Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

The Norse had a ritual known as symbel. The last symbel I attended (put on by Ph.D. students in the Folklore Department of UCLA) went something like this:

Everyone sat in a circle around the fire. It started with a round of dedication to the gods. When the horn of alcohol was passed to you, you declared your dedication to a god, and you sealed it with a drink before passing the horn to the next person. The next round was the bragging round. One bragged of their accomplishments during the year, drank to them, then passed on the horn. In the last round, one made oaths for the coming year. When the symbel ended, we poured the remaining alcohol on the ground as an offering to prove to the gods we weren't greedy.

This isn't necessarily the historical or "correct" way to perform a symbel. However, this variation of the symbel is particularly awesome because it fits well with our current rituals at New Year's and you don't get to wallow in self pity over what you failed to accomplish. This is extremely important for me because I'm feeling pretty miserable over some things that didn't happen this year. Granted, they were mostly things I had no control over, but it's oh-so-me to dwell on them as if I did. ;)

So instead I raise my horn of champagne as follows:


I dedicate the coming year to Kali. She answered a desperate prayer of mine several years ago in a profound, immediate and totally alarming way. I was so freaked out, I shot out of there like a Neo-Con caught in an pro-choice protest. Well, I've changed my mind. Kali, you rock me. Let's go, babe. You and me. All the way around the block, tongues and all. (Drink!)

I also dedicate myself to the Flying Spaghetti Monster as he continues to torment Creationists and ID assheads everywhere. All hail his noodly appendage! (Drink!)

I partnered with a man I love more than I ever thought possible who gave me a gorgeous antique ring. (Drink!)

I have a fantastic woman representing me in New York. I can crack Edith Wharton jokes with her, and thinks I'm super talented. (Drink!)

I started the ball rolling at my job that eventually got a truly insane manager demoted and divested of her tormented employees. (Drink!)

Received the sincere thanks of said employees. (Drink!)

Successfully served on two elections committees -- one as Co-Chair for the HWA and the other as Chair for Persephone Writers. (Drink!)

I survived the incredibly intense 7-week summer program at Middlebury College and learned a foreign language. (Drink!)

I wrote my first poem in French. (Drink!)

I moved to a foreign country, survived culture shock and can talk with the locals. (Drink!)

I've met all of The Frenchman's family and friends, and seem to have charmed the socks off of everyone. (Drink!)

I have introduced countless French people to the love that is Trog. (Drink!)

I've lost 10 pounds. (Drink!)

I lectured to a class at Otis College. (Drink!)

I had two stories appear on the Bram Stoker Preliminary Ballot. (Drink!)

I qualified for the John W. Campbell Award. (Drink!)

I didn't kill anybody! (Drink!)

I was on the BBC Radio, yo! (Drink!)

I've written four new stories this year, a book proposal, a project proposal for Disney, and a new novel, for a total of about 120,000 words for the year on top of everything above. (Drink!)


My first oath is to write at least one new book this year (my thriller parody, if not G3 for a publisher).

My second oath is to diligently blast out the new stories to editors until they are all bought.

My third oath is to keep my cool when transitioning back to the States...


Ooooo...I feel pretty wooshygooshydruuuunk. Here's what's left for the gods.

::leans over the balcony and splashes champagne on the streets of Paris::

The laptop spontaneously rebooted itself twice yesterday whilst I was researching on the web. I'm switching to another browser temporarily, just to see if that's the problem. (Although I can't imagine that being the problem, but whatever, eh?)

Meanwhile, I'm just over 98% on the word count according to the estimate. It's going to be longer than that, of course, but that's fine. The chapter I just finished was one of the best. I got to introduce the character who is the lynch pin. The gender, race, motive -- everything is a satisfying surprise. And it allowed me to bring in one more significant spiritual concept that the book still hadn't encountered. In the thriller, I'm showing how each religion has a piece of something much bigger and far more organic than people normally imagine. And how they're all completely and utterly wrong.

It's raining in Paris, but it's still unbelievably beautiful. I woke up early and made coffee to drink as I looked outside at the rain splattering the glistening city streets. A sort of quiet yet deep happiness bubbled up. I love it here like no other place in the world.

Maybe I'll finish the book today. Or tomorrow.

If you want to listen to an MP3 of the BBC interview about Paris and the repatriated Japanese tourists, I've uploaded it here. iTunes didn't get along with the file, but my RealPlayer loves it. I thought this was extra nice of the producer, who mentioned I should let her know if something else comes along I'd like to chat about on the show. She's absolutely the peaches.

Anyway, I'm going to burn it to disk and send to the parents. They'll be ever so thrilled when it arrives, and that's a very nice thing, indeed.

The Frenchman says there is a person at the Japanese embassy here in Paris who has for some time been dedicated to just this problem. Scary, eh?

I've written just over 1000 words today in five hours. Egads.

I was pissed last night to discover around page 334 that I had guessed the "big dark secret" of Michael Connelly's Blood Work way back on page 5.

Yes, page 5. This explains in part why it's feeling so incredibly tedious to me. It's still good fuel for Thrilled. (Yep, that's an official title for the next project.)

In annoyance, I bookmarked the damn thing and put it aside. I slept well, but then encountered a guy who was breeding wolves and boa constrictors together. I had to scramble up on the kitchen counter to avoid the small zoo of creatures caged from all sides but the top. Some had two heads, some were snowy white, others had rusty streaks of fur that resembled scales. All were vicious beyond belief.

That's when the mad breeder informed me that I'd be helping him and Dave Schow hit a bank. He called Dave and we got together to go over their plan. I was amazed at what they wanted to do. It was difficult to discredit any plan by Dave, as he's incredibly smart, but this was some kind of comical hubris from the two of them. I went to the bank to "case" it, filling out a fake loan application (under the name of John Cleese), and confirmed how crazy these two were for thinking they could get away with this. I had to think of a diplomatic way to get out of it, though, because the mad breeder was threatening me. I told Dave that I wasn't in on a job with people who had never robbed banks before. Period. That seemed to satisfy him to the point that his and Mr. Low Snake Moan's disappointment wasn't homocidal. Still, I moved to a ratty little room with dark wood walls to get away for a while. Then, the Feds came to talk to me. I was so relieved that I was no longer involved at all. I told them I had heard some friends were cooking up a crazy plan and that's why I went in -- to see just how crazy it was and tell them so. And I was right. The Bureau Boys seemed happy with that answer and went on their way.

Today, I'm off to La Duree and then to a couple more fetish shops for my article. When I return, I'll write more but I'm despairing that I'll finish the first draft by the New Year. Keep your fingers crossed for me, eh?

I'm sitting in Papa Loup's desk. Everything is antique French except my computer and his LiveBox. We're back in Paris after spending Christmas in Rouen with The Frenchman's family. Oof. I like the celebrations, but I need to return to solitude. Last night was music night. Everyone who could play an instrument did, including all of the kids. It was fun. And then I sang "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" and everyone seemed quite pleased with that. (On second thought, "pleased with" might be a bit inaccurate. "Agape at" might be more appropriate as no one except The Frenchman knew I sang, no one knew I knew any opera, and no one could fathom how I did it in a corset. Naturally, it was the Ruby Raven corset, but still.) The Frenchman was sick a lot of the time, poor baby.

I managed to do a little writing, but mostly I read Blood Work by Michael Connelly. God, is it ever tedious. I can parody this seven ways to Sunday, although it isn't nearly as fun as any of James Patterson's merde.

Hopefully this week I can get the MP3 from the producer at the BBC for the radio show. I'm still a bit dazed. When we would tell people about the interview, they'd either say "Ah bon?" (which is the standard French response of surprise) or "Toi?"

Yeah. Moi.

Et voila!

We spent last night with a gaggle of The Frenchman's friends. It's always exhausting for me, even though I'm understanding more and more of the conversations. Still, not enough to participate fully. Fortunately, he has some very sweet friends who spend the time to try and talk with me. I'm not entirely bothered by it because it's sort of a game to try and distill words, then to analyze the intonation and gestures of the speaker. You can tell a great deal about a person without their words.

We will now lose Internet access for a few days. The baby Mithras wishes everyone has a splendid holiday and much holiday debauchery!

Before dinner, The Frenchman and I saw LE PARFUM. I was totally enthralled by it. The director's use of color to simulate smell was unbelievably effective, and the actor who played Grenouille was profoundly creepy. I found myself leaning forward in my seat several times, mouth open. I was overwhelmed with a powerful envy of red hair in this film -- wow! Some people have complained about the last 15 minutes of the movie being "too much." Apparently, they missed entirely that this was magical realism, not SILENCE OF THE PARISIAN LAMBS. The genre of magical realism has its own rules, much like a fairytale. And that's precisely what it was.

Afterwards, I ate a crepe with Grand Marnier -- the best crepe I've had in Paris so far -- and, after much walking, we then went to dinner with René de Obaldia and his beautiful American wife, Diane. You would never guess in a million lifetimes that Monsieur Obaldia was 91 years old. He spoke and moved like a man 20 years younger -- at least. When we entered their apartment, he joked, "I'm being chased out of my apartment by books!" It was true. He had stacks of books everywhere imaginable. We had an appero of champagne and chips, then walked to our restaurant.

The extravagant restaurant "Mollard" was cleverly disguised by a glass door with black letters that were half rubbed off by the weather and age. Inside the jade walls were edged with gold filigree and covered with art deco murals depicting men and women of the late 19th century. Very proper French waiters in stiff black suits and white gloves escorted us to our table. The entire meal, from the conversation to the food, was completely charming. I ate so much I had a food hangover. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Diane, as well as gleaning what I could from the brilliant Obaldia. It wasn't much, but he asked a lot of questions about my writing. I felt totally unworthy. He remarked at dinner that I was "A charming woman who wrote about horrific things." I replied, "Well, sometimes it's the other way around!" I hope I made a positive impression, regardless. As we were leaving, a drunk gentleman became very excited about Trog and shouted, "Magnifique!" What can I say? They all love the Wild Thing.

I'm writing a bit this morning, and then we're off to finally see AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH before commencing another round of holiday debauchery with friends. Alors!

So, you missed me on the BBC. That's okay. I forgive ya. You can still hear me if you do as follows:

1. Go to the BBC World Service.

2. Click "Start Radio Player" in the middle column towards the bottom. The radio player will pop open in a new window.

3. In the radio player, scroll down to the "Have Your Say" show and click it.

4. You're almost there! Now, when the "Have Your Say" show opens, click the "World: Have Your Say" link on the bottom left.

5. The show will start, first with some long piece on Somali. Fast forward 30 minutes by clicking the ">>15 min" twice.

6. The Somalia bit will soon end, and the part on Paris will begin in just a couple of minutes.

I emailed the producer asking if they have podcasts. I'll post a link if she has one! In the meantime, my pal The Gray Masquerade caught my part of the interview and captured it on MP3. Hey...maybe I should upload it on Splice?

A short one.

Just learned this morning that we are having dinner Friday night with the great French poet and playwright, Rene de Obaldia. I could give you about 2000 web links to him, but they'd be meaningless to you, in part because they're in French or Spanish. He's incredibly well-known in Europe, and certainly here in France he's a national hero. Unfortunately, the translations of his work have been so bad that in America he is virtually unknown in the English speaking world outside of a couple of Broadway presentations. The Frenchman's doctoral thesis at Princeton included Obaldia's work. He wrote a book about him.

The Frenchman made reservations at one of the best restaurants here in Paris and dropped Obaldia's name so that we could find a quiet area to eat. He's 91, and his hearing is not what it used to be.

I'm incredibly nervous. This is like dinner with Stoppard except I'll probably understand less of the conversation. Which is a miserable shame...

After writing another 1000 words on the book, I went to Montparnasse Cemetery to mope at Baudelaire's grave.

I was standing at the big map sign near the entrance, looking for Chuck's grave, when an American couple came up and stood next to me, pondering aloud as to who was in the cemetery. The man mused that there were "lots of famous people" here supposedly but that he wasn't sure who.

Me, thinking he meant that the map sign was hard to read, offered that there were a great many terrific graves to visit of very famous people. "Why, there's the poet Baudelaire, then Maupassant (known as the father of the short story), the playwright Samuel Beckett, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte (buried next to his partner Simone, and what a terrific story that is), and the amazing classical composer Camille Saint-Saëns..."

They both blinked at me and shrugged, smiling blankly. They said they had no idea who any of those people were. I inhaled suddenly and wanted to scream, "GET OUT OF FRANCE, YOU IGNORANT FUCKING AMERICAN COWS!" But instead, I smiled back and put my hands together prayerfully. "Well, you might prefer visiting Pere-LaChaise. That's where Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are buried."

These people they knew. They asked how to spell the cemetery name. I told them politely. I even told them about my favorite cafe there. They had never heard of Pere-LaChaise. Now they have.

For those who are wondering, Charles is doing quite well. His grave is covered in dead flowers. An elderly French couple found me moping on the last step across from his gravestone (which he shares with his family). I had a lovely conversation with them entirely in French. The old man told me the jar full of notes on the grave was like the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem -- prayers to God tucked into the chinks of the stone. I had noticed the jar before but never put it together. "I think that Monsieur Baudelaire is a bit deaf now," I said. The wife laughed.

He might be deaf, but that didn't keep me from complaining to him. When they left, I got the strong impression that Charles said to me, "You're too healthy to be sitting here. Hell, if I had your youth and health, I'd be drinking, fucking and writing. Go home and drink, fuck and write."

That's when I noticed that he died at 46 years, almost exactly to the day 100 years before I was born.

I decided Chuck knew best and did exactly that.

I was just looking at the news page for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the theater festival in Massachusetts that Roger Rees took over as Artistic Director in 2004.

They abbreviate the festival as "WTF," and for good reason:

Three women of the festival have died in the last year, in the space of nine months. Two were actresses and one a trustee. It doesn't mention in any of the news announcements how the women died. A wee bit creepy.

After a delightful night in Burgundy, with the aunt and uncle of The Frenchman, their ridiculously sweet black lab named Olive Noire, and an incredible dinner with the best white wine I've ever had from a village called Ruilly. The wine's bouquet was heady like Paul Gautier perfume, and sweet like the tears of a Republican. I liked it even better than The Frenchman, but he still has forbidden me from telling anyone who the producer of the wine is. It's our little secret.

Now we're in Paris. And it's raining. Noisy. Gawdy with Christmas crap. Not really the Paris I love.

Our apartment complex is located behind a green door on a street parallel to the Champs-Elysees. (Yes, yes -- "Behind the Green Door." Get it? Ha!) The complex is carpeted with ratty gray material, the chipped doors are coated with cheap azure blue paint, and the hall lights go out at annoying intervals. Fortunately, our little studio is nice and clean.

Big movie signs for Eragon mock me here. Mock me, I tell you. No, I do not want to see the film of a best-selling book written by a 15-year-old boy who stole a zillion fantasy cliches and smashed them together like a Dagwood sandwich, fuck you very much.

And now to indulge in some grand love sweet love with my man. Better than the Ruilly wine, yes.

Except for my ridiculously clever post (ha ha), I wrote nothing yesterday. I went into town and ran several errands, which included hours and hours in the chair at Sculpt getting a cool purple thing done to my bangs and a stripe of hair. Pictures are forthcoming. I was way overcharged, but my blood sugar was dangerously low by the time it was done so I didn't realize it until I left. Damn those guys!

I also bought three classic thrillers for my next project:

Silence of the Lambs
Mystic River
The Day of the Jackal

I spent so long at Sculpt that I started reading Harris' Lambs. It's fucking great! I loved the film and there's no disappointment so far in reading the book. I'm 137 pages in. I've noticed that, for the film, they took a lot straight from the book, including most of the brilliant dialogue. I just wished I had anticipated the long hair appointment. I would have brought The Firm and finished it. The Firm is way better than either of the Patterson books, with a terrific amount of suspense, but it's still very sparse in terms of prose and character. I can't tell any of the bad guys apart from their dialogue -- or even tell the FBI agents from the mob guys, for that matter -- except one bad guy has "sinister black eyes" and one of the FBI agents wears stupid clothes when undercover that would make him stand out like a sore thumb. I do appreciate the structure of the book. It's a great deal like Out of Body, so that's helpful and reassuring. By Patterson's definition, someone has to die practically every third damned chapter to be a thriller.

Harris is entirely different, though. He creates such amazing characters. Yeah, yeah -- I heard the next two books sucked. Whatever. I'm not reading them, anyway.

Laundry a la The Middle Ages today, then packing. Maybe some writing this afternoon.

As for other reading, I've gotten to the section in The God Delusion where Dawkins supposedly disproves the supernatural. The rest of the book has been effective and informative, if not snide in its quest to disprove the existence of God. But this section is such weak sauce I just want to slap him. His argument amounts to "Well, it must be a hallucination because, like, there are things called optical illusions and the brain is flaky. Ha ha! I win! I'm so smart!" He opines that people who have these experiences are reluctant to share them with "people like him" who know all these mighty secrets of the brain. No, Mr. Dawkins, we don't share things with people like you because you're a close-minded ass who is so convinced of his own smartness that we don't bother. Even those of us with experiences that meet Hume's definition would rather recite experiences at length knee-deep in pig shit and mud to hungry, violent sows than recite them to you. The phrase "pearls cast before swine" comes to mind, and frankly, the swine win.

I've never been one of those women with a biological clock. I've never felt the need to fertilize the eggs before their expiration date. Never spiralled into Ally McBeal's baby-dancing depths because I didn't have a child. Never felt the heat of the biological deadline burning in my uterus.

But I'm definitely feeling my bibliographical clock. And it says, "Time to make a baby, bitch."

Time to make a fuckin' baby.

And I see a lot of people makin' some pretty fuckin' ugly babies. Cross-eyed creatures that squeeze out a Stoker in their diapies. Crack babies with cleft lips from whores knocked up by the limp cock of some corporate numbskull. Legions of premies with piss-colored skin dropped between the legs of witless imprints. Withering, deformed brats cranked from someone's goddamned garage press, complete with a birth announcement tacked onto every MySpace comment page in their whore train.

But there are plenty of beautiful kids out there, too. Plump, rosy-cheeked cherubs who catch everyone's eye on the B&N shelf. Exotic South American-Asian mixes that take your breath away because they're bold and unusual to read. Tots with old souls that astound you with the depths of their ideas. Those with such exquisite detail in every fold of pale skin and tuft of gossamer hair that you have to pick them up again and again.

Thing is, I'm pretty sure I could make a damned good-lookin' baby. Not necessarily a Jon Benet or future Miss America, but one of those smart, sweet brats with curly raven ringlets that people beg to babysit. Or maybe a giggling, chubby redhead with curled fingers that makes strangers laugh in line at the supermarket. I could keep making these babies as long as I wished. Maybe they wouldn't all be as beautiful or smart as the others, but I would make 'em and faithfully send them to school.

The first father doesn't have to be my soulmate. He just needs to be likable, with a decent reputation and income. And he really has to want the baby, too. Sometimes I consider lowering my standards, but I don't think I should. I'm open to speed dating and Internet dating, but I'm currently employing a professional matchmaker. She's great, but we haven't found The Right One yet. I'm attracted to older men, but I'm open to hooking up with someone younger if the circumstances are right.

Sperm banks (i.e. self publishing) are not an option. Period.

Technically I should not be in a hurry. There is no expiration date on my ideas, or even my talents. I will write until they blow my ashes from the keyboard. But for some bizarre reason, it feels like time is running out. And I don't know why...

Since Friday, I've written over 2600 words on the book. The little word meter says 89%, which is roughly 9K to go. However, I think it's going to be more than that.

The best part was yesterday. I was stuck because I was so damned clever too many times, I'd painted myself in a corner. I needed X to happen, but I'd made it impossible. Then I remembered there was a third entity in this story -- someone far more terrifying than my protagonist and antagonist combined who is just as motivated to reach certain goals as other people. He was more than capable of making X happen. The moral of the story is, um, I'm not sure. I lucked out? The story and characters are robust enough to handle setbacks? I subconsciously planted an out without realizing it?

I really enjoyed my pal Christa's interview on Tribe. I know for her that, when she writes a story, she's just spinning a yarn. Everything else that happens is coincidental, which drives academics crazy when they try to analyze it (and we writers find that very amusing). But for me -- and I've been like this since I was a toddler, so go figure -- I've always got Something To Say (patent pending). I'm usually very conscious of what goes into a story and what it's about. I'm usually very consciously Saying Something, although I don't know if everyone always gets the same message, and that's okay. The books are not. I don't know why.

I have a novelette I wrote nine years ago when Neil was still reading my story drafts that I never showed him. (And he has no time these days for my nonsense, which makes me feel sad these days.) It's about a fairysleep, a violin and the end of the world. Back then, I thought it would make a great graphic novel and for some reason I was thinking about it this morning. It definitely Says Something (patent pending). I don't have my copy of Understanding Comics with me, but if I knew the right comics artist was into it, I'd adapt it faster than snappy as best I could.

Anyway, here's me. Ass in chair. Trying to finish the latest. Ready...set...go!

Last night, we went to a gothic bar here in downtown Aix called Elfike with a young couple we know from Marseille. Don't let the decrepit, abandoned website deceive you: it's a lively place that is friendly to every brand of alternative, as well as muggles. Upstairs is the bar, where they have an incredible menu of cocktails that are considerably less expensive than American cocktails. I had a drink called L'Eclipse. I don't recall all the ingredients, but it did include mead. Whatever it was, my pilsner glass gleamed full of golden bliss. They spin industrial and electronic music from some unknown corner that you can hear throughout all levels of the bar. Downstairs they have a stage the size of a postage stamp and a little gothic boutique that is open until 2:00am on weekend nights.

The bar is unlike anything I've seen in L.A. It opens at 4:00pm most days, some days like Wednesday even earlier. I can't think of a place anywhere in the U.S. where you can go in the late afternoon and sit with spooky folk to drink fancy concoctions. I will say this: the goth scene is known for its curvy ladies, and this scene is no exception. I saw more gals with broader waists dressed to the nines at Elfike than anywhere in France.

In the boutique, I met and spoke with at length a very nice goth gal who explained to my friend and I the dangers of even being anything "outside of the box" here in France. As for paganism and magick -- there are groups, but they're very secretive. I mean, really, really secretive. She defined pagan as essentially the same as polytheist and felt this was the popular definition. (Sorry, nature lovers.) Hopefully later this week I'll be meeting a friend of hers who's pagan and we can all have a chat. It feels good to connect with kindred spirits here. Given the circumstances, I felt lucky that she trusted me.

Once again, I hear the fugue of conformity. Due in large part to the stranglehold of Catholicism and the French cultural definition of equality to safeguard "freedom," individualism of any kind is driven so far underground that you can't even get a pulse. The farther south you go in France, the worse it is because Catholicism is stronger in the Mediterranean. People I know talk a lot about emigrating here to escape the U.S., but the exchange is simply not worth it. You still have religious crap to deal with in a bigger way than in the U.S., and you can't even smile at people without being considered mentally feeble. (I am not making this up.) So, those of you in the U.S. thinking it's some kind of secular paradise over here, think again.

I jogged this morning. Now it's time for a shower and nap. Tonight, we're visiting friends and I get to do some kitten squeezin'. Yay!

All right already.

I'd gotten several requests to record this song when I wrote it two years ago. I got another yesterday that prodded me to finally do it, crappy microphone and all. It still makes me laugh, so I'm glad I did it.

Here's a super rough -- like, so rough it will give you razor burn -- cut of "Don't Cry Baby Mithras Cos Jesus Stole Your Birthday."

Go here.

Click the "Songs" tab on the right side of the page. When the song appears, click the black arrow to the left of the song title. And listen.

Disclaimers:

1. It's a capella. Deal.
2. I have crap gear: just a headphone and mic for my 'puter.
3. For the love of all that's sane and decent, don't try to put a metronome to it or anything. I just don't have time or talent to be Tori Amos.
4. If you like Jesus, don't listen. Or I will smack you, even if I like you.

Otherwise, enjoy!

The magnificent chestnut tree fanning pale golden and chartruse leaves before our windows is now heavily soaked with rainwater. From the dry warmth of my kitchen, I see evergreens and half-shorn trees wagging rusty leaves all over Cezanne country. I haven't seen Fall like this in many, many years.

We saw Alejandro González Iñárritu's BABEL last night. The Frenchman didn't think it was as good as 21 GRAMS but we still thought it was great, despite some minor flaws. Some of the story was a bit thin or not explained sufficiently. In one place there was a dilemma that didn't appear necessary, and in another place a character was surprisingly short-sighted and low on resources. This same character appeared initially to be so much more intelligent if not more resourceful than that. Still, the weaving of the stories about humanity's inability to communicate was captivatingly complex and realistic. Not only was the acting superb but Iñárritu is a genius at building tension. I found myself sitting halfway off my seat a few times, I was so caught up in the drama.

Writing like mad today, but I realized a few days ago as I was re-reading the screenplay that the last quarter of the script just doesn't work for me anymore. The story I'm writing about the cons and thieves is so much richer now, taking inspiration from true crime. What I wrote so many years ago now feels goofy and totally unsatisfactory. One of the producers who wanted to option the script once told me that the black characters were "too black." She was entirely wrong. The problem was that the white characters were "too white." So when a brother had something to say, of course the language was strong. Nobody else had interesting dialogue or backgrounds except the dead Brit. Now that the detective from Robbery is a haunted Italian Catholic rugby fan and the protagonist is an anal-retentive, analytical atheist Jew, the characters all jump off the page in colorful ways.

I'm not good at blasting out words. I spend a lot of time crafting both prose and plot. So, this might take longer than I had hoped. But not too much longer, methinks.

My new interview with Grotto Radio is up.

It's #6.

The marvelous host, JD, and I talk about my recent tour de France and all the darkly powerful places I visited. Also, I make an unexpected confession about what really happened to me at Omaha Beach. Come hear how I discovered my newfound respect for the Magickal Country of Cheesewheels and Catholics.

I'm the first interviewee. Check it.

We saw THE DEPARTED last night. The first half hour was a little slow but everything after was really good. The Frenchman is something of an expert on Scorcese from his film journalism days. He says Scorcese is parodying himself in it. The acting was totally brilliant. I love it when they let Jack Nicholson loose as a nutjob with blood up to his elbows. Ditto for anything where Leonardo DiCaprio gets tortured (although his acting was truly exceptional). The only real weak moment was where they violated a very basic tenet of forensics and had Matt Damon's character explain it away badly in a single sentence. I wanted to slap someone. Hard. With a strappy shoe.

I also told Neil about a weird thing I found in the coupon book for Video Futur, the chain of video rental stores we rent from here. Every month they offer a new coupon, like rent one get one free, and on the back of each coupon they print the summary of an upcoming film. For June, they had a summary for STARDUST, but the summary of the story was odd. They said that the film was about a young man named Tristan who lived in a town divided by a wall: one side mundane and the other magical. Tristan had fallen in love with a girl on the magical side, who demanded he get her a star to win her affections. I asked Neil if they'd mangled his book in the screenwriting process, but he says it's apparently just the French getting things "interestingly wrong."

Not surprising. When I was last in the video rental place, I noticed all kinds of strange translations of titles. Take THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, for example. The French have crafted a new title, L'ETRANGE NOEL DE MONSIEUR JACQUE. What the hell? How about a direct translation, such as LE CAUCHMAR AVANT NOEL? Apparently there are all kinds of marketing issues when translating titles, but what a stinky compromise.

A little writing happened this weekend, but the serious work recommences tomorrow. Hoorah!

When we were at The Writer's Museum in Dublin, Ireland, photos were strictly prohibited. Still, I managed to slyly snap this photo of a first edition of Stoker's Dracula.



The handwriting in the letter is also intriguing. I would love to analyze it someday, once I get my analysis chops up to par again.

What a relief.

I've been in copyright infringement hell this week. A guy in Samoa with a funky domain was stripping all the content off of Gothic.net and using it for his "gothic" news and arts site. Asshat didn't dare link Gothic.net in his "Dark Links" section, for fear that everyone would realize from what site he was illegally scraping his content.

I don't know exactly what finally worked. Certainly a critical mass of writers had been reached who were involved in sending DMCA notices. And Dave Schow was alerted, who'd had a story stolen, as well. Goddess only knows if he threw his weight in on the collective body slam. I sent the legal department a third email this morning (the wee sleepy hours for pretty much all of youse) saying I had contacted an attorney, as well as all of the other fiction writers and that a certain someone was WGA and that it'll probably start raining WGA lawyers any minute now...

Whatever worked, I'm glad for it.

Somehow I managed to write another 1000+ words today -- even after some Joe vs. The Volcano action I had with Amazon that took a good chomp out of my day.

I managed to get Faust live on the phone in the aftermath of the copyright debacle. I told her that it's very strange now focusing only on my own work for the first time since I was disabled. I don't have my day job with Uncle Walt to draw off my frustrations and anxiety. Copy for DisneyWorld, its booking engine or Disney Cruise excursions no longer gets my energy, good or bad. Everything is focused on the fiction. It feels like these ten months are the book end to eight years of having two jobs. The other book end was sixteen months of disability, where I wrote with the voice program from 1997 to 1998.

Rilke talks a lot about embracing solitude and letting its pain work through you until you create. He also explains to Kappus that you cannot look to the outside for anything as a writer. The latter is far more difficult for me and is a constant source of challenge these days. I don't know how Rilke managed, but I do know in a later letter he said this:

Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

Hard to imagine. Maybe it's better to be Kappus.