Monday, January 27, 2003
It wasn't really necessary, as the absinthe story, which I am presently calling "La Pleau Verte," occurred to me yesterday and I wrote 1,078 words of it rather effortlessly. Nonetheless, Spooky and I kept our appointed date with the Green Fairy last night. Well, I suppose it was my date, but Spooky is always game for fairies and came along for the ride. And, at this particular moment, looking back on those two sentences, I'm not entirely certain the effects of the Mari Mayans have completely worn off. Anyhow, it was my first time to try carmelizing absinthe-soaked sugar cubes before stirring them into the glass. An intensely blue flame in the spoon, while the cube slowly bubbles and looses its shape, then a soft fwump as it goes into the glass. It makes for a richer, fuller sort of sweetness, though one wonders at the wisdom of playing with fire whilst inebriated. And I suppose I really ought to feel a lot worse this morning than I do.
Today I think I will write to Hem and Delirium.
Tonight I'm cooking a chicken stew.
I feel kind of odd at having set aside the novel formerly known as Murder of Angels when it was just building some steam. It's a hazard of short fiction. For me, at least, it's very much about immediate gratification, versus the much longer process of novelizing. Short stories are more reasonable things, and any one of them rarely devours more than a couple of weeks of my life. Which is usually a fair exchange. Novels are gluttons. Novels are rapacious things. Yesterday, after I wrote, I began arranging the stories that will make up my next collection in the order that they will be published. To date, there are fifteen of them. The collection, which I may call Worse Things Yet, will probably include sixteen or seventeen pieces. So shorter than Tales of Pain and Wonder, but longer than From Weird and Distant Shores. Richard Kirk will be illustrating again. More details soon.
Time for verbage.
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