Author: gregh121

I am a writer and editor who lives in New Orleans.

Dance to the Music

Saturday morning in New Orleans, and I can see blue sky up there outside my windows and above the crepe myrtles. I slept pretty well last night, but am a little bit foggy this morning; not sure what that’s all about, but I am sure some coffee will clear that problem right up. I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work last night, so I don’t have to leave the house at all this weekend if I don’t want to–and right now, in my foggy headed state, that sounds absolutely lovely, quite frankly. All I really feel like doing this morning is reading; I may even finish The Underground Railroad at long last. There are some chores to be done today, and I do seriously need to do some cleaning around here, but right now I am just going to relax and enjoy my coffee and maybe fold the laundry once the dryer is done fluffing them again.

I need to do some writing this weekend, but it may wait until tomorrow. We’ll see how I feel later on. Right now I’m too foggy to even think about it, quite frankly.

The more I look about the kitchen, the more my skin crawls. These windows are also thoroughly revolting. Maybe it’s time to get out the ladder and get to work on them.

But it’s also lovely to have a normal weekend again. Paul was at the office working the three weekends prior to the Festivals, and the one before that was the last weekend of Carnival, so we’ve not had a normal weekend in well over a month, which sucks. It’s part of why I think I’ve been in a bit of a writing rut, to be honest. (I just can’t seem to motivate myself to write, and when I do, it’s a real struggle to get words down. But I WILL GET SOME WRITING DONE THIS WEEKEND OR HEADS WILL ROLL. Whose heads, of course, remains to be seen.)

And we can get caught up on all of our television shows, at long last.

Okay, tis off to the spice mines with me. Here’s a Saturday hunk for you.

Midnight Confessions

Friday morning, and another week done on my slow descent into the grave. Wacky Russian was thinking about turning forty during our training session the other day, and along with it came the horrifying realization that I will reach sixty before he reaches forty. YIKES, right?

But I really don’t mind getting older. I miss the energy and the way my body used to bounce right back from exertion (of any kind) but other than that, I don’t mind. I don’t even think about myself being the age I am; it’s always a bit of a shock to realize I think of myself as being younger that I really am. But other than that surprise, I’m fine with it. I’ve certainly lived longer than I ever thought I would–being of the generation of gay men that I belong to, I never thought I would live to see forty, let alone get so close to sixty and still be going.

I’d thought about going to Costco this morning but I think I am going to wait until tomorrow. I may change my mind–it’s not even ten yet and I don’t have to be at the office until two, so there’s a window–but right now I’m not feeling it.

I didn’t finish “Quiet Desperation” yesterday, but am hopeful for today. I had every intention of getting it done yesterday, but I just wasn’t there mentally. Maybe I was being lazy; it’s always possible. But I am most pleased about having survived the post-Festival week, quite frankly. That’s always tough; not just TWFest/S&S, but after any book event, readjusting to regular life again the next week, while trying to get rested and back to normality, it always difficult. The first few days you’re mournful, wishing you could spend every day in the company of writers and readers; then comes the adjustment period. But it usually only takes a week–and is there anything more pointedly ‘back to reality’ than going to Costco?

I think not.

I also want to finish reading The Underground Railroad this weekend.

And on that note, perhaps I should get back to the spice mines. There’s a load of laundry to fold and a dishwasher to empty.

The glamorous life.

Here’s a hunk to slide you into the weekend:

Hello I Love You

Ah, a lovely night’s sleep, only interrupted by having to get up at five to get Amie an Uber to the Amtrak station; after which I returned to bed for another few hours of sleep. During that second round of sleep last night (or rather, this morning) a major thunderstorm rolled into the city. The crepe myrtles are swaying outside my windows, it’s completely gray out there, lightning and thunder, a downpour of rain. Right now, the rain has ceased, but there was just another flash of lightning and some more thunder, so who knows? It’s supposed to rain until around two this afternoon, which will, of course, make getting to work a JOY.

Oh, well, I haven’t driven the new car anywhere in the rain yet (outside of Alabama; I was rained on almost all the way from Wetumpka to Mobile on that trip). So, we’ll see how it handles in the rain on the slick, uneven streets of New Orleans…

I feel rested and awake this morning, which is quite lovely. I don’t have to work a long day tomorrow, either (my day today is shorter than usual), and am planning on making a Costco run tomorrow before going into the office (must remember to make list). These next two days and the weekend are going to be spent getting caught up on everything that has been let slide in the madness of the last few months–I’ve really felt like I’ve had no grasp of everything lately, and I need to get back on top of everything–which includes cleaning the Lost Apartment, organizing, filing, you name it. I am delighted that I’ve gotten everything to my accountant so I don’t have the burden of the taxes hanging over my head again. But at least now we have some semblance of normality for awhile again (until my trip to Alabama and Mississippi in late April), and as far as I know there shouldn’t be any other trips on the horizon at any time soon–although I do have to go back to Kentucky at some point, and Paul and I really want to go spend a long weekend at the beach at some point).

I didn’t write yesterday because, of course, because my mind was bouncing all over the place and I was so physically tired and mentally sleepy. I hate those days, when I can’t focus and know I just have to somehow just get through the damned day. Paul is very excited about this weekend, as there’s a major tennis tournament, the LSU gymnastics team is competing at regionals, and the World Figure Skating championships are also this weekend–so I doubt very seriously if I am ever going to be able to get him off the couch, but that’s also fine. He deserves some rest, frankly.

I’m hoping to get a first draft of “Quiet Desperation” finished today. Here’s hoping.

Here’s a Thursday hunk for you:

You and I

Ash Wednesday, and Carnival is over for yet another year. On the one hand, I am sorry it’s all over; as exhausting and frustrating as it may often be, I do enjoy it thoroughly. This morning I feel a bit hungover from it all; the over consumption, the excitement, the crowds, the engaging with people…it’s really so much, and so hard to comprehend unless you are completely immersed in it the way we are. Today I have a long day at the office and a late night bar testing; but this is a very short work week (three days!) and before I know it the weekend will be here again. The week after Mardi Gras always feels a bit off as everyone tries to get their bearings and to grasp reality again anyway.

Which means I am going to get back in the saddle and start writing again this week! Happy March 1st!

I also managed to read Donna Andrews’ latest Meg Langslow mystery last night, Die Like an Eagle.

“Strike!”

“No fair! I wasn’t ready!”

I glanced over at the field to see what was going on. My husband, Michael, in his role as assistant coach of the Caerphilly Eagles, was putting one of his players through batting practice. Probably seven-year-old Mason. They all looked alike with their baseball hats or batting helmets pulled low over their faces, but Mason was a good friend of Josh and Jamie, our twins, and I was pretty sure I recognized the voice.

“Mason, I asked you if you were ready before I threw it,” Michael said. “You said you were ready.”

Constant Reader already should be aware that I am a huge fan of Donna Andrews, and this latest of hers is yet another joyous return for the reader to the wonderful town of Caerphilly (I pronounce it carefully and will not change my mind as to that pronunciation so don’t even try), Virginia, and the world populated by her heroine, the amazing Meg Langslow, her husband, their twin sons, their menagerie of animals, and dozens and dozens of relatives and friends. The murder mystery is constructed around the world of ‘summerball,’ an off-shoot of Little League, and of course Meg’s twin sons are playing…which brings Meg into contact with the wretched and vile Biff Brown, who runs Brown Construction Company and also has managed to install himself as league president for Summerball. No one likes Biff–and he is hard to like–and then the night before the big tournament his look-alike half-brother is found murdered in one of Brown Construction’s porta-potties, stationed at the baseball field. And since pretty much everyone hates Biff…it’s not a stretch to think his look-alike brother was killed by mistake. Entertaining and at times laugh-out-loud funny, this is Donna Andrews at her best–which is saying something.

As I read the book (savoring every word), I realized that one of the reasons I love this series is because the people Andrews populates her town with are good people; the kind you’d like to know. Meg and her mother (and pretty much anyone in town, really) can always depend on their friends and neighbors to pitch in for the good of the town and the townspeople; within minutes of making phone calls they are generally overwhelmed with volunteers and food and so forth. Everyone is basically nice; those who aren’t nice and don’t change their ways usually end up murdered.

And I kind of like that.

Her next, Gone Gull, will be released in August and is already available for pre-order; I know I’ve already ordered mine.

Freedom! 90

Well, that particular long weekend is now over, and it’s back to the office with me tonight. I’m doing bar testing tonight, so I don’t have to go in until later. So I am going to spend the next few hours writing before heading to run errands on my way to the office. This is a short week, of course–four days–and then another three day weekend and next week is also a four day work week.

I got pretty caught up on the book yesterday; still behind, of course, but if I keep pushing myself I may actually get the damned thing done on time. I don’t know why I do this to myself all the time, but I do, and it’s very tiresome.

VERY tiresome.

But I slept well last night and I do feel rested, which is a good thing, particularly since I have two late nights this week as opposed to just the one. I need to run errands on Thursday during the day, which is also going to cut into my writing time that day (I can’t do errands on Saturday as it’s our annual New Year’s luncheon at Commander’s Palace; which is also going to make writing that day a bit difficult since we generally drink at lunch), so I have to be prepared to get up and get going that day. (I’m skipping Costco this time around; it may just be a grocery run when I get up that morning and be done with it.)

I also did a purge of some books this weekend.

All right, now I am boring myself, so I am going to get cleaned up and get to work on the book.

Here’s a hunk for the day:

Harper Valley PTA

Wednesday! It’s all downhill to the weekend!

Of course, that means I’m just wishing my life away, but I really am looking forward to a normal weekend. It will make a lovely change.

I am slowly acclimating back to my normal life, now that I am out of the Festival bubble. I got some writing done yesterday on one of the short stories I am working on–I put aside one and worked on another, simply because mentally it was in the front of my mind and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I think it’s a good, interesting story, but at the same time I don’t know where I am going to sell it, and I also think the tone is wrong, but it’s flowing right along and I’m having a lovely time writing it, so there’s that. Sometimes, I think, you have to write something that is just fun to write so you can remember how much joy you actually can get out of writing. Not sure how much, if any, writing I will get done today–I am that weird combination of sleepy, my muscles are tired (thanks to Wacky Russian this morning) and yet my brain is functioning fine. I could easily go right back to sleep, I think, it’s just a weird feeling.

Someone suggested to me over the weekend that I should do a collection of my crime and horror short stories; it’s something that’s occurred to me a few times over the last year or so, but I also figured I didn’t have enough published stories for a collection, and I would have to write a bunch of new ones. But yesterday, whenever I would get stuck on the story I was working on (“Quiet Desperation”), I started listing the stories that I’ve published that would fit into this collection, and was surprised at how many I actually have (I also have some finished, unpublished ones on hand); and thought to myself, hey, this collection might be easier to pull together than I originally thought. I have thirteen horror/crime stories that have been published; four that are finished and unpublished; and three partials I would need to complete. (Although I would probably revise the finished, unpublished ones again.) So that’s actually twenty stories; if each story was five thousand words that would one hundred thousand words total, not including the introduction.

That’s a book.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines.

Here’s a Hump Day Hunk for you!

Tighten Up

Ah, reality officially slapped me in the face this morning. Yesterday–while my first day back in the real world–I was still kind of in the Festival Bubble; reality didn’t seem quite real. Getting up at six this morning to come to work for a twelve hour day? Shit got real. I should have gone to bed at ten last night; instead I waited until eleven, which wasn’t the smart thing to do. I am not sleepy this morning, nor am I tired, but I am also not completely awake, either.

Heavy heaving sigh. I suppose tonight I shall have to try to go to bed early, and break this cycle once and for all.

There are, of course, worse things.

I am hoping to have a productive week, and next week I am hoping that I am going to start my increased and enhanced workouts at the gym as I attempt to get myself back into tip-top physical condition. I also intend to make a dentist appointment, get my bloodwork done, and see about getting another eye appointment; I feel like I already can’t see as well with the glasses I bought last year, which is endlessly annoying. Only this time, I think I am going to get a prescription for contact lenses–progressive ones, at that–because I can always get the prescription refilled at Costco after I exhaust my vision benefits. Work. That. System.

This week I want to edit three chapters of my secret project, write two chapters of the new Scotty, and finish two short stories–at least the first drafts. A friend of mine suggested to me this past weekend that I should put together a collection of my dark stories–crime and horror–and you know, I think I might actually have enough stories already to pull together as a collection, plus might have to write a couple of new ones. It’s a worthwhile project, methinks, to try to pull together. And I do like to write short stories, I just don’t think I’m very good at them–they certainly are harder for me (in a different way) than writing novels. The two stories I am working on are “The Terrortorium” (which was originally “Happyland”, but I really disliked that title) and “Quiet Desperation.” (Of course, the first is a rewrite and the second is an entirely new story, ergo–more fun to work on, and more difficult, but in a different way.)

I find myself writing, or at least thinking about writing, about writers more frequently these days. I’ve tried to avoid that trope (although Stephen King has written about writers a lot, and has done so extremely well) for most of my career, but I find myself going that way more and more lately. It’s something I am incredibly familiar with, for one thing, and I also know a lot of writers (not that I want to write about people I know, of course). I think the first time I wrote about a writer was in my short story “Annunciation Shotgun,” and since then I’ve kind of created a writer character who’s kind of a stand-in for me in some ways; he was the narrator of my story “An Arrow for Sebastian,” and I kind of used him again in both The Orion Mask and Garden District Gothic (Jerry Channing is his name). I find myself sometimes thinking about short stories and novels about writers, and I default to him…I even have an idea for a stand-alone novel about him. So…we shall see. Even “Quiet Desperation” is about a writer–although most definitely not Jerry.

Not sure what that’s all about, but there you have it.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Little Green Apples

well, that’s over for another year.

The combination Festival weekend (Tennessee Williams and Saints & Sinners) was, as always, a lot of fun and inspiring. It’s always lovely to see friends I don’t get to see very often (if at all), it’s always fun to talk about writing, and listening to writers and readers talking about books and stories and so forth always rejiggers my creativity (which, granted, has been working overtime lately but hasn’t had the requisite ‘park ass in chair and type’ drive that is necessary to get anything done.

I didn’t sleep well either Thursday or Friday nights, so Friday and Saturday were slogs for me. After my reading Saturday I came home, and just basically sat around the house, too tired to write or clean or even read. I went to bed early, and FINALLY slept well, so I felt rested and was raring to go on Sunday…until the closing reception was over and once again I hit a wall. So I took the streetcar home and watched Rogue One, which I’d bought on iTunes on Friday morning (release day), and then Feud, before going to bed. I slept in again, and I don’t have to be at the office until later today…I have a short day which is absolutely lovely.

It’s always lovely to go to events where you get to mix with other writers. It doesn’t happen very often–I’m luckier than most writers in that I get to do so more regularly than others–and there’s always that, I don’t know, sense of BELONGING you get when you’re around other writers, that is so terrific to feel.

I also bought some new books this weekend: a new copy of A Confederacy of Dunces, due for a reread; Kristen-Paige Madonia’s Fingerprints of You (we were on the y/a panel together–the second time, and I had meant to get her first book the first time and remembered to get it this time); All Over But The Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg (whom I’ve never read): and Long Shot, by Tyler Bridges and Jeremy Alford, about the Louisiana gubernatorial election in which Senator David Vitter, the overwhelming favorite, was defeated by a relatively unknown state representative. (I had kind of wanted to write a book about the rise and fall of both Vitter and former governor Bobby Jindal, titled Implosion…but I am not a journalist nor do I know enough about Louisiana politics….so I am glad someone wrote a book about Vitter’s fall.)

So, this morning and this evening I am going to try to wade through my emails and get caught up on that and everything that went on in the world while I was safely inside my Festival Bubble. I also have some writing to do this week!

So, to launch the new week, here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I worked late last night, and despite being tired, I wasn’t able to sleep until much later than I’d have liked, and as such I overslept this morning. Which, of course, has now thoroughly screwed up my sleep schedule. This is frustrating, because I’d reset my body clock to go to bed early and wake up early; this was in preparation to start going to the gym in the mornings before work starting next week.

Well, I suppose it’s okay; this weekend was going to screw it up anyway.

I have some errands to do today before heading down to the Quarter; some neatening and straightening of the Lost Apartment (the work being done on the upstairs is finally finished, so things can be put back the way they are supposed to be). I also am going to the Riverwalk Outlet mall to buy a new outfit for tonight’s parties (a little treat to myself), but I don’t feel awake and energetic the way I did when I was waking up early this week. Very annoying.

But last night I did start writing my story “Quiet Desperation” in my head, which is a good thing. It’s a great idea, and now having the right tone for it…well, that’s just perfect, you know? Finding the right voice for a story is everything. (I think I actually got the voice for “The Terrortorium” right yesterday, as well. Whew. Such a relief.)

I also have to got to Costco at some point; maybe Sunday morning, maybe Monday before work. We shall see.

All right I need to get a move on, take my vitamins, eat some breakfast, get cleaned up, pack some shit for the weekend. I doubt I’ll be checking in much over the weekend, everyone, so if not…see you on the other side.

Here’s a pair of hunks to slip you into the weekend.

This Guy’s In Love with You

Another lovely night of sleep. I’m not sure what has shifted in my body chemistry that’s enabling me to sleep so deeply and get so much rest, but it’s pretty wonderful and I am pretty certain I don’t care what is going on, to be honest. It’s lovely to wake up in the morning and feel rested and awake. Huzzah! Today is a late night–testing at the Corner Pocket–and I have tomorrow off. I was going to run some errands today, but in remembering that I have tomorrow off I can just do them tomorrow. Instead, I can hopefully wrap up my to-do list for the week today. Huzzah!

Always a good thing. It feels nice to get things done, you know?

I started writing a short story yesterday instead of finishing the one I am trying to finish–isn’t that always the way–and it has occurred to me this morning, as sunlight streams through the windows (which are filthy; I may need to clean them today), that I need to reign in my creative ADD. (I was just looking at an old to-do list, and saw a note to work on a short story called “In Lieu of Flowers.” I have no recollection of any short story called that, or even an idea that would fit that title. It is a great title, though…and this, Constant Reader, is a classic example of how this happens.)

But I am feeling like I can get everything back under control again. It’s amazing what sleep can do, isn’t it?

All right, I’d best get back to it.

Here’s today’s hunk: