Black Sludge, with Occasional Rainbows
Shitty day, pretty much. Woke up at 10:15, couldn't believe that was the right time, but it was. Realized the alarm clock was set incorrectly, to wake me at 8 p.m. rather than 8 a.m.. Called work, made my embarrassed, accurate excuses. Showered, shaved, drove to work, feeling immensely groggy. Spent much of the day sneezing because of allergies. Kept forgetting to take stretch breaks at the keyboard so my arms hurt. Felt like a zombie, my whole day thrown off. My hip hurt where I slept on it badly. Head full of misery for various reasons I don't feel like getting into.
On the bright side, we seem to have finished another issue of the magazine, barring the unforeseen. That's always gratifying.
Got home. Stood in the middle of the living room for a little while, realized there was nothing for me at home, nothing. So I went back out the door, to the BART station. Had an unpleasant interaction in the lobby. Caught an insanely crowded train to Berkeley. Went to Other Change of Hobbit, because books can sometimes make me happy when everything sucks. The guy with the hat was working, and having nothing else to do, he tried to pressure me into buying books I didn't want, which was annoying, since I just wanted to browse and let the black buzz in my head subside. He went away before too long since I was basically unresponsive. I bought Mockingbird by Sean Stewart.
(Oh, yes; I got paid today. The long darkness is at an end. Though my insurance has gone up a whole lot suddenly for a couple of reasons (a break in coverage because I never got a bill and wasn't sufficiently aware of passing time and missed a payment and got my coverage canceled, and a recent traffic ticket), so I owe more this month than usual, which will be the case for many subsequent months, sigh. But still, I could afford a book)
Then to Au Coquelet. Read some Tim Powers. Had trouble disappearing into the story. No fault of the story. The fault was in my head. I did have a sublimely delicious cheeseburger; very nearly a perfect cheeseburger, actually. After a couple of hours I took the train back home. Did some bill-paying crap online.
Only cheerful bits are writing-related. My friend Mike Kelly sent me a list of the contents of the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. In addition to the cool people I knew I was gonna be sharing a ToC with (Graham Joyce, Chris Barzak, Charles de Lint), I'll be in the company of Michael Chabon, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, James Blaylock, Koja & Malzberg (their story, "What We Did Last Summer", is awesome, from Redshift), Norman Partridge, Elizabeth Hand, Steve Tem, Caitlín Kiernan... it's just astonishing. That one of my stories is considered worthy to keep company with the work of these authors... a staggering notion. And one which made me smile.
Also, in the depths of my simmering bitterness, I finally found the proper beginning for my horrible novelette "Romanticore", which I've been meaning to rebuild from the ground up for a while. I realized some time ago that the problem with the story was my incredibly boring protagonist, and dull narrative voice (and lots and lots of plot problems, but those things can be ironed out; the worthless viewpoint character was a bigger problem). Tonight a new protagonist started talking to me, and I sat down, put Agent Ink on the stereo, and began typing his dictation. I actually don't know his name yet, though he introduces himself to someone in the next scene, so I guess I'll figure it out. I'm not capable of objectivity yet, but it seems to me that this is some of the best writing, on a stylistic level, that I've ever done; the narrator's voice is coming through to me beautifully, and it's caustic, and it wears black, and yet it's not incapable of irony and a certain heartening self-awareness and romanticism. I'm very enamored of it.
Of course, this means I'm tandem-writing two short stories and a novel, but so what? It just means they'll all get finished a little more slowly than they would if I focused. Who the hell cares? I've got over twenty stories in the mail now. I'm not in desperate need of getting more stuff into circulation. I can do these at whatever speed feels right.
I was too cranky tonight to work on the Frog story or Rangergirl, anyway; the first is too energetic, the second too optimistic, for tonight. "Romanticore" was just the thing, and I'm glad it's on its way. I'm glad I could salvage some art from the black sludge of this day.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 31,700
Words written since last entry: 1,300
A rusty railroad spike for my head would not go unappreciated.
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