Category: Alabama

Let’s Kill Tonight

I had never read Jim Thompson before this past week.

I knew of him, of course; it’s very difficult to be a crime writer/reader and not to have. He probably isn’t as revered as authors like James M. Cain or Patricia Highsmith, but he also wrote dark stories about outsiders from society living on the fringes who tend to do whatever they need to in order to go on surviving, and that’s the kind of fiction I’ve always enjoyed reading for the most part. I kind of avoided him because…well, because straight white male writers of his era tend to be misogynistic, racist, and homophobic; those things tend to make me recoil as well as take me out of the story. I bought my copy of The Killer Inside Me a number of years ago, primarily out of curiosity and feeling like I should at least give him a go, and for some reason it jumped out of me when I was selecting books to take on the trip this past week…although thinking about it more, I think I bought it (and took it on this trip) because I was thinking about Chlorine, and wanted to read some noir. This was the one everyone seemed to think I should read, and so…into my backpack it went. I read it at night in the motel in Alabama last weekend, and it did not disappoint.

I’d finished my pie and was having a second cup of coffee when I saw him. The midnight freight had come in a few minutes before; and he was peering in one end of the restaurant window, the end nearest the depot, shading his eyes with his hand and blinking against the light. He saw me watching him, and his face faded back into the shadows. But I knew he was still there. I knew he was waiting. The bums always size me up for an easy mark.

I lit a cigar and slid off my stool. The waitress, a new girl from Dallas, watched as I buttoned my coat. “Why, you don’t even carry a gun!” she said, as though she was giving me a piece of news.

“No,” I smiled. “No gun, no blackjack, nothing like that. Why should I?”

“But you’re a cop–a deputy sheriff, I mean. What if some crook should try to shoot you?”

“We don’t have many crooks here in Central City, ma’am,” I said. “Anyway, people are people, even when they’re a little misguided. You don’t hurt them, they won’t hurt you. They’ll listen to reason.”

As simply written as this book is in terms of language–you’re not going to find complicated sentences in Thompson’s work–it’s actually a very smart and clever novel that kind of sneaks up on you, and also pulls the trick Patricia Highsmith/Daphne du Maurier were so good at: making you root for a horrible person to get away with committing crimes. Thompson has captured Lou Ford’s point-of-view and voice so brilliantly that you can’t help admiring him as he goes on his spree of torture, illegality and murder, fooling almost everyone in “Central City” (I loved the comic-book simplicity of the city name) into thinking he’s not only a good guy, but a decent one and a friend to everyone who is just going around doing his job. He also is very quick on his feet, often confounding people asking him questions about the strange crimes on his periphery by the intelligence and honest-to-God-seeming confusion by the questions in the first place. It’s a great act, and he pulls it off time and again over the course of the book, and Thompson/Lou do such a great job with said act that you start to root for him to get away with things. All the interior happenings and crimes also tend to distract the reader from what is actually going on in the book–which is that all of Lou’s crimes circle a local businessman/power broker whom he blames for murdering his half-brother…who took the blame for a crime involving a little girl when they were young that Lou committed. Lou also is a very unreliable narrator, who doesn’t give us anything beyond his own point of view and train of thought, which disguises from the reader brilliantly his own pathology.

I can imagine this book alarmed and disturbed people with its stark and realistic view of what can go wrong when a sociopath is given a gun and a badge, and how an exceptionally smart killer, which Lou is, can use the system to cover up his own crimes and pin blame on others. And it does seem, all the through the book, like Lou is going to be able to explain it all away and get away with all of his crimes…

I really enjoyed this book, and it made me realize I’ve been a little unfair to the straight white male writers of the past by avoiding their work. I’m definitely going to read more Thompson; this was exceptional and I do recommend you read it.

Just a Little Too Much

I got home last night around seven, after eleven hours on the road from Kentucky on what was actually a rather beautiful day for a drive. I finished listening to The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman, and timed it perfectly so I could queue up her most recent, The Bones of the Story, to listen to for the rest of the way. I was tired, and as always, when I got hungry I was on a lengthy stretch in northwest Alabama where there is hardly anywhere to stop. By the time I got into an area with places, I wasn’t hungry and debated in my mind at every exit whether or not to stop. Again, though, it was a beautiful drive and a beautiful day. There wasn’t even traffic when I got to New Orleans other than the usual backup before the bridge across the river. It was nice to get home, relax in my chair, be stalked by Sparky, and just be home. I did keep thinking all day that it was Sunday, and had to remind myself regularly that it was, in actuality, Friday. I slept well last night after getting home–I missed my bed, my cat, and my partner, as always–and of course, Demon Kitty got me up at six this morning for his feeding. But…he also got back into bed with me for mostly cuddling and purring with the occasional apex predator cat attacks. It’s good to be home. I spent the evening last night watching our shows and getting caught up (Mary and George, Hacks, Abbott Elementary) and I can now stream The Iron Claw on Max, so we’ll probably watch that later. I have to definitely run errands this morning–mail, groceries, prescriptions, library sale–and am kind of looking forward to a nice weekend of re-entry into my regular life and settling in.

I also have lost track of the world because I really wasn’t doing much on-line other than the occasional deletion of unnecessary emails and the very rare moments when I would look at social media on my phone while I was waiting for something. But on the other hand, I am not so sure that’s a bad thing. It was nice to be away from the world and social media and everything else and just relax, you know? I also managed to read two books on the trip (Salvation on Sand Mountain and The Killer Inside Me; more on those later) and started a third (Where They Wait by Scott Carson), which was fun, and also thought about writing and my future, in a more macro and overarching way. But whereas before the trip that would have overwhelmed me and I would have to walk away from the computer, this morning I feel more inspired and clear-headed about everything than I was before I left…which points out how important it is for us writers who work full-time jobs to actually take a break from ALL work, not just the day job.

The trip itself was nice. I got to spend time with my dad, and another baby picture of me appeared, and one that actually showed my face! It’s kind of a family joke, but we have boxes of pictures of my sister in the first two years of her life–and two in total of me (and she’s in one of them). It doesn’t mean anything–there aren’t many pictures of either of us taken between 1963 and 1967 or so, for example (when Dad bought his first camera). They were living with my grandfather after my sister was born and they were still in high school; so everyone around them was taking pictures of the baby (and my sister was a beautiful baby); I was born right before they moved to Auburn for my dad to go to college and we were very poor for a long time; they had no camera and they didn’t know a lot of people there, either, but it’s always been a family joke about having no baby pictures of me as opposed to the intensely documented first two years of my sister’s life. I did scan said picture with my phone, so I may share it someday. I also got to learn some more family history–Dad reminisced about the early years with Mom and the two kids; and it really is staggering how hard they worked and sacrificed for us both. Dad of course thinks he never made things easy enough for her, but he also never takes into consideration how much Mom loved him. He’s doing better, but he’ll never be the way he was before, either.

And on my drive back yesterday when I stopped for gas in Toomsuba (I always stop there on the way home, it’s only about another three or so hours from there and the anticipation of being home starts there) when I noticed I had a text message from a friend that was rather cryptic, and I was puzzled, but it mentioned “Donna Andrews” and Bouchercon so when I got back in the car I texted back, and then checked my emails. So yes, once again I am nominated for an Anthony–that’s three years in a row, which is very cool–for the anthology School of Hard Knox, which I “co-edited” (I really didn’t do much) with Donna Andrews and Art Taylor. It IS an excellent anthology, and if you like crime short stories, you really can’t go wrong with it. But it was nice to be nominated again; I didn’t think I really had any chance this year for a nod, so that was a very pleasant surprise…and you know, I’ve never really basked in the glow of sharing credit with two people whose work I respect and who I also respect and love as people.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. I feel a bit hungry this morning, so I need to eat something and start my day. It’s so good to be home, and I’ve missed you, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be in and out all weekend here, trying to get caught up on talking about books I’ve read and other things. So have a lovely Saturday, and I’ll chat with you again later.

Bobby Sox to Stockings

Saturday morning and I am off to Alabama later this morning. I still have to make a packing list, finish some chores around here, and get gas on my way out of town, but there’s no rush and no need to stress about getting there. I’ll probably stop somewhere to eat lunch after I cross the Mississippi state line, and then will have dinner with Dad up there. I’m excited to see Dad again, but I am a little worried about the drive and my stamina. I am planning to drive back to New Orleans on Friday so I can have two days to recover from the lengthy drive, which will be exhausting. I am going to listen to Carol Goodman’s The Drowning Tree–which I started listening to on the drive back from Panama City Beach last October, but never finished; I need to start over but that’s perfectly fine; I love Carol’s work, and I am probably going to listen to Lisa Unger on the way home. I really wish I had started listening to audiobooks in the car years ago, you know?

Yesterday was nice and relaxing. I like working at home on paperwork and stuff because outside of an attention-needing kitten with BIG energy, I don’t have any distractions. I can focus in a way that I can’t when I’m in the office. But once my work was done I went out and ran my errands–picking up things for Paul while I’m gone, mail, prescriptions, etc.–and then came home and relaxed. We finished Dead Boy Detectives, which we both absolutely loved, and then caught up on Abbott Elementary before moving on to the new season of Hacks, which has not declined in quality at all. I did some cleaning around here yesterday, too–got the laundry finally caught up, and almost caught up with the dishes, too (last load needs to go in this morning before I leave), so I can leave with a clear conscience knowing I am only going to come home to Paul’s mess, and he really doesn’t make much of one in the kitchen anymore. He generally just uses the microwave or makes scrambled eggs for the most part while I’m gone.

I also signed and uploaded my tax returns yesterday–another refund, thank you, baby Jesus–and so that’s out of my hair. It’s always nice to not have to worry about things and go on a trip with a fairly clear conscience. I’ll probably take some stuff with me to read and work on, knowing I may not have time to do much of anything while I am there. Dad will have been gone for almost two weeks by the time we get up there on Monday, so he is going to have lots of chores to do–and he never allows me to help, which drove Mom crazy. This time it’s a stamina issue for me, which is truly sad given I’m sixty-two and he’ll be eighty-two later this year, but I also had two major surgeries since Labor Day and damn it, I am old. Twenty years ago I’d probably already be back to normal and going to the gym three times a week trying to burn off the fat I would think I had gained during my long inactivity. I put on a shirt the other day for work and wondered for the first time in years “does this make me look good or do I look fat?”–so maybe the vanity is coming back, which may not be an entirely bad thing.

I just checked the weather for both Alabama and Kentucky and looks like a lot of rain, warm during the day and cold at night. Well, we won’t be going anywhere at night but I’ll need to take a jacket of some sort with me just in case; a zip hoodie should do the trick.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely weekend, and I am not sure when I will be back. Possibly tomorrow, or who knows?

I Want to Walk You Home

Work at home Friday, and Trip Eve, since tomorrow I will be off to Alabama. I slept really well last night, and of course had to get up at six to feed His Royal Sparkiness. I went back to bed for another hour before His Highness decided I either needed to get up or he was going to cuddle with me. That was peaceful for about five minutes, before he decided he needed to either eat my watch or bite off my Breathe Right nose strip. Comfortable as the bed was, I was awake and finally decided to just get up. I have a nice day of work-at-home duties to do, a couple of errands to run later, and I also have to start packing and so forth for the trip. The house is also a mess I can’t leave in this condition, so I’ll need to get the place cleaned up at some point today as well.

After work yesterday I picked up the mail, where I got my copies of Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett and The Bootlegger’s Daughter by Nadine Nettman. Both women are amazing people and amazing writers I get to call friends, which is another reminder of how charmed my life actually is. It’s so easy to get morose about life and everything because so many little things are there to get you down all the time, and those minor issues and concerns and irritations gradually build until you’re just grumpy all the time. I keep being hard on myself, but 2023 was a lot; one thing after another and I am still not completely healed from everything, and it’s okay to still have bad days now and then. At least there are more good days than bad.

And with the world burning down all around us, who isn’t having bad days?

I’ve pretty much decided on my reads for the trip. The audiobooks are of course going to be from Carol Goodman or Lisa Unger, and I am looking forward to listening to them in the car. I don’t know how much time I will actually have to read while I am up there, but I know when Dad is doing chores he refuses to let me help with (“you’re on vacation and you don’t do chores on vacation”–despite the fact that he always has) I’ll have some time to read. I’ve certainly spent more time in Kentucky and Alabama this past year than I have in probably ten years (Alabama is more like forty years), but I don’t mind. It’s nice to reconnect with your roots and your history, even after forty years, and every time I go up there I get inspiration for more stories and books about the county. Whether I will ever actually write them remains to be seen, but I do like the inspiration.

I also spent some more time down the Noah Presgrove wormhole. It’s just such a bizarre story, and that they still don’t know much despite the death occurring eight months ago. There were some more posts on the Facebook page yesterday, including one that triggered an outpouring from the page members about personal tragedies in their own lives–sons “murdered” by their wives; nieces and daughters and sisters whose murderers were never caught (I am really getting a bad opinion of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation–the OSBI), and more hard feelings. It’s a litany of tragedy and sadness and lack of closure, and you can’t help but feel bad for them all, even from a removed distance. I don’t know if I ever will base a book out of this story–trying to explain the injuries alone would be an exercise in madness–and obviously, it wouldn’t be based on the actual case but would arise from the same kind of situation. It feels morbid to talk about writing about other people’s tragedies, doesn’t it? But…I am a crime writer and it’s a very strange case. And it’ll eventually be a true crime documentary, I bet.

I also had my soul recharged by a phone call with a very dear friend who is also a writer yesterday, and it really did feed my soul. It’s very easy to feel depressed and discouraged and isolated when you’re a writer who doesn’t get the chance to talk, either face to face or on the phone, with my writer friends very often, and it’s always so enriching for my writerly soul. When I got off the phone I was in a very cheery mood and excited about writing again for the first time in a while. I’ve been dissecting my writing process a lot lately, and my process–easier to do when you actually aren’t doing anything, really–trying to remember the last time I actually enjoyed writing (it does seem like a long time, but…2023 seemed to last an eternity), and trying to figure out what I am not doing that I used to enjoy. I think it’s partly been depression and stress and anxiety, and now that the anxiety and stress are gone, it’s just a matter of getting back into the habit of doing it every day again. I am finally used to my work schedule and no longer mind getting up early in the morning, and I am only sometimes tired when I get home from work. What I think of usually as laziness was also do the recovery from everything and the surgery; my stamina is way down and hasn’t built back up again. This is my first trip of any kind since the surgery, so we’ll see how I do with the driving…

And on that note, I need to get ready for my ZOOM meeting at nine. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably check in again later.

Since I Don’t Have You

Thursday morning last day in the office until Monday the 12th! GASP. But yes, I am meeting my dad in Alabama this weekend and then Monday the 5th we’re driving back up to Kentucky, from whence I shall drive back to New Orleans on Friday. I was very glad that I figured out that the trip hanging over my head was why I was a bit off this week, which was a very good thing to realize…I was getting worried about why I was off, you know? And at my age, sometimes (usually) it’s something. Sigh.

I went further down the Noah Presgrove mysterious death Internet wormhole, and the story just continues to gnaw at me. I also found a “Justice for Noah” Facebook group that is mostly people from the small town he was from (Comanche, Oklahoma) and the surrounding counties…and what a fucking gold mine that was, seriously. The town is only about 1300 people or so, and it’s a very rural area similar to the one where I grew up in Kansas. It was eye-opening, and a reminder of just how nasty small town/rural areas can be. The page is full of locals snapping and sniping at one another, accusing people of knowing more than they know, and when someone being called out responds to being called out, well, people go apeshit on them. One girl who was there telling people they had things wrong got buried with comments like “you were drunk so we can’t trust your memory” or “you’re in on the cover-up” and it’s wild how all these old hurts and resentments can come to the fore when something like this happens. I had been thinking about writing another book set in small-town Kansas (beyond the ones I’ve already talked about on here) called All Their Guilty Stains, but this story might be better than the one I dreamed up for that title.

That’s the “real America” for you, people. (Peyton Place and Stephen King’s Needful Things are excellent books about how stifling rural small towns can be, and they get the pettiness down perfectly. One of the reasons I love King so much is his ease at creating a realistic town with real people who basically harbor grudges and resentments until everything starts boiling over.)

But I definitely went down the wormhole with Noah’s murder/suspicious death last night; looking up podcasts and videos. And yes, I am well aware that I may not have even been interested in the story had the video that started the whole thing–a Banfield News report–not had a thumbnail of his senior picture and my first thought was that’s a very good-looking young man–he was possibly murdered? And then I went down the wormhole.

And of course, everything on the Facebook page I mentioned? You expect the family to of course talk about how marvelous and wonderful and kind he was, and that’s a lot of the posts on that page, too–basically, he’s been deified, and that American “don’t speak ill of the dead” custom often covers up all kinds of shit, and much as they like to believe they know everything about their kids, most parents don’t and are very surprised–as well as being in denial–about the deceased. I mean, no one is loved by everyone. And a good-looking star athlete in a small Oklahoma town? You can just bet there were kids with grudges and resentments built up over the years.

I felt good yesterday when I got up, as I do this morning, and I got a lot done at the office…but I started feeling tired and sleepy in the late afternoon. I had to also run errands on the way home (Sparky needs his treats!) and picked up my copy of The Dusk, a graphic novel co-written by my friends Elizabeth Little and the wonderful Alex Segura. I also had a royalty check waiting for me (huzzah!) and, of all things, a fan letter forwarded to me from Crooked Lane. I wasn’t really quite sure what to expect–the last time someone wrote me a letter it wasn’t exactly a fan letter, and I’d actually forgotten how nice that feels. I just glanced over it because I wanted to read it sometime when I could savor the ego-boast; which is something I’ve been needing, writing wise, for a long time. And you know what else it did? It kicked my fucking mind into gear. I’ve been struggling with this book I’m writing for a long time now, and it’s certainly taking me longer to write a draft than it usually does. Part of the problem was I couldn’t figure out the over-all point of the book, which I realized last night; there’s always got to be an underlying point to the story that I am trying to illustrate through the main character. It’s a satire of state-sponsored homophobia, and I of course created a homophobic group leading the armies against drag queens, transwomen, and queers. But that wasn’t personal, and that was why I wasn’t having as much fun writing it and why I was having so much trouble with this book. Last night, as I sat in my chair, digesting a gushing fan letter and Noah Presgrove’s murder/suspicious death, I started thinking about this some more and then it hit me: I need to know Jem’s personal story/growth through this book and it punched me right between the eyes–so much so that I scribbled it all down in my journal and hopefully, I can get back to work on this sooner rather than later.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for today. Have a great Thursday and I may be back later.

I Only Have Eyes For You

Sunday morning and I slept pretty well. Sparky of course annoyed me out of bed to feed him around six, and then I did go back to bed for two more hours. Our big day of errands wore us both out yesterday, and I also just realized the primary thing I went to Costco for? I didn’t get. AUGH. Oh, well, it’s just sweet-and-low packets; I can get some anywhere and then go for the three year supply the next time we head out there. Still irritating, though. After we got home and put everything away, we settled in to finish Vigil, which I greatly enjoyed, and then we moved on to a rather clever slasher flick called Bodies Bodies Bodies, and then we tried Baby Reindeer, which was very strange and really just kind of sad. I don’t think we’re going to continue with it, but it was something different, to be sure.

Yesterday wasn’t a total wash, just as today won’t be. It may be Paul’s birthday–I’m going to get us a pizza for dinner, and maybe rent something to watch, lie Dune Part II–but I can get some things done this morning before he gets up. I’m also not going to wake him up until he wants to get up, and I also promised to make him waffles, which I’ve not done in so long it’s almost shameful, frankly. Paul is 61 today, and I will be sixty-three in a mere four months. I did make some writing notes yesterday, and of course I was also thinking a lot most of the day about the things I’m working on. I also recognize my incredible skill at rationalization here as well…no one can rationalize or justify the way I can when it comes to excuses for not writing. I also downloaded some biographies of King James I–the influence of Mary and George, no doubt–but I am not entirely sure why I’ve avoided biographies of King James before. I have a lifelong interest in both his mother (Mary Queen of Scots) and his predecessor (Elizabeth I), as well as his Stuart descendants; yet have always avoided King James. I’m not sure why that is; but other queer kings and royals have often been of interest to me, but James didn’t come to a bad end the way most of the others did and so can be considered a successful queer King. (Frederick the Great is another.) It also seems like this Elizabethan/Jacobean era was rife with sodomy all the way through to the eighteenth centiury, both in England and France. The last son of Catherine de Medici, and the last Valois king of France, was gay (Henri III); so was the brother of Louis XIV and one of his illegitimate sons, the Duc de Valentinois; and of course James I’s great-granddaughter Queen Anne was a big ole lesbian. The queers disappear from European royal history for a while, certainly in England and France in the eighteenth century. I’ve always wanted to write about Louis XIV’s brother, and it may be interesting to write about Henri III from the point of view of one of his mignons. The French court in the 1580’s was a hotbed of intrigue, conspiracy, and murder; a very turbulent period I’ve always wanted to write about.

I’ve also come to realize that I need to be more ambitious with my writing rather than saying oh that’s too complicated or too hard or too difficult for me to write. I’ve been putting off my historical interest writing for quite some time, always thinking that someday I’ll feel competent in my skills to try it. It’s actually a cop-out; I should have written some of these years ago, or at least got started. My Sherlock story (still so incredibly proud of it) was my first real historical story (one written in a period of time I was not alive and cannot remember), and all of my fears about it were so clearly misplaced. You don’t have to know a period so intimately that you might as well have lived then in order to write about it. How much research is too much research? The difference between a short story and a novel, of course, are significant–clearly, you don’t need to know as much with a short story as you would with a novel–but again, how much is not enough and how much is too much? The problem (for me, at any rate) is research is like planting seeds–more ideas grow the more research I do, it’s an ADHD thing, I’m pretty sure. But I am definitely going to start the research for my seventeenth century novel, methinks; I love history, so why not? I can scratch two interests at the same time.

Saturday morning I will leave for Alabama for Decoration Day, or what I always thought it was called, The First Sunday in May. That’s what it’s always been called, it’s definitely what my grandmothers and mother called it, and that’s how it’s lodged in my memory banks. I’m going to help my dad put out the flowers and clean the graves, and then on Monday morning I’ll follow him north to Kentucky. It’ll be a nice week away, and I am going to try to get some work done and a lot of reading done while I am there. (Dad called it Decoration Day in an email the other day, and I thought, well, that makes a better name for it but for me, it will always be called The First Sunday in May.) I did notice last year that the only people out doing it were my age or older, so it’s probably one of those county customs that is dying out in these modern days of the Internet, cell phones, and streaming. A pity, to be sure, but sometimes traditions do die out. “The old ways”, as they say in creepy tones in Gothic novels that I love so much. I also imagine my creativity is going to explode while in Alabama as it always does.

And on that note, I am going to eat breakfast, get cleaned up, and head into the spice mines for the day. I may be back later, one never can be certain–but if not, have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

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Tell Him No

I did get tired yesterday afternoon, but I think it was more from malnutrition somehow than anything else. My breakfast and my lunch did not fill me up1, and after I had lunch I did feel like my batteries were starting to run down a bit. It was, all in all, a good day for the most part. I did make it through the workday. I ran errands after work (got some things for Sparky from Chewy, and the last batch of new shirts arrived); started organizing the draft blog posts to determine which can be combined (same topic started on different days, months, years) and which can be finished and which can be deleted; I finished the revision of “Passenger to Franklin” (and I think it’s much much better now); and started getting my (delayed and extended) taxes together. Ideally, I can get that done this week and to my accountant by Friday so that will be one thing more that’s been hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles out of the way. Huzzah! I also took a look at “When I Die,” and while this one is going to take a lot of fucking work, it’ll be so much better when I finish it!

I slept well last night, and my coffee is rather delicious this morning. It was cold yesterday morning when I left for work–surprisingly so–but it warmed during the day so my car was very hot when I got into it after work. It’s going to get warmer consistently later in the week–I still can’t get over it being eighty-eight last Friday, it’s only April for Pete’s sake–which means it’ll probably be hot and sunny as I visit graveyards with Dad the weekend after next. I was thinking last night, as we watched Vigil (it’s terrific, highly recommended), that I’m almost in a good place again for the first time in almost ten years or so. My stress levels are way down, my moods generally are good and even, and I don’t have flashes of anger anymore (mostly while in my car). Other idiot drivers are still annoying, but don’t send me into a rage anymore. Now, it’s more like I get annoyed, say very calmly, “yes, you’re an asshole who can’t drive” or “yes, you are so much more important than all the rest of us”, but as I said, it’s calm–and I can absolutely live with that.

I got a short story rejection email yesterday, and I was completely ambivalent about it. The problem is you’re never sure if the story just doesn’t work for them or if the fact that the main character is gay was a problem for them. Sure, the rejection had the standard form please submit to us again, but…yeah, not so much. This is what straight white cisgender people don’t get, with all their whining about “merit”–the only people who they think actually earn their careers are straight white cisgender people, after all–because you can never be certain that it’s the story that they didn’t like enough or whether homophobic concerns come into play: our readers might get mad at is if we shove queer down their throats or we don’t want to become known as the queer crime publication and every other iteration of that you can imagine…any excuse not to publish a queer writer. Many years ago, I decided that I would never allow suspicions of homophobia affect my writing career, and I would always assume it was the story that was the problem. But…you have to wonder. When a magazine only buys your work when you send them things with straight main characters (twice) but rejects everything with a gay main character or even a gay theme, you have to start to wonder.

And given how few of the magazines that actually pay well for short stories (or pay at all) there are and how little queer work they actually publish…you begin to wonder. You don’t want to believe it’s homophobia or homophobic concerns, but here we are, you know. The stories I am working on now aren’t really crime stories, they’re more supernatural/horror stories, but I do think “The Last To See Him Alive” is not only a good story but it’s written really well. I need to revise it and edit it, of course, but it’s in really good shape already which is pleasing. “When I Die” needs a complete overhaul, but that’s fine. It’ll be a better story for it when it’s finished. And while these stories I am working on could complete the collection, this morning I am wondering if I should include horror in this book or not.

I really do not understand these new state laws (here in Louisiana we got one, too) allowing people to drive their cars into protestors, something which inbred morons Tom Cotton of Arkansas and eternal bitchboy Josh Hawley of Missouri are all about. Nothing says leadership like telling people to kill or injure other people. As always, these kind of Nazi-lite fascistic laws come to you courtesy of the Republican Party and MAGAt. I personally am looking forward to driving my car into a crowd of Trump protestors and hitting the gas pedal, frankly. When I saw this on social media yesterday, I responded with Never thought I’d see the day when the Kent State massacre would have fanboys, which prompted some responses which, of course, made the most sense: they had them at the time. I was too young to remember the right-wing response to the Kent State shootings, I just remember being appalled that the National Guard murdered four students on a campus, and I have always viewed it as a disgrace and a tragedy…but of course the right did not see it that way–just as they backed William Calley as a hero after the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Even I–who have always known how vile and unpatriotic the right in this country is and always has been–didn’t think they were that callous and awful.

They are, they always have been, and they always will be.

The thing that always amuses me about this is the “patriots” of the right always forget that the only reason we exist as a country was because of mass protests….which led to a revolution. So, by that way of thinking, the most patriotic thing you can ever do is protest, really. Remember the Tea Party, the seeds that grew into MAGA? Remember the stolen election of 2000? Remember how Reagan dismantled and changed (and ruined) Social Security? The only reason there’s an issue with it now is because of Reagan, St Ronnie of the Right. The Republicans are the party of Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, and people like Cotton, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, and Matt Gaetz are their heirs.

Remember back when I was thinking about starting to read and study poetry? I got a great recommendation from a dear friend at S&S of where to start–Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early–and I’ve been paging through it randomly, reading poems here and there, glimpsing fragments, and I think I’m slowly starting to come to an understanding of poetry I never had before. I am not going to review poetry on here as I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough and I don’t want to make a fool out of myself self-teaching and coming to what regular readers of poetry already understand from studying it. It’s a wonderful education, and one I kind of wish I had started earlier. Ah, well.

I also decided to postpone reading the Paul Tremblay and take it with me to Kentucky to read. Instead, I’ve decided to reread a book I don’t remember much of–Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford. He published a sequel this past year that I would love to read, but not remembering the first one was a problem, so I decided to go ahead and reread it. I don’t talk about Ford much, but he really is one of the most underrated queer writers of our time. He can basically write anything (a blessing and a curse, as I know all too well), and he does it extremely well. Rereading the first chapter last night pulled me back into the story effortlessly, and the voice is so compelling and hauntingly real…and likable. I’m looking forward to reading more of it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

  1. I also ate dinner late on Sunday night, which I usually don’t do and am sure that had something to do with it, but given I don’t really get hungry all that often it was kind of cool. ↩︎

I Cried a Tear

Well, it’s back to the office Monday and I am feeling pretty good about the weekend. Did I get everything done I needed to get done? Of course not, I never do. But the house is in good enough shape that if I maintain it every night then next weekend I can move on to some further cleaning/organization/declutter project because I don’t have to start over catching up on the the basics yet again. I also made dinner last night for the first time in forever, actually cooking, and it was kind of nice and the meal was actually quite good. I also was creative this weekend, and maybe very little actual writing was done but a lot of planning and thinking about the projects and so forth that need to be worked on and I also had a lot of really good ideas. I started thinking about the projects in terms of what I was trying to do, what the point of the story was, and how best to get the message across to the readers while also telling a compelling story. This is the kind of thing I miss doing, and am usually so rushed with impending deadlines and so forth that I don’t have enough prep time before I start writing, if that makes any sense? It did to me, and I think that’s another reason I have Imposter Syndrome on a regular basis; I kind of leap blindly into the project and hope that it works out all right.

I slept very well last night and didn’t want to get up this morning (or at least out of bed, which was warm and comfortable), but as I swill this first cup of coffee I am starting to come to life and that’s a good thing. I am not patient-facing today–it’s my in-office administrative day, and I am pretty caught up on my work. The downstairs looks nice and neat and orderly this morning; there’s dirty dishes in the sink, of course, but that’s easily rectified. On the way home tonight I have to stop and get the mail and pick up a prescription. I am leaving for Alabama/Kentucky the week after next, and so that’ll be nice. I’ll take some books to read, and I imagine we’ll do some sight-seeing in Kentucky while I am up there this year. It’s nice visiting Dad, and seeing my sister. Mom’s death brought the survivors closer together, which is nice. They still live too far away for regular visits, but it’s nice to be closer to them both.

Overall, it was a nice weekend. I got some rest and recovery time, and feel much better this morning than I did any morning this weekend–which might be related to staying in bed longer–and we started watching a terrific new show last night called Vigil, which is from the same team that did Line of Duty, which was exceptional. Vigil, which isn’t something I thought I’d be too keen on–a murder mystery on a nuclear submarine that also includes international intrigue on top of the crime–but always trust people who’ve produced another show you liked, really; Vigil is superb (submarines absolutely terrify me–my claustrophobia would drive me insane within an hour of getting on board, and if it didn’t before, it would definitely happen once we submerged; this is why that novel The Chill by Nick Cutter was so unsettling–underwater in a submarine in the dark. No fucking thanks) and absorbing. I cannot wait to watch more of it tonight after writing and doing some more clean-up around here. My writing goals for this week are to make more progress on the book, finish revising “Passenger to Franklin” and “When I Die,” and get a good night’s rest. I also have some emails to reply to, as well as some others I need to generate. I did make progress on finishing some of these draft posts I’ve had in the files forever–some going back as many as four years (I wrote down my initial impressions of January 6, which I do need to finish since we are heading for another precipice)–and it’s nice to get some of this stuff cleaned out. I still have more drafts back there than needed; I think there are numerous ones that can be actually combined, since I started a related topic more than once, methinks–usually because something makes me angry or frustrated enough to forget oh yes, started something on this very subject several times already, maybe should combine them all into one.

I also want to finish the blog posts about my books already published. I am not sure where I left off–I know the last one I did was for Dark Tide, but I think I’ve already done The Orion Mask, which leaves Timothy because I know I did a lot of promotional posts for both Bury Me in Shadows and #shedeservedit. I’ve also already done the most recent Scotty books, too–I think I’ve covered that entire series already. I know the last Chanse book is still there in the drafts, too–I thought I’d need to reread it since it’s been so long since I wrote it, which isn’t a bad idea. I don’t really remember Chanse’s voice, and am not sure I can still hear it if I want to. I know I’ve written a Chanse short story since the series ended, and I have a Chanse novella in progress that went off track and needs to be steered back onto the tracks. I do have another idea for a Chanse book, but I am thinking he might just be a supporting character and I can center the book from another point of view, which could be interesting. See what I mean? My creativity has really come roaring back.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and get cleaned up to head into the spice mines. I hope you have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again a little later.

Doesn’t look like he likes the photographer’s direction to “arch your back a little and stick your butt out”, does he?

Poison Ivy

Work-at-home Friday! I got up early this morning for some reason, but it was an hour later than usual so I will count it as “sleeping in.” I have a lot of stuff to get done for work duties today, which I want to wrap up so I can get all the errands taken care of. I have prescriptions to pick up, groceries to make, a trip to Costco–I get exhausted just thinking about it. But yesterday was really a good day, wasn’t it? I’m not sure how it was for you, but I was productive and in a really good mood for most of the day. I was a bit tired at times during the day, but I made it through, picked up the mail (a package of new shirts arrived!), and then came home. Sparky was rambunctious and so had to cart him around on my shoulders while I did some things, and then he parked on the desk while I wrote for a while. I also talked to one of my co-workers who drives for Uber/Lyft, because I wanted to be sure I was getting how it all worked right in a short story I am working on and revising, “Passenger to Franklin.” I was also pleased that the story wasn’t the piece of trash I convinced myself it was when I was writing the first draft, and I was pretty happy to see that despite my usual self-deprecation mentality (which I am really working on, I promise) it wasn’t bad at all–and there are some really good images and sentences in it. After all my running around today, if I have time I am going to write some more tonight, and hopefully finish this second draft.

LSU Gymnastics was in the first session of the national championship meet, and they scored over 198 and qualified first overall into the finals Saturday afternoon. I would be excited regardless, but it’s even more exciting this year, because if they hit they could finally win it all this year. I was waiting for Paul to get home and had stopped writing to settle into my easy chair, and remembered, oh, I wonder if we can catch a replay of LSU on ESPN? So I turned on the television and navigated into the ESPN app, and thought, oh, I don’t care about the second session, but I can watch for a while until Paul gets home. So I did just that and turned it on just in time to see Oklahoma’s first vaulter sit down on the landing. Oklahoma was undefeated and ranked number 1; Ragan Smith, one of their stars, has spent a good potion of the year making TikToks claiming LSU’s routines were over-scored, which is not only unsportsmanlike but a total bitch move (I am not a fan of that kind of shit, especially since you’re daring karma,Alabama and hubris is not something the gods like). They sat down two more vaults, and two others weren’t great, pushing them so far down they couldn’t climb back, which was shocking. They had two more falls off the beam, so had to count a fall there. This is NOT what you expect watching Oklahoma, and Paul got home right after that first vault, and the evening session was like a trainwreck you couldn’t stop looking at. It rained Alabama gymnasts around the balance beam–I think four of them came off–and even other teams were having falls they didn’t have to count. When the bloodbath was over, Utah and Florida moved onto the finals to join LSU and California. I am very excited to watch Saturday afternoon!

Last night was also a lovely evening because Paul and I were both relaxed, rested, and in a pretty good mood, so we were laughing and joking and having a great time. It’s been way too long since we’ve had an evening like that, and I was actually reluctant to go to bed and end the evening (I still hate ending a good time, and I don’t think that will change until I am in the crematorium), but it held over until this morning, too, which was unexpected and a delight at the same time. I feel good this morning, despite only sleeping in for an extra hour, and confident and like myself again for the first time in a really long time (I know, I say that all the time, but having fun with Paul has been missing from my Bingo card for far too long), but I don’t really think I’ve been myself for almost ten years or so. Mom had her first stroke and we almost lost her the first time in 2016 around Christmas, and that’s been weighing on my mind subconsciously I think ever since until last year when we finally did lose her. The pandemic, volunteering, getting COVID myself, Mom dying, my surgeries–it’s been quite a ride and while I am not certain I am completely coming out from under it all, I am feeling somewhat better and I hope it lasts.

I also came across another interesting bit of Kansas corruption and crime yesterday, in which a corrupt district attorney (now a federal prosecutor), in tandem with a police chief and a judge, were closing cases by not sharing evidence, forcing people to testify against innocent people by threatening to send them to jail, and on and on it goes. You can read about this vile racist piece of shit here.

Seriously, so much crime in Kansas.

I also typed up some notes for the new Kansas book (it feels weird to be saying that since it was what I called #shedeservedit for years), and I also started bringing together some things for the next Scotty book. See? I am being productive again. Maybe that’s why I am feeling so good? Probably. I always am in a better place when I’m writing, and without any other things weighing me down, I am really loving life lately, you know?

And on that note, I am going to start doing some day-job stuff by heading down into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later (have you noticed I’m posting a lot lately? Trying to clear out those unfinished drafts).

At the risk of sounding crude, this wrestler has an amazing ass, does he not?

Drop Me Off In New Orleans

Ah, some more blatant self-promotion! I’ve done some on-line panels so far this year, which has been terrific. Here are the questions from one I did, turned into an interview so I can promote myself! I believe these questions were for a queer crime panel, and the credit for the questions goes to the one and only J. M. (Jean) Redmann; you can order her books here.

Why did you choose your characters and their professions? What drew you to them?

Hmmm. This is tough, because I have so many books and so many different main characters…I think I’ll stick to my two primary series to answer the question. I wanted to write about a gay private detective in New Orleans, and I wanted him to be a big man, a former college football player who may have been able to be a journeyman NFL player had he not been injured in his final college game. I wanted him to be uncomfortable in his gay skin, and the point of his journey throughout the series was to grow and learn until he was finally comfortable in that skin, and able to be loved and give it.

Scotty, on the other hand, was created as a stand-alone character and I wanted him to basically be the antithesis of Chanse; in which he had few if not hang-ups, was completely comfortable being a sexually active gay man with a snarky sense of humor covering an incredibly big and kind heart. He didn’t really need to grow much–he usually is the catalyst for other characters’ growth–but as he’s aged, I’ve really enjoyed his journey.

What attracted you to writing mysteries?

I always liked them. As long as I can remember, my two biggest reading passions were history and mystery, with horror/Gothics close behind. I would check anything out of the library with mystery, haunted, ghost, phantom, secret, or clue in the title. Then I discovered the series books–The Three Investigators, Trixie Belden, et al–and after that there was no turning back.

What does being queer/gay/lesbian bring to your story?

I think queer people have the outsider point of view down to an art form because that’s how we see the world–from the margins. The easiest way to critique society, the culture, and how people interact with each other is from a remove–and queer people see all of those things from a remove through no fault of their own. I didn’t have role models when I was growing up, at least to teach me how to be a decent adult gay human being, so I had to learn it all on my own for the most part. I’ve also been confused and mystified by American culture, philosophy, and society, because it wasn’t designed for people like me. When I came out, I was just at sea in the queer world as I always had been in the straight one, and I’ve never forgotten those experiences, either, and they also inform my work.

How do we deal with how the wider world deals with queer characters? Especially in these times?

It can be depressing, which is emotionally and psychologically dangerous. It’s bad enough experiencing homophobia, but then to immerse yourself in it in order to write about it? Even more horrific. Watching Pray Away this weekend made me furious with the ex-gay movement all over again; listening to queer people hating themselves and their desires in order to be at peace with God in some twisted way? But if God is infallible…this is the doctrine Christianity gets hung up on. They think we’re mistakes, but if their God is infallible, He had to have made us perfect and its willful sin or the devil whispering in our ears. This is their incredibly harmful and dangerous rhetoric. If God tests humans, perhaps he made queer people to test the faithful–and they are failing.

But they can never admit to that.

How do you deal with diversity? No author can be everything their characters need to be, how do you handle reflecting the wider world?

I write mostly about New Orleans, and beyond that, mostly the south with occasional forays into other areas of the country–upstate New York, Kansas, California–and you cannot write about a city like New Orleans realistically without having Black characters, period. New Orleans is a majority Black city. You also can’t write about the South without touching on the issues of race and a problematic history. I’ve always included diverse characters in my books. I don’t like to describe skin color, frankly, and most white writers do it in the form of food, which I find unsettling–do you want to eat them? Cinnamon skin, cocoa, cafe au lait, eggplant, dark chocolate, etc.–I’ve seen all of those used to describe skin color and it always makes me recoil because it’s so damned lazy. I don’t think I would ever write from the perspective of a Black character–there are plenty of Black authors who can do that more authentically, and given how most diversity pledges by major publishers also inevitably end up in quotas, I don’t want to take a spot from a Black creator. I do love reading work by racialized authors, but I would never try to write from that perspective.

How do you use setting? What does it bring to the story?

Setting is one of my strengths, I think, so I always use it to enhance my story. I am also very lucky in that I live in New Orleans, where anything can happen on any given day and you can never go too far over the top about anything–if anything, you have to tone things down to be believable. I think setting is important because it tells you so much about the characters–why do they live there, how has it shaped them, did they live somewhere else, how do they deal with the challenges, what annoys them, what do they love–and is an important foundation for your story.

How do your books start—not the book beginning, but the start of the process of writing the book. Where do the ideas come from and how does that coalesce into a book?

It usually is something I find interesting and I think I should write about that. Sometimes the ideas take years to coalesce and come together, sometimes they are immediate. The Scotty books inevitably begin with three disparate things I want to address in one book, and then I have to figure out how to combine them all into a story. The next Scotty’s prompts are evacuation, statute of limitations, and obsession. It’s coming together in my head enough that I think I’ll be able to write it this fall.

Once you’re writing, what’s your process? Outline? Write from start to finish?

I used to outline, but now I kind of have it in my head and then will only go back and outline when I am stuck, so I can see where I went wrong in the manuscript. I always write from beginning to end. I don’t know how people can write backwards! I’ve thought about trying it sometime, though.

What are the hard parts of writing for you? The parts you enjoy?

Definitely the middle. The middle is soul-destroying, and always triggers Imposter Syndrome. I also hate copy edits, but recognize them as a necessary evil.

I love the actual writing and revising and all of that. There’s nothing like putting down a good word count for the day, regardless of how bad those words might be. I think revising is magic: you take garbage and turn it into something terrific.

Which writers influenced you?

All of them, in one way or another. I especially love Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Daphne du Maurier, and John D. MacDonald. Currently? Alison Gaylin, Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Michael Koryta, Alex Segura, Michael Thomas Ford, S. A. Cosby, Kellye Garrett, and Alafair Burke–there really are so many. I always take something away from everything I read, whether good or bad.

What are you working on now?

Right now I am writing a sequel to Death Drop, in the Killer Queen series. I also have a ton of short stories and novellas in progress, and I already have ideas for the next three or four (or more) books.

Any advice for newer writers?

Keep writing and keep believing in yourself, and keep reading.

Last words of wisdom?

If you want to be a writer, read Benjamin Dreyer’s Dreyer’s English and Stephen King’s On Writing.