(The picture is me at nine months. I wonder what I was thinking?)
My air conditioner burned out on Friday of last week. The landlord had to wait until yesterday before someone told her it couldn’t be repaired; it will be another while before I have the new a/c or heat exchanger or whatever it is I end up with. The temperatures have been 90 or so during the day, 70 or so at night. When I grew up, we didn’t have air conditioning, so I am familiar with how you keep a house cool in the summer. The house is well designed for Kansas summers with high ceilings and lots of cross-ventilation. It gets a little sweaty from the late afternoon to about eight, but the rest of the time it’s fine. Today’s supposed to be 93, and I expect it will be awful, but then tomorrow the temps drop and it should be actually pleasant for an entire week.
I have spent the last six weeks grinding at this short story, and suddenly, Sunday morning, the dam broke and I wrote 2800 words in a few hours. The 10,000 I wrote in the month before that, taking apologetic little stabs at story ideas, did NOT end up in the final story. “Ratatoskr” was written for a new magazine I am very excited to be creating something for. Details as soon as I can.
Also good publication news: I was contacted by a Korean agent about publications there. I actually publish more overseas than in the US.
I have been reading the Belgian writer, Jean Ray. My new favorite publisher, Wakefield Press, is publishing fantastic English translations (by Scott Nicolay) of his work, and I am reading them in order. Currently reading “The Gloomy Alley” in Cruise of Shadows — maybe the creepiest story I have ever read. 1931. This is so much better than Lovecraft. So so so much better. Sadly, he is anti-Semitic in the way that Lovecraft was racist, personally and not just systemically, but this story seems comparatively free of it. I will be interested to see if his stance changes as I read later books.
Glad you have high ceilings and lots of ventilation to help get through the summer heat! Congratulations on the writing burst.
Back to American Tour now! Since the last chapter is in November, I look forward to thinking about snow.