For example, "The Ugliest Cat in the World," which I drew waaaaaaay back in 2004 and which was sold to Robin Hazen, who is kindly allowing us to use it for this. Here's a link to the monster doodle collection thus far, ink by me, color by Spooky. Also, in Spooky's Etsy shop, the last remaining eight copies of the sold-out trade edition of The Variegated Alphabet, if you should be so inclined.
And there's the usual eBay auctions. Thanks, because the taxman cometh.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
10:20 a.m.