I start this entry, and now I see it's the end of the month. Since this is, in a nominal sense only, a 'daily' record (see the origin of weBLog...) the idea of a given month having anything more than bookkeeping value... well it's an accident, but hey I don't mind a bit of coincidence on occasion.

In my case the Great Forgetting has been a combination of writing and publishing. The writing hasn't been completely by the wayside, I finished the manuscript for a book just before the month started, went into a two-week break, started a story and finished it, another story and finished that, and am in the middle of a third. So, that part's gone well, and I think another three, four weeks of short story work lie ahead of me, in the immediate.

It's the publishing part of things that's stalled a bit. Given the choice, I'll take it. The daily work is sanity in motion. In keys and words and the streams of thought composed therein.

Sanity, and energy. Health, dreams, love and hate and boredom too. Work and life. All of these things, writing.

Other notes, though? My wife and I have enjoyed Good Omens, well done Neil Gaiman, it's a joy long in the making. I never dreamt that this would make it to the screen. Any more than I, once upon a time, expected Hitchiker's Guide to make it to the screen. Some things, I figure, aren't meant to be.

I guess the only thing left to be made into a movie or TV show is A Night in Lonesome October, and if some brave soul ever tackles that one I wish them all the best.

What Good Omens the Amazon Show reminds me of are those magical Doctor Who episodes on PBS, or the radio Hitchhiker's Guide episodes, or the radio Star Wars plays, the delightfully odd British productions that I enjoyed but never even tried to explain to people like adults. It brought back a little bit of the magic, Good Omens did.

Kind of like what happened when I discovered the book, going on 25 years ago. Now that I think of it.

I've revisited a few old friends in story world, recently. These aren't reviews, call them writer's notes as I read through fun stuff.

Peter Straub's Shadowland, one of Peter's earlier works that I only recently tackled. This one's... well parts of it are dated, but I passed those with only a nod. The heart of the story grabbed me, about half through, and I was done for, in for the threepenny ride and enjoying every bit of it. This one reminds me to tuck things away, you never know when they'll come in handy, rememberances.

I read Clive Barker's The Scarlet Gospels, one of those books you stumble across walking through a bookstore, grab it, and next thing you know you're putting it down at the end, wondering where the time went.

It's a book that requires homework of the reader.

It's a book that makes me think about author and character and the relations between them.

I read Thomas Harris's new one, Cari Mora. There's a tipping of the hat relation here to Hannibal and that series, but it's only in passing. The story here is all new, and I had a ball getting to know this one.

I think this one appeals more to my appreciation for the movie Manhunter, Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs the stories before Silence of the Lambs, the movie, came out and recreated Hannibal Lecter for a different audience. There's a sense of possibility, and beginning, here, and open vistas.

And of the little things that we see every day.

I tucked into Rose Madder, one of Stephen King's early nineties books, and enjoyed the hell out of it. This one I'd bounced off of in the first attempt, when it first came out. This time though, I picked it up and dove right in. Strong stuff, but what intrigues me here is Stephen tangling with Myth, as opposed to myth. He does that, on occasion. Sort of like poetry, I wonder if Stephen's got the occasional moment where he hears and sees the hints on the pages, and then it's clear the runway fellas because it's takeoff time.

I think of big things here, and how to be afraid of them. The stories of Old. Be afraid, be fascinated. Take them apart, on occasion, and breathe on them until their eyes show the blacklight fade...