Thursday last day in the office blog, and how are you this morning? I slept really well last night again, and am a bit groggy with my coffee thus far but things are starting to clear up, which is lovely. Yesterday was a pretty decent day. I was tired when I get off work last night–I actually had to do walk-in testing yesterday as the clinic was slow, and I’d gotten so used to my regular clinic clients that I’d forgotten what it was like to do that, and it was a bit draining. I think that was because I was out of practice with it? Anyway, I ran some errands after work (my vacuum arrived!) and I also picked up my copy of John Copenhaver’s new book, Hall of Mirrors, which is a sequel to The Savage Kind, which I really enjoyed. Paul was late getting home, and of course Sparky was a terror last night. He turned off the power cord to the wifi, and took me a while to figure out that he’d committed such an egregious sin. Sigh. I even reset the modem. Gotta love a Big Energy Kitten.
I was also delighted to see a list of “must-read” queer crime novels for Pride Month, compiled by John Copenhaver, which included me and my Bury Me in Shadows, which was a lovely and delightful surprise. You can read that here. It’s a very impressive list to be included on, and I was enormously flattered and got a bit of an ego boost from it, in all honesty, and it kind of felt good. Writers live in so much of a vacuum, for the most part, and get so many blows–and those are what we remember–that when something nice like that happens, it’s always a delightful surprise and it makes my day. God, what amazing books I have in my TBR pile, and how on earth am I ever going to decide which one to read when I finish my current? It also occurred to me last night that maybe my recent disinterest in reading has something to do with still trying to find the voice for this prologue–I can never read when I am still in the weeds with something I’m writing, because I don’t want to try to mimic the voice I am reading with what I am writing, if that makes sense? I’m getting closer to the right voice, and hopefully this weekend I can get that all finalized and cleaned up once and for all. Paul is going to be at Pride all day Saturday, manning a table for Saints and Sinners, so I’ll be home all day by myself, which will give me lots of time to get things done. After I finish working tomorrow, I’ll run errands so I won’t have to over the weekend, and so if I get everything done on Saturday that I need to, I can enjoy Sunday with Paul streaming things all day. I’m very excited for this new Star Wars show on Disney….but then I am always excited about anything new and Star Wars.
I do feel a bit tired today–physically, not mentally–so I think after work tonight I am just going to come home and finish the chores. I started laundry last night, and I have dishes to put away. I still need to try to repair the garbage disposal, which I should try to do tomorrow night/afternoon after work. I also need to try to clear out my email inbox again–I have fallen behind on a discussion that I will need to catch up on–but I also think I am going to assemble the new vacuum cleaner when I get home and finish the other chores, and will then do a trial run on the kitchen rugs. My word, the exciting life I lead, right?
And on that exciting note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I may be back later; you never know. Have a happy Thursday, Constant Reader!
Look at this shot–tell me wrestling isn’t soft core gay porn!
So, in honor of Pride Month, I’ve decided to do things a little bit differently than I usually do when it rolls around every year. Usually, I’ll share book covers by queer authors that I either enjoyed or influenced me, either personally or professionally, in some way–or could be used for that hoary old cliché this made me gay. In a way, it’s a trip down memory lane for me, going back to my childhood, my teens, and twenties; places I am currently revisiting as I plan out The Summer of Lost Boys.
Thomas Tryon’s debut novel, The Other, is often heralded as one of the books (the others being The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby) that kicked off the horror craze of the 80’s and 90’s; Stephen King’s Carrie was released in 1974 and shifted the craze into four-wheel drive. I read this book when I was in the seventh grade, and it resonated with me in ways I didn’t fully understand or comprehend at the time. It drew me in, and fascinated me in ways I’d never been fascinated with a book before. Part of it was the transition I was making from reading kid’s books to more adult fare; I was already reading at a collegiate level by the seventh grade. (The Ken Holt series also resonated with me, as did the Rick Brant–which are getting their own entries.)
I wouldn’t learn until years later that Tryon was gay–although I should have known, were I more mature and gay wasn’t one of those things people didn’t talk about when I was a kid; it’s certainly there in his books–and then it made even more sense to me why the book resonated so much with me, why it intrigued me so much, and why I identified with it so much. Niles Perry, the point of view character, is a shy, reticent boy who mostly lives in his own head and world and doesn’t really interact a lot with people. He’s a nice kid who is always worried about getting in trouble and doing the wrong thing; his identical twin brother, Holland, is more of what we would now call a sociopath. But Holland has no fear, has no dread of consequence, and is more outgoing and adventurous; he’s more of a troublemaker and relishes getting revenge on people who’ve done him, in his mind, grievous wrongs. Niles loves his brother–adores him, wants to be like him, wants to be less timid–but is also afraid of him. He knows all Holland’s secrets and he knows everything that Holland does, and often he figures out Holland’s schemes and even tries to stop him…but Holland always outsmarts him, and leaves Niles to clean up his mess.
This brotherly dynamic–the closeness and the dominant/submissive relationship between the twins spoke to me. I saw myself as more of a Niles type than a Holland; shy and quiet and mostly keeping to myself–and always being drawn to flashier, more outgoing types as friends, to whom I was both devoted but also jealous of–a pattern I followed for most of my life. This is the same reason certain books drew me in as a teenager in most cases; A Separate Peace has that same underlying relationship theme–the flashier more outgoing more popular friend, and the quiet best friend content to live in his shadow but also being a bit resentful and jealous.
And then about two-thirds of the way through the book comes a plot twist that changes everything you’ve already read and processed and you have to see the book in an entirely new way–every time I reread it (which is every year or so since I got a hardcover copy off eBay), I try to find the clues to the twist in the first two-thirds, and they are there, but cleverly disguised so you don’t put it together until it’s literally revealed in such an incredibly powerful scene that just thinking about it–and its creepy conclusion–makes the hairs on my arm tingle a bit.
I didn’t have a brother, so I wasn’t sure about the brother dynamic Tryon explored so beautifully in the book; is that the way things work in real life between brothers? Probably not, as every set of brothers is different, of course. (I’ve rarely written about brothers, now that I think about it. Chanse has one who turned up in a short story and Scotty has Storm) But the relationship interested me, and it’s a trope that is often used in every style of fiction; two people, either siblings or close friends, one is more outgoing and daring and likes to take risks while the other is more nervous and afraid and namby-pamby, and that weird combination of love/jealousy that can often get involved in those stories.
It’s also a strong dynamic that can play out within gay couples, as well.
The Other is also written in a lyrical, beautiful, dream-like style; that lovely sense of remembering the past nostalgically, when everything was magic and the world seemed full of wonder.
I was paging through the book the other day and I began to realize that it’s impacted and influenced me as a writer far more than I had ever realized.
Monday morning, and back up before dawn to get ready to head into the office. Huzzah! I slept really well last night, and had no trouble getting up this morning, which I was a bit concerned about given how much sleep I was getting over the weekend. But I feel awake and conscious and good this morning, so that’s very promising.
LSU won both games yesterday (13-6 over Wofford; 8-4 over North Carolina) which puts them in the regional final, winner take all. I flipped between the games and whatever we were watching yesterday (we finished Anthracite, and caught up on Interview with the Vampire), which was nerve-wracking as always whenever LSU plays (I don’t stress or get anxiety over the games anymore–thank you, new meds–so I can enjoy it more, but yesterday I couldn’t bear the tension). I”m not entirely sure I am going to watch tonight’s game, either; I guess it depends on when it is. I also spent some time yesterday reading (The Rival Queens) and writing. I managed to get two or three blog entries posted yesterday, too, and I like that I am doing this “Great Gay Moments in Greg’s Life” type thing. I did Starsky and Hutch and an overall, general “meaning of Pride” post, and I feel pretty good about both of those this morning. I also worked on the prologue to The Summer of Lost Boys, which I will try to get more work done on that today.
The weekend was good, to be honest; I felt good all weekend (if lazy–the thunderstorms had something to do with that, and yes, we had them yesterday too), and while I didn’t get everything done that I would have liked to, I’m pretty okay with it. Today is forecast to be cloudy but without rain, which hopefully will make it cooler–or at least not feel as hot. I spent most of yesterday under my blanket in a chair, which was marvelous. When Sparky wasn’t being Demon Kitty he would sleep in my lap, which was very sweet. It won’t take me long to catch up on my emails, either–I’m doing a pretty good job of staying on top of those, too–and I’m pretty much caught up on my day job duties, too. I’m behind already on the writing schedule I set for myself this year–but the beauty of that is that it’s my deadlines, and no one else’s, so missing them isn’t affecting anyone other than myself.
I also scribbled in my journal a lot this weekend, which is very cool to be doing again. Overall, I am feeling good again these days, which is great. I’m starting to feel connected to my writing again, and remembering that I don’t have to kill myself to get some done is not a bad thing, either.
This morning’s coffee is quite tasty, too, I might add.
All right, it’s time for me to get cleaned up and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back later. If not, GEAUX TIGERS!
That M People song was released in the mid-1990’s, and has become kind of a queer anthem in the time since. It was used in the original American adaptation of Queer as Folk, and it gets played a lot during Pride Month. I loved the M People; I have one of their CD’s and they were prominent on my dance soundtrack of 1994-1996 (“Sight for Sore Eyes” is still a great song I have on Spotify playlists today), which is also a time I am writing about (sidebar: maybe “Never Kiss a Stranger” is a novel not a novella), so it stays fresh in my head.
Pride is a direct response to shame–because so many of us were forced to live in shame about who we are and just existing for so fucking long, we now choose to come out and be proud rather than ashamed of who and what we are, despite the bigots who continue to try to legalize oppression of us while all we really want is to be left alone to live our lives in peace. I will never be made to feel ashamed of myself for who I am any more. And no, I’m not sorry that my existence bothers some people because you know what? Their existence bothers me–-but the primary difference is I am not trying to force them to stop existing or even to like queer people.
Pride is of course one of the seven deadly sins for Christians—Proverbs 16-18: Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a lowly spirit with the poor, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
So, the use of the way “pride” for our month of celebration inevitably brings out the faux-christians, screaming about sin and…but as I said, our pride is the opposite of shame, and we are reclaiming ourselves and refusing to be shamed for who we are anymore. And yes, the shaming always comes from christians cishets (I prefer the French pronunciation shah-SHAY) —you know, the ones who are supposed to love without question? And ultimately, my life and my sins are between me and God—and none of your fucking business.
But this post is for those of you who stubbornly refuse to get it: my sexuality doesn’t impact you AT ALL.
Why do they need a whole month? Veterans only get a day is one of my absolute favorites. First, the use of “they”, while politer and not quite as insulting, is really no different from the ever-popular bigoted “you people”; so I guess props are in order for being slightly more polite (although I suppose if they knew it was politer they’d use you people, or to be grammatically correct, those people)? As for veterans only getting a day while we get a month, well, I don’t seem to recall legislation being passed on any level of government legalizing discrimination against veterans. (Although the way our government treats its veterans is disgraceful–and as always, the war hawks who love to send young men and women to risk their lives, mental health, and limbs for a foreign policy predicated on ensuring corporations make as much money as humanly possible will always vote to cut or eliminate veterans’ benefits while waving Support the troops! banners and flags–because they are nothing if not craven, vile, and completely soulless.) The combined efforts of government and medical science were applied for years to criminalize and stamp out the existence of queer people. Homosexuality was still considered a mental illness (!!!!) until I was twelve years old. How precisely does one grow up well-balanced mentally and emotionally when you are repeatedly told that what you are is actually insane? (And coming from a family where mental health issues are genetic…and knowing that I had my own mental health issues already wasn’t helpful; I thought for a long time the two were connected.)
And for the record, May is Military Appreciation Month, and the fact they don’t know this makes a mockery of their religion, their intelligences, and their feigned concern for the military.
If the cishets had to put up with, for one day–a mere twenty-four hours–what queer people do every day, they’d become homicidal.
And telling people they cannot legally discriminate against a fellow American citizen is not forcing them to accept and/or like queer people; it’s merely telling them they must treat queer people with the same respect they’d treat anyone (oh, the horror). The entire point of this country, from its beginning (although it has often failed to live up to that ideal) is that every citizen is equal in the eyes of the law–regardless of anything that might make them slightly different, especially when the difference is so slight as to not be noticeable. I don’t know why this is so hard for people, I really don’t. (And yes the convictions of Greg Stillson last week affirmed this guiding principle for the nation and his worshippers choosing to not accept that is more example of their utter contempt for this country, period. Some ‘patriots’.)
And if you don’t want to be compared to Nazis, then stop coming for marginalized groups and scapegoating them. Your dishonesty is not only un-Christian, but inhuman. It is not for other humans to judge sin; that is, per your own Holy Book and what you theoretically believe, reserved for a God who is very jealous about what is His and what is not. I believe in Christianity as a game-plan or road map to being a good person and doing good things in my life; I do not believe in talking snakes or trumpets so loud they can make walls collapse or that having heatstroke on the road to Damascus was actually divine intervention. I do not believe Paul had visions of Jesus, so anything written by him in the New Testament is suspect and not gospel.
I am also willing to account for that, if need be, if there ever actually is a Judgment Day. But what I believe is between me and God. To paraphrase Cher, I account to three people: myself, Paul, and God.
What I do know is that if there is a God and such a thing as a heaven, going to church three times a week while acting like a hateful piece of trash the rest of the week ain’t getting your ass into your heaven. You’re literally doing the bare fucking minimum, and those three hours or so you’re spending in church are just a waste of your time because you aren’t learning anything or striving to be better.
And any heaven that welcomes people like Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Bryant, Maggie Gallagher et al is not my idea of heaven; spending eternity with those people would be Hell.
This year, Pride seems all the more important–certainly more than it has in years. I haven’t been to Pride in a very long time–I’ve been to a lot of Prides over the years–and probably won’t attend this year either; it’s too hot for one, and the older I get the less I like being hot, sweating, and tired in crowds.
I hate to break it to the homophobic trash, but nothing you say is original or something we haven’t heard a gazillion times before. I’ve said it before and will say it again: fuck all the way off. Miss me with your concerns about “the children” when you aren’t concerned, for example, about the need to teach kindergartners what to do if there’s an active shooter in their school. Miss me with your concerns about “the children” when the states passing the worst anti-queer laws are the same ones where child beauty pageants are the most popular. Where is the outrage about sexualizing children in that instance, Moms for Liberty? Yes, painting a six-year-old’s face like she’s a streetwalker and dressing her provocatively for a chance at a sash and a trophy is absolutely one-hundred-percent okay with you? These are also the same states that allow underage marriage and have almost complete abortion bans.
Moms for Liberty is just another incarnation of the hate group One Million Moms (who never ever had more than fifty thousand members); which is why I always say queers can never completely trust a lot of straight white women. (Let’s never forget that straight white women gave us President Donald Trump. Ever. This should be their everlasting shame.)
It’s also going to be interesting to see what companies and corporations will be making a play for queer dollars during Pride Month, while donating money to anti-queer politicians and stay silent when all these horrendous laws are being passed. Target? Anheuser Busch? Miss me with the rainbows and pride statements this year. You have a chance to stand up when it mattered and instead you turned into pathetic sniveling cowards waving a white flag–proving that your so-called “commitment” to equality and my community was nothing more than a disgusting, shameless attempt to attract queer dollars and the money of our allies. Shame on you both. I don’t drink beer, but when I did I drank a lot of Bud Light in gay bars because of their support of the queer community. But when they had an opportunity to take a principled stand for equality and against bigotry, they crumbled like a finely aged feta. Same with Target, which was even sadder because they had been so supportive. But I will never step inside another Target and I will never order from their website. My Target credit card will get paid off as quickly as possible so they make as little money from me in the future as possible, and I have already cut it up because I will never support that shitty, backstabbing, cowardly piece of shit company again.
I’ve always kind of had an issue with the corporatization of Pride over the years. Yes, I get it; they are usually non-profit organizations who need to raise money to pay expenses and put the show on. You need donors for that–as every nonprofit does–and so the swing to wooing businesses and multi-billion dollar corporations began…as well as the complaints about the merchandizing of Pride. But Pride was, and always has been, an event to celebrate every color in our rainbow and to show the world that we’re here and we aren’t going anywhere; we are not ashamed nor will we be shamed. We aren’t going back into the closet for anyone. Period.
It’s always amused me to listen to people complain about Pride, with the leathermen and the kink fetishists and the drag queens. “I don’t want my kids to see that!” Then keep your fucking kids at home. Any Pride that turns it back on any part of the community is notPride. I’m tired of being penalized because other people have had children—your children are NOT my responsibility.
I already pay taxes to educate them.
I also hate the shaming of kink; the attempt to remove drag queens and the leathermen and so forth from Pride celebrations because that makes the straights uncomfortable frankly disgusts me. Just because some queers have issues with kink—well, that’s their problem, and if anything, we all should be grateful to them. The leathermen and drag queens were out and proud when a lot of their current critics cowered in their closets, while the kinksters and queens were out fighting for the rights of the cowards, creating a community and a world in which they were free to come out…only to want to drive the people responsible for that freedom and community out of Pride. “I want to bring my kids to Pride but I don’t want them to see that.”
What the fuck, people? Don’t you understand that the only reason you can be queer in public with your kids is becauseof the very people you don’t want your children to see? It’s bad enough the straight use “the children” to try to take away our rights; it’s even worse when people within our community try the same tactics. I don’t know, maybe reexamine your own internalized homophobia rather than trying to reshape the community?
The original Prides were protests, and the original parades were protest marches. Seeing how Pride has, over the years, sold its soul and meaning to corporate sponsors saddens me. Those sponsors are mostly interested in queer dollars only (see: Target and Budweiser) and not in actually supporting the community and our rights (see: Target and Budweiser); you can tell by how quickly they back down when the Christofascists have a problem with their support of our community (see: Target and Budweiser).
That shallow support is unwelcomed and unwanted and very transparent.
Learn your history, queers. It wasn’t that long ago—during my own lifetime—that our sexuality stopped being considered mental illness. We’ve come pretty far in those fifty years, but we have a long way to go and the fight is not over. So, come out to Pride, and celebrate our hard-won freedoms. Be visible; because that visibility might help someone else come out and stop feeling shame. Create and live and love and vote and above all else, maintain queer joy in your life.
Because all of those things? Well, they’re also victories.
Sunday morning, after a gloomy rainy day (marvelous thunder and downpours off and on all day) where I pretty much just stayed indoors. I walked over to get the dry cleaning in the morning, and by the time I got back it was starting to sprinkle, and shortly after I came inside the floodgates opened. I curled up in my chair and read The Rival Queens for a while, then Paul got up and we finished watching Bodkin, which I enjoyed but didn’t care for the ending too much, after which we watched LSU lose to North Carolina (fourth ranked; LSU is number 24 and was only ranked after the SEC tournament, so no disgrace there, and they play to stay in the regional again today, against Wofford again. After the game we started Anthracite, a new French show on Netflix that is kind of off-kilter and very interesting. I did some writing in my journal, and I did do some chores around the house so it wasn’t a wash of a day, and really, who cares if it was? I really need to stop being so down on myself and recognize that sometimes I need downtime just like everyone else. I do want to do some things today, though–the whole day can’t be downtime, for sure. I also slept really well last night, for ten hours, which is insane. I am sleeping a lot lately and getting very good sleep, which has been lovely.
I have decided to do the occasional Pride blog post, about “things that made me realize I was gay” growing up, or things that I appreciated that probably were indicative of my sexual orientation from a very early age. Revisiting that dark closeted teenage space for this book hasn’t been terrific, but I think it will also help me deal with it, frankly. The 1970s are also an interesting time to go back to, as well, trying to dredge up memories that are long lost in the dark dusty recesses of my brain. I started a couple of said pride posts yesterday–one about The Other and one about Starsky and Hutch (which was really the first modern himbo show; more on that later)–and am thinking about other ones. My favorite gay anthems? I don’t know. But this year it seems very important to celebrate Pride–and shove it down the throats of the MAGA traitors and their evangelical cosplay Christian allies (looking at you, Mike the Self-righteous Johnson). After all, I can’t go anywhere without having a fucking cross shoved in my face.
Hey “christians”–more teaching by example and less demonstration of how Christian you are not, what do you think? Maybe then people will stop deserting your houses of worship, because they see the lies, self-righteousness, and utter hypocrisy that masquerades as faith in your befouled churches of blasphemy and apostasy.
It looks sunny outside this morning, so I think perhaps the rains of the last three days have now passed. That’s good, because I do want to go to the gym today to continue my rehabbing of my left arm. I am going to try this morning to get this and at least one other of the Pride posts done today; some writing and some chores, and when that’s all wrapped up I’ll head over to the gym for some rehab, come home and get cleaned up, and then read some more. I think I may stay away from LSU’s games today; if they beat Wofford again they face North Carolina again at six pm, for two games in one day, which is rough–and much as I love my Tigers, I can’t spend the day watching baseball, either.
And I am excited about writing again. It’s a lovely feeling. I’m not sure entirely what all I want to accomplish at this point other than trying to get the work done, but I definitely can get it all done if I keep my nose to the grindstone and keep working. I’m on my own schedule, so the only person being hurt if I take a day or so off from writing is me.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably see you again later today.
Today is two things–the start of hurricane season and the start of Pride Month. I have a Pride post that I definitely want to finish and post at some point, and I’ve not really decided what kind of entries I want to do–social media and here–to mark the month. I still think the thirty-four convictions of Greg Stillson was the best gift for Pride American queers have ever been given, to be honest, and I still am a little in shock that it happened–trial and verdict. And of course the traitors have all lost their treasonous little minds, too–my personal favorite is “if they can do this to him they can do it to anyone!”
Um yes, that’s precisely how laws and the judicial system work–no one is above the law in the United States.
Period.
I way overslept this morning, but we stayed up super late last night watching Bodkin (we only have two episodes left to go, and it’s really interesting; much more complex and clever than I’d originally given it credit for) but I wound up not getting into bed until midnight, and I didn’t get up until about nine thirty this morning. While I wanted to sleep in, I didn’t want to sleep in that late; I feel discombobulated and like I won’t be able to get the things done this morning I wanted to get done–but that’s just loser talk, methinks, and a way to give myself excuses for not taking the books to the library sale or washing the car or picking up the mail and dry cleaning or go to the gym. But now that my coffee is kicking in, I’m feeling more alive and awake and like fuck yeah I can get that shit done, get out of my way.
Always nice.
Yesterday was a good day. I worked at home, got all that done while laundering the bed linens, and ran my errands, did some cleaning around the house and later in the day we had a massive and marvelous thunderstorm. I grabbed The Rival Queens (my current nonfiction read) and spent some marvelous time with it in my easy chair. I do love that period of time, and I’ve always wanted to write about an adventurous fictional woman who was a member of Catherine de Medici’s Flying Squadron; an accomplished seductress spy, navigating the complicated politics of France during the Wars of Religion and the decline of the Valois dynasty. It was truly a fascinating period, not only in France, but throughout Europe. My next non-fiction read will probably be The King’s Assassin, the book on which Mary & George was based, and that’s another fun period I would like to write about. Someday. There really was nothing like the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for upheaval and Game of Thrones-like cutthroat politics.
I also watched LSU’s thrilling baseball win over Wofford in the regionals yesterday, and they play again today at 4. GEAUX TIGERS!
I also looked at the submissions call for the story I am working on–thinking the deadline was May 31 only to discover it was actually June 1, which means I can let the story sit a while longer before revising it one more time to see if I can make it stronger. I am very pleased with how it’s going so far, and looking forward to getting some more writing done today. I am a little behind on my schedule thus far (the one I made earlier this week, remember?), but the deadline being later certainly has made that a bit simpler and easier to navigate without feeling pressure.
And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines. I’ll most likely be back later–that pride entry I want to write–and I also need to think about what kind of entries to do for Pride Month. Anyway, have a lovely Saturday, and I’ll check in with you again later, okay?
And now we come to the last (so far) Chanse novel, lucky number seven.
Took me awhile to get here, didn’t it? But it also took me awhile to get around to writing the seventh Chanse book. I worried a lot about this series as it developed–mainly because my original plan had derailed, and I never really sat down and mapped out the rest of the series with the new calibrations, so I was flying by the seat of my pants for the last two books, and in retrospect that sense that the series was going stale was a direct result of that fly by the seat of my pants style, which never worked for Chanse. So, essentially I’d forgotten how to write the series, and so…when I was running into problems with the seventh, it was easy enough to believe I was out of story for him and the series itself was becoming repetitive and stale. I’ve come up with more story for him since then–I’ve written a Chanse short story and started a novella, and had an idea for another entire book, so maybe I will revisit Chanse again in the next few years?
I had always thought of the series as lasting for seven novels, and when I sat down to come up with ideas for the seventh book, I started thinking about ending the series. The Chanse series, as you may have noticed once you’ve read these entries, almost ended every single time I published one–and by this time I felt like I was running out of ideas for him, and felt like I was writing by the numbers; following the same story beats and patterns I had already established in earlier books rather than pushing myself. I also worried that if I kept writing something I felt was getting stale, the book quality would also start to slip. I never wanted to be one of those authors who just keep writing the same old series long past its expiration date. Yes, they always sold well and yes, the income was nice…but…-and I began thinking that I may need to end the series before the readers began to notice the stories were starting to fall into a recognizable pattern; certainly the stories were beginning to have the same beats repeated, over and over. I wasn’t happy to not write another Chanse book, after all; Chanse really launched my publishing career and the series was very good to me over the years–but I felt it was the right decision for the time.
The electronic gate began rolling to the left with a loud clamor.
I closed the driver’s side window of my “billet silver” Jeep Cherokee, shivering. I turned the heater back up to high. I was cold even though I was wearing my black trench coat and a black knit Saints cap. It was in the low thirties. The sky was gray and covered with clouds, the air the kind of chilly damp that goes right to your joints. Last night there had been a freeze warning for all of southeastern Louisiana, so I’d had to turn all my faucets on to a trickle all night to keep the exposed pipes under my house from freezing. The grass on either side of the paved driveway had turned brown, and in the rearview mirror I could see the grass on the levee on the other side of the road behind me had as well.
This cold snap had every New Orleans weathercaster worked up into the kind of energetic, wide-eyed frenzy they usually reserved for hurricane season. The possibility of snow either tonight or sometime tomorrow had them practically drooling. The one currently breathlessly going on and on about how we all needed to bring inside all pants and pets inside before sunset was getting on my nerves, so I turned the radio off. It had snowed maybe three times in all my years of living in New Orleans. Those rare, occasional snowstorms always brought the city to its knees. Businesses closed, people holed up in their homes afraid to drive anywhere, and nothing got done.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as the gate lumbered open slowly. My lower back was starting to ache, which wasn’t a good sign. I pressed the button on the steering wheel thatcontrolled the heater in the driver’s seat. Heat always seemed to help with the pain, but taking a pain pill wasn’t an option. Not if I wanted my brain to be functional when meeting a pair of prospective new clients, anyway.
Finakky, the gate was open wide enough for me to drive through, and I pushed the gas pedal down.
With the big metal gate open, I could see the house. In spite of myself I gasped. I’d seen Belle Riviere depicted many times on postcards, but the reality took my breath away.
The Arts District has always been in my neighborhood (sort of); it’s just on the other side of Highway 90 on Camp, with the nexus being I guess Camp and Julia Street. The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is across the street from the Community Arts Center, the Arthur Roger Gallery is there, and there are any number of smaller galleries scattered throughout the area, which is why White Linen Night is held there. I had thought about setting the case during White Linen, but…it’s so miserably hot. The last time I went, in the 1990’s, I literally thought I was going to have heat stroke–and I’ve never gone again. Writing about it would mean going again, and there was just no way I was going to do that.
The plot was actually brought to me by way of a friend who knew one of the people involved in the real life case; which I found fascinating. My friend’s friend was one of those effortlessly sexy and beautiful men; the kind everyone’s eyes turn to when he walks into the room, and being one of those, he landed a very wealthy partner more than double his age. (Yes, I know, age-gap relationships are real, but doesn’t everyone assume the younger, pretty one in these types of relationships are in it for the money?) Anyway, the story was they had been robbed, and the burglars had stolen some of their art. They reported it to the police, but the police didn’t believe their story, and thought they were committing insurance fraud!
This was very bizarre to me, but it centered on art and galleries, which is why I wanted to do with this book, and so I thought, I can make this work. I used the same basic premise–age-gap gay relationship; older guy is wealthy, younger has sordid past; art stolen and the cops don’t believe their story so they hire Chanse. I also wanted to get into how Chanse–a former college football player and a long time gym regular–was aging, and the aches and pains. He had a back injury from a car accident, and it was still bothering him in this book. He also was still dating the guy he met in a previous case–Rachel Sheehan’s younger brother–but I wasn’t sure where that was going so edited a lot of it out.
And when I finished writing it, I still thought that was a little too paint-by-the-numbers and not enough of a challenge to write–so maybe it’s time to give him a break, and that’s what I did. I do think the novella I want to write is more of a novel, really; and I like the idea and I also have another. So who knows? Chanse may be coming back at some point.
And I am not dissing the book–I’m proud of it, and think it’s one of the better Chanse books, for that matter.
Ah, the Tuesday after Memorial Day and back to the office with me. Such an exciting life I lead, don’t I? I didn’t sleep all that great last night, to be honest–the kind of half-sleep/sort of awake kind of nights, which I didn’t quite understand until I came downstairs to find my sleeping pill (Trazodone, if you’re keeping track) sitting next to my keyboard, where I left it last night. Mystery solved!
But as I wake up, I’m feeling better–more alive and awake than usual, but I imagine I’ll be running out of steam later this afternoon. LSU is in the Chapel Hill regional for the NCAA baseball tournament, playing Wofford. GEAUX TIGERS! I did do some other things yesterday, including finishing the dishes and laundry, and doing the floors. I think I need a new vacuum cleaner (I saw a meme the other day that said “now that I’m an adult I understand why so many prizes on the The Price is Right were appliances”, and yes, very accurate). I didn’t work on fixing the garbage disposal or get out the vacuum handbook for maintenance help this weekend, but it’s something that can go on the list for this coming weekend. I won’t have as many errands to do next weekend, if I plan properly; although I will need to go to the library to donate books.
I also managed to make it to the gym yesterday to start the arm-rehabilitation process again. I went back to the light-weight-one-set thing, worried about overdoing or re-injuring (my biggest fear, seriously) my arm…which seemed easy-peasy, but we’ll have to see if stiffness or soreness sets in any time today. But the stretching and exercise felt great, and I was on an endorphin high for the rest of the afternoon, which was pretty fucking amazing. We’ll see how long I can keep this up for…I am looking forward to re-acclimating and getting back into a regular workout routine by mid-summer. Huzzah!
I read Michael Thomas Ford’s story inthe queer horror anthology We Mostly Come Out at Night, edited by Rob Costello. Ford’s story is called “Be Not Afraid”, which is what I recognized immediately as what angels say in the Bible when they appear before humans to bring them messages from God, and I love some Biblical based horror. But even better–it was a Mothman rural West Virginia story, set at Christmas, and what a delightful story it turned out to be. Ford is a master at voice, and writing sentences that make you keep reading on to see what happens next. His characters are likable and relatable and absolutely real, and it’s always delightful to read one of his stories–he always seems to write about people who are lost and become found, but not in a Christian way, if that makes sense; he writes lovely hopeful queer stories. In a just world he’d be more successful than most other authors…he’s one of those I think will be studied as a queer literary giant by future generations. He also always can do poverty in a way that isn’t moralistic or judgmental; you understand the characters and what they are experiencing, but not in an exploitative way. Highly recommended, and I am looking forward to reading the other stories in the book, too.
I wrote for a little while yesterday, too. I worked on something I’ve been thinking about over the weeks–The Summer of Lost Boys, which I think is going to be my next book, once I finish the current in-progress one–and I also did some brainstorming on the next Scotty book, which I am hoping to finish writing by Labor Day. It felt good to be writing again, even if it was so very little, and I think my creativity is coming back in a major way after being dormant for so long. It feels good when I write. The writing I did yesterday didn’t feel like it was garbage or anything, either. Here’s hoping that feeling continues, shall we?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and no doubt I’ll be back later–I am definitely making progress on catching up on blog entries, which is terrific–and so I bid you adieu for now.
I read Dune for the first time when I was in high school. At the time, it was merely a trilogy, and the original was just starting to move from cult classic to widely read accepted classic. In the 1970s, the book was noted primarily for its commentary on ecology and the environment. I had never read anything like that. I’d not been into reading science fiction up until that time, and I didn’t really much care for science fiction movies, either; with their incredibly low budgets and amateurish special effects that always took you out of the story no matter how much you were enjoying it. I used to watch Flash Gordon serials, when some of those afternoon kids’ shows that Chicago’s television stations would run them–and while badly produced on a shoestring, the stories themselves were compelling enough to hold my interest, and Buster Crabbe was certainly good-looking enough to keep me interested.
I digress.
But reading Dune turned me into more of a science fiction fan than I had been already. Like I said, I’d never read anything like it, and while my teenaged self primarily was interested in the space opera elements of the story–prince loses everything to mortal enemies, but gets revenge on everyone, defeats the enemies of his family, and rises to become not only the new emperor but messiah of a new religion that takes over the vast reaches of the empire, and the holy war (jihad) of conversion that followed. One of the things I loved about the way Frank Herbert wrote the book was how it bounced around the galaxy, uncovering the mindsets and other conspiracies going on throughout the empire (politics) in what seemed like disconnected stories that all converged in the end and were resolved…while showing the connections that were there all along. I read the other two books in the original trilogy that year–Dune Messiah and Children of Dune–and I always thought the second was perhaps the weakest of the series. I’ve never reread any of the books–I think the series grew to six or seven before Herbert died and his heirs took over; I’ve not read any not-Frank generated Dune novels–other than the first, and I know the last time I reread Dune, I was really taken aback by the writing, which seemed poor. I would like to revisit Dune Messiah at some point because it’s more political than anything else; and also set up the rest of the series while the original remains as the only book of the series that can be read as a stand-alone.
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the reluctant messiah
Star Wars was released the summer before my senior year in high school, and it changed special effects, and science fiction films, forever. So when the David Lynch film was released in the early 1980;s, I went into it expecting it to be more than it turned out to be. I had wondered how all the internal monologues would be handled, as well as the entire backstory that was necessary for the film to make sense to people who’ve not read the book. It was a big film, to be sure, but the effects weren’t great–and the choice to hear the internal thoughts as whispers, which meant almost fifty percent of the picture was whispered–weakened it. And really, most of the real action of the story takes place in the second half–and basically the Lynch film condensed the second half of the book to a quick transitional jump, and it wrapped up very quickly. (Having Paul bring rain to Arrakis in the final scene was also a bad choice, which negated everything about Dune’s ecology and the secret of the worms.) But I did like it, if parts (mostly Harkonnens) were over the top. But I was kind of excited to hear Denis Villeneuve was shooting it in two parts. I enjoyed the first part, but the second? Exceptional, and proved that Villeneuve’s vision for the property was the right one.
Dune Part 2 follows the book far more closely than any other adaptation has, which usually seems to run out of steam and time by the time Paul and his mother flee into the desert to seek safety with the Fremen. I also really liked how reluctant Paul was to assume leadership, or to launch his “religion”–because he IS the fulfillment of the Bene Gesserit “prophecy,” which was really just propaganda spread by Sisterhood missionaries centuries, if not millennia, before. He can see the possible futures as well as the entire past, and he knows his holy war will kill millions, if not billions, and he doesn’t want to be responsible for that. Dune Part 2 plays like a galactic Game of Thrones, and I appreciated all the politics on top of the action. I feel like this Villeneuve version of the story is the closest to what Herbert wrote and created. It’s an epic film, shot on an epic scale, with stunning visuals and strong performances–Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha makes you forget all about Sting’s bizarre performance in the Lynch version–and I do look forward to the next chapter in this sprawling saga.
Yesterday was quite pleasant, actually. I ran my errand quickly and worked on the apartment some more before watching the SEC Baseball tournament final and watching Dune Part 2 (more on that later) and this week’s Interview With the Vampire. I fell into bed shortly thereafter, and slept like the dead. As predicted, it’s Memorial Day and the final day of a long weekend, and I find myself wondering why I didn’t get more done. I know I still have stamina issues, but the. fact that my default is again berating myself rather than understanding why and letting myself off the hook tells me that mentally I am getting closer to myself after a long break–and that’s a good thing. I do have some things to do around here yet this morning that shouldn’t be too hard to deal with, and I want to get some writing done. I am going to the gym to start my rehab up again, and that will undoubtedly exhaust me, as will walking to the gym and back in the heat…and perhaps I should start thinking about driving, even if that means trying to find a place to park, which is never an easy thing to do and can very frustrating. I know, I know, the walking should be part of the workout, but walking that far in our excessive heat and humidity is debilitating…and maybe driving is just the thing to get me going regularly again.
One never knows, does one?
I also need to figure out why my vacuum cleaner isn’t working. I’d really prefer not to buy another one, as it seems like we just bought this one. Then again, COVID memory fog makes everything from the past seem like it was a very long time ago. But I do know it’s been at least two years since it last worked properly. Today I’ll sweep the rugs and shake them out, which is what I’ve been doing. Not great, but it does work and that’s really the most important thing. Maybe with my tax refund I can buy a new one.
LSU didn’t play great in the title game, falling to Tennessee 4-3, but they made it interesting in the bottom of the ninth, scoring two runs and stranding the tying run on second base. I’d say that’s a pretty good outcome, considering Tennessee is the top ranked team in the country (as they were last year) and LSU isn’t even ranked this season, and was the 11 seed in the tournament. They knocked out three top ten teams on their way to the finals, and remember–they won it all last year despite not winning the SEC, regular season or tournament. They’re pretty hot now, and are playing extremely well, so the postseason looks even more exciting than it did last week, to be honest. What great times to be an LSU fan, seriously–even if they don’t repeat, the baseball team is always fun to watch.
So, this morning I plan to get the kitchen rugs taken care of, then maybe take care of the living room floor as well, while trying to do some writing and reading. I need to make some to-do lists, update the bills log, and get ready for the work week which starts tomorrow, alas. I also don’t have an Admin Day to ease into the week, since I’ll having be to see clients tomorrow.
But I am feeling rested and relaxed, which is probably the most important thing for any weekend, really. We’ll probably finish watching Euphoria tonight, and I’m not really sure what to do about dinner. I have some fresh ground beef in the fridge, and I was thinking about sautéing it with mushrooms, onion and bell peppers, but I don’t know now if that’s a good use of the meat or not, but I don’t want to make meatballs and I already cooked out yesterday. I guess I can think about it later. It’s too early to make a decision about dinner anyway.
And on that incredibly dull note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be around the rest of the day.
Queer and Loathing in America 