Books Make Me Happy When Everything Sucks

Still sick, but the sickness is hidden under a sea of drugs and tea. I'll make it. I reached the post office without collapsing and got some nice stuff, Xmas cards, money for a fiction sale, some Xmas money from my Mom...

I decided to go book shopping to make myself feel better. I went to three stores before I found anything I really wanted, though. I got The Ultimate Witch because I'm writing a novel about a sorceress and am therefore in a witchy mood. I've only read one story in there so far, S.P. Somtow's "Gingerbread"-- really good, so well written that it absorbed me totally. I also got William Spencer's Zod Wallop, which I've been wanting to read for a while.

I’m reading Grendel, as I mentioned. It's pretty wacky. Very vibrant on a sentence level. Gardner worked his words to the limit. I'm also reading All Tomorrow's Parties, which I'm not getting into very well for some reason. There are multiple viewpoint characters, and I only find one of them really engaging. Maybe I'll start to like it more. Also reading China Miéville's King Rat, which is just too dark for my taste today. It's all grimy and trash-littered, which is exactly the effect the author wants, but I’m not in the mood for that... maybe because my own novel has so much grittiness and windblown-trash; I need something different in my recreational reading...

I don't normally read six books at a time. I tend to read one book at a time. I mean, I might have one novel, one book of poetry, and one book of nonfiction going at the same time, but those are different genres, y'know. But I've had a real wandering eye lately. It took me ages to finish Pat Murphy's Nadya. It's a good book (though not as good as The City, Not Long After or The Falling Woman, which are works of genius); I just kept reading other stuff at the same time.

Maybe this is indicative of some unsettledness in my head. Maybe I'm fragmenting. Maybe my attention span is crumbling. Cheery thoughts, hmmm?

Elsewise... if you're interested in writing journals, check out Mike Jasper's page. I've been conversing with Mike via email for a couple of days. He lives in the Triangle in N.C., pretty much my old stomping grounds. Mike won a prize in Writer's of the Future last year, and he's a Clarion grad, and we know lots of the same folks. I never fail to be amazed at how small the world is... the world of SF writing, anyway. Though the world of online-journalling is pretty tiny, too...

I went to this high school alumni site the other day, just out of curiosity, thinking there was absolutely no one from my graduating class that I want to be in touch with that I'm not already in touch with (except maybe for Elizabeth Davis, who I had a simply amazing three-year-long crush on)... and I found somebody I used to be really tight with that I haven't talked to in years. I sent a message to him, and got email the next day, and now we're conversing. Pretty good deal.

The site also listed two people I despised, one person I was indifferent to, and a few people I didn't know (there were about 400 people in my class). So, you know, your mileage may very.

This entry is like a bit of grit in an oyster, accreting layers. It might get really long as I add to it throughout the evening. This is what happens when I'm sick, but well enough to type, see? Long and unfocused entries.

I dunno if I'm going to write any fiction tonight or not. I might just rent a movie, and lay around and recuperate. I should go to work tomorrow. I have absolutely no appetite (which is like the sun not producing heat, or snow not being made of crystallized water; on a certain level, I am appetite), but I should eat something. Maybe I can work up some enthusiasm for take-out Chinese food. That would taste good, even if I'm not hungry. Szechuan shrimp or something.

Man, I gotta stop this. This is the most boring entry ever. I'm going away for a while.

Okay, it's later. I'm qualified to join the Horror Writers Association now, it seems. I sold "Pearls, Frogs, Spiders" and "The Dog Boys," and "Straight Trade." I can probably squeeze "The Fallen and the Muse of the Street" into the Dark Fantasy category, too, if it comes to that. I wonder if I should join. The dues aren't that high... I could vote on the Stokers... I could submit to the HWA anthologies (though I'd be competing with Dennis Etchison and Peter Straub and such)... Hmmm...

Okay, it's later still. I'm feeling a lot better, just tired and sniffly now. No headache. No colorful phlegm. Steady application of tea has made my sore throat much better. I'm going to go read about witches.

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