Thursday, September 25, 2003
The weirdest thing, UPS just brought a copy of the Roc edition of Low Red Moon. I have held it in my hands. I have flipped through the pages. It won't be in stores for more than a month, but I have a copy. And it has inspired in me that same weird flatness of spirit that I first felt when I held Silk, way back in 1998. And then again, when I held Threshold in 2001. It's just weird. I have made yet another book, from my mind, from my keyboard, from the interaction of those two things, and all those ms. pages have finally been made a book. It is an attractive trade paperback. It looks good on the shelf with Silk and Threshold.
But it's weird . . .
Yesterday, I wrote 1,156 words on Chapter Ten of Murder of Angels. It's possible that the novel will be finished by Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. I thought, back in August, that this book would be shorter than Low Red Moon, but now I think it will be just about the same length. It does have longer chapters, though. I envy my writer friends who write short chapters. Lately, I seem unsatisfied if they come in under 10,000 words. This last chapter will probably go to 15,000 or more.
Late last night, Spooky and I watched a very good documentary, Rubber Tramps, on Trio (a great network). It was concerned with the lives of people who live in vehicles, mostly VW micro buses and old school buses (and sometimes hybrids of the two). There was a lot of Ken Kesey interview footage. There was this wonderful man, an old black man who couldn't remember his age — 71, 72, 73 — '70s he guessed, and he said, "I don't like people. They piss me off." And I began to see one of my possible futures (to paraphrase Pink Floyd). It would not be such a bad life, an old bus and the road. I began thinking, I'd write and have a couple of p.o. boxes where my agents could send the checks, and so on and so forth. I mean, what do I have that I really love that I could not take with me? And then the thought began to frighten me and I quickly backed away from it. Freedom has always scared me. I know people who think I have a lot of it, but they mistake one thing for another. A brown moth for a leaf. An anole for a bit of bark. Anyway, if you have a chance to see it, Rubber Tramps is excellent.
I haven't made an entry in my hardcopy journal since just before Dragon*Con. I have to get back into the habit, because this is only half the story, at most.
Check out the new stuff in the Species of One Shop. Nar'eth's Box of Mayhem is now available.
|
|
