I've moved my biblio off my profile page - it was looking a little messy there. ( It's now behind the cut )

Way back in July, justinhowe posted that he needed a sitter for October, for a small black & white cat named Pirate Jenny. I thought about it briefly, then dismissed it, seeing as how it was Covered In Ants & Bees! season, and I couldn't imagine subjecting any animal to a couple of weeks in this poophole of an apartment. Plus, I thought I'd be going home in late October, so that was that.

Cut to a beeless, antless, travel-less October, and, well, you know exactly where this story ends:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43288330@N00/sets/72157622489533887/

Pirate Jenny is a very teeny but fluffy cat, who has the amazing ability to stretch her body out to over half my height (that's her Maine Coon genes showing). She can also squeeze under bookcases with only 3 inches of crawlspace, as I found out approximately one second after Justin let her out of her cage this Saturday. Pirate Jenny was not amused at her reduced living conditions, and spent most of Saturday, and a good portion of Sunday, hiding under various pieces of furniture. I can't judge - I do the same thing when I have writing deadlines.

Anyhoo, as you can see by the meager Flickr set, she's warmed up to the possibilities of having a complete stranger be her total bitch for half a month, and has set about declaring most of the apartment off-limits to me, including: my office (now a litter box, but it was pretty much that anyway...), half the kitchen (the half with the awesome counter space and views of the Jersey City Powerhouse District), the space by the fridge where her food bowls are, and the bed (but only during the day). Luckily, I have a small space in the living room with my leather & wood chair (which turned into her scratching post this morning), a portable writing desk, and my laptop. She also lets me use the bathroom, which I appreciate, since I really didn't feel comfortable using the litter box, or kitchen sink.

Our day/evening routine seems to be this: she sets up watch at the window by the counter, while I tap away at various WIP's. We have a break every hour which consists of me sitting on the yoga mat on the carpet, scratching her head and neck while she rolls around and around, occasionally hooking her claws into my legs. Morning routines are evolving - she still gets a bit spooked by things like drawers and the fridge opening, although she's training me to do things slowly and quietly, so as not to startle her. Also, she bats my face if I get too close while looking directly into her eyes, and any touching of the belly (hers) results in some martial arts-style activity with her claws and feet - although, this morning her paw-pummeling took on a distinctly playful air. She's sort of like Bette Davis, but without the profanity. And even though I'm like Joan Crawford, but with extra profanity, I think we're getting along quite well. However, if anyone's limp body is left on the beach in the next couple of weeks, you can bet it'll be mine.

Three posts, all within the hour, over this:

Recent Sales, from Publisher's Marketplace:

Sarah Gray's WUTHERING BITES, a retelling of Wuthering Heights in which Heathcliff is a vampire, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a very nice deal, for publication in September 2010, by Evan Marshall at Evan Marshall Agency (World).

Fuck that noise. I've decided I'm going to rewrite Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus, and pack it with so many vampires, werewolves, zombies, cephalopods, and steam-driven fuck machines, people's eyes will MELT DOWN THEIR FACES when they read it. I may even throw in a face-hugger or two, and they won't be hugging any faces, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Do you think I'm joking? No, I'm not. I mean, really, would you rather read some boring old "classic" updated with vampires and zombies, or filthy, saucy, classic French erotica updated with vampires and zombies? (Hint: if you say the first one, I'll cut you.) I can do this, easy. I'll type out all the original stories in the book, and then every morning I can take half an hour, pick a story, and insert things. Many things. Oh, and there will be insertions of things like there has never been thing-insertion before in the history of the human race or classic fiction rewriting.

And then I will sell it and pay my electric bill and eat BBQ until I pass out. VICTORY.

Man, I feel so much better now. Anyone have a cigarette?

THE ELECTRIC LASH

 

 

( Read more... )

I rarely talk about dreams, because they're usually not interesting to anyone except myself. However, last night I dreamed I was getting married to...someone that reads this Livejournal! (No, Nick Mamatas, it wasn't you!) I probably had the entire dream within the space of ten minutes, but in dreamtime, it was like fucking forever - and a complete nightmare. There was some extended, complex sequence involving catering and food that had me weeping like a child, and my sister showed up in some kind of nightmare glittery disco queen outfit that totally clashed with my wedding dress, not to mention the fact that she looked about a billion times more awesome than I did; and there were hijinx involving hotel reservations, and so we all ended up at some labyrinthine monstrosity of a building where the toilets kept following me down the hallways and the elevators took me to basements filled with staircases going nowhere except lower into the earth. All this while I was dressed in this big-ass princess-style wedding dress and flowing veil, mind you - I can't tell you how hard it is to run from evil sentient toilets when you're wearing a hundred pounds of cheap tulle and lace. The groom was totally cool about everything, though, and kept me from committing numerous dream-murders against the rest of the party. Although, I noticed he disappeared when I was trying to pack everything up after the ceremony. All my clothes wouldn't fit in the luggage: I woke up SCREAMING!

Oh, and there was something involving my old orange cat Sandy fighting a blubberous Jello dessert with cream cheese and pistachios, but it's simply too horrific to fully recount. Suffice to say, the dream just confirmed my intent to never get married, and live a sin-filled, Jello-free life instead.

The answer is: the same as the number of months it takes for a bunch of motherfucking amateur asshole construction d00ds to finish doing the most basic and minimal improvements to a shithole apartment, which is to say IT TAKES FORFUCKINGEVER.

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!ONE!

This has been going on for almost three months now. Constant fucking construction at random hours of the day and night, constant drilling and sawing and hammering, and electricity and water going on and off with no end in sight. They're drilling into the ceiling now (i.e., my fucking floor), presumably to hang lighting fixtures and/or to hang the framework for the dropped ceiling tiles. The water is off. Why????? [::insert all-caps bitch-snark here::] The entire building is shaking. Happy Memorial Day, people! This is how we honor those who died for our country here in Jersey City: by turning on power tools and drilling the shit out of falling-down tenement buildings.

Right now I'm sitting on my recumbent bike, watching Terminator 3 (because it's LOUD - something loud and stupid with The Rock will be next - Doom, perhaps!) on my laptop that's sitting on this shaky table tray. Yes, I'm blogging from exercise equipment. Because the metal frame is so heavy that it only picks up minimal shaking from the drilling. It's either that or sit in the bathtub, and Herbert is in there, with a showercap and a martini. Lazy fucker. I'm drinking beer and eating bbq potato chips. While blogging. And watching shit movies. On my exercise bike. DON'T JUDGE ME, FUCKERS! I've already done four miles. Rawr.

From tomorrow through June 14th, the Park Avenue Amory is going to be home to a big-ass, awesomely weird interactive art installation by Ernesto Neto, called anthropodino. On June 2, Shen Wei Dance Arts is going to perform what they call a "improvised movement" response to the installation. I don't know if anyone else is interested, but I'll thought I'd let people know I'll be there. I mean, you don't have to pretend you know me or anything - you can nod once to me before you run away through the giant balloony skeleton limbs. I promise I won't follow. Maybe...

Back from Naples. Not much happened - I twittered (tweeted? twatted?) about a few things, and took some extremely boring photos (I only got out of the hotel once in six days.) Didn't get swine flu. Ironically, I got a massive cold, and my head almost exploded, Scanners-style, from the pressure in the cabin on the flight home. I thought a Cenobite was hacking its way out of my head - I couldn't stop sobbing, and I scared a bunch of passengers and most of the airline attendants into thinking I was having some kind of psychotic episode. lol. I've mostly recovered, except for a deep hacking cough and a voice that sounds like Bea Arthur is haunting my vocal cords. I have nothing else to blog about, so here are some illuminating links:

The Art of Penguin Science Fiction

some thoughtful Amazon reviews of an awesome wolf t-shirt

This post is for myself more than anything else, so that I have it bookmarked in a place I can access from both work and home computers.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=p&msa=0&msid=106484775090296685271.0004681a37b713f6b5950&ll=32.639375,-110.390625&spn=15.738151,25.488281&z=5);

I'm traveling down to Naples, Florida next week for our company's annual sales conference. I'm not that fond of air travel to begin with, and I tend not to be overly-paranoid, but... this time around, I really, really, really wish I weren't going. Spending three hours there and back crammed in a giant metal petrie dish the breathing recycled air of several hundred strangers has never been conducive to my health, even in the best of times and circumstances. I plan to be medicated to the gills, lol. Also: no sardine-packed PATH commuting to and from work next week, or for the rest of the the summer. I can walk the extra blocks and take the light rail, now that the weather is warm. No need to be underground, until I have to be.

A(n ongoing) conversation lifted from Facebook:

livia_llewellyn is experiencing "writergasm" - the moment when you've just thought of a stupendously PERFECT story/novel idea, but haven't actually started writing that shit onto the page yet.
livia_llewellyn It's kind of like falling in love with someone from a distance: all sooper-hawt fantasy, no pesky reality. :D
txtriffidranch I like to think of it as the vacation you see when you're first scheduling the time off, not the reality of missing credit cards and mosquitoes the size of RC aircraft.
livia_llewellyn Exactly. I'm looking at the pretty travel brochure, not realizing that when I'm on that beach, I'll be broke, sunburned and doubled over from dysentery.
nballingrud Yeah, as soon as you type "Chapter One," it all goes to shit. Happy writing! :)

Vermeer Blue

In case you're wondering, it took me about two hours to write that. Yes, go ahead and laugh...

...this clip of her singing "Cry Me a River" should change your mind. The clip and accompanying article are here. OMFG. Talk about torch singing - GUH. I will buy every single CD this woman ever comes out with.

I've just received a copy of The Imago Sequence from imago1, who inscribed it with the promise - nay, the SACRED VOW - that his next collection would contain "20% more rumpy-pumpy...minimum". I'm making this public only to make sure he is held to that promise, and that all of Mr. Barron's stories contain at least 20% more rumpy-pumpy. MY EYES: ON U. [::makes serious stare-face::]

In case you're all wondering, and I KNOW YOU ARE, my first collection will be 100% chock full of non-stop rumpy-pumpy. My fiction puts out! But you have to get it drunk first. I'm just saying...

I just signed and mailed off the contracts for my first short story collection, to be published by Lethe Press sometime in 2010. The collection will include all of my published erotica and some original stories, including a steampunk erotica novella titled "The Electric Lash". Heh.

This will be my first book in print. I'm very, very excited. Here are the old-timey skeletons again - I didn't think I'd use them again so soon, but what the fuck. EVERYONE DANCE!

Subterranean bought my 20k horror novella "Her Deepness" (the first in my Lovecraftian-industrial alternate-Patagonia quartet - I'm currently working on #2). Actually, technically Bill accepted it in February, but I had to keep my mouth shut until now, and OMFG THAT WAS SO HARD because I am by nature a blabbermouth, and this was my first (and so far only) sale of the year. No word on when it'll be published.

BTW, much thanks to kellysarah for looking over the various geological/mining terms I used in the novella, and not laughing too hard at some of my very laughable mistakes.

And now it is time to dance.

I would really like for all this to be over with. But I'm just too tired to bother.

...is going to the Strand with books that have your stories in them (in a desperate attempt to get enough money to pay the bills), and being told that they are worth nothing.

Last night I had a terrifying dream that my publisher bought up all the little publishers and presses it could, including nihilistic_kid's place of work. So they shipped everyone to Hoboken, and the rest of the dream - nay, NIGHTMARE - consisted of Nick Mamatas making everyone do freaky calisthentics in the morning, followed by throwing frisbees out into the Hudson River and making us fetch them. He told us that's how they did it in California. Also, he kept manuscripts in his underwear. I know, because he showed me. ::weeps::

I swear to god, that's the last time I have chili for dinner.