Woke up with Shigeru Umebayashi’s Vendetta March playing in my head; it’s on the Cain’s Wife soundtrack and that book is attempting to claw its way out with a vengeance. Things are escalating, next comes that world’s version of Paris and a train ride that goes terribly wrong. Or maybe I’ll put the train ride first, since the protagonist has to get to Paris. We’ll see.
I did mean to go to the grocer’s today, but so much has interfered with wordcount and I want this book done. Plus there’s the subscription drop and I really oughta get the newsletter sorted. But goddammit I would just like to be left alone to write. The amount of bullshit in the publishing industry right now1 is a distinct impediment to doing the work only I can do, the creation everything else downstream depends on.
You’d think I’d be treated with a modicum of respect by the industry that depends on me as the origin point of everything their own jobs and profit depends on, but that’s not how it is. Anyway.
This month’s reading pace has taken a hit (like last month’s), but I have finished McIntosh’s Beyond the North Wind and Robichaud’s Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return. The latter was far more useful for my purposes, though the former did bolster one or two points for the Viking werewolves. I especially appreciated Robichaud calling out some of the bullshit in the 70s pagan revival; it’s not often one finds such declarative statements and they are most welcome indeed.
My levels of patience and coping are at an all-time low. It might be because of tomorrow’s release day; book hangover (from the portal fantasy) mixed with the white-hot pace of the current work was holding off the worst of the nerves, but it seems that grace was short-term at best. Ah well, if I distract myself with work today I won’t have much time to get more nervous, right?
RIGHT?
The news cycle isn’t helping2 so it’s probably time to submerge until I get this zero draft done. I had a lot more I wanted to say, but it’s going to have to wait. I need to blow up a train and get this witch to Paris with the heist item safely in her luggage. Before that, Boxnoggin would very much like his walkies. I’m sure the corvids down the hill are wondering if I’m going to show with a pocket full o’peanuts today, too.
I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised, once I finish my coffee and get underway…