Category: books i’ve read

World of Make Believe

I woke up reluctantly this morning to rain, which will be off and on all day, and probably getting worse as the day progresses. Okay, pretty much the same as yesterday. We were on the edge of the cone yesterday, and today we are just outside of it, expecting tropical storm conditions at worst for the moment when she gets here, and it’s going to be relatively nasty both tomorrow and Thursday morning. The whole thing should be over and past by Thursday afternoon. The models kept shifting yesterday; first we were outside, then inside, then back outside again. The agency hasn’t made any announcements yet, but I think I don’t want to drive in tropical storm conditions so might just take tomorrow off and ride this out at home.

The irony that I am writing a book set during tropical weather has not escaped me. I really didn’t need a reminder of riding out a storm.

I am also seeing recommendations that everyone stay home Wednesday and Thursday, and little as I want to use my paid time off to not go into the office, I think my own personal safety and that of my car is more important than my job. Of course, we are completely unprepared–no bread, and probably won’t be able to get any at this point as people have probably already lost their minds about the storm. I still have a case of water from last year’s salt intrusion in the Mississippi, so we’re at least ahead on that score, and of course, we have a lot of candles. God, I hope we don’t lose power. We won’t lose much food, thank heavens, because I’ve been trying to use up everything in the house in order to combat my food anxiety (from being poor in my younger years) and not have a fully stocked house filled with food I never get around to eating.

Yesterday was a low energy day; I managed to get all my work done at the office but was dragging by the time I came home. I didn’t do any writing when I got home, but we watched The Deliverance last night, which was really interesting. It’s based on a true story, apparently, which makes it even more interesting, and the acting was phenomenal. I love urban horror–it’s so much more creepy when horror is set in an urban area, where the suspension of belief is even harder to pull off. A remote creepy big house in the middle of nowhere? Easy to go down that path than to think the house at the end of the block or across the street is haunted, you know? I’ve always wanted to write a great ghost story set in New Orleans.

Also, This Fresh Hell, an anthology I contributed a story to last year, has been short-listed for the Ditmer award for Best Collection! That’s exciting, and I am delighted for the editors. The story I contributed, “Solace in a Dying Hour,” is one of my personal favorites, and is one of my few Louisiana stories that isn’t set in New Orleans. That’s also a story I wrote post-pandemic, and so I guess I have been doing good work since the world shut down four years ago, but it was such a completely miserable time that it seems like I didn’t really write anything good. I also didn’t get as much work done as per my usual, which was a part of the entire self-recrimination thing. I’ve also realized, going through these old Scotty books, that I’ve always considered the ones after the first three as different from the first three. And they are, in many ways, but as always, rather than thinking it through I just thought I wasn’t doing as good of work on that series…but in thinking it through, I realized that mentally it’s like two different series; because there were the first three over four years, and changed publishers with it, starting it again about three or four years after the third came out. By the time I wrote another Scotty, things were different. Publishing had changed. There really weren’t ebooks when the first three came out. Working on the first three was a matter of getting corrected manuscripts in the mail, fixing everything, and then sending them another two copies of the corrected manuscript, and on and on. By the time I wrote Vieux Carre Voodoo, everything was being done electronically, and thus could move a lot faster than the olden days. It’s not that I worked harder on the earlier ones, but it was harder to publish and edit the old way, and time-consuming. And since that was the way I learned how to revise and rewrite and make corrections, in my mind I defaulted to this is the way it’s supposed to be done and I’ve never gotten comfortable with the new way, even if 90% of my books were done that way.

And the clinic is closed for the storm tomorrow. We don’t have bread, and it’s probably impossible to find any now…but we do have crackers. And protein shakes. And lots of soda.

I hope we don’t lose power.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, and everyone in the path, stay safe!

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If You Talk In Your Sleep

Well, here we are in the cone of uncertainty for a tropical storm that should be forming due south of Louisiana in the Gulf, which should make for an interesting week, don’t you think? How things have changed since I posted my blog yesterday morning… I imagine we’ll be hearing about contingency plans today at the office.

Sigh. Wednesday is also Pay the Bills Day, which should make everything all the more interesting. According to the hurricane center, landfall should be around seven pm on Wednesday, so who knows? It might impact work on Thursday, too. And of course, I am writing about experiencing a Category 1 with this new Scotty, and this one will be a Category 1, too, if not stronger. Yay. Needless to say, we won’t be evacuating as this has come up a little too quickly; we’d have to get packing and on the road today, tomorrow morning at the latest. There’s no call for evacuation, so we should be okay. But…we may lose power, and that truly sucks. If the weather is going to be cool…it might be kind of nice, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Guess I’ll be getting that case of water down from the attic and tossing a few of them into the freezer. But there doesn’t seem to be much concern in the news or on the weather channels, so I am assuming it’s nothing to be terribly concerned or worried about. It’s 3’s and up that are the real problem…and of course, now that I’ve said that…

Since it’s a Monday, it’s back to the office with me this morning. I had a lovely, restful weekend, how about you? Yesterday was a really lovely day here. I overslept so was a bit off for the rest of the day, but the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything, but one thing I did was start the Scotty Bible, going through the already post-it noted copy of Mardi Gras Mambo and getting some interesting (and necessary) information out of it (the first names of his grandparents and his dad; the street the Diderot mansion is on) that I needed, and I felt very accomplished getting that part of it done and it’s off to a start. It was also kind of nice revisiting the old book, something I wrote almost twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how insane the plot of this book actually was, and I’m kind of impressed that I managed to pull it off, especially given how many aborted starts I made on it. But I certainly picked the right back-list book to start compiling the Bible with; it had all the answers I needed for this one in it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, mind you; I am planning on getting through one book per day (I already marked the places I need to get information from in the entire series, many years ago); today is Who Dat Whodunnit when I get home tonight. I’m also going to correct the chapters I’ve already written with the right names and places and so forth.

I ran an errand and the weather was stunningly beautiful–the 70s and cool; the breeze was nice and cool, a lovely change from it feeling like the air coming out of a floor vent in Minneapolis in January. I watched the Saints win, which was also lovely, and then I had a ZOOM call with some friends before settling in for the evening, where we got caught up with Bad Monkey and Only Murders in the Building.

So, all in all, a pleasant if lazy weekend here in the Lost Apartment, if not a particularly productive one. Which is also fine, you know. Weekends don’t have to be productive anymore.

It’ll be interesting to see how this storm–which is now projected to be a Category 2 when the eye comes ashore–is going to interrupt the week and my work. If we lose power, we have plenty of candles and things to drink, and I can catch up on my reading. Now that I’ve broken through my “reader’s block” and binged an entire novel in one sitting (Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, available now for preorders and being released in January), reading isn’t going to be as big an issue as it was. I am also making progress on getting through Rival Queens, and am revisiting some Ira Levin classics, preparatory to a longer essay for Substack about one of my favorite writers that I sadly forget about when asked about influences; Levin’s work had an influence on mine in some ways, but he was definitely a master. He wrote one of the greatest crime novels of all time (A Kiss Before Dying, which still amazes with its twists and turns and surprises), and three others that became part of the zeitgeist and had a lasting impact on our culture: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil. (I also want to reread “A Rose for Emily” this week, too.) I also haven’t reread Rebecca in quite some time, nor The Haunting of Hill House, either. I am going to be trying to read horror all month for Halloween again; I have some terrific horror novels collecting dust that I need to get around to, and Halloween Horror Month sounds like a great idea to me.

I also want to watch The Deliverance this week.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. It’ll be an interesting day, for sure, and maybe I’ll be back later. Stranger things have occurred.

Eve of Destruction

Good morning to you, Constant Reader. Here we are on Saturday, after another rainy day and work-at-home duties. It is still raining this morning. I can see why it starts to get on people after a few days, but not me. I love it. I am up super early this morning again–I got up at six thirty (!!)–for the second day in a row that I didn’t have to, but I find I like getting up early when I don’t have to so I can get more stuff done, you know? It was great getting all my work stuff done early yesterday so I could run my errands and work on the house and so on, which I did go ahead and do. My eye appointment isn’t today, but I rescheduled it anyway for the first weekend in October.

I did start working on the Scotty Bible yesterday, which was very cool. I feel like progress is being made, you know? Paul was at the office for meetings and to finish a grant, so Sparky and I had a lovely time hanging out. I also started pulling together a cast list for the new book, and started working on the outline. I also figured out how to do the prologue, which I usually do when the book is done, and I have a great opening line to parody. As I was moving stuff around on my desk while cleaning, I pulled out my copy of Collected Stories of William Faulkner, and of course there was a place-holder marking the page where “A Rose for Emily” begins. I know, it’s not very original, but “A Rose for Emily” is one of my favorite short stories of all time, but its brilliant macabre twists and turns are absolute genius, and of course, Faulkner was a genius. Hard to navigate sometimes, but a genius none-the-less. I may reread it to dissect it again, but every small Southern town had a Miss Emily, back in the day. “I have no taxes in Jefferson” is such a great line.

I did read some non-fiction yesterday. I received a book called The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos by Armen Keteyian and John Talty and it’s interesting. It covers the 2023 football season, with all the conference realignments, NIL deals and money, and so on. The nice thing about it is every chapter is about a different coach or team or aspect of the “chaos”, so it doesn’t have to be read in order. I read the chapters about Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh yesterday, as well as the one about the collapse of Jimbo Fisher’s career at Texas A&M. I’m keeping an open mind–my mantra being “change isn’t bad’–about it, but I’m watching college football with a wary eye this year; all the changes and this multi team play-off (the irony that the team that’s royal screwing last year emphasized the need for this has now lost two games already this early doesn’t escape me. They could of course run the table–look at what happened to Clemson already, too–the two powerhouses of the ACC.) But it’s a long season, and everyone counted Alabama out early last year after they lost to Texas, and they did just that–ran the table and went to the play-offs.

When I was running my errands yesterday, I had my first “understand the assignment” experience with a total stranger! I had stopped to get the mail, and of course, it was raining. So I dashed through the rain into the postal service, grabbed my mail, and ran back across the street to where I was parked. As I got into the car, I noticed Harris/Walz signs all over the iron gate of the house next door. I smiled, and decided to take a picture of it once I was safely in my car. I rolled down the window, but the gate started to open and a car pulled in. The woman got out, saw me taking a picture of her gate, and I yelled “love your signs” and gave her a thumbs-up (she also had them on her car) and we yelled it together at the same time: “I understand the assignment!” and we both laughed. As I drove off, I noticed the entire block had Harris/Walz signs, and I started noticing them on cars around the city yesterday, too. Usually all I’ve seen has been Trump decals and stickers all over those “I have a small penis so I need a massive truck” vehicles, but I also know those people aren’t from New Orleans. I mean it when I say I live in a blue dot in a red sea–New Orleans doesn’t play with that sort of thing. New Orleans is so fucking blue it’s almost black, kind of like the dark blue velvet of a cloudless midnight sky on the full moon. Think I’m kidding? Did Hillary get 81% and Biden 83% of the vote in your blue city? WHen we had more population, combining with the other blue dots in the state, New Orleans could swing a statewide election to the Democratic Party; it’s how Mary Landrieu was elected to the Senate twice here,…until she committed the colossal sin of agreeing with and backing our first Black president. The racists replaced her with Bill Cassidy1, that mental giant, because New Orleans didn’t have the electoral power in the state it enjoyed before Katrina–and don’t tell me that part of the response to Katrina wasn’t what it was because Karl Rove wanted to break the Democratic Party in Louisiana, and what better way than to traumatize and break up a solid block of voters? It’s never really recovered, either. That’s why we have those morons Cassidy and Kennedy in the Senate embarrassing us on a daily basis, and why we have a Project 2025 governor now.

The city will turn out for the Vice-President. The rest of the state may be as red as the old USSR flag2, but New Orleans thumbs its nose at their politics of division, hate, and Christian white supremacy. It’s why the rest of the state hates us, that plus we’re a majority Black city. It’s why the racists in the rest of the state are always whining about the crime in New Orleans and how ‘scary’ and ‘dangerous’ the city is; dog whistles, of course. I am white and I have lived here for almost thirty years, and yes, while we have been the victims of a violent crime committed by homophobes from outside of New Orleans, neither one of us ever feels fear here.

And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and I am going to read for a little while before I get cleaned up and going on my day. Hope you have a great Saturday, Constant Reader; I’ll have the television on in the background during games today. I don’t think LSU’s game tonight is even televised? No big deal, really.

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  1. Thanks again, Louisiana racists. ↩︎
  2. A very deliberate choice for that image, since it appears that Russia has owned the Right in this country for quite some time now. ↩︎

Yes, I’m Ready

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week before work-at-home Friday; huzzah! It rained most of the day yesterday. We are in flood watch until Saturday morning, I believe; anyway, it’s going to be almost constant raining for the next few days, which I love. I love rain, and I write about rain an awful lot, especially here in New Orleans. God, we have the best thunderstorms here. Yes, I know, it’s not so awesome for folks who get water in their houses or their cars flooded and totaled by water damage, and I hate that for people (it happened to me once, but my car was able to be salvaged, although it never ran correctly again; the flooding was the beginning of the car’s slow death). But I like being inside while it rains outside, I love the way it gets cooler and the damp in the air is weirdly biting and comforting at the same time inside. I’m also writing a book that takes place during a big storm, so yes, I am writing rain again.

But I’m writing! I ran errands after work yesterday, gave Sparky treats and dinner, and plopped the old butt down and banged out 2100 words. Transitional chapter, which I always hate to write and always think they suck when I am writing them, but got it done and out of the way. Woo-hoo! Go, Greg, go! It does feel good when I write, and my mood does seem to improve and I get more things done than I usually do when I am not writing. I think it’s because I know I want to write but I can’t let things slide during the week if I want to take the weekend off from writing, which is the goal–or at least, not writing the book on the weekend. Tomorrow night I need to outline and synopsize the first four chapters, as well as nail down character names and list them–so I can develop those characters more to make the story stronger. I love the challenge I’m presenting to myself with this book in trying to do what I want to do with it, which is also a lot of fun. I do also need to do some more research on some other things I want to put in the book–and I also think I can plant the seeds for the next one during the story of this one, which I love. Or perhaps–ooooh, interesting–a three book overall arc to play out along with the plot of the current case? That could be fun, too. I love this part of writing a book; all the possibilities and things that may or may not work, the things and situations I set up that have to be explained so I have to figure it out. I don’t know, really, if people read the Scotty series because they like the characters and want to see what they’re up to, or if they like the plots, or maybe both? I’m usually just grateful people read them at all, honestly. Everything else is just gravy.

Yesterday was also a good day at the office. I helped some people, saw my appointments, and got things done, which is always nice. I also got tired a bit, but I also ate my lunch late and once I did, I felt very much better and more energized. The drive across town to get the mail wasn’t awful; they actually fixed the lights at the Louisiana and Toledano intersections (in a row, a few blocks apart; fun when the lights are blinking and they have been for a very very long time), which made the trip go much easier as there was no four-way stop and go nonsense, and when there are neutral grounds involved, New Orleans drivers–never the most trustworthy–have no idea what to do. I got across town, on a rainy day with some slight flooding, across town and then back home in half an hour, which was remarkable time. Very little traffic; perhaps many people stayed home from work for fear of flooding. But I was in a pretty good mood when I got home. Two books arrived at the service; a non-fiction book about the 2023 season of college football, and my friend Ellen Byron’s latest in her Cookbook Shop series, French Quarter Fright Night, which is one of my favorite series. My God, so many good books in my TBR pile! I’ve just got to make time to read more! It is one of my favorite things to do, and always has been.

The rain is supposed to start today around the time I leave for work, which should be very fun and exciting. I slept well last night, too. I feel very rested and awake this morning, which is great–but strange again; why am I feeling better on Thursday than I did on Tuesday morning? I don’t think I must have slept well on Monday night, because I was so tired after work on Tuesday night, and yet…here I am, feeling good and rested again this morning. Bizarre.

I’m glad the weekend is almost here, though. I don’t mind going to work, really, other than having to get up so early every morning, and how many people can say that? I probably make it sound like I don’t like my job, but I really only resent having to get up in the morning rather than waking up organically. I hate alarms.

And on that note, I am going to get ready to head into the spice mines. May your Thursday be as marvelous as you, Constant Reader, and thank you for being here.

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Cast Your Fate To The Wind

Ah, and here we are, three day weekend in the rearview mirror as we coast headfirst into a Tuesday that is destined to feel like a Monday all day. I set the alarm and got up at seven-ish; an hour later than a work day and really, something completely sensible to do on days off. An extra hour still feels like a treat, and then I have the entire morning to get things done. I washed dishes, made breakfast, wrote two posts, and then dug into the book and cranked out over two thousand words before noon–with the entire day still ahead of me. I wish I could tell you that I worked on some other writing, but I didn’t. I was reading newsletters and magazines that have stacked up (another thing that is stupid–I let magazines pile up, collect dust, and just be clutter rather than simply reading them at first opportunity and then tossing them in the trash–or tearing out an article that may be of interest to me at a later date (can’t imagine how all that paper piled up on me over the years). I am pleased to say I have only three back issues of Texas Monthly (their true crime reporting is stellar) and the latest 64 Parishes to read now. I also watched some news clips on Youtube, fell into a wormhole about the history of the Cathars in southern France and the Albigensian Crusade that killed them all, and finally started reading about the Baptist War in Jamaica–there’ll be more on that at another time, trust me on that– before doing some filing and touching up around here. All in all, it was a lovely weekend, and I am so delighted to be back into the book again (I was worried about picking it back up again after the last few days not working on it), and knowing that my editorial and creative eye is coming back together, too. I still have to get used to my life as it is now, and I know there are going to be bad days that I just need to accept and roll with, and not beat myself up over those sorts of things. Being too tired to write or create is a valid reason for not doing so. It just is painful and the writing isn’t any good, anyway–and it’s not like I need to prove to myself that I can write a goddamn crime novel, do I?

I feel pretty rested and good this morning. We shall see how that develops for the rest of the day. I think we’re pretty busy today; or maybe not; maybe it was next week? We always get busy at the STI clinic after Southern Decadence…which kind of makes me a little proud, because we’ve trained our clients so well that they know about the window periods for the bacterial infections so they wait. (The schedule isn’t that busy; I just checked it–laptop came home with me on Thursday–so yes, it’s next week that is super-busy.) I have to make groceries on the way home from the office tonight; I may be too tired to work on the book tonight but…that’s okay.

Yesterday afternoon I was kind of at loose ends and dangerously close to being bored, when I remembered a conversation at work recently, in which one of my co-workers told me he loves to watch bad movies with a friend to laugh at them, so I asked, as is my wont, if they’d seen Voyage of the Rock Aliens–I have yet to find anyone else who has seen it (I saw it twice in the theater) and so that was in my mind. Right now I can’t remember the brain trail that led me to think of it yesterday, but I did, and the whole movie is up on Youtube…so yes, I rewatched it, and…it really can’t be watched alone to be laughed at properly. Anyway, it was the great Ruth Gordon’s final movie (what an epitaph!), starred Pia Zadora and an incredibly beautiful young Craig Sheffer. It’s a weird mash-up of the bad scifi and beach movies of the 50s and 60s, a lot of the humor is of the time (I’m sure kids today, or even viewers of any age for that matter, would get the Lake Eerie jokes, because the lake was cleaned up), and it’s even more godawful to rewatch after forty years or so. It may even be worth it’s own entry…

We also started watching Kaos, which is demented in a very fun way; a modern twist on Greek mythology. A reboot kind of, if you will. Jeff Goldblum is perfect as Zeus, as is Janet McTeer as Hera. Of course, since it involves Orpheus and Eurydice, it put me in mind of Hadestown, which I saw on Broadway in New York thanks to Mike Ford. I’m looking forward to watching more tonight, if I’m not too tired and Paul isn’t working on a grant the way he has been for the last week or so. Of course, I could unwind with my Alison Gaylin ARC, which I am doling out to myself as a reward for getting things done.

I am very glad that my brain has finally unlocked and I am not only writing again, but writing the way I did before the recent times of troubles. I’m enjoying it, and am having fun with it again. I don’t know if I am all the way there again yet, and I’m not all the way back to normal (or whatever passes for normal in my life) quite yet, but I don’t feel like there’s a dark cloud in my brain and just getting through the day is a triumph anymore. Now that it’s unlocked, I can also see that some of the stories I’ve written over the last four years and not been able to place (or finish)? Now that my mind is more clear than it’s been in a while, I can see what the problems are–the voice and tone of the story. They’re written kind of in a cheery, pleasant tone, and that doesn’t work with what the stories are about. What was I thinking? No, they need to be colder, and more desperate, unsentimental, which isn’t as easy for me as it should be. They need to be harder and colder and crueler, more desperate, in order for the stories to work, which is also pretty cool. I’m so glad I’ve figured this out at long last! I also think part of the reason I made the stories not as dark as they needed to be was because of the shitshow life had become for us all and I didn’t want to write anything dark. My brain was telling me something, wasn’t it?

I also walked to Walgreens to get treats for His Impious Majesty, listening to the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast and rather enjoying it–it’s really hilarious, you should check it out–when the door opened in my brain and I finally figured out what podcasts actually are: they’re like radio shows of old only with a more modern delivery system. so we’ve kind of circled back around the entertainment my grandparents used to enjoy–radio/podcast, they are basically the same, with the primary difference how you get distributed to listeners, kind of like do-it-yourself radio. Yes, it only took me how many years to figure it out? Heavy sigh. But now that I finally get them, I can start looking for others that could be fun and informational. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around them–sometimes I have to connect newer technology to older so I can understand its purpose. Yes, I am well aware how obtuse I can be, which I think is a part of the wacky brain chemistry that I want to talk to my doctor about. I don’t need medication to control the wandering mind syndrome, as I’ve remembered how to write again, so that’s not an issue. But it would be nice to have a diagnosis rather than simply wondering and self-diagnosing from my reading.

I also started relearning German on Duolingo this weekend, which makes sense. There are crusty memories deep in the recesses of my brain, and doesn’t it make more sense to try triggering my memory rather than starting from scratch with a whole new language. So far, so good. I can order coffee and bread and wine in German now. So, when I am in a German coffee shop I can say, kaffee und brot, bitte.

I didn’t really have much FOMO about Bouchercon over the weekend–obviously, I know I would have had fun had I gone because now I know too many people not to have fun, if that makes any kind of sense to you. I did miss seeing everyone, but my primary regret in not going was not being able to participate in the voting down of removing the DEI (aka inclusion) from the Bouchercon operating by-laws…yes another attempt by a mediocre white man who used to be on the Board and was long associated with it (back in its misogynist, racist, homophobic days where that kind of shit was not only tolerated, but enjoyed) deciding that since he had a problem with inclusion the entire conference should just do away with it. Thanks, Al Abramson, I remember reporting being treated homophobically by programming years ago and you just patted me on the head and basically told me to get over it. Fuck you all the way to hell and back, and don’t think we aren’t fucking organized, you miserable piece of bigoted trash. Can’t imagine why queers felt uncomfortable and unsafe attending your fucking event, and the trash LOC couldn’t even be bothered reassuring us, and in fact, exposed how homophobic the LOC was. But thanks to the alert Board members and some others–CWoC, QCW–rallied the troops, but the Board also refused to consider it and the refusal of this last minute last ditch attempt to make it a Karen-and-Chad conference again. But this is also why we have to be forever vigilant, because there’s always some mediocrity trying to drive out the marginalized.

Must have been a real bitch-slap seeing how diverse the Anthony Awards were.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday that feels like Monday, and may be back later.

Red Roses for a Blue Lady

Labor Day and the last day of the three day weekend and Southern Decadence. It’ll be back to work with me again tomorrow (not going to say huzzah for that, sorry) but at least it’ll be a short work week. Alas, we don’t get another holiday until Thanksgiving, but I may take some time off this fall just to relax and rest and do shit, you know? I am finding these long weekends are enormously good for me physically and mentally, to be honest. I set my alarm to get up earlier this morning rather than letting myself just sleep as late as I wanted to,, and I feel better than I have all weekend sleeping late. Peculiar and strange, c’est moi. But I do want to get some things done today while taking it easy as well. I am trying to put off going to the grocery store until tomorrow; I may be able to get away with just a short walk to Walgreens because His Majesty is out of treats…but maybe it’s better to do it today and get it over with.

It does feel like I haven’t been to the office in an eternity.

Well, LSU lost it’s fifth straight season opener last night, and while I am trying not to get terribly discouraged about the season–it always sucks to start off the season with a loss–because it’s hard to say already how good USC is; so I really don’t have any idea of how good this year’s Tigers are. I had a feeling they were overconfident, and as galling as it is to lose to Lincoln Riley of all people, they could have won the game had they not consistently shot themselves in the foot, over and over, and there were a lot of questionable play calls that left points on the field. It actually reminded me a lot of the Florida State loss two years ago. Anyway, the Tigers have an easy game next week before coming home to play UCLA, so we’ll see how they regroup. I will also say Garrett Nussmaier is a great passer, so there’s potential for a great season despite the early loss. The loss cast a pall over the Lost Apartment, and I went to bed early, planning on rising early this morning, so that worked out just fine.

I had a lazy day around the house yesterday, not really doing a lot of anything. I read some more of We Are Watching, the new Alison Gaylin1 (preorder now, it’s coming out in January) which is marvelous as is everything she writes, before spending some time watching the US Open and news clips on Youtube. My shoulder was still sore from the vaccination on Saturday (it’s still sore this morning, too), and so I thought it best to take it easy and not risk getting unwell from the shot (which has happened the previous shots); or maybe it was my brain leaning into being lazy, which is always its preference. I did think a lot about the book yesterday, and feeling actually kind of excited about it, to be honest. I am trying something with it that’s more of a challenge to me, and that’s really exciting for me. I also spent some time filing yesterday and I did get ahead on the dishes and so forth. Today I can vacuum, if I so chose; but overall I am planning on a mostly low-energy day with lots of Sparky time relaxing in my easy chair. I am also planning on reading some more this morning.

The excitement I am feeling about writing this book has also kind of had a simmering effect on my creativity; rather than bursting with ideas the way I usually am when I am writing a book, I get a new idea but it’s more developed than the usual “just a title and a character and the basic idea,” which is also cool. I am also solving problems with some short stories I’ve stalled on, so yeah, it was a good weekend in that regard, and I am also working on some essays. It’s not like I’m not working even on days when I don’t advance the word count on the book, either.

Social media, such as it is now, is becoming more and more a waste of time that I don’t need to deal with in my life, frankly. One of the major problems is that it’s an election year, which is making people drop their masks with the mealy-mouthed can’t we all be friends despite our politics and the privilege that just drips from those statements just enrages me. The difference between me and the Right is that I don’t want anyone to be stripped of their rights. The Right’s corruption of American symbols has always been more about show than belief; kind of like their religion. I apparently spent a lot more time on Twitter than I thought I did–one never really is truly aware, is one–and now that Facebook is basically circling the drain, too, I am amazed at how much more free time I have. I guess I had become far more dependent on social media than I would have preferred or believed? Yesterday was another prime example of how bad Facebook is becoming. A lesbian writer friend had posted an image of a hideous Confederate flag cake with a joke about marrying your first cousin. Some woman I don’t know took offense, and said that flag has evolved into representing all Southerners.

I beg your fucking pardon?

Yeah, I let the racist bitch have it with both barrels before blocking her skank ass. Was she another lesbian writer? I don’t know and I don’t care, but if she is a writer, if that’s the way her mind works she’s probably a shitty writer as well as a shitty person. NO ONE defends the Traitor’s Flag and claims it represents all Southern people–because it sure as fuck does not represent Southern Black people, and to say that it does is so fucking racist you need to be repeatedly slapped, shamed, and driven out of the public square.

The paradox of tolerance is you cannot tolerate intolerance.

I also figured out what I need to do with Never Kiss a Stranger, and managed to convince myself my inability to finish that book was not a failure, either of imagination or as a writer. I knew how the book ended, and I knew how I wanted it to begin, but I didn’t know how to write the middle. The fact that it also started as a novella that I decided to expand and make longer has something to do with it, too; I kept going back and forth on whether there was enough story for a book or if I should, indeed, keep it as a novella, which can be forty thousand or less. There’s really not a place to publish novellas anymore, so at best I’d be able to do a novella collection or something as I have several others on hand, too–and one is almost nearly complete. Maybe I should include it in my collection of short stories? That would definitely fill that book out.

So, despite not really doing a whole lot of writing over the holiday weekend, I am not chiding or berating myself this morning over “wasting time.” It was a productive weekend, and I am getting better at being kinder to myself. I’m still figuring out the work/writing/life balance, but what I do know is that balance is a lot better now than it’s been in several decades.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and repair to my easy chair for some more of Alison’s book. Have a great Labor Day, and never forget it was unions that got us the forty-hour work week, paid sick time and vacations, breaks, and weekends. I may be back later; we shall simply have to see how things go, won’t we?

  1. Part of the reason I am enjoying the book so much–it hit me yesterday–is the writing style/voice reminds me very much of Ira Levin, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately; been wanting to revisit The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil, especially since JD Vance reminds me of one. ↩︎

This Diamond Ring

Work at home Friday, and the eve of the three day Labor Day weekend. It’s Bouchercon in Nashville and Southern Decadence in New Orleans, and I am not leaving my house today. It’s going to rain all day, for one, and I am a little worn down from the week. That’s normal, thank God, and maybe I am getting the point where my routine is becoming, well, routine. I’ve commented endlessly here how weird it is that I’d start the week tired, and get more rested and energetic the deeper into the week I’d get; so it bears commenting that this week was kind of normal, getting more tired rather than energetic as the week wore on. I managed to get home from work yesterday between storms, and alas, it looks as those it’s going to rain all weekend, which sucks if you came to New Orleans to hang out in the streets of the Fruit Loop to have a good time. But we gays are nothing if not a problem-solving make-the-best-of-everything people, and I know folks will have a great time while they are here. I was too tired to write anything last night, which I figured would happen, and it was fine. Paul and I mostly watched the US Open, then I watched the CNN interview with the Democratic nominees before going to bed relatively early; I did some things around the kitchen last night before going to bed. I definitely need to clean it/straighten it up today before doing my work-at-home duties.

I was tired.

I am glad that I am about to have a three day weekend; I’m even more delighted that it’s going to rain all day–with thunderstorms, which are my absolute favorite. I do love the rain here, and I probably write about about rain far too much in my books, but rain is definitely one of the things that you can’t ignore if you’re writing about New Orleans. This entire book I am writing now is around a tropical storm that I’ve invented (Clothilde) and I am torn between making it a tropical storm or a Category 1. I also want to try something different with this book, making it more of a challenge to write, but we’ll see how that goes. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader! Huzzah indeed! Now if I can get my brain rejiggered to start reading again, all will be well in my world. Paul also is going to be out of the house all day–meetings and so forth–so it’ll just be me and the Demon Cat Sparky. I can live with that, I think. Paul’s also going to bring pizza from Midway on Freret, which is amazing. Huzzah! No worries about making dinner tonight!

As you can tell, I woke up in a pretty good mood this morning, which is always a lovely thing. I feel rested and awake this morning, my coffee tastes amazing, and Sparky is galloping around playing with a bottle cap (no need to buy His Majesty any toys when he’s fine with either an empty box or a bottle cap). I have a meeting at ten to start my work day, and I am just going to take it easy, answer some emails, and pick up around here before that rolls around. I am hoping to finish Chapter Three of the book today–I’m at a transition, and I did start moving on from where I’d left off on Wednesday, but only a paragraph before I petered out. I want to finish Three and possibly start 4 today, and then tomorrow before I write I’ll go ahead and review what is already done and add some things and probably take some out. I also need to start rereading the backlist, and this weekend might be a good time to tackle that Scotty Bible I’ve been wanting to, and maybe make some progress on the copy edit of Jackson Square Jazz so I can get that back into availability. Next year Scotty turns 22, Jackson Square Jazz turns 21, and maybe I can celebrate the longevity of the series around its original publication date. I have the time now to promote myself more, and that’s kind of what I need to be doing. I’m also having to get used to having free time that’s not just blowing things off for a day or two, and that means getting used to not feeling guilty for taking a day off from my writing career to let my brain rest.

It’s weird not having all that outside pressure on me anymore. I mean, I’m still grieving, of course, but it’s nothing I can’t handle anymore, and of course I’m still not entirely recovered physically from the surgery yet (my own fault, for not pushing myself to do my rehab exercises the way I should have–see? There’s always something I can beat myself up over). But it’s also incredibly freeing, and of course last year was one of those awful years that happen in my life from time to time. Yet I’m always reminded that I’m still overall pretty lucky. How can anyone complain when their dreams have all come true?

I also concluded yesterday (Katrina anniversary–which may have accounted for being tired yesterday; there’s still residual PTSD around that date) that I am going to start paying more attention to Louisiana’s horrific policies and our monstrous governor and his rubber-stamp legislature, and perhaps addressing them? I’ve never written much on here about how horrible living in the Project 2025 testing ground can be–but at least I live in the big blue dot of New Orleans, so I am spared the worst of it. There has yet to be a stare-down between the city and the state but I do know our city council is very defiant and anti-Landry’s fascistic tendencies, which makes me love this city all the more.

And no one has yet explained to me how having the Ten Commandments displayed in public school classrooms will fix the roads and the levees while reducing poverty and illiteracy in Louisiana. I suspect I’ll be waiting a really long time…interestingly enough, of all things, LSU is defying the governor, who issued a ridiculous executive order demanding college and university sports teams cancel scholarships for athletes who are not present during the playing of the national anthem before the game. LSU’s football team would all lose their scholarships because of this; the tradition in Tiger Stadium is the band goes out and plays the Pregame, then the National Anthem, and then the band makes a tunnel for the team to run out on the field while the band plays another one of LSU’s fight songs (there are quite a few, and several were written by Huey Long). Decades of tradition and pregame hype vs. expelling the entire team?

Yeah, Landry’s not going to mess with the football team–or any of the LSU teams, really.

And on that note, here comes today’s first storm, and I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later!

Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter

Well, here we are on Thursday and it’s my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah! I was very tired yesterday when I got home. I did pick up the mail and did start running out of steam in the afternoon, but I did manage to get a thousand words done on new Scotty before my brain sputtered and went dormant. It’s fine, it’s a transitional chapter and I always kind of struggle with those at first before I break through the wall. I’ll probably get through it tonight. I do feel more rested this morning than I did yesterday, but I imagine I’ll hit a wall this afternoon the way I did yesterday. It also rained yesterday–not all day, on the afternoon and it started raining again once I got home after picking up the mail. Today I am coming straight home from work with. no stops on the way, which will be lovely. The house didn’t slide too badly over the course of the week, so I am not going to have to spend a lot of time on any of those chores tomorrow or tonight or the weekend.

We watched this week’s episode of Bad Monkey, which we are really enjoying. I would like to mention that Bad Monkey was the book that made me a fan of Carl Hiaasen. I had read one of his books when I lived in Florida, Tourist Season, maybe? I didn’t care for it, thought it silly and not very funny at all, and I began grouping comic Florida crime novels together under the category “Florida wacky.” But when I was on a work trip, I ran out of things to read with another night to go before we flew home, so I walked over to a Barnes & Noble for something new to read, and Bad Monkey was on a severely discounted book table, and I liked the font, so I gave him another try–and thought the book was hilarious. I laughed any number of times, and I couldn’t believe how tangled and tightly it was plotted. I went on to read several other of Hiaasen’s books, and found them to be equally hilarious and clever and that plotting! As someone who’s not very strong on plot, people who are capable of such epic plots with off-shoots and side plots and so forth, I really admire that ability. (If you ever want to see mastery in plotting, P. G. Wodehouse’s comic novels about the British upper class have unbelievably intricate plots.) Anyway, Bad Monkey is a terrific series, and Vince Vaughan (not a fan) is actually perfect for the main character of Yancy, and it’s stunningly beautifully shot.

And we’re going to have thunderstorms and rain most of the day, beginning in the afternoon. I’ve not checked the hurricane center to see what’s going on with those two new systems out there, but today is the red-letter anniversary day for five , storms to hit New Orleans–Katrina, Gustav, Isaac, Harvey and Ida. (I don’t even remember Harvey, frankly.) So we’ve made it through today without having to evacuate, but that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear yet. September is a very busy month, and we’ve had them in October before, too.

We have a three day weekend this weekend, too, huzzah! LSU’s season opener is Sunday night, and there are games on Saturday, too. I am getting my COVID booster Saturday morning, so if it makes feel unwell, I can spend the day at home just relaxing, watching football games, and reading. Woo-hoo! So tomorrow I’ll do my work-at-home tasks, and then spend the rest of the day writing and/or cleaning and doing laundry. I also shouldn’t have to leave the house tomorrow, either, which is always a plus for me. But now that I don’t have anxiety (at least not to the crippling degree that I used to have it) leaving the house really isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be, and I don’t resent having to run errands in quite the way that I used to. The new medications have been life changing, and my secret fear–losing the anxiety also was costing me the ability to write, and I would have to choose between them–is clearly not a thing. My brain is rewired, so I am having to come up with different methodologies of doing things now, including writing. Not getting more than a thousand words done yesterday before the new meds would have been a cause for anxiety and Imposter Syndrome and everything else counter-productive in my brain. The meds haven’t taken away the Imposter Syndrome completely, but it’s much easier to deal with now and it doesn’t come with the old spiral the way it used to, and it’s so much easier to deal with when it pops up now. This week, I’ve been ignoring that, and dismissing it as soon as it rears its ugly psychotic head.

More to the point, I’m enjoying writing again, something I’ve not really felt in a while (a lot of the outside stuff was taking up too much space in my brain, so it began to feel like an obligation and work rather than something I find pleasure in–and I really do love writing), and it feels good again. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to make some more coffee and head to the spice mines over on Elysian Fields. May you have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I may be back around later. Stranger things, you know. 🙂

Silhouettes

Monday morning after a lovely weekend, and we have Labor Day coming up this weekend. Huzzah! I am a little bleary for being up so early this morning, but I don’t feel tired, just not completely awake yet. The good news is I wrote thirteen hundred words of the new Scotty yesterday, and feel very smug and pleased about it. At first I was concerned when the tap was turned off, 1300 words is nothing compared to my old output, but I realized those muscles are tight and haven’t really been used as thoroughly or regularly as I should, so they are going to need to be retrained, just like I need to be retrained with regular going to the gym. I have to slowly build back up so I don’t strain or pull one of those muscles. The weekend was nice–low humidity, and the so the temperatures didn’t feel as brutal, especially since we’ve gotten used to it “feeling like” over 110 for almost two solid months. Yeesh. I think the humidity is coming back today; I know we may have rain this afternoon. But overall, this morning I feel pretty good–at least so far–and am ready to get some stuff done.

It really is lovely to have the weekends free from everything, you know? I didn’t get nearly as much work done on the house as I would have liked, but at the same I worry the lack of pressure or any anxiety driving me is making me a bit more lackadaisical when it comes to things…despite intellectually knowing that my brain has been rewired so I have to rewire everything else to get things done. It’s a learning process, and I had thought I had my routines and so forth down to a science. And hopefully, this time around I will not teach myself the bad habits I allowed to develop over the years. We shall see, won’t we? I did also rethink some of this stuff over the weekend, too. I’ve been so rigid in my writing and how I construct a novel and rarely, if ever, varied that pattern. It was what worked for me then, and I never really had the free time to sit down and figure all of this stuff out. I’m kind of doing that now, and I also think writing two books at the same time (when I was still writing books and hadn’t yet encountered the nightmare that was 2023 kind of broke my writer brain a little bit. It happens, you know? But the rigid way I always used to write my books wasn’t working for Never Kiss a Stranger, and because it’s not my usual kind of crime novel, the unstructured writing of it made it much harder to write. If I am going to finish that book–and I intend to at some point–it needs a plot summary and an outline. Maybe that’s something I can work on while I work on this new Scotty? Stranger things have happened, after all.

Maybe, just maybe, I should do the same with Scotty, rather than making it up as I go? Again, I did that with the first and second, didn’t I? Something indeed to ponder as the three day weekend draws nearer and nearer by the day. I am excited to be writing another Scotty book, because it’s in my comfort zone, and isn’t that where I need to be to get into the swing of persevering with the daily writing, in my comfort zone? I think it’s probably smarter to write another Scotty, and then step out of my comfort zone and go back to Never Kiss a Stranger...although I did remember yesterday why I focused on finishing it in the first place. It developed from me going from finishing the novellas into a collection, realizing this one could be a really good novel, and then moving on to writing it…when what I should have been doing, if I wasn’t doing another Scotty, was finishing either Muscles or Chlorine, and I am going to write one of those next, PERIOD.

But it’s also nice to be putting thought into these things.

On the way home, I am going to stop and make groceries. Once I am there I am going to finish the dishes and laundry, possibly make dinner (or possibly not), and get the rugs back in place in the kitchen. Paul will be home, so I should make something for dinner but I’m not really sure what…and I definitely don’t like deciding while at the store itself what to make for dinner. Pizza would probably be the easiest thing, really; just got one of those premade crusts and slather pizza sauce and cheese over it. I do need to work on my cabinets, but that might be a project for the three-day weekend. I also need to revise and update the to-do list. I feel pretty good this morning, and the nice thing is that my “bad” days now are just more low-energy than depressions as deep as the Grand Canyon, like it was before. I also need to start listening to my body again. I need to stretch regularly, and I need to get back to rehabbing my arm/shoulder at the gym or I will never get back to (as close to) normal (as I can get after the injury and surgery) again. But I’m starting to fall into a routine, I’m not sleepy and groggy until well after ten every morning anymore, and getting up is more about leaving the warmth and comfort of the bed more than anything else.

I hate when I’m comfortable and have to stop.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader. I might be back later–I’m trying to write an essay about toxic masculinity for the Substack, and trying to stick to the “one essay per week” thing there. Or…I may come back over here and try to talk about something, you never know.

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Unchained Melody

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and yesterday was a rather lovely day, in all honesty. I didn’t put any pressure on myself, but did make some progress on the apartment itself. I cleared out two boxes off the top of the cabinets, and know now what the others are–and know they can simply go into the attic once it is cleared out. This means…I am getting to the point where I can start working on the attic. This pleases me enormously, and there’s some other stuff that needs to be done here in the workspace this morning before I make a minor grocery run. We watched this week’s Bad Monkey, which I am loving, and then some more Solar Opposites. I also managed to get a week’s worth of dishes taken care of–I was really lazy and taking advantage of the entire “birthday week” excuse this week, I am a bit red-faced to admit–and reminded myself to never let it get that bad again…which will last probably about a week.

I also watched the Georgia Tech-Florida State game. I simply flipped over to it while looking for a movie to watch (to no avail; nothing sounded good) to see the score, and saw the end of the second half with the score tied 14-14. That intrigued me enough to continue watching, and it turned out to be a rather good game, as Georgia Tech kicked a field goal on the last play of the game to upset #10 Florida State, 24-21. It was a great game–I do sometimes watch college football when I don’t care about either team–made even greater by the upset win for Georgia Tech (I am not a FSU fan), and that kind of got me into the mood for football season. LSU’s first game is this weekend; Sunday evening in Las Vegas, of all places. I have no idea how good LSU is going to be this year–I am not one of those people who reads analysts and so forth and practice reports; they are meaningless really until it’s actually a game and they’re keeping score. I prefer to be surprised, and college football is always full of surprises. I don’t even pay attention to the NFL preseason, either.

I wasn’t a complete sloth yesterday. I did do some things around the house, and looking around this morning, there’s more that needs to be done. I’m not used to having all this free time, which is the primary adjustment I am having to make in the present day…and it’s kind of nice, you know? I still need to figure out how to be more productive, and how to utilize the time, but I worked so hard for so very long and never had a minute’s peace for so long that it’s just kind of nice to not be worried about things anymore. I plan to spend some time this morning straightening up the kitchen again, and picking things up and filing, and I also want to do the floors. I didn’t leave the house yesterday so I have to make that grocery run today (to make dinner tonight I have to go), but that’s not a big deal, really. It’s nice, though, to not be stressed and anxious about not working in my free time.

I even thought about writing projects yesterday. I am really leaning towards shelving Never Kiss a Stranger for now; I realized yesterday it was one of those stupid “stubbornly obsessive” things that I get into my head every once in a while. I remembered yesterday that originally I had intended to finish my novella collection this summer, which meant working on that, and then I realized it was more of a book than a novella, and decided to write that for the summer. And even though I was having trouble with it on almost every level of turning what I already had into a novel, I was stubbornly refusing to shelve it and move on, which was counter-productive. No one cares if I finish that book now or at some other time, or if I never write it at all. So, I am going to put it aside for now and forget about it for a while. It only makes sense to get back into regular writing with a Scotty book, and a Scotty book will be somewhat easier for me to write…and easier for me to get back into the swing of writing again after so much time away from it.

I also realized that the MAGA meltdown over Gus Walz was an excellent way to open my essay “Are You Man Enough?”, and so I did scribble some notes on that yesterday as well. I am actually kind of looking forward to this work week, believe it or not, and I do think getting to work on another Scotty–Hurricane Season Hustle–will be a lot more fun for me going forward.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

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