wildcat

(Artwork by J.H. Williams III, after Terry Gilliam)

Threw together a "writing" playlist to stick on my iPod later. I've written a little over one thousand words tonight, and I'm not done. Still have forty minutes before I turn into a scandalous rumple of pajamas and quilts, before I'm submerged in the outer seas of the Land of Nod. And still...

"Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves’ birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through." - Angela Carter.

"As for my birth month, a detail of much interest to poets, obsessed as they are with symbolic systems of all kinds: I was not pleased, during my childhood, to have been born in November, as there wasn't much inspiration for birthday party motifs. February children got hearts, May ones flowers, but what was there for me? A cake surrounded by withered leaves? November was a drab, dark and wet month, lacking even snow; its only noteworthy festival was Remembrance Day. But in adult life I discovered that November was, astrologically speaking, the month of sex, death and regeneration, and that November First was the Day of the Dead. It still wouldn't have been much good for birthday parties, but it was just fine for poetry, which tends to revolve a good deal around sex and death, with regeneration optional." - Margaret Atwood. (The whistling you hear is the sound of me being PRETENTIOUS. Fuckers.)

"Portable culture is crucial to any society in motion. Manga in all its indigenous forms has been a thing built for Japanese commuters. Part of why that style of anthology doesn't play so well in America is that it's a culture of private cars, not public transport." - Warren Ellis. (Yes, I read comics on the bus. Shut up.)

"Good sex is impossible to write about. Lawrence and Updike have given it their all, and the result is still uneasy and unsure. It may be that good sex is something fiction just can't do — like dreams. Most of the sex in my novels is absolutely disastrous. Sex can be funny, but not very sexy." - Martin Amis, in a Playboy interview. (The excerpts from the interview are HILARIOUS given that he's being interviewed by a softcore porno magazine)

"Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky." - Alan Moore.