Month: May 2018

Dress You Up

I started writing another book yesterday.

Please note I didn’t say worked on the book, but started writing another book. Yes, that’s right; I am working on a Scotty book (I did start writing Chapter Fifteen yesterday), have the WIP as well that I’ve not touched in a while, and am trying to whip the last two stories for my short story collection into shape–but I started writing another book yesterday.

I am clearly completely insane.

I’ve been toying with an idea for a noir novel for awhile, with a gay main character; kind of a Hard Case Crime-style novel with a gay male protagonist. I know who my main character was; I knew who the young, sexy young man and young woman who would be the focus of the cover were, and even had a slight, amorphous idea of the plot of the book; I even knew the opening scene of the book would take place in a deserted alley late at night behind the gym the main character owned; the gym was simply called Muscles, and that was also the name of the book. But as I finished polishing “My Brother’s Keeper” for it to be read aloud for its final polish, an idea kept nagging at me. And as I started writing Chapter Fifteen, it began taking shape in my mind. And I knew it was the opening of Muscles, which I’ve never known quite how to structure. It came to me yesterday while I was working on other things, so I decided–in my Greg is completely crazy way, that the smart thing to do was go ahead and write it down, before I forgot it–I’ve done that so many times–and so I started writing it. Next thing I knew I was a thousand words in, and I ran out of words–but I know where it needs to go from that opening, and I even know how chapter two is going to play out. I really have this wonderful idea for the continuation of the chapter that I really want to try to do–weaving back story in around action–which is going to be hard to pull off, but I am very excited to try it.

I can’t wait for this weekend to get here so I can seriously work on all of this stuff!

I’ve also had three more ideas for short stories pop up lately–all amorphous, all thoughts simply swirling around inside my head, without form, without fully formed characters, without a cohesive plot or story–but the titles are there: “Malevolence,” “Headshot”, and “One Night at Brandy’s Lounge.” It feels so good to be creative again, you have no idea, Constant Reader; last year was such a barren, fallow experience creatively that, while it’s frustrating in some ways to have so many ideas swirling around inside my head, making it hard for me to focus the way I need to on the stuff that needs to be focused upon, it’s also kind of a blessed relief to know my creativity is still there. It’s also weird, because I’d forgotten that it’s always like this when I am writing a book; my creative ADD kicks in and I am all over the place, and every time I have to re-discipline myself, keep it under control and focus it on the work at hand. I think this is also why I never like my novels very much and am never very satisfied with them; because the entire time i am working on them I want to be working on something else and it feels forced.

WHY DIDN’T I FIGURE THAT OUT THIRTY BOOKS AGO?

Sigh.

At least I’m still capable of learning, which is something.

So, in honor of me learning something, here’s the opening of the first Chanse MacLeod short story EVER, “My Brother’s Keeper”:

It had been twenty-five years but Cottonwood Wells still stank.

I’d forgotten about the smell from the oil refinery just outside of town, near the oil fields where my father had worked. It hung over the town like a shroud, poisonous and foul. When the wind blew from the north the stench was almost unbearable. The trailer park where we lived was on the side of town closest to it so there was no escaping it, but I never got used to it. I tolerated it, like so many other things I tolerated growing up in that town, but I was always aware of it.

There was a Best Western now at the exit from I-10, and a Days Inn across the street. I pulled into the Best Western parking lot because it was easier. I got my briefcase and rolling suitcase from the hatch of my Subaru Forrester. In the distance, on the other side of town, I could see the flaming stacks where they burned off excess gas at the refinery. What used to be fields just on the way into town from the highway was now the enormous parking lot of a sprawling Wal-Mart Super Center, a Lowe’s on the other side. Like everywhere else in America, Cottonwood Wells had fallen victim to the plastic commercialization of the chain stores. There was a Whataburger and a McDonalds on the other side of the highway, and gas stations. I could see the line of fast food signs on the way into town past the Wal-Mart: Burger King, Arbys, KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut. All we’d had when I was a kid was a Sonic Drive-in downtown on the main drag, and a McDonalds.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Fresh

Well, I managed to get that slog of Chapter Fourteen finished yesterday; only managed about twenty-seven hundred words, but as I mentioned in the morning, I was tired and slightly out of sorts all day. I also worked on “My Brother’s Keeper” a little bit; not enough to get it finished and ready for what I call the “read aloud polish”, in which I read the story out loud to make sure the language and sentences flow properly. It also helps me catch repetitions. But its getting closer to that stage, and I am most happy about that; perhaps I’ll be able to do the read-aloud this weekend. I’d also like to do a read aloud of another story–not “Don’t Look Down,” there’s a lot more work necessary on that story, pruning and tweezing and adding things; since it’s a longer story I need to know my main character a lot more, and I am still not sure I have the opening right.

I have also decided that I am going to try to write a story for the Malice Domestic anthology for 2019; it has a gastronomy theme. I love testing myself with themed anthologies; to see if I can write to the theme, stretch the theme, and stretch myself as a writer. I rarely, if ever, get into these anthologies, of course; but I enjoy the challenge of trying.

(Oh, sure, I get a little bitter when I don’t get accepted, but then I move on and get over it. Life’s too short, you know. Well, is IS.)

We were also terribly distressed to realize last night that we were caught up on The Terror; I hadn’t realized the show was still airing. Sigh. Now we have to find something else to watch, as another episode won’t be available until next week. Incredibly annoying, but there you have it. I do have some thoughts about it–some especially about the gay character of Cornelius Hickey, adroitly played by Adam Nagaitis, who may be stealing the entire series out from under the rest of the cast–but I am going to reserve those opinions until I finish watching the series. It does, however, speak to how compelling and good the show is that Paul and I were both enormously disappointed to realize we had to wait until next Wednesday for another episode; we were really looking forward to seeing it through until it’s inevitable end this week.

Adam Nagaitis:

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And here’s hoping Chapter Fifteen will not be the slog Chapter Fourteen was.

And now back to the spice mines.

 

All She Wants to Do is Dance

Hello, Wednesday, how are you this morning? I’m a little out of sorts this fine spring morning in New Orleans; my sleep has been restless this week and thus I am not as rested as I would prefer. The book has turned once again into a slog, but the best thing about the slog is–as I was slogging through Chapter Fourteen yesterday–I had one of those “only when I am writing a Scotty book” moments: when I get bored with what I’m writing so I toss in a plot twist out of nowhere. And it’s a good one too; I can’t believe it never crossed my mind to do this. It also makes sense with what else is going on. I do think this book is going to eventually turn out to be something pretty decent; it’s just getting this slog of a first draft finished. It’s going to be a lot more sloppy than the first drafts usually are; because I am not going back and polishing whenever I get stuck, I am simply forcing myself to keep going.

It also occurred to me yesterday that since it was May 1, I am officially further behind than I’d wanted to be. I wanted to have the first draft finished by now, and obviously, I am still slogging through the middle, with at least another eleven chapters to go. Zounds! Zoinks! Heavy sigh! I also need to finish revising/rewriting some short stories, and need to remember to buy and send a mother’s day card to my mother.

Must. Make. List. Must. CONSULT. List. Regularly.

There’s no point in having a list if you don’t look at it, after all, and avoiding consulting the list for fear its length, and the things still to be crossed off, is not an excuse. It’s simply enabling the procrastination.

So, despite being tired, I am determined to get Chapter Fourteen finished today, and I am going to go back and polish/revise “My Brother’s Keeper.” That is the goal for the day (well, that and paying bills since its payday; avoiding thinking about it because it’s depressing isn’t going to make it go away).

Sad, harsh truths.

What was really funny was yesterday I was looking through real estate listings for a part of New Orleans where one of my characters in the book lived; I’d found a house the day before whilst working on Chapter Thirteen and described it. But the website was still up yesterday, and I looked at it again, and the perfect house for this character was sitting right there, a couple of rows below the one I’d used; one of those ‘faux Tara’ type houses that pretentious nouveau riche southern people like to build and live in; with the wide veranda and, of course, the ever-present, stereotypical COLUMNS. But I wasn’t feeling particularly witty at the time, nor did I want to take the time to revise the entire section, so I simply put in a note in bold, revise this and make it a plantation style house and make lots of snarky Gone with the Wind jokes.

I do love when that happens.

We are also still watching The Terror, which is quite well done. I am always amazed when the credits roll because the episodes go by rather quickly, despite the fact that the story actually moves rather slowly. I did comment last night, after we had watched two episodes, that I couldn’t believe we were only five episodes in, because the show is so complex and layered yet seems so simple on the surface, that it seems we’ve been watching for a long time and should be closer to the end than we actually are. That’s some pretty masterful storytelling, I think. I think I’ll be terribly sorry when this is finished.

In other exciting news, I got an ARC of Megan Abbott’s forthcoming Give Me Your Hand in today’s mail, which has me thrilled to no end. I love her work; and she somehow manages to surpass herself with each successive novel, which is no easy trick. Now, to find the time to read it. I also have ARCs of Lori Roy’s new novel as well as Alex Segura’s, and I simply have got to find the time to read these books.

give me your hand

I know I’ve not been keeping up with the Short Story Project, but I have read a shit ton of stories already this year! I’ll get back to it, I promise, but I also think I’m going to proceed a little differently than I have been. I’ve been talking about every story I’ve read here, and I don’t think I am going to do that from now on; instead, I am only going to talk about ones that hit it out of the park for me. That may also mean I don’t post about newly read stories every day, but I think I would rather do this than try to find something to say about stories I didn’t care for as much as others; this ends up diluting the Short Story Project, and not allowing me the time nor the opportunity to delve as deeply into the stories I really enjoy.

And now, back to the spice mines. I only managed two thousand words yesterday; and as I said, I am behind. So, must make daily word counts!

Penny Lover

Also over the course of the weekend, as I was desperate to find an excuse to neither clean nor write, we watched a horror film on Prime called Don’t Hang Up.

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To be honest, I doubt that we would ever have watched this film had I not been scrolling through the listings of horror films on Prime. I actually had started House on Sorority Row because Eileen Davidson and Harley Jane Kozack were in it, but lost interest really quickly. When I saw this listing, and saw that it starred Gregg Sulkin and Garrett Clayton, my first thought was I’ve never heard of this and my second was well, they’re cute boys at the very least.

(Sulkin was the romantic lead on an MTV series I watched called Fakin’ It, and of course, Clayton played underage gay porn star Brent Corrigan in King Cobra.)

It was actually kind of good, although the premise–a group of four male high school friends prank call people, filming the entire thing for Youtube–seemed a little shaky to me; I was all do people still prank call people? Is that still a thing? But things take a turn for the dark side when they prank call the wrong person; a psycho who wants to get revenge on them, and then the movie becomes classic horror movie, a la Scream and Halloween, etc. As far as the genre goes, it’s actually well done, and the two boys do a credible job of acting. There are also some surprise twists, and the end was absolutely perfect. Well done, folks!

We also started watching AMC’s The Terror.

The Terror is based on a novel by Dan Simmons and in the episodes we’ve seen so far, it’s very well done, well acted, well written with high production values. I do have some questions–the show begins with the two ships trying to get through the Arctic Ocean to map the northwest passage; a northern route around North America to the Orient. The ships get frozen into the ‘block’ when the sea freezes over…and then it jumps ahead eight months.

The Terror is based on the true story of  the Franklin Expedition–which vanished; the wrecks of the ships were found recently. I have to say, as I often do, that I love fictional stories that are based in real history. Fiction can often, for me, provide a jumping off place to start reading history or about a region; Steve Hamilton’s Misery Bay got me fascinated in the history of the Great Lakes, and Lake Superior in particular; which led to me reading a lot about shipwrecks in that largest of the Great Lakes, and the Edmund Fitzgerald in particular. Watching The Terror will probably lead to me reading up about the search for the Northwest Passage more, and perhaps some Canadian history as well.

But I particularly want to compliment the cast of The Terror, which is quite excellent in their roles; Ciaran Hinds is always terrific, as is Jared Harris. There is also a quite extraordinary Inuk actress, Nive Nielsen, who is giving an Emmy worthy performance. Tobias Menzies is also delivering; and I have a bit of a crush on him, and have ever since he played Brutus in the long-lamented two-season only series Rome, which I loved. I’m not sure what it is about Mr. Menzies that I find so appealing; he’s not classically handsome, but there is just something about his unusual jawline that I think is interesting.

I am quite looking forward to watching a few more episodes. I am also looking forward to the BBC America series Killing Eve, which is also available on the AMC app.

And Adam Rippon is killing it on Dancing with the Stars.

And now, back to the spice mines. I almost am finished with Chapter 13, and need to get some headway on Chapter 14.