books out my ears

The husband mentioned to me this morning: "Don't forget about that book under the bed."

"Book? Under the bed?"

"Yeah. Isn't that where you keep some of them?"

For a non-reader, my bibliotheca appetitus is annoying. He has books like "Particle Blah Blah for Blah Blah" and "Fortran For Idiots" and "C programming for Jocks". I want him to read Huston, though. His stuff reminds me of those Jason Stantham movies in which the character never gets a frickin' break.

I have books I just bought from Powells, 20% off, including AMMONITE by Nicola Griffiths, all of Charlie Huston's work, and a James Ellroy novel--whichever one Stuart recommended I start with.

I have hundreds of books in my study, which needs more shelves. I have books recommended by friends: THE CHANGELING OF FINNISTUACH and WICKED and A HIGHLY PLACED SOURCE and ART & PHYSICS and a stack of paperbacks given/bought at conferences, which got interrupted by The Complete Works of Connie Willis. I also have PRINCEPS FURY, by Jim Butcher, which is the latest of my favorite fantasy series, and which must be Studiously Ignored until I finish all books with dogeared pages and borrowed titles, which, oddly, sometimes I try to give back and the owner says "No, no, YOU keep it," like it's a bag of cocaine when a cop is knocking at the front door. Yeah, I'll get to PRINCEPS FURY sometime in mid-2015.

I'm reading Stuart's first novel, Conduit, bit by bit. (I leave it up on my screen and it tempts me away from real work).

Oh! And I just bought OXFORD GUIDE TO THE BIBLE for $10 clearance. It covers Aaron to Zion and reminds me of THE WITCH BOOK, which runs from Abacadabra to Zodiac. Both are my constant companions while writing The Silver Scar--all highlighted and scribbled upon.

For professional advancement, I'm reading WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL again. It has old scribbles about Sean from Hinterland, which I think I'm going to offer for free online sometime soon when I get my website up and going. The scribbles now are all Trinidad and Castile and Father Troy. I'll have to get a new copy when I write another novel. Espec's whole editorial staff has read it this spring, so I'm mostly Jonesing.

I recently interrupted THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO to read THE DARKNESS THAT COMES BEFORE which I interrupted to finish Huston's series with A DANGEROUS MAN. Huston's concise style ensures that I can read one of his books over a long lunch, which I did. I'm toying with playing with his style (untagged dialogue notated by hashmarks, which I first saw in my friend Beth's book, MICROGRAVITY) for a short story. I'm still reserved about THE DARKNESS, mostly because so far the only female characters are a whore and an old-hag-queen-mother. Gee, Bakker, sexist much?

Yesterday was a business day, in which I submitted some stories, sold one, apparently :) , and found a cool new market with some damn good stories. That was kind of my first mention by name in a more pro-rag (I'm guessing it came from Big Pulp) so that was cool. Be sure to hit all of Lovecrafts stuff FREE ONLINE! How freakin' cool is that??

Incidentally, the Book Under The Bed (ooh, I just thought up a morbid little story for that title) was KITTY RAISES HELL. I met Carrie Vaughn last fall--we have mutual friends, and she's a super nice person, except she seems to be exceedingly smart, which makes me almost as uncomfortable as tall people do. She's not all that tall, so it came right in the end.

Sigh. So many words. So little time.