A Bridge to Darker Country

November 2

12:30 p.m.

Sorry I've been gone so long; I didn't intend for that to happen. I've got things to say, but I haven't been feeling very journally, and rather than give you lifeless little recitations of my days, I thought I'd wait until the mood struck me more fully...

Interesting interpretation of Mulholland Drive on the Locus site. Not sure I agree with it, but the analysis seems to hold up pretty well.

Let's see, writing news... I got a rejection from Strange Horizons today, drat. Jed liked the story better than he'd expected, since it's basically a horror piece, but decided it's not right for the magazine. Fair enough. Also a rejection from Asimov's, some insanely long response time-- I don't have a record of sending them this story (and, actually, I sold it somewhere else *months* ago). No other real movement.

I don't normally like David Brin, but I'm reading Kiln People in bits and snatches at work, and it's pretty cool-- noirish, philosophical without being heavy-handed, fun, weird, interesting. Maybe they'll let me review it...

I'm at work now, but not feeling very well. Not awful-- just a headache-- but it may be enough to make me go home early. And, obviously (since I'm writing a journal entry), it's not too busy here. We're between issues, the slow time. I could go home, go to a cafe, get some tea, do some reading, some writing... Mmm. Sounds nice. Relaxing. And I'll eat some ibuprofen too, of course.

It's November already. Wow. Time is zooming.

Hmm. I could go write some poetry, since an editor wrote to me this morning, asking for poems. Poor timing, since I actually got off my butt last week and sent out a bunch of poetry... I don't have much lying around just now. But I could write some.

Okay. I'm going to do some work, now. And maybe go home soon.

5:06 p.m.

I'm home. I left work around 1:00. I deposited my paycheck (bigger than usual, hurrah, since I worked more hours), then got a sandwich and sat in Gaylord's. There were actually free tables, which was a pleasant surprise. I read some, got restless, and walked back home. Once here, I read more, and then Meg got online, and we chatted a bit, and I called her, and we filled one another in on what's been happening in our lives these past couple of months. She's doing quite well. And that brings us up to date. Not terribly productive, but nice, and who says you have to be productive when you play hooky, anyway?

Backfill: Hallowe'en night Heather and I hung out, ate lots of candy, and watched a movie. Nice. Yesterday evening I BARTed down to Hayward to visit Timprov & M'ris. I ate their good soup and talked a bit, but didn't stay too long. I was home again by 8, hanging out with Heather, intending also to get some writing done. Instead we watched The Girl on the Bridge, which was just as good for me the second time.

And speaking of bridges... bleah. I seldom cross the Bay Bridge, and am certainly unlikely to do so in the next week, but still. Even if it's an empty threat, threatening to blow up the bridges is certainly effective-- it was on the front of all the papers, and I'm sure people will be avoiding those routes, and the BART will be crammed, and everything from commerce to traffic patterns will be disrupted. Terrorist shits.

I don't like this dark near-futureish science-fiction-thriller-like crap.

And dark humor is getting criticized, and horror is getting criticized... which is just absurd. I mean, dark humor and horror stories are one way of dealing with stresses like these, releasing the tension, seeing ways to deal with such things. I mean, I'm not writing empty headed slasher stories, I'm not writing ethically-void splatterpunk, I write about the human heart in fearful turmoil, about emotional and physical and moral jeopardy-- these are valid things to explore! Important things to explore.

So I'll keep exploring them. And hope publishers don't get afraid to publish them.

Well. This entry went all over the place. Ta for now.