Flurry
This entry should make up for yesterday's. And the day before's. Los of thing happened today. Weather? Mostly sunny. Our high was only 57F.
So, I'll spend tomorrow getting the last items ready for Subterranean Press than are needed to put together the chapbook (that goes with Bright Dead Star), and then, the day after that, I actually go back to writing on The Night Watchers. That was the breakthrough today.
Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I woke about 5:30 (after a night of tossing and turning), then got up about 6 a.m. And sometime before, say, 6:30, I merely tried to sit down behind the enormous table I use as a desk, and I fell. No idea why. I don't know if I tripped or if I dangled one numb foot against the other. I came down hard on my butt, my back and right arm, slamming my back and arm against a bookcase. Among all the heavy books on that case are many of my awards, and for about two seconds I expected a Bram Stoker or World Fantasy award to crack my skull open. What an irony, if I'd been killed by falling Lovecraft, no? Anyway, NOTHING fell off the shelf, which was miraculous. I'm sore and bruised, but seem to be okay, otherwise.
Later, once Kathryn was up, there was some chaos involving men who are here trimming foliage around the property of the apartments where we live, which had become terribly overgrown over the last few years.
Later still, I talked with Bill Schafer about what SubPress still needs (see above). I talked Rebecca at Writers House about a royalty check. I emailed Sonya, hoping we can talk this weekend. I talked with Mike Polcyn about the status of MP2, and that went well. One very pleasant surprise was when I called McWane about coming in on Monday morning, and Jun and I got to talking about the Bashi Marl, and a) he thinks my work on this project is sufficient my name should be on the upcoming paper (I'd not expected that; I was just helping out with the vertebrates), and b) he asked if Kathryn and I would like to join him (and others) in January on a field trip to an important Whynott, Mississippi Bashi exposure, where a drill core will be taken to solve outstanding stratigraphic problems. Mostly, he wants us there to help surface collect while the geologists take the core sample. So, all of that was very cool, Bill Schafer to Whynott, Mississippi. Oh, and I also did some actual work on the Bashi samples today.
I finished reading Jim Thompson's Wild Town, not his best novel by a long shot.
So, a busy day. Busy days help keep me from the proverbial deep end. Ideally, my life would be nothing but busy days, divided by a few hours sleep.
Meanwhile, we are abysmally broke, and, desperately needing to raise money, one thing I'm doing is offering hand-colored, hand-drawn monster doodles with anything you buy from the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop. One doodle per item. Please have a look. Buy a book or some tie dye. Give a monster doodle a good home.
I close with ANOTHER photo from Volume 16 of Ellen Datlow's Best New Horror of the Year. I noticed that the last sentence of the first paragraph of the synopsis on the back in a description of "Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea."
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
3:16 p.m.
So, I'll spend tomorrow getting the last items ready for Subterranean Press than are needed to put together the chapbook (that goes with Bright Dead Star), and then, the day after that, I actually go back to writing on The Night Watchers. That was the breakthrough today.
Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I woke about 5:30 (after a night of tossing and turning), then got up about 6 a.m. And sometime before, say, 6:30, I merely tried to sit down behind the enormous table I use as a desk, and I fell. No idea why. I don't know if I tripped or if I dangled one numb foot against the other. I came down hard on my butt, my back and right arm, slamming my back and arm against a bookcase. Among all the heavy books on that case are many of my awards, and for about two seconds I expected a Bram Stoker or World Fantasy award to crack my skull open. What an irony, if I'd been killed by falling Lovecraft, no? Anyway, NOTHING fell off the shelf, which was miraculous. I'm sore and bruised, but seem to be okay, otherwise.
Later, once Kathryn was up, there was some chaos involving men who are here trimming foliage around the property of the apartments where we live, which had become terribly overgrown over the last few years.
Later still, I talked with Bill Schafer about what SubPress still needs (see above). I talked Rebecca at Writers House about a royalty check. I emailed Sonya, hoping we can talk this weekend. I talked with Mike Polcyn about the status of MP2, and that went well. One very pleasant surprise was when I called McWane about coming in on Monday morning, and Jun and I got to talking about the Bashi Marl, and a) he thinks my work on this project is sufficient my name should be on the upcoming paper (I'd not expected that; I was just helping out with the vertebrates), and b) he asked if Kathryn and I would like to join him (and others) in January on a field trip to an important Whynott, Mississippi Bashi exposure, where a drill core will be taken to solve outstanding stratigraphic problems. Mostly, he wants us there to help surface collect while the geologists take the core sample. So, all of that was very cool, Bill Schafer to Whynott, Mississippi. Oh, and I also did some actual work on the Bashi samples today.
I finished reading Jim Thompson's Wild Town, not his best novel by a long shot.
So, a busy day. Busy days help keep me from the proverbial deep end. Ideally, my life would be nothing but busy days, divided by a few hours sleep.
Meanwhile, we are abysmally broke, and, desperately needing to raise money, one thing I'm doing is offering hand-colored, hand-drawn monster doodles with anything you buy from the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop. One doodle per item. Please have a look. Buy a book or some tie dye. Give a monster doodle a good home.
I close with ANOTHER photo from Volume 16 of Ellen Datlow's Best New Horror of the Year. I noticed that the last sentence of the first paragraph of the synopsis on the back in a description of "Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea."
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
3:16 p.m.