Wondrous Beasts
February 11
Bon soir, my lovelies. I woke this morning carrying a knot of strange anxiety that took most of the day to dissipate; Heather tells me I thrashed in my sleep, too, and wouldn't suffer to be touched; perhaps I had bad dreams that infected my waking day as well? I don't know, but it made for an unpleasant passage of the hours.
Work was good enough, except for my malaise. I'm reading Joyce's Dreamtime, which is nice. After work I came home, ate a veggie pocket, and BARTed up to Berkeley -- back to the Y! We worked out, and despite the several weeks since I last exerted myself, it wasn't bad at all. Very invigorating. Every trip to Berkeley is a chance to check the PO box, too, and I had lots of lovely Star*Line submissions; I'll have a little slush party this weekend, in among all the other things I have planned.
Once home again, Heather and I sat at the table and wrote together, which was incredibly pleasant. I love her so much, and working beside her is one of my favorite things...
An editor wrote to me today, asking me to submit some poetry, but as you readers know, I've been virtuous of late, and all my poetry is out to other markets. I've been knocking around the idea of doing a series of poems, though, a sort of mythic bestiary, so I decided to work on that tonight. I wrote three poems: "Dreaming Apep", about astronomy and the Egyptian serpent that seeks to devour the sun; "Poor Bahumut", about the world-fish of early Islam; and "Laughing Blood" about a very strange figure from Inuit folklore called The Disemboweller (The Disemboweller is great; she does, indeed, disembowel people, but not in any of the obvious ways. She creeps up to a home and whispers hilarious jokes to the people inside, and they laugh so hard that their stomachs burst; cool, huh?). It's a challenge, to remain true to the spirit of the mythic figures and yet give the poems some unique slant or perspective to make them my own... Very fun, though. So I sent those three poems off to the editor a bit ago; perhaps he'll like one of them. The poems are all rather long, and two of them are narrative; that's where the 700 words of writing tonight comes from. No fiction today... I still haven't decided which story to write next. I'm leaning toward the Frog story, but I need to do a tiny bit of research first. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow.
Hmm, other business...
My poem Muse Trap is online at Strange Horizons, and the illustration for "Little Gods" is there now, too. I love the diffuse halo of white moths...
Welcome to the newest Web Rat, Gabriel! Gabriel breeds rats, which is deliciously meta, neh?
Go fill out the Locus Poll & Survey. It's fun.
And now I'll sleep.
February Solitary Short-Story Dare (now with bonus poetry!)
Total words written: 12,050
Words written today: 700
Stories written this month: "Henchman Blues"
"On the Underworld Line"
"Melancholy Shore"
Poems written this month: "Dreaming Apep" Send a good reference book about the Aztecs. Or some gouda cheese. If you can't nourish the mind, feed the belly...
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"Poor Bahumut"
"Laughing Blood"
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222