"Like night pretending to be day..." (2)
More than anything, right now, I am glad to have received the news that Harlan is home and recovering from his recent surgery.
Eight hours sleep last night. Eight hours that, I admit, were desperately needed. Illness, fretting, and insomnia have been working overtime on me this last week, and I've lost days I cannot afford to lose.
No writing yesterday. Much of it was spent lying on my face on the bed, not sleeping, just being fucking angry. I think I have found too many ways to put the anger down, to sidestep it, to muzzle it. I think I have buried it too deeply, and that having done so hasn't been helping my health. The time has come to admit that I still need those angry black days, that anger is as positive as any "positive" emotion. That said....
I do very much hope that you have preordered A is for Alien and Daughter of Hounds, but if not, there's still time to remedy the situation. Thank you.
Herr Platypus thanks you, too.
My congratulations to Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) on having scored a Hugo for her short story, "Tideline." You go, eBear.
Near sunset last night, we had a good walk along Benefit Street, which always calms me a bit. And, home again, after dinner, we watched Roger Donaldson's The Bank Job. A superb heist film, with plentiful twists and turns. And, of course, Jason Statham, who rarely fails to please me.
Okay. Now for the rather exciting news. An extremely generous patron has put up a considerable chunk of the money (no strings attached, even, except the stipulation that hesheit must remain anonymous) I need to purchase my own Second Life sim. This happened yesterday, and I'm still a little unsure it's not just some weird dream. So, Spooky and I will, over the next couple of months, be moving ahead with our plans for a sim set in the Providence of Daughter of Hounds, which will likely be named "Howard's End." The purpose of the sim will be, of course, to contain a roleplay, an interactive "novel," a prequel to DoH. We're talking to builders and such, and, yeah, I'm just sort of freaked about this. I have spent 14 months in SL, wading through lousy builds and broken rps, and I think that in that time I have learned how to fix the problems. There's no guarantee, naturally, and this is to be seen as an experiment, at least for its first year online. The sim will be private -- by invitation only. The rp will be character driven. There will be hounds and a few vampires, changelings and all the other things you'd expect. There will even be occasional NPC appearances by such characters as the Bailiff, Soldier, Odd Willie, Madam Terpsichore, Dancy Flammarion, and so forth. The introductory story arc will likely revolve around an occult research society trying to recover some stolen artifact or another, just something simple to get it all started. I will probably cap the players at 25-30, as one of the lessons I've learned in SL is the larger the rp, the less likely it is to succeed (rp sims often have members numbering in the thousands). The whole enterprise is strictly non-profit. The only cost to players will be the assembly of their avatars. There will be absolutely no out-of-character chat and socializing in the sim, no blingtards, no idiocy, no whining, and no blurring of SL and RL to create ooc drama. Three strikes, you're out. One big strike, you're out. And to anyone who doubts the potential artistic merits of this endeavor, I would simply point you to a number of my recent stories - "The Steam Dancer (1896)," "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection," "The Wolf Who Cried Girl," "Scene in the Museum (1896)," "Flotsam," "Unter den Augen des Mondes," and "Regarding Attrition and Severance" -- all of these began as SL roleplays, and a couple were written pretty much by fleshing out rp transcripts. It has been a tremendous source of disappointment and frustration to me, seeing how almost all of SL's potential as an interactive storytelling device has been squandered, and now I will have the means to at least try to remedy this. If you're interested in taking part, please email me or say so here (and yes, all the "Sirenia Players" will have a shot at this, if they so desire, and if they are willing to abide by the strict and non-negotiable rules of the sim). "Howard's End" will be a beautiful, intricate build, and I hope it will be home to a spectacular series of stories. I'm hoping to have it up and running by November.
Now, I try to get back into The Red Tree. Oh, and riosanmateo asked for screencaps of the my Vietnamese Ravnos antitribu character the other day:
Eight hours sleep last night. Eight hours that, I admit, were desperately needed. Illness, fretting, and insomnia have been working overtime on me this last week, and I've lost days I cannot afford to lose.
No writing yesterday. Much of it was spent lying on my face on the bed, not sleeping, just being fucking angry. I think I have found too many ways to put the anger down, to sidestep it, to muzzle it. I think I have buried it too deeply, and that having done so hasn't been helping my health. The time has come to admit that I still need those angry black days, that anger is as positive as any "positive" emotion. That said....
I do very much hope that you have preordered A is for Alien and Daughter of Hounds, but if not, there's still time to remedy the situation. Thank you.
Herr Platypus thanks you, too.
My congratulations to Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) on having scored a Hugo for her short story, "Tideline." You go, eBear.
Near sunset last night, we had a good walk along Benefit Street, which always calms me a bit. And, home again, after dinner, we watched Roger Donaldson's The Bank Job. A superb heist film, with plentiful twists and turns. And, of course, Jason Statham, who rarely fails to please me.
Okay. Now for the rather exciting news. An extremely generous patron has put up a considerable chunk of the money (no strings attached, even, except the stipulation that hesheit must remain anonymous) I need to purchase my own Second Life sim. This happened yesterday, and I'm still a little unsure it's not just some weird dream. So, Spooky and I will, over the next couple of months, be moving ahead with our plans for a sim set in the Providence of Daughter of Hounds, which will likely be named "Howard's End." The purpose of the sim will be, of course, to contain a roleplay, an interactive "novel," a prequel to DoH. We're talking to builders and such, and, yeah, I'm just sort of freaked about this. I have spent 14 months in SL, wading through lousy builds and broken rps, and I think that in that time I have learned how to fix the problems. There's no guarantee, naturally, and this is to be seen as an experiment, at least for its first year online. The sim will be private -- by invitation only. The rp will be character driven. There will be hounds and a few vampires, changelings and all the other things you'd expect. There will even be occasional NPC appearances by such characters as the Bailiff, Soldier, Odd Willie, Madam Terpsichore, Dancy Flammarion, and so forth. The introductory story arc will likely revolve around an occult research society trying to recover some stolen artifact or another, just something simple to get it all started. I will probably cap the players at 25-30, as one of the lessons I've learned in SL is the larger the rp, the less likely it is to succeed (rp sims often have members numbering in the thousands). The whole enterprise is strictly non-profit. The only cost to players will be the assembly of their avatars. There will be absolutely no out-of-character chat and socializing in the sim, no blingtards, no idiocy, no whining, and no blurring of SL and RL to create ooc drama. Three strikes, you're out. One big strike, you're out. And to anyone who doubts the potential artistic merits of this endeavor, I would simply point you to a number of my recent stories - "The Steam Dancer (1896)," "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection," "The Wolf Who Cried Girl," "Scene in the Museum (1896)," "Flotsam," "Unter den Augen des Mondes," and "Regarding Attrition and Severance" -- all of these began as SL roleplays, and a couple were written pretty much by fleshing out rp transcripts. It has been a tremendous source of disappointment and frustration to me, seeing how almost all of SL's potential as an interactive storytelling device has been squandered, and now I will have the means to at least try to remedy this. If you're interested in taking part, please email me or say so here (and yes, all the "Sirenia Players" will have a shot at this, if they so desire, and if they are willing to abide by the strict and non-negotiable rules of the sim). "Howard's End" will be a beautiful, intricate build, and I hope it will be home to a spectacular series of stories. I'm hoping to have it up and running by November.
Now, I try to get back into The Red Tree. Oh, and riosanmateo asked for screencaps of the my Vietnamese Ravnos antitribu character the other day: