Category: Alabama

Calling Baton Rouge

There is absolutely nothing like Saturday night in Death Valley. Nothing.

I’ve often talked about how much I loathe the drive to and from Baton Rouge; it’s tedious, and once you get past the second swamp bridge there really isn’t anything to see. Sure, the countryside of Louisiana is beautiful–as is the countryside of every Southern state, to be sure–but after awhile it become rather humdrum, and when you’ve made the drive as often as we have, yeah…it gets boring. It’s about eighty miles total, give or take, from the Lost Apartment to Tiger Stadium, and it really seems to take forever.

The only thing worse is the drive home after dark.

As I said the other day, being an LSU fan is a lot of fun–if sometimes not necessarily good for your blood pressure or your heart. The Tigers have almost always been a strong defensive team with an okay offense–conservative and methodical, rarely passing, always trying to grind out yards in the run game. The dull offense has resulted in LSU’s inability to recruit outstanding quarterbacks–if you’re never going to get to pass much, pretty much anyone can take a snap and give the ball off to a running back. LSU occasionally has had outstanding quarterbacks–JaMarcus Russell and Zack Mettenberger come to mind–but the offense never really changed very much; they might have gotten to pass more regularly than the usual stand-in quarterback, but not enough to have made a difference. LSU has always had an elite level defense that kept us in games and made up competitive…and then Joe Burrow transferred in from Ohio State last year. Joe’s arm and competitive spirit raised what many experts thought would be an average LSU team to a higher level; losing only three games (two of which were close and could have, should have, gone out way; only Alabama really put a beating on the Tigers–and frankly, losing to Alabama might be frustrating, but they are the program of the decade and the standard to which all other SEC teams must be held) and giving us some hopes for this season.

No matter what we might have been hoping for, this team and the new offense was something we never could have expected, nor dreamed.

Tiger Stadium was rocking last night, and I can honestly say once the game started I maybe sat down no more than two or three minutes of the game. It was so loud my ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear myself think most of the time. This morning, I have no voice and every muscle and joint in my body is aching, as is my lower back. (I’d hoped to get things done today, but I suspect I’m going to by lying in my easy chair most of the day recovering) What a game.

What a game.

LSU and Florida has turned into a major rivalry. Back in the aughts, LSU and Florida were consistently the two best teams in the conference (until the resurgence of Alabama in the latter part of the decade); the winner of the LSU-Florida game won the national championship three years in a row (2006-2008).  This year, both teams were again undefeated and ranked in the Top Ten: LSU at number five, Florida at number seven. A night game in Tiger Stadium. LSU took the opening kick-off and marched down the field until the drive stalled, and a field goal attempt was wide right. The defense forced a three-and-out, and on the very next drive LSU took a 7-0 lead. The rest of the first half was a seesaw, with LSU going ahead and Florida coming back. At half-time the score was 21-21; Florida got the second half kick-off and had what looked like an easy drive to take their first (and as it turned out, only) lead of the game 28-21. They also made it look so damned easy…the stadium quieted and I thought to myself, oh no. But the Tigers counterpunched and tied the score 28-28…and that was it. The defense bent but never broke again–including an amazing interception in the end zone, and a goal line stand in the closing minutes of the game in which Florida failed to score despite running eight plays, starting at the LSU nine yard line (a bogus pass interference call in the end zone on fourth down–the officiating was a disgrace and an embarrassment to the SEC and the NCAA–gave Florida first-and-goal from the four and they didn’t get it) and the stadium was rocking the entire time.

When Derek Stingly made that interception in the end zone I jumped up into the air screaming–and when I came back down, I swear I could feel the stadium shaking under my feet as everyone just was going absolutely nuts.

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God, how I love Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium.

Afterward, as we drove home in the pitch black of a Louisiana country night, exhausted and happy and drained of energy, I remarked to Paul, “And our unbeaten streak continues.” LSU has never lost a game when we are in the stadium; we often joke we should get complimentary season tickets just for that reason alone.

And again, there is absolutely no reason why our final record for the season shouldn’t be, at worst, 10-1.

GEAUX TIGERS!

Land of Confusion

Wednesday, and my body clock  has apparently, finally, after all these years, adjusted back to getting up early the first two days of the week. This morning I woke up again around four, went back to sleep, woke up again around six, and then fell asleep again so that I could wake up just after eight feeling rested and refreshed. Which is cool and lovely, since today is a half-day for me and I can get sort of caught up on things around the Lost Apartment. The kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes, and there are two loads of laundry in some sort of the process of being laundered; the living room is a mess, and so forth. I can also run get the mail after work, and stop at the grocery store for a minor grocery run as well.

Pulling Bury Me in Shadows together is proceeding apace; by the end of this evening I hope to  have over half of it done, with the corrections and additions made that need to be made. This does put me right on schedule for turning it on Monday of next week, which is lovely. It feels good to be producing again, and of course, the whole “Moist Money” thing was really cool this week, too–that’s two short stories I’ve placed over the last few months, which is truly a lovely thing to contemplate. I put some more out for submission earlier this week, too, so hopefully there will be more good news in the future….

..or devastating confirmations of my imposter syndrome. We’ll see how it goes.

Yesterday Facebook memories reminded me that nine years ago was the day we brought Scooter home from the Cat Practice for a two week trial, to see whether we wanted to adopt him or not. He was home with us for exactly two hours before we decided he was a keeper, and went back the next morning to finalize the adoption. It’s so funny; over the years neither Paul nor I had ever had a cat; I’d had roommates with cats, but for the most part they were distant and aloof and rarely seen. Friends had cats, but we were both more dog people, and the sad truth is, we only acquired Skittle when we lived in the carriage house because we had a mouse. Owning Skittle turned us both into cat aficionados; whenever we visit anyone who has a cat, Paul will spend most of the night trying to befriend the cat. Skittle’s untimely demise from cancer was devastating to both of us; Paul was so torn up over it we weren’t sure we’d get another cat. But the Lost Apartment felt so empty without one…when I went back to the Cat Practice to pick up Skittle’s ashes, there was a cat up for adoption in one of the cages behind the front desk–an orange cat whose name was Texas. He was very sweet, and I told Paul that night about him, as Paul was already looking into getting another cat. “Why don’t you go down there and take a look at Texas?” I told him, and so Friday morning before work he walked down there and did, indeed, take a look at Texas. He emailed me when he got to his office and we decided I’d pick Paul up later that afternoon and we’d go get Texas for a trial. I remember letting him out of the carrier, and Scooter immediately, timidly his under the coffee table. He stayed there for a while, with Paul teasingly saying “now, if all you’re going to do is hide under the table we’re not going to keep you.” We turned on the television and started watching….and before long he came out, climbed up onto Paul’s chest, purring and cuddling, and we were his.

And have been, ever since. Nine lovely years. He’s such a sweet cat, too. I finally wrote him into the Scotty series–he’s Taylor’s cat, but Scotty and the boys are all wrapped around Scooter’s paws, the same way we are. It’s always lovely, you know, to come home from a day at work (especially on those shitty days) and have a cat climb into your lap, purring and wanting to cuddle and offering no-strings affection.

We got caught up with The Righteous Gemstones last night, which I am enjoying a lot more than I ever thought I would, and also started watching On Becoming a God in Central Florida–which I’m not so sure about whether we’ll continue watching. The first episode just made me feel incredibly sorry for the main characters, although I didn’t see the shocking death coming. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a comedy–perhaps a dark comedy?–or not, but it didn’t feel funny to me; I don’t like humor where poor people are the butt of the joke , and that’s how it seemed to me…I hate seeing even dark humor where the dreams of poor people to better themselves are mocked or belittled. I don’t care for that, because all I wind up doing is feeling sorry for them. I’ll probably give the show another episode or two, but if that’s all it’s going to be I don’t think we’ll finish watching–but Kirsten Dunst is terrific in the lead role.

I also finished reading “Murder in Basin Street” in Ready to Hang and am now onto the next famous murder, “Juliette and the Kind Doctor,” which seems like an almost perfect story to adapt into a fictional novel. As I read more and more New Orleans history, it’s astonishing to me how dark that history is; almost from the very beginning. I am definitely most likely going to wind up writing historical fiction about New Orleans at some point, I suspect; I see many hours in the archives at the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Williams Center, and the Tulane Louisiana Historical Research Association in my future. There’s just such a rich history to explore and dive headlong into….and as a history addict, I can get lost in such research for years.

Which reminds me, I have been asked to write a story for an interesting anthology; a book of Sherlock Holmes stories where the only requirement is that it can’t be set in England and Holmes/Watson cannot be English. My first thought on reading the email was I can’t write a Holmes story–I haven’t read Doyle since I was a kid and immediately thereafter, Oh, I can set the case in Storyville in the 1910’s and I can use that title I’ve been sitting on for years–“The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy!” 

Naturally, this made me very excited, and now I have to not only do some more research on the time period, but I need to go back and reread some Holmes stories, to get not only a feel for the character that isn’t influenced by either television series (Sherlock with Cumberbatch and Elementary), but it more Doyle-influenced. I’ve never been much of a Sherlockian; I did enjoy reading the stories when I was young, and I read the Nicholas Meyer pastiches in the 1970’s (The Seven Per Cent Solution and The West End Horror), but other than watching the TV series and the occasional film (Spielberg’s Young Sherlock Holmes and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Downey Jr, which was really just Holmes as Tony Stark in the nineteenth century), my interest in Holmes and Doyle is fairly minimal. Will writing this story turn me into a Sherlockian? I’ve already recruited some of my avid Sherlockian friends to give me advice and perhaps read early versions, to see if I am getting it right.

And stranger things have happened.

And on that note, I’ve got some emails to answer. Back to the spice mines with me!

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Jacob’s Ladder

Tuesday morning and all is fine…at least so far.

I managed to finish the reread/outline of Bury Me in Shadows last night, which is very cool, and as I said the other day, it doesn’t need nearly as much work as I thought it did–which, given how it was written in fits and starts over the period of a few months, I figured there would be tons of repetition. As it is, I did repeat something–the first time my main character, Jake, was ever called a gay slur–about three or four times. Obviously, I only need to have that in there once.

What’s funny about it, though, is that each instance is based on a different time it happened to me when I was a kid–and I managed to remember four different times. Who knows how many others I can remember? Ah, the joys of being a queer kid in America back in the day.

But the book is, as I said, in much better shape than I remembered or thought, and so it’s not going to be as much work to finish it as I thought. Don’t get me wrong–it’s still going to be a lengthy slog, it’s just not going to take me as a long to finish this final edit than I thought it might. It’s still entirely possible that I could have it finished and ready to go sometime next week, which would be really lovely. One can certainly hope, at least.

I’ve managed to sleep well both nights so far this week–I didn’t even feel tired yesterday until after I got home from the office. I somehow managed to make it through an entire twelve-hour day without feeling exhausted or worn out. On the other hand, we were also pretty slow yesterday; perhaps not having client after client after client made the difference.

We finished watching Big Mouth last night, which is easily one of the funniest things on television right now, and will now slide back into watching our other shows each evening, trying to get caught up on them all. A plethora of riches for us to choose from, and we still have only watched the first episode of the first season of Succession, so there’s also that.

I’m not as energetic this morning as I was yesterday; but that’s probably par for the course. I may not have been as worn out as I usually am on Monday evening last night, but it was still a twelve hour day, and today is probably a vestigial hangover from that. That doesn’t bode well for the day, but I”m hoping it’s just a slow waking up morning type of thing. I’ve still got so much to do it’s not even funny. Motivation is the primary problem I am having this morning, and my coffee doesn’t seem to be working the way I generally expect/need it to. Oh, wait–there it is. Hello, caffeine!

There was a cold front that came through last night so today is supposedly going to be cooler than it has been–sad that temperatures in the mid-80’s is “cooler than it has been,” but that’s life down here in the swamp. This summer has certainly lasted longer than any have seemed to before, but that could also just be my own faulty memory. My memories are questionable, it seems. That’s why people who can write their own memoirs or autobiographies amaze me so much–how do you remember all of that? There are so many gaps in my memories, and memories that are simply flat out wrong; for example, I would have sworn on a Bible and testified to it in court that we moved from Chicago out to the suburbs in the winter of 1969, which is incorrect. We moved in the winter of 1971, two years later; I was ten years old and in the sixth grade. I knew I was ten when we moved, and yet somehow I always managed to convince myself we moved in 1969. Why or how or when that year became fixated in my brain as the year we moved is beyond me; I’ve always been able to remember the year we moved to Kansas because it was the summer before my junior year. I graduated in 1978, so we had to have moved to Kansas in 1976. It was also the Olympic year–Montreal–and the same Olympics where Nadia Comenici started throwing perfect 10’s in the gymnastics competition.

Why have I been thinking about the past so much lately? I’m not sure. Maybe because Bury Me in Shadows is set in a fictional county that is based on the county where my family is from, so I’ve been drawing on childhood memories to construct a fictional place based in reality from my past. It’s strange to look at Google Earth renderings of where we’re from, and see that my memories are, in fact, incorrect; but in fairness I never drove anywhere in Alabama. I was always a passenger, and I think driving cements directions and so forth in your mind–when you’re just riding in the car you don’t pay as much attention as you would if you were driving. I’m also writing “Never Kiss a Stranger,” which is set in New Orleans in 1994, so I’m having to delve into my memories of visiting here and remembering what the city was like then. It does seem different now than it was then–certainly the city has changed since that first visit all those years ago, when I first explored the gay bars and the Quarter and fell in love with New Orleans; part of the reason I am writing the story and setting it in that time is to write about, and preserve in fiction, my memories of the city back then and what it was like. I’m also glad I decided to turn it into a novella–I may do a book of four novellas, like Stephen King’s Different Seasons and Full Dark No Stars–which would be kind of a departure for me. I already have “Never Kiss a Stranger” in progress, and there’s also “Fireflies,” and perhaps I have two other stories on hand that could easily be adapted into longer novellas….often the problem I have with writing short stories is the word counts; some stories struggle to come in under 6000 words.

Which, now that I think about it, could easily make “Once a Tiger” and “Please Die Soon” and perhaps even “Death and the Handmaidens” work; simply make them longer and that will probably solve the issues with all three stories.

An interesting and intriguing thought.

And on that note, tis time for me to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

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Heart and Soul

Friday morning and here we are at the end of the week! HUZZAH!

LSU plays tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of eleven a.m., which is usually when I run to the grocery store and do my errands, which means they’ll either have to wait until Sunday or until after the game–and I think we all know that means they’ll be waiting until Sunday, don’t we?

As always I have a lot to get done this weekend, and an early game time for LSU means probably the entire day will wind up being wasted–there’s also the Auburn-Florida game following directly after–and so I’ll probably wind up sitting in my easy chair for most of the day with Deliverance near at hand for me to read. I need to reread Bury Me in Shadows this weekend as well, but I have to pay very close attention to that one as it’s a revision reread, so watching between plays and during commercial breaks doesn’t exactly loan itself to a thorough, line by line reread. I will undoubtedly be horrified by some of the bad paragraphs and sentences as I do reread it. I think when i get home from work tonight I’ll try to get my cleaning done, and once the laundry is going and the kitchen is free of clutter and dirty dishes, I might be able to sit down with it for a bit before I start making dinner (Swedish meatballs tonight). I’d like to finish reading Deliverance so I can reread The Haunting of Hill House, which I do every October–it will also help me with the rewrite of Bury Me in Shadows to be rereading something so Gothic and scary.

I’m still on the first chapter of Ready to Hang–“Murder in Basin Street”–and enjoying it immensely. I really do like the idea of me writing some period pieces set in New Orleans; the more I read of this city’s dark and morbid history, the more I love the city.

I’m also realizing how much the volunteer project wore me out, and that I’m still recovering from all the fatigue resultant from that work. It’s cool, though, as I said; I’m glad to have done it despite the fact it threw me behind on everything and wore me out so completely. I did some really good work there, and I’m pretty pleased with it all. I started writing again this week, seriously writing, and that felt really good. I always forget how much I actually enjoy writing when I’m not. I always dread it, and try to push it off, but I’m that way about everything that requires effort (see: not setting foot in the gym for months) and am always glad I did it once I have.

Tonight we’re going to get caught up on the shows we’re watching–American Horror Story: 1984, etc.–and there should also be a new episode of Murder in the Bayou and Saturdays in the South, which is always fun to watch. I also want to get some writing done this weekend in addition to the revise reread of Bury Me in Shadows. 

We’ll see. Happy Friday, Constant Reader!

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Only in My Dreams

Sliding into Wednesday and pay day–or as it’s known around the Lost Apartment, Pay the Bills Day. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I sent in two stories for submission yesterday, which is always a lovely accomplishment. One is for a blind read so I can’t talk about that one, but the other is “The Dreadful Scott Decision,” for an anthology I was asked to write a story for. I’m never quite sure if that means we’re taking your story or what, but I tend to never take anything for granted when it comes to this literally insane industry I find myself a part of these days. And even more exciting, I woke up to a very pleased editor and a congratulatory email re: “The Dreadful Scott Decision.” Always lovely, particularly when one has little to no self-confidence when it comes to writing short stories.

I won’t find out about the other one for months. As it is a blind read, I can’t really talk about the story, but it’s for the next Mystery Writers of America anthology, this time being edited by one of my writing heroes, Michael Koryta. Getting into an MWA anthology is one of my bucket list items, and while I’ve submitted numerous stories to them over the years, I have yet to get into one. The competition is fierce, of course; there are only so many slots and lots of entries, which is what makes getting into one a major accomplishment. It probably won’t help in the self-confidence area for more than a day or two, of course, but one also never knows.

I also started revising another short story last night, which I’m probably going to try to get submitted somewhere today. I think this week’s focus is going to be on revising short stories, to cleanse my palette before I dive back into the manuscript of one of the books I’ve got in progress. Since the LSU game is so early on Saturday, I can spend the rest of the day rereading Bury Me in Shadows and making notes while flipping back and forth between other college games–I only have to give LSU my full attention, after all. I think Auburn and Florida are playing Saturday as well; both are in the top ten, and both are on LSU’s upcoming schedule. Auburn looked really good spanking Mississippi State last weekend–their offense looked very much like LSU’s, frankly, scoring at will–which means Auburn-LSU is going to be another one of those heart-stopping shootouts.

Then again, Auburn-LSU has always been a heart attack game, pretty much coming down to the last minute of every game most of the time.

I started reading Deliverance yesterday, but it’s not really grabbing me yet–but then, they haven’t gone into the wilderness so far.

We finished watching The Politician last night, which took a really surprising–and highly entertaining–turn last night, with the additions of Judith Light and Bette Midler to the cast to set up season two, which I wasn’t so sure about going into last night’s episode. but they did a truly terrific job of jumping ahead a few years, and letting us see what was going on with the kids from the high school now that they’re in college…and, like I said, they did an amazing job setting up the second season.

I’m also finished reading Lords of Misrule as well, which takes the history of Carnival (and it’s racial politics) up to the year before I came to my first Carnival, and two years before I finally moved here and got my life started. Since that’s also the approximate time period for my story “Never Kiss a Stranger,” reading this has been enormously helpful. It catches me off guard a little that the 1990’s is now so far away; kids born in the 1990’s are in college now, after all–are old enough to marry and have their own kids.

I also realized, last night as I was reading after we finished watching The Politician, that it’s October, which is when I usually read horror fiction–and since starting the Diversity Project, I was waiting for October to read some diverse horror. So, I will try to get Deliverance finished this week, do my annual reread of The Haunting of Hill House, probably over this weekend, and then next week I am going to read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things, or her more recent Gods of Jade and Shadow.

And since today is Pay Day, I should probably go pay the bills. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

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Mony Mony

Wednesday.

So, the short story is coming along, which is a good thing as it is due in a week. I just wish I could find a good three hour break to just sit down, listen to Stevie Nicks, and get it finished.

One can but dream.

I’ve been very tired this week. Not sure what that’s about; my sleep might not be deep but it’s been restful. I’m trying to wean myself off sleep assistance, and have cut back even further on my daily caffeine intake, but there it is, you know? I think it’s mostly because I work the long days on Monday and Tuesday, plus I’m always tired when I wake up to an alarm as opposed to organically. Today is half-day Wednesday, and I get to make groceries and run some errands when I get off at three-thirty this afternoon before coming home to make dinner. I still need to get my short story written; after I finish this and answer some emails I’m going to see if I can get some work done on that before I have to get ready for work. It is, after all, due a week from today.

I also want to spend some more time with Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows. I’ve been too tired the last few nights to read, so have been watching television when I get home from work. But I think tonight I’ll have some time. My primary concern is the reluctance to put it down and do other things I need to get done. The Lost Apartment is a disaster area, to say the least. Since there isn’t an LSU game this weekend, maybe I can spend some time writing and editing and cleaning this weekend. One can hope, at any rate. The windows around my workspace are filthy, I don’t even want to look at the baseboards and the floor, and as always, there’s a sink full of dishes. I’m doing some laundry this morning, and maybe can get those dishes and some other things here in the kitchen taken care of before I head in to the office.

I’ve been watching a documentary series about Southeastern Conference football on ESPN, Saturdays in the South, which I highly recommend. College football is huge in the South, and always has been; the series is doing a great job of exploring the reasons behind that as well as the history of college football in the region. The episode I watched last night took a look at the conference from the 1970’s through the early 1980’s–and these are the games I remember watching, all those years ago. It was kind of fun seeing the “Punt Bama Punt” game explored, as well as the great Alabama goal line stand against Penn State that won them the 1978 national championship. I’ve always wanted to write about SEC football–maybe someday I will, mainly from the point of view of being a lifelong fan of the sport and the conference.

Perhaps for my book of essays.

I’m also still reading James Gill’s Lords of Misrule, and it’s spurring a lot of interesting thoughts. I’m greatly enjoying the book, even as I am appalled by the horrors of white supremacy in New Orleans over the rich, dark history of the city; as I always say, I am not, by any means, an expert on New Orleans–what I don’t know would fill a library–but it’s a lot of fun to become more knowledgeable about the city’s dark, bloody, and violent history…which of course only inspires me to want to write more about the city’s past. I’m so behind on everything writing related–this volunteer project has really knocked me for a loop, delaying everything and pushing everything further back, and it never seems to end–but I am going to focus on writing and cleaning this weekend. I want to get all my errands taken care of before the weekend so I can have yet another weekend–like last weekend–where I don’t have to leave the house other than to take out the trash. Errands drain me of energy and leave me with no desire to write, for some reason.

Maybe because I am getting close to sixty. Who knows?

All right, perhaps it is time for me to head into the spice mines for a while. I’m on my second cup of coffee and the clouds in my head are starting to clear a little bit.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

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Money

So, my next Scotty book drops on September 10th, and I’ve been so incredibly, mind-numbingly busy lately that I’ve done very, very little to either acknowledge, or promote, that fact.

This is the eighth book in the Scotty series, which makes it my longest series to date thus far (although the next Chanse book will be the eighth in that series), and I am thinking about starting a new, different series….but I’m digressing, as I am wont to do. After I proofed the galleys and sent the corrections in, I decided that this time–as opposed to what usually happens; i.e. I am so busy and have so much to do that I forget the book is coming out–I was actually going to try to get the word out and do a better job of it than I usually do. But the official release isn’t until September 10th, but if you want it faster, if you order it (paperback or ebook for any reader) through the Bold Strokes website, you can get it now.

It really is a wonder that I have a career, isn’t it? And yet, here we are.

I did manage to finish the first draft of Bury Me in Shadows yesterday, and while it is a considerable mess in need of lots of work, now i have something to actually work with, and I know what the story is, how I want it to play out, and where I have to go back and put things. The ending also needs more work, but it’s done, it’s finished, and now it needs to sit and marinate while I work on revising the final draft of the Kansas book, preparatory to a two-month project that will take up most of my time for October and November. So, I’ll probably get back to Bury Me in Shadows in December, and hope to have it ready for submission by the end of January.

I also signed a contract for a short story yesterday; the anthology I was asked to submit a story to sent me a contract for “Moist Money” and I signed it and sent it back to them. Huzzah! It doesn’t pay much, but it definitely counts as a sale, and I’d have never written the story had they not asked me to write one. It’s a delightfully dark little story, and I like the voice of the main character that I found. The funny thing is, as you well know by now Constant Reader, that I often start with a title, and the genesis of this story is kind of funny.

I’d been asked to submit something to this anthology–I’m not sure I’m allowed to name it or share any details yet–and I agreed, but couldn’t think of anything to write. I don’t ever try to force these things–it happens when it happens–but it was there, in the back of my mind, and I knew I had a very short turnaround on the story. One day on Twitter someone talked about–and I don’t remember exactly how it went–how no one ever wants to take money that someone pulls out of their bra or underwear “because it’s damp.” I replied, “When I was in college I worked at a bank that was near several strip clubs and we always accepted the moist money.” Bill Loefhelm than replied, “MOIST MONEY needs to be the follow up to CHLORINE” which made me laugh out loud, and I replied, agreeing it’s a great title…and then it hit me. The story had to be set in a bar….moist money from stripper tips…why not have a male stripper, who happens to be gay, hired to perform at a bachelorette party at the bar, and have the bride–and her fiance–turn out to be people who bullied and tortured him in high school?

Now there’s the set-up for a deliciously dark tale of revenge, and noir to the core. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

I also got the web copy I needed to write yesterday done, so over all, the entire day turned out to be a win, which is lovely–and seemingly, increasingly rare these days. And once I’d printed out the final chapter, three-hole punched it and put it into the binder with the rest of the book, like an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Even when I’m not consciously thinking about it, it’s there in my subconscious; the stress and worry about it not being finished, and it weighs on everything else I do, and creates even more stress. Last night–and even this morning–I feel lighter and more free. I’ve also been sleeping better, and last night got a terrific night’s sleep. I was also still kind of worn out from going to the game Saturday night, as well as condom patrol in the heat Friday night, so feeling rested, not sore, and not stressed today has been lovely. I have one more volunteer project to wrap up today, and then some other stuff to take care of in my free time tomorrow, and then on Wednesday I’m going to start working on the final revision of the Kansas book.

At long last, a book that’s taken me about three years, give or take, to finish will finally come to an end, and that’s also an incredibly lovely feeling.

It’s so nice to be able to check things off on my to-do list. It really makes me happy.

Alas, I have to run to the grocery store for a moment before I get anything else done today, so it’s necessary for me to get going now. Have a lovely Labor Day, Constant Reader!

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Why Can’t We Live Together

Wednesday! What a lovely day, as the countdown to my long birthday weekend begins. Just one full day at the office today, and then a partial day tomorrow, and then it’s vacation time for me. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

It’s funny–I am doing this Facebook challenge, where you share the cover of a book you enjoyed reading every day for seven days, with no comment, review or explanation. I am doing books I loved the hell out of reading, and started with Valley of the Dolls (of course) and The Other Side of Midnight, and yesterday’s was Grace Metalious’ Peyton Place, which is long overdue for a reread. (For that matter, I should reread both Valley of the Dolls AND The Other Side of Midnight as well; I’ve not read a Sidney Sheldon novel since the 1980’s–I think the last of his I read was Windmills of the Gods.) Another book due for a reread is today’s choice, Thomas Tryon’s The Other, which is, quite simply, superb and remains one of my favorite books of all time to this day (maybe I’ll treat myself to a reread this coming long weekend?).

I wrote nary a word yesterday–not one single word, unless you count yesterday morning’s blog, of course. I never count the blog in my daily writing totals, by the way; I always see it as more of a warm-up exercise for writing, any way, a tool I use to get the words flowing and forming in my head so that throughout the day I can, whenever I can, scribble some words down. I slept deeply and well again last night–huzzah!–and with two successful night’s sleep, should be able to get home and write tonight after work (I was exhausted again last night–the twelve hour days are becoming a bit much for my aged self, methinks). Paul and I relaxed last evening and watched “The 60’s” episode of the CNN docuseries The Movies, which is a very interesting decade of America history, particularly when you look at, for example, the path of American film in that decade. (I also recommend Mark Harris’ Pictures at a Revolution, which is about the five films nominated for Best Picture in 1967, a true turning point for American film, where the last vestiges of the studio system were finally being swept away and a new, uncertain era for American film was set up.)

It’s an interesting journey from the days when Doris Day’s was the biggest box office star with her sex comedies to seeing Midnight Cowboy win Best Picture.

This morning, after I finish this, I need to do the dishes and I need to run get the mail on my way to the office. I have some books arriving, thanks to cashing in my health insurance points (it’s a long dull story; suffice it to say that my health insurance has a program where doing healthy stuff and taking care of yourself properly earns you points, and you can then use those points for gift cards; I chose Amazon so I can get books.) Some have already been delivered, others should be arriving today and hopefully will be there by the time I head down there–I got another copy of Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, because I want to reread it and write an essay about the sexually fluid Ripley–along with the new Silvia Moreno-Garcia horror novel, Gods of Jade and Shadow, and Richard Wright’s Native Son.  I read Native Son when I was in college for an American Lit class….and I’d really like to give it another read when I am not being constantly bombarded with foolish professorial pronouncements about its meaning and symbolism from an old white man and a bunch of racist white students.

I also need to read more James Baldwin, and I need to read these Chester Himes novels in the TBR stack as well. I also need to finish reading My Darkest Prayer. Perhaps today between clients? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Heavy heaving sigh. There’s simply never enough time to read.

I was thinking the other day that, in a perfect world for me, my days would be get up in the morning, answer emails and do other on-line duties, write for the rest of the morning and the early afternoon, run errands, go to the gym, and then come home to read. Doesn’t that sound absolutely lovely? It certainly does to me. But alas, this is not a perfect Greg-world and I have to go to a day job Monday through Friday, but at least my day job is one in which I help people every day, which does make it a lot more palatable. I can’t imagine how miserable I would be if I had a job that I hated. I actually don’t hate my job, and consider myself lucky as one of the few Americans who don’t; my only resentment is the time spent there could be time spent reading or writing, which would be my preference.

And on that cheery note, tis back to the spice mines with me. I need to get Chapter 23 written and be one step closer to finished with Bury Me in Shadows, and I’d also like to get some words written on “Moist Money” today–“The Spirit Tree” can wait.

Have a lovely Wednesday, all.

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Hocus Pocus

Tuesday morning, and I somehow managed to survive yesterday. Sunday night’s sleep wasn’t terrific, and by the late afternoon I was plenty exhausted and tired. I had to persevere, and what’s more, I was interviewed for a podcast last night when I got home from the office. Somehow I managed to get through that, and within half an hour of disconnecting from Skype, I was in bed and asleep within moments. Last night’s sleep was quite lovely–I feel amazingly rested this morning–and so this day might not be as terrible as the previous.

Today is going to be a good day.

I started writing two new short stories yesterday, “The Spirit Tree” and “Moist Money.” “Moist Money” is for an anthology I was asked to write a story for; it finally came to me sometime either Sunday evening or sometime during the day yesterday, and I scribbled down the first two paragraphs in my journal, which I transcribed yesterday, and then added another couple of hundred words. “The Spirit Tree” was inspired by moving books around on Sunday, and one of them–a nonfiction book about snake-handling churches in southern Appalachia–I opened the cover and looked over the first page–which was about “spirit trees”; trees that rural Appalachian folk, superstitious and religious as they are, create to keep bad spirits away. What they do is put glass bottles on tree branches, so the bottles clink together in the wind (“warriors, come out and play”) and the sound the glass tinkling against other glass makes supposedly scares away evil spirits and keeps them from infesting the house. I hadn’t thought about spirit trees since I was a child, and I thought, not only is that a great title, I can actually think of a rural noir story to write that matches it. Yesterday I got down about five to six hundred words of the opening; this is a story, I think, I might try to sell to Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock when finished. I was too tired to do much more than write the openings of both stories last night; but I am hoping to get more written on them this week. I also need to get those three chapters of Bury Me in Shadows written, so it can sit and percolate for the next couple of months until I can get back to it.

It’s also weird to think Royal Street Reveillon will be out into the world next month. It seemed like it took me forever to write that book, and I guess it kind of did? But it’s nice; I’m glad to be putting another Scotty out there into the world, and I’m also not sure when I’m going to write the next one. I already know what it’s going to be–Hollywood South Hustle–but I’m just not sure when I’m going to get to it. I want to, as I have said in previous blogs, get all these books about teenagers I’m in some stage of writing cleared off my plate and out into the world before I start writing anything else–a cleansed palate, as it were–and keep writing my short stories and essays along with writing those. I’d love to get my second short story collection out into the world by 2021–that would be the one I’m calling Once a Tiger and Other Stories–and I also want to get “Never Kiss a Stranger,” a novella, finished sometime before the end of the year, as well as “Fireflies,” my horror novella, as well.

So much to do, right? And I really need to proof Jackson Square Jazz so the ebook can finally go up for sale again. Maybe I can make that a goal of my long weekend for my birthday? Stranger things have happened. I really need to get all these things that are hanging over my head finished and out of the way, so I can focus more easily on writing Chlorine next year.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

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I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)

I really need to focus and stop being distracted by shiny objects.

Stupid fucking shiny objects, anyway.

But there are so many, and they’re all so glittery and pretty and interesting.

It’s a wonder I get anything done.

Every once in a while, like now, I allow myself to get completely scattered and my inability to say no to people gets me into trouble; I then get overwhelmed and paralyzed with fear that I’ll never get everything done…thereby ensuring I won’t get everything done–or if I do, I’ll basically have to kill myself to get it all done on time. Heavy heaving sigh.

But at least now I’m aware I’m doing it again, which should count for something.

I took stock yesterday of everything I am doing, everything I’ve promised, and everything I’m in the middle of–and it was quite staggering. I have, as I said before, promised three short stories, only one of which has a completed draft (the others are still just ideas, waiting to be born on the page); I am working on a massive short-term project; a massive long term all year one; I am five chapters shy of finishing a first draft of a novel; have another novel manuscript that will need at least another two drafts; have written the first drafts of two first chapters of new novels; have a lengthy novella whose publication fell through that can be revised and rewritten and turned into a novel; and have about thirty or forty short stories and essays in some form of being written….and I keep having ideas, new ones for stories or novels, every day. Just this week I came up with another book idea called Another Random Shooting, which I quite like, and three short stories–“Festival of the Redeemer,” “Hot, Humid, Chance of Rain,” and “Flood Stage.” Yikes. I also have to run errands today–mail, bank, groceries–and am hopeful I will get some things done today and tomorrow. I slept really well last night–am still a bit groggy this morning, while i wait for the coffee to kick in. I think, probably, when I finish this I am going to go sit in my easy chair and read the Steph Cha novel. It’s really quite good, and I like the idea of spending my Saturday mornings reading a good book.

Yesterday when I got home from the office, I finished doing the laundry (bed linens every Friday), cleaned the kitchen and did the dishes, cleaned the Lost Apartment (still need to do the floors), and did some filing. My office space is always, it seems, a mess; something I’m never sure how to resolve. The truth is my office space is too small, always has been; but the primary problem that goes along with that is there isn’t any other place for my office to be located here in the Lost Apartment. Our apartment is, especially by New York/DC standards enormous, especially given what we pay for it–we’ll never be able to move because we will never find anything comparable at the same price; I’m not even certain one can get a studio for what we pay in rent. And, if I’m being completely honest, having a room dedicated to being my office would eventually not be big enough, either, as I tend to expand to fill space. But I still dream of the day when I’ll have an entire room for my office space. Anyway, when Paul got home I made Swedish meatballs (I do love cooking, I just rarely get the chance to do it anymore), and we got caught up on Animal Kingdom, and then finished The Boys, which is fucking fantastic. It occurred to me last night as I watched those final two episodes, that a world with super-heroes would probably be more akin to Greek mythology than the comic book worlds we see in most super-hero stories; capricious, mercurial beings with amazing, seemingly limitless powers, and all humankind would be at their mercy. I also liked that the human male lead, Hughie, is played by Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan’s son Jack–and he’s quite good, and looks nothing like either of his parents–although sometimes you get a glimpse of one or the other. I have to say I liked this show a lot more than I thought I would, and we’re both looking forward to Season 2.

I think tonight we might dip into Years and Years on HBO. One can never go wrong with Emma Thompson.

Yesterday I reread my short story “Fireflies” in order to make some notes on it. I originally wrote “Fireflies” in long hand in a notebook back in the 1980’s–it’s another one of those “from the vault” stories–and I’ve worked on it, off and on, since the original draft was written. It was always slightly off, and the original ending was terrible. Fast forward, and last year I was looking at it again, and thinking about revising it, when I was invited to submit a short story to a horror anthology. I decided to use “Fireflies,” and I revised it and rewrote it a bit, smoothed over the rough transitions, made it flow better, and changed the ending along with some additions to the narrative to make it not only tighter but stronger. After submitting the story, I was contacted by the publisher and officially commissioned to write a story for the book. The anthology had a broad submissions call, anything from noir to pulp to outright horror, but every story had to have a paranormal element to it. They commissioned a pulpy noir story, and when I mentioned I’d submitted something already, they were very nice about specifically wanting the new story and would still consider the other; I wound up writing “A Whisper from the Graveyard” for it, and a few months ago they finally decided not to use “Fireflies”–but were interested in it as a novella; the true problem with “Fireflies” was its length. I immediately saw the value of the critique; I never think of writing in terms of novellas or novelettes (primarily because there really isn’t a market for these longer stories that are too short to be novels), and so made a note to reread the story and see what possibilities there were for it. So, I did that yesterday, and I was correct–the story would work better as a longer novella. I’ve written novellas before–“The Nightwatchers” and “Blood on the Moon” for those Kensington omnibus books, and I self-published “Quiet Desperation”” myself on Amazon. One of the projects I am in the midst of, “Never Kiss a Stranger,” is also going to be a longer, possibly novella length, story; I’d always thought of it from the beginning that way, and will probably self-publish it at some point on Amazon once I finish it.

“Fireflies” is another Alabama story, which means another “Corinth County” story. It was inspired by the Fleetwood Mac song, “Fireflies”, even though they have nothing to do with each other as far as content. The only connection other than the title is mood; I wanted to get the mood of the song into the story, and I think I succeeded. The song is one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac recordings, and only appears on the Fleetwood Mac Live double album. Ironically, it’s a studio recording they mixed crowd noises into, so it wouldn’t seem out of place on the live album; the original version is on Youtube without the crowd noises. I’d say the story is also strongly influenced by Thomas Tryon’s The Other, which is one of my favorite novels of all time (and overdue for a reread, as are The Haunting of Hill House and Rebecca), and I still think someone should do a biography of Tryon. I’d do it, but my research skills are subpar and non-fiction is also not my strength. But Tryon is fascinating to me–a relatively successful actor who was closeted and never quite attained stardom; then gave up on acting and turned to writing. He was also the longtime lover of the first gay porn star, Casey Donovan, of Boys in the Sand fame. Anyway, I digress (damned shiny objects, anyway). The point is there are so many Alabama stories in my files that have never been published; I think the only Alabama/Corinth County stories that have been published are “Small-town Boy” and “Son of a Preacher Man,” as well as the novel Dark Tide, which may not be actually set there but the main character is from there. Bury Me in Shadows is the first full-length thing set in Alabama for me to get this far with, and it–and “Fireflies”–are reconnecting me to everything.

I also keep thinking I need to go back there, just to drive through and take pictures, get a feel for the place again, refresh my memories.

This is how the story opens:

Jem slapped at a horsefly buzzing around his ear. He hated horseflies. They bit and left welts that hurt.

“God commands us to HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER!” Brother Killingsworth thundered from his pulpit to a chorus of scattered amens inside the little chapel. Jem could hear the sermon clearly because the screened windows were open to catch whatever cooling breeze there might be on this hot July Sunday. He could hear the fluttering of paper fans, the creak from the turning of the blades of the ceiling fans.

The Church of Christ Our Lord and Savior didn’t believe in air conditioning because the faithful suffered in the heat to listen to the Lord preach back in the Holy Land, wiping the sweat from their brows and letting the cloth stick to their wet bodies. And if that was good enough for the ones who gathered to hear the word of Jesus, it was the least the flock of the Church of Christ Our Lord and Savior could do, am I right and can I get an amen, brothers and sisters?

“Little better than snake handlers,” Jem’s mama would sniff with that mean look on her face, shaking her finger in his face, even though it wasn’t polite to point, “and you’d better stay away from there. You hear me, boy?”

Not bad at all.

And now back to the spice mines.

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