I just remembered something awesome that work-time wikipedia procrastination unearthed the other day: two books I absolutely loved almost a decade ago, The Wild Roads and The Golden Cat (though I think I read them the other way round), are actually co-written by M. John Harrison, and there's another book that comes after them! And remarkably, for me, I still have those two books! (I take batches of books to charity shops quite regularly; it's a sign of how much I loved them that they're still here.) I'd pretty much forgotten about them until I was reading Harrison's wiki page. I shall have to re-read them sometime, and pick up The Knot Garden too.

Tags: book octopus

1. Penis birds. And a vulva bird. Link goes directly to the image. Unsurprisingly, it is NSFW.

2. Sam Tomaino has taken a look at Kaleidotrope 4 and mentions my little flashfic as "a strange tale of how a woman carries a world in her backpack and how she keeps it fed." Not completely a value judgement, more of a summary, but he gave it no negative words either. He also says, "If you like quirky little tales from out of the mainstream, then Kaleidotrope is for you. Check it out!"

3. The sun is shining. Earlier I was sitting at a shady little table, with a half-circle of plant-covered trellis behind me, and a cat near my feet. About 550 words to go until I reach 50k on The Bone Queen draft 2. 50,056 words! That's ~10k since April 30th, with 4 of those 11 days not actually given to working on the rewrite. Not too bad! I am now about to go for a swim in our pool, and then contemplate cooking dinner (my parents are away for the weekend).

4. In my procrastinatory wanderings I have found the TOC for the next issue of LCRW, out in a few weeks. Which has my name in it. It also has: Carol Emshwiller, Maureen McHugh, Becca De La Rosa, other names I recognise. Awesome.

Tags: palindromes and other worldly delights, reviews, short fiction, the bone queen

05/05 - 1,159 words on ch18 of TBQ
06/05 - rewrote a poem, sorted out some submissions
07/05 - travel flailing → evening off
08/05 - 367 words on ch19 of TBQ + working on critique
09/05 - working on critique + 1,070 words on ch19 of TBQ
10/05 - 1,019 words on ch18, 249 words on ch19, 1,406 words on ch20 of TBQ
11/05 - 1,123 words on ch20 of TBQ

And, as noted earlier today, I passed the 50k mark. Huzzah!

Tags: mush mush mush