I’ve been reading Blow Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortazar. Every story is completely brilliant in every way. I can’t get over his subtle melange of the grotesque, the surprising, the mystical and the mundane. It seems to me that people in the field of horror and the fantastic frequently overlook Latin writers for some reason. Cortazar spent a great deal of time in Paris, so many of his stories are set there. It somehow underscores the obscurity of the personal horrors he describes. I am so in love with his writing. I wonder what will come out of this love affair, but then I look at recent stories like “Through Her Mirrors, Dimly” and I already see a faint resemblance. I fell in love with “The Night Face Up” — a haunting story about reincarnation — so many years ago, I can’t understand why I didn’t read his collections sooner. Maybe I was afraid of what they would demand from me.

It’s raining and outside I hear the intermittent cacophony of the fire engines wailing down Lankershim. There’s no such thing as the simple patter of rain here. My eyes are terrible today, but I’m trying to not stress about it. I’ve learned that my complications might take some time to work themselves out. If they don’t, I’ll need more surgery and I should be fine.

I’m closing in on the fourth and last new sample chapter for the proposal of The Secret Project. I’ll try to finish tonight. I have a very good agency interested in reading, but I fear that they’re looking for something very straight-forward and this is anything but.