Category: books i’ve read

Candlebright

I slept in again this morning–which has been happening alot, which means I am going to have to get used to getting up early again next week because this morning’s COVID test came back negative. It’s finally over. Yesterday I still felt a little worn down and fatigued, but managed to get things done (not much, really; but some laundry and dishes and some reading and so forth–I was afraid to overdo it, even though I felt good; cautious and concerned about a relapse), but now that I can safely confirm that I am out of the woods, it’s time to start easing myself back into my life. I ordered groceries for curbside pick-up this morning, so once I get that text I’ll drive over to pick them up, but…I’m over everything. It is now safe for me to go out in public (wearing a mask, believe me; I know that doesn’t really protect me but other people, but I can’t help but remember that it was when I allowed myself to get more lax with the masking that I got infected. So yes, intellectually I know it’s not helping but emotionally it makes me feel better to do so, so I am going with the emotions over the intellect on this one) again, and it also means I can finally return to work on Monday. Monday is usually my work at home day, but having been out of the office for the last week, I kind of feel like I probably should pop in on Monday and make my presence known again.

Plus, I have to get all the sick time bullshit sorted–and might as well do that on a day when I don’t have clients.

Huzzah? Huzzah indeed.

We finished the second season of Condor last night, which was enjoyable. If you’re into espionage/political thrillers, this is a very good one. Ben Irons (Jeremy’s son) is really good in the lead as Joe Turner, a low-level CIA employee who catches on to something major in the first season and everything goes to shit for him from there–like the book and movies it was based on (the movie was Three Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford; the book was Six not Three. I watched this as part of my Cynical 70’s Film Festival during the shutdown/work at home times). I have a copy of the book, by Richard Condon, that it in my enormous TBR pile. I’ve wanted to read it (along with The Manchurian Candidate) because these old political thrillers are interesting to me, with their extreme paranoia and evil Communist archetypes. I want to read them not only for their value as political thrillers but as remnants of a past time that could be said to also border on propaganda–painting the Communists, particularly the Soviet Union–as the bad guys. (This is not to say that the Soviet leadership weren’t bad people–some of them most definitely were–but their national interest also opposed to ours, so from their point of view Americans were the bad guys; that whole “no villain sees themselves as a villain” thing we talk about in character workshops and panels.)

It was also incredibly weird and strange resting so much over the last eight days. I have to recognize the fact that part of how I am feeling–the strangeness–is because I am actually no longer tired. I am always tired, apparently; not really sure why that is other than not getting enough sleep or something along those lines, but this morning, after sleeping off and on almost regularly for eight days, I feel rested this morning. Which means I can get all kinds of things done today–slowly easing myself back into my life, as it were–and plan to spend some time with Sandra SG Wong’s riveting In the Dark We Forget, should do some writing and editing, and then there’s of course all the cleaning and filing and organizing that needs to be done. I need to update my bills list, I need to make a new to-do list, I need to reread and revise a story one last time before submitting it to an anthology I want to get it into; and may I add how lovely it is not to have the brain fog this morning? My head is clear, and that feels amazing. My throat still feels a little bit more raw than I would prefer, and now I know that post-nasal drip is sinus related and a Claritin-D will take care of it. Huzzah!

I also don’t feel terribly daunted about getting started digging out from under the piles of everything that gathered while i was sick and foggy and exhausted, either–which is another good sign. I know it sounds weird, but now that I am sixty (sixty-one in less than a month; there’s still time to get a card and buy a gift, you know) I always worry that things aren’t necessarily related to an illness but rather are a permanent change to my life and my body and my brain. Our bodies and brains don’t come with user manuals, after all, so we are best off just getting by the best we can and always have to wonder. I was worried that the brain fog, for example, wasn’t something related to the COVID plague but rather a shift in my head that goes along with my age, you know? My memory has already become a lot more specious and less-specific than it used to be; I no longer remember things that were committed to memory just a few years ago. Admittedly, a lot of it was trivial information that really only came in handy when you’re playing Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit, but damn it, I used to always run the categories and rarely, if ever, lost at Trivial Pursuit and those days are sadly long past me now.

And I also feel relatively certain you’re tired of listening to me whine about being sick–well, you don’t have to worry about reading about that any longer, Constant Reader. I was even taking notes on some thoughts about Mississippi River Mischief yesterday in my journal.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up so that when I get the text that my groceries are ready I can head down to the store for curbside pick-up, which will be lovely. Have a wonderful Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Blue Lamp

Friday and day seven. I am sick of being sick, and even more tired of talking about it–I can hear you cheering in the distance, Constant Reader, so my apologies for the tedium of my posts ever since the test came back positive last Friday. But–as a public service–I will mention that the newer strains of the virus last longer; since I continued testing positive more than five days after the initial positive test, it is most likely I have one of the new strains which can last up to ten days. My tenth day will be this coming Monday; our medical compliance officer at work has told me to continue isolating and test again on Monday. But yesterday was one of the best days I’ve had since the first positive test, so I think I may actually be in the home stretch. The fatigue and brain fog didn’t kick in again until after three yesterday, so the morning wasn’t so bad, and of course once it had set in I retired to my chair and drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the evening while watching more episodes of Condor, which is really a pretty good, and under-appreciated, show; I only became aware of it because Apple TV suggested it to me since we’d watched The Little Drummer Girl.

So those “since you watched you might like” suggestions sometimes actually are good suggestions.

I’m hoping that today won’t be a wash–as I have every morning since this all began–so that I can sort of start making progress again. It feels like I’ve been home isolating for much longer than the week it has actually been, and I feel like I’ve lost the reins of my life somewhat. I have managed to start getting some work around the Lost Apartment taken care of–laundry, dishes, some light cleaning–in bits and pieces and spurts of energy here and there. I am hoping to, at some point today, be able to take stock of where I am and what needs to be done and get moving again on everything. I know I am way behind–this couldn’t have come at a much worse time for me, really–as I have to do the copy edits on the Bouchercon anthology and I’ve got to proof the galleys for A Streetcar Named Murder at some point, at the very leas–and when you add in the fact that it’s almost August–yeah, that deadline for the new Scotty is going to be here before I know it, and then I’ll start freaking out about that deadline before you know it. Time seems to simply slip through my fingers…but as always, that’s really nothing new.

I also have to say I highly approve of this new “curbside pick-up/delivery” option everyone has these days. I am going to pick up my grocery order tomorrow without any contact, which will be lovely, and of course I had Costco delivered over the weekend. Gosh, if I could just end up getting everything delivered or picked-up, this could be completely life changing (and yes, I am well aware these options existed before COVID, but I kind of have always thought that it was–stupidly, I know–more for people who had issues with going inside the store and so forth, and never wanted to interfere with services for those who need them when I am capable of going inside. Well, FUCK that from now on. It’s delivery or curbside pick-up from now on). It frees up time, and if it’s less exhausting for me–going to grocery shop has always worn me out, especially in the brutal heat of a New Orleans summer–then this is definitely the way to go from now on.

And on that note, methinks I am going to go sit in my chair for a moment or two–I just had a bit of a dizzy spell as I was typing, and so I think I also need to eat something. I will check in with you tomorrow, Constant Reader–stay safe and healthy out there.

Reconsider Me

Well, this morning’s test was positive yet again; apparently with the new variants you can test positive for up to ten days. Yay? Jesus. I woke up feeling pretty good this morning–the fatigue and brain fog weren’t as bad yesterday as they had been on previous days, which I thought was a good sign that maybe this was going to be over very soon. And like I said, while I didn’t exactly spring out of bed this morning with a song on my lips and music in my heart, I felt better on rising then I have since this whole thing started. But if things stay true to form–at least how they’ve been since I first tested positive last Friday–in about an hour I’m going to hit the Wall of Fatigue and Fog. I’m trying not to think about how far behind I am getting on everything. Then again, maybe the worst of it is over and I’m sliding down the other side of Recovery Mountain. Who knows?

I managed to make it through a podcast interview with Julie Hennrikus, executive director of Sisters in Crime, last evening, and I don’t think I made too big of a fool of myself. I’m not sure when it’s going to be available to listen to–I won’t listen to it as I despise the sound of my own voice–but when it is, I will certainly be sharing the link everywhere. It was very kind of Julie and Sisters to have me on, and I always love the opportunity to talk about my favorite subjects–ME and writing and books. I babbled on inanely for quite some time–and I think she very kindly let me ramble on for longer than was scheduled–but as I said, ask me about me and I’ll never shut up.

Which is probably why most people never ask, right?

I started reading Sandra SG Wong’s In the Dark We Forget, and I am already hooked, just a few chapters in. The writing is very strong, and the concept of the story, at least as I understand it thus far, is quite intriguing. I did manage to read about fifty pages or so yesterday before nodding off for nearly two hours–the fatigue was strong yesterday–but the fog was lifting a little and not nearly as bad as it has been. We watched some more episodes of Condor last night, and I have to admit I was having trouble following the story–which is, to be fair, quite convoluted, intricate, and complicated–which might have been the fog. I also managed to get some chores done around here, but seriously I am very happy that my head managed to clear for the interview.

Ah, there’s the fog. No fatigue yet, though. I think I can handle the fog without the fatigue–at least the fog doesn’t make me feel like I need to take a nap every half an hour, which is a definite plus.

And there’s the fatigue. I knew it was too good to be true, and I also just realized–how funny–that I started writing this over an hour ago. So I guess I’m not as back to normal as I had thought when I first woke up, am I? LOL. I do often amuse myself with my lack of self-awareness and my ability for self-delusion. I guess I want to get over this quickly and so am ready to grasp any improvement as a sign that it’s finally past. But today I do feel somewhat better than I have since the first positive test last Friday. While I do feel some fatigue, it’s not as extreme as it has been, and the brain fog isn’t nearly as paralyzing as it was before. I guess the real test will be the ability to focus, won’t it?

I was also informed this morning that the new variants will result in positive test results for up to ten days. I guess I have one of the new variants, because we are on day six of this, and tomorrow will be the first full week of it. But I do think the worst has passed now, and it should be all downhill from here. And again–so lucky; this could have been so much worse, thank God for inoculations and so forth. The fatigue is starting to spread now–it’s almost weird how it starts in one place (usually, it starts with the brain fog) and then works its way through the rest of my body.

Christ, I have so much to do. I hope I can keep my focus together to get all of this stuff finished. I guess I can always just do the old “work on a bit until I am tired and then when I am not tired go back to it” system, which has worked before. I’ve also not ever been sick this long in quite some time, if ever. Ugh, stop whining, already and remember how lucky you are: you didn’t need to be hospitalized, fevers were mild and not long-lasting, no stomach upset of any kind, and best of all, no intubation. It’s been, for me, mostly unpleasant and time-consuming, neither of which are ideal. But also cannot be helped–but that resignation always feels like defeat to me for some reason, and I hate that about myself.

I don’t think I’ll ever live long enough to properly self-examine all of my neuroses, hang-ups, and issues. Probably for the best, and on that note, I’ll bring this to a close. Sorry for all the illness updating; hopefully soon we’ll be back to normal around here, Constant Reader–or whatever passes for it. Have a great Thursday!

Gold and Braid

Positive again this morning, despite waking up and feeling pretty good–and then I remembered the last few mornings were the same and it started kicking in about an hour after getting up. So, I am sitting here drinking my first cup of coffee, staring glumly at the two lines on my test strip, and waiting for this stupid virus to wake up inside my body and start fucking with me again. Ah, well, I should make use of this hour, shouldn’t I?

Yesterday was glum, really. I started experiencing fever for the first time since I tested positive last Friday or whenever it was, and that was particularly unpleasant. I did, however, realize hey one of the things you’ve never done is have things delivered rather than going to the store, and since I needed to be isolated from the world during this period, I thought why not go check and see if, say, Costco will deliver? So I went to their website, saw that yes, indeed, I could have an order delivered to my front door, and so I did. When Ashanti (my shopper/driver/delivery person) arrived, I put on rubber gloves and a N95 mask to go meet her at the gate–she saw the mask and gloves and wisely kept her distance (I have never before in my life understood how lepers must have felt back in the day the way I did when I saw the look on her face)–and then wore myself out lugging everything back to the Lost Apartment…but still, I got the stuff I needed. I couldn’t focus long enough to read anything–I had started Sandra SG Wong’s marvelous In the Dark We Forget at some point over the weekend, but I wasn’t really able to get far into it or focus on it yesterday, either–so I mostly spent the day under blankets in the easy chair trying to brainstorm and so forth on the things I am working on–without much luck. I also had a marketing meeting yesterday afternoon over the phone with Crooked Lane, which was daunting–reminding me again how far behind on everything I am, but it was nice for them to do and to give advice and tips on what to do, which was very cool. I also spent a good amount of time writing two emails–which ordinarily wouldn’t have taken long at all, but yesterday it took hours because of the inability to focus I mentioned–and after writing each, had to go sit and rest for a while as they wore me out. Dragging the Costco order back to the apartment in the heat also exhausted me.

Ah, there’s the muscle fatigue and joint aches I was missing when I woke up this morning.

Paul is feeling much better, which makes me tend to think he had it first and gave it to me (there’s no way of knowing, really, since it’s different with everyone) but I’m glad he’s feeling better, to be honest. If one of us has to be ill, I would prefer it to be me because I don’t worry about me the way I worry about him when he gets sick, if that makes sense at all? I hate that helpless feeling when someone you love isn’t feeling good and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. That’s the absolute worst.

We’re watching Becoming Elizabeth, and I have to say–while I am certainly not an expert by any means on Tudor England or on Queen Elizabeth (I do have some knowledge–for example, at one point last night a new character was introduced and I thought, “I bet that’s Amy Robsart” and I was right) I have to say this is one of the most accurate fictional series based on history I’ve seen. There aren’t many books about the period when young Edward VI reigned–obviously, it’s talked about in other books from a sideways view, like Antonia Fraser’s Mary Queen of Scots–and the only one I can actually think of is Mary M. Luke’s A Crown for Elizabeth, which detailed the Tudor period from the deaths of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn through Elizabeth’s succession to the throne in 1558, and of course Carrolly Erickson’s marvelous Bloody Mary also covers this territory, but from Mary’s point of view. Sigh, I do love history, and watching this is making me want to reread not only Anya Seton’s Green Darkness but Philippa Carr’s The Miracle at St. Bruno’s.

And now I am feeling tired again, so am going to go sit for a spell. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

Battle of the Dragons

Friday. I am taking a personal day today so I can try to get caught up on some things that slid while I was gone and haven’t had the chance to do anything about. I have to head out to Metairie to pick up my new glasses, have another errand to run out there, and also have a prescription to pick up at some point. I also have to make groceries and go to Costco sometime soon; maybe today, maybe not. We’re supposed to get a lot of rain this weekend–it’s summer in New Orleans: hot, humid, chance of rain–and am thus hoping that I’ll be able to not only get a lot done but be able to read cozily under a blanket while listening to the rain in the background. I slept very well last night, and am just going to do some mild stuff around here before it’s time to go run the errands and get back home to firmly set nose to grindstone. I feel very well rested this morning, despite getting up before eight (I actually woke up at five, but was easily persuaded into going back to sleep for a few more hours), and am looking forward to a restful if productive weekend.

I was a little surprised to see that the last two episodes of Stranger Things are much longer than the previous ones; the series/season finale is two and a half hours long. So we watched the one and a half hour second-to-last episode before switching over to this week’s Loot. I guess we’ll finish watching Stranger Things tonight, but it was disappointing; I thought for sure we’d be able to finish it last night. Why do the last two episodes total four hours of viewing? It doesn’t make much sense to me, and again, I was rather disappointed, primarily because I am really enjoying this season and am looking forward to finishing the series. On the other hand, watching the series finale will take up all of our television time this evening, so we won’t have to make a decision about what else to watch tonight at any rate. Conundrums a’plenty here, aren’t there?

I also want to finish Rob Osler’s book Devil’s Chew Toy, which is charming but I’ve been too drained to look at this week. I’m not sure what I am going to read next–I have so many options, all of them good–and of course today I have to polish a short story since the anthology closes for submissions at midnight. I’d like to get the copy edits for the Bouchercon anthology out of the way once and for all–a goal for the weekend–and I am thinking perhaps for my next read I might read something horror rather than mystery; I can’t really decide and as usual, will actually go ahead and decide once I’ve finished the current read and see what appeals to me. I have such a plethora of riches here in the massive TBR stacks and piles it’s not even funny. (I am also resisting the urge to buy more books, doing which would not be a good thing. A lot of really good books are dropping right now, but I have to be strong and hold firm.) I think when I get home from my errands today I may just curl up in my easy chair and finish the book. I don’t want to give the impression I am not enjoying it; my brain is often fried after I get off work and do some writing and/or editing once I get home and all I am good for is watching something mindless, like Real Housewives’ Ultimate Girls’ Trip, which has been highly entertaining so far, until Paul gets home.

I also need to pick out a Tennessee Williams quote for the opening of Mississippi River Mischief.

I’m not very exciting or interesting this morning, am I? Sorry about that, I think my brain didn’t reset over night or something; it feels rather intellectually burnt out, if that makes any sense. It’s okay, most of anything that I’ll be doing today doesn’t really require my creative brain but rather the editorial side, yet it would be nice to get some new writing done–on the other hand, I am going to be out running around in the heat today, which is going to be tiring and exhausting and probably by the time I get home from it all, I’m just going to want to collapse into my chair and read, which is also fine. A very important rule for being a writer is to also be a voracious reader, and I’ve not exactly been voracious in a while. I didn’t read hardly at all, for example, at Sleuthfest–but on the other hand I was also doing a lot there and not sleeping well. (I also didn’t write much while I was there; I did get some writing done in the mornings but it literally wasn’t a good writing weekend for me, either.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Another cup of coffee, another load of laundry, and some cleaning are in order for the next hour or so. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader!

Gold

Everyone has heard of Constantinople at some point in their life, I should think–at least they’ve heard that annoying song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. Some may even know that it fell to the army and navy of the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmet II in 1453, ending the Eastern Roman Empire after a thousand years of existence. The Ottomans relocated the capital of their empire there, renaming it as Istanbul. (Christian Europe continued calling it Constantinople for centuries; it’s only over the last hundred years or so that Istanbul has come into more common usage.) But few know much more about the city and the empire it served as capital for over a millenium. Of those, some may know the basics–the Emperor Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, recognizing that the enormous Roman Empire had become impossible to rule or enforce law or protect, split the empire into eastern and western halves, and founded a capital for the east on the site of the village of Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 473 when the city fell; yet the eastern empire continued until 1453. Western Europe, always trying to reclaim the heritage of the Roman Empire (and ambitiously planning to rebuild it), always referred to the still existing Roman Empire as “Greek” rather than “Roman,” although the citizens of that great city and the vestiges of its empire continued calling themselves Romans until the Turks finally ended it.

But that thousand year history? It’s not easy to find information or books with much information; even the one history of the Empire I did read–Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth, along with his City of Fortune, a history of the Venetian Empire–glossed over centuries and only hit highlights. I’ve always wanted to write something historical set in the new Rome.

The Eastern Empire out-lasted its western counterpart by nearly a thousand years. Constantinople was one of the greatest Christian cities of all time; there was certainly nothing even remotely close to it in western Europe in terms of population, art, culture, education, and trade. It’s location put it in control of access and egress from the Black Sea; it also controlled the trade routes between Europe and Asia. Its fall in 1453 meant that those trade routes were now controlled by the non-Christian Islamic Ottoman Empire–and as such, other ways to reach the far east became necessary to the western Europeans, hence the Portuguese circumnavigating Africa and the Spanish attempt to sail west to find a route, leading to the “discovery” of the Americas. The fall of Constantinople was an incredibly important and necessary piece of the interlocking puzzle that led to European colonization and the global empires that resulted from it (as well as the oppression and enslavement and genocide of native populations); but Western historians–in particular, those monastic scholars in Catholic orders–have always tried to erase and /or lessen the importance of the eastern Empire and its capital, calling them “Greeks”, renaming the Eastern Roman Empire as the “Byzantine Empire,” etc.–and in no small part, this was also because of the Christian Schism of 1054, in which the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church split in two over questions of dogma. Therefore, it was in the interest of the Western Europeans to underplay the vital importance to European history of the remains of the Roman Empire because western Catholics considered their Orthodox brethren as heretics; their church was the true one, even if it was in the east that the religion originally came from, and it was in the eastern half of the empire the tenets and dogma of the “true” faith were established. The Pope in Rome always tried to assert his own authority over the Patriarch in Constantinople; the Patriarch considered himself to be the head of the faith and the Pope just another bishop. Thus, when Charlemagne conquered most of central Europe, he and the Pope created the Holy Roman Empire (which wasn’t holy, or Roman, or even really an empire in the traditional sense); the Romans in Constantinople were not pleased. (At the time, through some political machinations and drama, a woman was seated on the throne in Constantinople–the Empress Irene, one of the most interesting women in European history; she was also pretty terrible. The Pope decided there could be no such thing as a female Emperor, and so he crowned Charlemagne.)

The Holy Roman Empire also lasted over a thousand years.

Anyway, I’ve always been interested in the eastern Empire, even though it’s largely neglected in European histories. But one event in its history has always been interesting to me in particular –the fall of Constantinople to the Catholic 4th Crusade in 1204, which essentially set the stage for the second fall of the city, to the Ottomans in 1453. I also have an idea for a Colin book–which I’ve had for a very long time–that would have its beginnings in the 1204 sack of Constantinople.

It’s remarkably hard to find much information–granted, it’s not like I’ve tried very hard, but the fact that you have to try hard to find histories and/or books about the Empire and its capital, let alone the 4th Crusade–even histories of the Crusades themselves gloss over the fact that a Crusader army, blessed by the Pope, allowed itself to be diverted by the Venetians to capture and sack two Christians cities (Zara and Constantinople), and established “Latin” (western European) kingdoms and principalities out of the provinces that were once the Eastern Roman Empire. These Catholic kingdoms were so despised by their subjects that they didn’t last long, with another dynasty of the old empire arising to drive them out. The sack of the city and the pillaging and destruction that followed created such a deep hatred for the Catholic Church and the kings that followed the Pope that they preferred the Ottomans to a reconquest by the Catholic nations–which is saying something. Ernie Bradford’s The Great Betrayal: The Great Siege of Constantinople is a very thorough account of the tragedy and how it came to pass; the destruction of the mighty city–along with the destruction of priceless books and documents and art forever lost to us–was on a par with the burning of the Great Library at Alexandria.

The book itself is very interesting; the siege took nearly a year, and it’s actually kind of shocking that the Crusaders succeeded in taking the city, bearing in mind the strong defenses and so forth. A lot of things had to fit into place for it to happen, and they all did. The city came so close to holding them off successfully; it’s almost as though, as they would have said at the time, it was God’s will for it to happen. The city was also filled with all kinds of priceless Christian relics; after all, the religion was founded in the east, and as city after city fell to foreign invaders, a lot of priceless artifacts and holy relics were moved to the capital. (The great horses from the Hippodrome, for example, are proudly on display in the Piazza San Marco in Venice to this day.) A lot of the art was destroyed, jewels picked out of reliquaries, the gold or silver or bronze melted down for coin, and so forth.

As someone who has always loved history, and also has always loved treasure hunts–especially those that are involved with the history and development of Christianity, many years ago (I will freely confess to being inspired by Indiana Jones movies) I thought about writing such a treasure hunt story–where the ‘treasure’ being hunted was some important document or book or relic from the earliest days of Christianity that would revolutionize the faith as well as show how off-course it had gone since the earliest days…and wouldn’t it have made sense that whatever it was could have been kept in Constantinople, deep in the archives of the Orthodox Church? And with western, Catholic Europeans besieging the city, wouldn’t the Patriarch have wanted to keep it out of the hands of the Pope, and smuggled it out of the city to be hidden somewhere else, safe from the prying eyes of Rome?

And of course, when I created Colin–actually, when I brought him back in Jackson Square Jazz–I loved the character so much that I considered spinning him off; what about the jobs he’s on when he’s not in New Orleans? “Oh,” I thought, “my fall of Constantinople story! That could work for Colin!” And it even occurred to me the other day that I could even do them as “case files,” setting them throughout the past, both before and after he met Scotty and woven in between the Scotty stories. (It also occurred to me that I could do Scotty stories to fill in the years between books, if I wanted to…)

And reading this book–which i recommend if you want to know more about “holy wars” and how corrupt and unholy they actually were–made me think about it even more. I do want to include something about the Empress Irene, too.

Something to brainstorm at some point. Like I have the time to squeeze in another book…but it would be fun; although I don’t know how good I would be at writing action/adventure/thrillers.

It would be fun to find out, though.

Thousand Days

Last night was definitely the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I left for Florida last week, which was really nice. I still didn’t want to get up this morning, of course, but the weird thing is I feel very rested; I actually have every morning this week, which should say something about how well i’ve been sleeping, right?

Yesterday after work I had to head uptown to run an errand before heading home to the Lost Apartment, where I cleaned the kitchen and did a load of laundry before settling in with a grilled cheese sandwich (with bacon, guacamole, and two slices of Creole tomato–marvelous, simply marvelous) to watch some more episodes of Stranger Things, and I think we should finish it tonight. We also caught up on Only Murders in the Building, which I am enjoying–but not so sure how I feel about the latest plot twist in the story, but I am enjoying the show this season; the cast is top-notch, of course, and the writing is still strong, but the plot does seem to be dragging a bit this season. Not a complaint, merely an observation. We also have some episodes of Becoming Elizabeth to get caught up on; I love me some Tudor drama, and it’s funny how we very rarely see the incredibly turbulent times between the death of Henry VIII and the coronation of Elizabeth I on film or in novels (one exception: Anya Seton’s marvelous Green Darkness), so it’s nice seeing the years of Edward VI being dramatized; I’ve always felt the younger years of Elizabeth before she became Queen were just as interesting as those of her reign, particularly since the lessons she learned during those years held her in good stead when she did mount the throne…I wonder, now that I think about it, whether Sansa Stark on Game of Thrones was sort of based on Elizabeth Tudor?

I am starting to feel sort of back to normal again, so I am recovered fully from the trip this past weekend; and since I am not going anywhere again until September for Bouchercon (provided any of our current pandemics don’t suddenly worsen between now and then) I can get settled into a routine and hopefully–hopefully–start making it back to the gym again as well as settling into a routine of writing and editing. It’s not with the slightest hesitation that I can happily state that I am pretty much finished with all editing for A Streetcar Named Murder (all that is left is the page proofing), and all Imposter Syndrome aside, it’s actually not a bad book. After going through the copy edits and doing some slight tweaking, it actually holds together pretty well; I think my main character is likable enough; and I think I may have actually done a good job with the New Orleans stuff. Suffice it to say, I am pleased with it and hope that everyone who does read it will be as well.

Huzzah!

I have one other major chore on my list to get done by Monday, and then once it’s completed I can go ahead and get down to work on the new Scotty and everything else I am working on. Everything is a process, of course; but once I get the errands I need to run done tomorrow (which I am taking off) I should be able to sit around and focus on everything I need to get done in the meantime. I am excited about getting my new glasses tomorrow (the ability to see clearly is vastly underrated) and at some point I need to run by Costco as well as make a significant grocery run–there’s literally so little food in the house we would be hard-pressed to get through an entire weekend, quite frankly–and perhaps part of my “straight home from work” night chores should include a thorough cleaning out of the refrigerator (I may make grilled cheese again tonight; Creole tomato season doesn’t last forever after all) as well as reorganizing things in there to utilize the space better. I have a load of clothes in the dryer that will need fluffing and folding once I am home, as well, and I have a short story to edit before turning it in tomorrow for a submission call I’d like to make it past the cut–but on the other hand, I won’t be terribly upset if I don’t. I am not sure my story actually fits within the perimeters of the actual call, so it’s already a long shot before taking into consideration whether the writing or anything is any good.

I also need to figure out where I am with a lot of other things. This weekend will be good, methinks, for centering myself. I also want to finish reading Devil’s Chew Toy this weekend, and I also have a blog post or two about some things I’ve read I need to finish and post. It’s always something….

Until tomorrow, Constant Reader!

The Highwayman

And he is home in the Lost Apartment, swilling coffee after having a good night’s sleep for the first time since, well, last Tuesday night, really; I had to get up at five on Thursday, after all. I got home around nine last night; I got a ride to the airport many hours before my flight–which I don’t mind, as long as I have something to read and an Internet connection, I am more than capable of entertaining myself. The flight home was uneventful, I retrieved the car and there wasn’t any traffic to speak of on I-10 so the drive home was practically nothing. Now I have to adjust back to my normal reality, which is also fine–it can be very tiring and exhausting being at a conference for the weekend, but as I mentioned yesterday, I had a marvelous time. Sleuthfest is a lovely event (kudos to the Florida chapter of Mystery Writers of America, with an especial shout out to president Alan Orloff and chairs Michael Joy and Raquel Reyes) I’ve always enjoyed when I’ve had the opportunity to attend; I certainly hope it works out for me to go again next year. I met some new people and reconnected with others I’ve not seen since pre-pandemic (some of course I’ve met and seen since the pandemic started), and over all, it was truly a lovely weekend. I also managed to get some writing done over the course of the weekend, which is always a pleasant surprise when it happens.

But there’s also something quite lovely about being home, in my own desk chair drinking my own coffee and looking at my big desktop screen instead of the laptop. I have a million emails to get through and try to answer; data to enter for my day job; and at some point later today I have to run errands and finish re-acclimating to New Orleans and my usual, ordinary, day to day existence. I did manage to finish reading my friend’s manuscript (which I greatly enjoyed), as well as The Great Betrayal, and got about half-way through Rob Osler’s debut Devil’s Chew Toy, which I hope to finish this week. I have some stories to finish polishing to get out into the world this month, and I need to get back to the writing, of course. I’m also still a little reeling from how well my reading from Chlorine went at Noir at the Bar; yesterday people were still coming up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed it and how much they were looking forward to reading it when it’s finished. I suspect Chlorine might be the breakout book I’ve been waiting to write most of my career…it certainly seems like it, doesn’t it?

I am feeling a bit better about where I am at with everything and my writing, I have to say. That’s the lovely thing about events like Sleuthfest–writers with careers like mine often are operating in a vacuum. Sure, people say nice things to us about our work on social media or in Amazon or Goodreads reviews, but for the most part we don’t get many opportunities to engage with readers or other authors in person. I doubt, for example, that I will ever be so popular that my signings or readings or appearances will be ticketed events. It’s always possible, of course, but at this point hardly likely. having in person interactions with other writers and readers. Writing is different from other jobs; you mostly do it by yourself and it’s not like you have an office filled with other co-worker authors to go to every day. I never am overly concerned about how good of a job I am doing at my day job; I know my job inside out and I provide good care and education to my clients every day. But writing is an entirely different animal. You work on something by yourself for quite some time and polish it and edit it and rewrite it and you have no idea what’s going on with it–if it’s any good or not, because you’re not a good judge of your own work, and then you send it out and wait and wait and wait to find out if it’s any good or remotely publishable. And even then, you don’t get any feedback outside of your editor for months and months and months after you wrote it–and in some cases, by the time the book or story comes out, you’ve completely forgotten what it was about and who the characters were and so on.

Heavy sigh.

That’s why, at least for me as an author, going to events like Sleuthfest are so important. I need that reinvigoration every once in a while; it inspires me and pushes me and gets me back to feeling like an author again. It’s really nice.

But now I have to get back to reality–balancing day job with writing and volunteer work and keeping the house–and I know my next event will be Bouchercon in September, at the end of the dog days of summer and as football season once again kicks into gear. So for now, I am going to make another cup of coffee, put some things away and start doing some chores around here before I dive back into the duties of my day job. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

Destiny

Sunday morning and my last day in Fort Lauderdale for Sleuthfest. I am about to go forage for coffee, come back up here, get cleaned up and packed. I am heading to the airport early–I have lots to read with me, and of course, I can always pull the laptop out and write if I want to while I wait for my flight. I struggled writing yesterday, to be completely honest; I was trying to write every morning over my coffee before heading down for the afternoon slate of panels (nobody needs to see me here before noon, seriously) and tomorrow I will be at my own home after sleeping in my own bed, and will probably do a final wrap up of Sleuthfest and the marvelous time I’ve had here. I am always nervous about public speaking on panels and so forth, and it’s lovely when it always goes well.

I was on two marvelous panels yesterday; the first was about how does one decide between an amateur or a professional detective, moderated astutely by Marco Carocari, and then the How to Write a Mystery panel, moderated by the always marvelous Oline Cogdill. I sat in between Jeffrey Deaver and Elaine Viets; so pretty much my head was spinning the entire time–I’m sitting next to Jeffrey Deaver and Elaine Viets!!!–and somehow managed to not make a complete fool of myself…or everyone was simply being very kind. Both panels I thought went really well, thanks to expert moderation and marvelous people on the panel, and I also discovered some marvelous new-to-me writers this weekend, including Yasmin Angoe (whose debut Her Name Is Knight is neatly packed into my bag to take home, and Genevieve Essig, who actually lives in the French Quarter! (I am buying her book today when I go downstairs.) Yes, I bought too many books while here–just what I needed, more books, right?–but you can never have too many books.

I also discovered yesterday morning when I wanted to work on the first chapter of Mississippi River Mischief that I started this part week (in a very lame and ineffective attempt to get the book started) that I actually already had started writing the first chapter a few months ago–I told you my memory is a sieve–and I then found some notes that I had made on ideas for the book and realized dumbass, you had already plotted almost the entire thing out already; it just needs tweaking. Needless to say, I was incredibly thrilled and delighted to discover that I was not, in fact, needing to start completely from scratch but had already made some great progress; so now I am going to finish the first chapter while figuring out the story, plot, and structure of the novel–there’s a lot I need to fit into it; more than I had thought, which makes the book even more ambitious than I was recently thinking it would be. Gulp. But I always say I like a challenge…

But on the other hand, as lovely as it is to immerse myself into the world of writing and publishing, that always has to come to an end and I get to return to the mundanity of the Lost Apartment and my every day life in New Orleans. Tuesday morning I return to the office (Monday is my work at home day, and I have a massive stack of data entry to do), and now that I won’t be traveling again until after Labor Day, it may be time to start going to the gym (despite having to walk in the miserable heat of the summer over there) again. I want to get in better condition–I don’t care, for the first time, about the marvelous side effect of changes to my body–because i am getting older, and need to start worrying about things like muscle loss and bone density and things like that, and a regular weight routine will help with that. I should also probably try to eat healthier as well–I know, who am I and what have I done with Gregalicious–because of genetic things, like high cholesterol and heart disease on both sides and eating better will help with that as well. I also need to stay focused and stop feeling so defeated by the enormous amounts of things I have to do all the time; I’ve simply got to get the organizing of my life under control so I can get things done and not feel so oppressed and defeated all the time.

And on that note, I need to get cleaned up and packed and going on my day. Have a marvelous Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you tomorrow morning from my desk in the Lost Apartment.

Two Kinds of Love

I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked this past weekend, which is really not much of a surprise; I always go into weekends thinking I have lots of time to do things and so forth and wind up getting caught up in other things and well, then I don’t get things done that I need to get done and now I am all panicking because I leave for Florida really early Thursday morning and I then get worked up into a state and then…well, I find myself on Tuesday morning without as much done as I needed to get done and trying to keep the panic under control.

I did, however, to read the first chapter of Chlorine at Noir at the Bar Thursday night, so that’s one thing checked off the list. It’ll be nice, I think. It’s uploaded on the iPad and thus ready to go. I have so much to do…I am being interviewed for a podcast when I get home from work tonight, so I hope my client is on time so I can get home in time for it at five.

I slept very well last night–we’re still watching Condor on Epix, and are enjoying it; not sure why it hasn’t gotten more attention; but probably has to do with the plot and timing of the show’s release–hard for a show about the potential weaponizing of a lethal disease during a pandemic to really get a lot of attention or viewers; I would imagine this isn’t the kind of plot your average thriller-viewer would be interested in watching about during an actual global pandemic which had all kinds of horrific conspiracy theories swirling around it during the first few panicky weeks and months after it all started. It’s also kind of interesting how everything about it has just disappeared from the news almost completely, like it’s all over and no one is catching it anymore and the hospitals are doing fine now. No one seems to care about mask mandates or proof of vaccination anymore, either. I didn’t hear a lot of fireworks last night–although at one point I did wryly joke to Paul after a series of them went off, “Fireworks or gunshots?”

Always a valid question in New Orleans.

I did do some writing yesterday–not a lot, a small bit; a revision of a story I had already written several drafts of and yesterday I changed it from present to past tense, and the main character from a young college girl to a young college gay; I think it does work better in this form. I am going to submit it to a an anthology about the South; I doubt they will take it, but hey–it’s the first place I’ve come across where I could actually send it in to try for publication. I wasn’t super high energy at all over the long weekend; I’m not sure what that was about, but it’s definitely a fact–and of course, the trip this weekend is going to exhaust me completely. I have several things to do over the course of the weekend–panels and so forth–and I absolutely must read my essay in How to Write a Mystery again before my panel about it. I really need to make a thorough and exact to-do list so I can start working my way through it. Heavy heaving sigh. I guess I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, on the other hand, were I not always behind on everything.

I have decided to only take two books with me on the trip, since I have to read a friend’s in-progress manuscript while I am there. It’s also on my iPad, but since I have to read off the iPad Thursday night, I need to be careful to make sure it’s charged, so I don’t know if I should read the manuscript while traveling on Thursday or wait and read while resting in my room. Decisions, decisions.

I think after my podcast tonight I will probably go ahead and pack for the trip and get it out of the way. I have to get up at five (!!!) on Thursday for the flight, and I have errands to run and things to do on the way home tomorrow, and then I will get stressed about trying to get ready and GAH. It just makes more sense to get it done tonight.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely post 4th Tuesday, Constant Reader!