Category: childhood

Two Dollars in the Jukebox

This marvelous interview with the amazing Margot Douaihy dropped while I was in the midst of Bouchercon or preparing for it, so I always intended to share it around on social media (what a thrill to be name-checked by such an amazing new star in the world of crime fiction). Her debut crime novel Scorched Grace was so phenomenal that I still think about it from time to time; her New Orleans was so exquisitely and artistically rendered that it gave me pause–and also made me wonder if I’ve been coasting and not working as hard as I should. (I always think that when I read a work that blows me away–I should try harder.)

Yesterday was spent in my chair watching college football and making notes in my journal on projects that are upcoming or are currently in progress. Despite all the sleep (I slept for eleven hours Friday night, and again last night) I still feel a bit out of it and drained and tired; but I am going to take a shower in a little bit and I am sure that will perk me right up. I did read some more of Shawn Cosby’s newest book but those opening few chapters hit me right in the soul and it’s going to take me a minute to process it. I also posted like three or four entries yesterday, too–I finished turning John Copenhaver’s questions for the Outwrite DC panel into a Greg interview (I plan on doing the same with the questions from the Bouchercon panels because I can, mwa-ha-ha!), also finished my entry announcing Death Drop, and another one about how The Children’s Bible was one of my first sources for images of hot muscular men (thanks again, Golden Press, for those sexy illustrations! I didn’t even mention Samson), so I am making progress on getting these drafted blogs finished and posted.

I feel a little pain in my mouth this morning, so I rinsed with salt water and took my pain pills. Pain is draining and exhausting, even if you take something for it, so that’s why I think I was so behind the eight ball with everything yesterday–it’s certainly why I am sleeping so much and so deeply, for which I am eternally grateful. There’s no more bleeding, which is great, and I am trying out hot coffee this morning (caffeine deficiency may have played a huge part in the tired thing yesterday). All I ate yesterday was protein shakes and ice cream (Haagen-Dasz strawberry; today is vanilla bean) which was weird and not very filling; I am going to have to go buy yogurt and more ice cream tomorrow, methinks, and explore some other soft food options, like oatmeal. I am going to have oatmeal for breakfast this morning–I actually like oatmeal and am not sure why I stopped having it in the mornings–and then see if I can figure out some other things. I bought some soups, so maybe I can soften crackers in the soup too. I remember moving back onto solid foods was an issue the first time around, so I have to keep that in mind as I slowly start reintroducing solids back. I know I will miss this unashamed and unabashed deep dive back into ice cream. My face also never swelled up, which is another indication of how good my dental surgeon was. Well done and bravo, sir!

The highlight of the day yesterday for me was watching Coco Gauff win the US Open. How absolutely delightful, and how delightful to have a young American star again to root for. I love tennis, but there really hasn’t been anyone on the women’s side with a larger than life personality like Serena Williams, or just flat out charismatic and likable (like Kim Clijsters) to watch and root for in a very long time. I think the guard is also gradually changing on the men’s side, with the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic triume slowly retiring as they get older, and it’s fun to see rising young stars like Carlos Alcazar play, too.

As for football, well…the Alabama-Texas game was exciting to watch, if strange; I’ve not seen Alabama play that sloppy or poorly very often in the seventeen years or so since Nick Saban came to Tuscaloosa. I also can’t remember the last time Alabama lost so early in the year–which means a second loss ends any play-off hopes they may have unless they go on to win the SEC. To see Alabama lose in Tuscaloosa by ten points to a non-SEC team early in the season? Unthinkable. The conference is not off to a great start this year; Miami roasted Jimbo and A&M yesterday; LSU’s horrific loss last weekend to Florida State; Mississippi got super-lucky to beat Tulane yesterday; and the rest of the conference isn’t exactly off to a great start either–even Georgia hasn’t looked invincible in their two wins, despite the margin of victory. The SEC is due for an off-year anyway; we’ve literally won four national championships in a row (2019 LSU, 2020 Alabama, 2021-22 Georgia) with three different teams, which is something no other conference can say this century, and also doesn’t include Florida, who won two in the aughts (as did LSU: LSU was the first team to win two titles since championship games were implemented). The only teams not from the south to win national titles this century are Oklahoma and Ohio State, and Oklahoma might as well be a Southern state as it’s not really in the Midwest either. In fact, the only two Big Twelve team to win national titles this century–Oklahoma and Texas–are joining the SEC next year. I’m still not sure how I feel about the realignments and conferences being killed off, but…the sport has changed dramatically since I was a child and ABC held the exclusive right to air games. LSU blew out Grambling State last night 72-10, and looked much better than they had the week before in that embarrassing loss to Florida State; but there’s also a big difference between FSU and GSU. I guess we’ll get a better idea of what LSU is like once we play at Mississippi State next week, and we’ll see how well Alabama bounces back from this disappointment for them. Auburn did manage to hold off California last night (I went to bed), but I also think Florida lost their opener to Utah? Yes, they did, or maybe it was Oregon? Regardless, they lost. Pity. (I despise Florida, and will only root for them when they play someone I hate even more, like Tennessee.)

So, today I am going to take it easy one more time without feeling guilty for not doing anything productive. I am going to do some chores–emptying the dishwasher, maybe some filing to clean up the mess that is currently my desk situation, and the refrigerator needs cleaning up too–and repair to the chair to read Shawn’s book for a bit. I also am going to make another cup of coffee and perhaps some oatmeal, washed down by a protein shake. I don’t know if my heart and blood pressure can take watching a Saints game, but Paul will want to watch and there’s also the men’s final for the US Open today. And maybe I will finish some other blog posts. One never knows, really.

Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader–and if I’m not back later, be sure I’ll be back in the morning.

The Old Rugged Cross

As an adult, it has always amused me that historically gay men (or men who were attracted to other men) inevitably became/were artists, and just as inevitably were commissioned to sculpt and paint and create religious art to adorn Catholic cathedrals and the palaces of the church hierarchy. I loved that they used their art and their patron’s money to create images of beautiful men in various stages of undress or nudity, but since it was within the context of a religious scene, it was okay. Even the crucifix inevitably shows Jesus in nothing more than a modesty loincloth, with his lean muscular frame carved lovingly to look beautiful and sexy. The eroticism of classic religious art, that competing duality of religious fervor and sexual ecstasy (look at depictions of the Ecstasy of St. Teresa sometime, if you want to see some straight up erotic imagery; I’ve always wanted to use “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa” as a title sometime), confused me as a child–it wasn’t until much later that I realized most classic and Renaissance religious art could be easily be categorized as “Revenge of the Homosexuals on a Repressive Institution”–but it also interested me. When I was a kid hungering for erotic masculine images, I could never go wrong with religious art.

I mean, this is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel:

And don’t even get me started on depictions of St. Sebastian.

I love that they sculpted his pubic hair onto that last statue. Nice authenticity!

Someday I may write about St. Sebastian…or a boarding school named after him, which would be nice imagery for a queer crime/horror y/a set at such a place.

There was also a lot of homoerotic art in depictions of Greek and Roman mythology–the Laöcoön statue is one; and any depictions of Hercules/Heracles, Achilles, Apollo, etc.

And we’ll talk about Ganymede another time.

I was raised as a Christian, of the Church of Christ brand of Protestantism–and a hard, cruel, you’re-going-to-burn-in-hell-for-believing-anything-else faith it is indeed. I can’t speak to what that denomination is like outside of the South, or even Alabama for that matter–I did notice that the version in Kansas wasn’t nearly as hard or unforgiving; but still pretty unforgiving, in comparison to other sects–but I do know that where I am from, the Church of Christ is hard, rough, and sees a lot of stuff as sin. (Southern Churches of Christ are also very argumentative–which hardly seems Christian, does it? Members are always getting up in arms about something and wind up going to another congregation, sometimes having to move churches more than once.

And when I was about eight or nine, my grandmother bought me a copy of The Children’s Bible, which was filled with illustrations (amazing how all those Middle Eastern Israelites were white, and even some had blond hair and blue eyes)…and maybe (probably) it wasn’t the intent of the publisher, but there was some seriously homoerotic imagery in the book. About ten years ago I was thinking about The Children’s Bible and wondering whatever happened to my copy…and remembering some of the illustrations in it, I thought no, you can’t be remembering that correctly and so I went on eBay and bought a used copy.

And when it arrived, my memories were actually correct.

I mean, look at the muscles on Goliath. That image was burned indelibly into my brain, and it’s entirely possible my appreciation of muscles comes from….The Children’s Bible.

Perish the thought!

Grooming!

Indoctrination!

And of course, my favorite story in the book was David and Jonathan.

I mean, look at how they drew David!

I mean, it may not be Michelangelo, but damn.

(I also love that a Bronze Age Middle Eastern Jew somehow had pearly white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.)

Though David has awesome legs in both depictions, seriously.

When I was a kid, I’d always reread the David and Jonathan story (can’t imagine why it was my favorite…). I wanted a best friend like David–I always saw myself as Jonathan, the supporting player, the way I always did–gorgeous and charismatic and beautiful and beloved of God. I would think about the story and while I was too young and innocent to conceive of it as anything other than friendship–the same way I thought of the “friendship” between Achilles and Patroclus in tales of the Trojan War–when I got older, whenever I thought about the story I wondered about how deep that friendship between Prince Jonathan and David son of Jesse was. Why include the story at all? It really doesn’t add a whole lot to the tale of David’s life, and did it really matter for King Saul to have a son who was David’s friend and great love? Jonathan dies–not even the Bible was immune from bury your gays–and David mourned him with a great grief that seemed a bit more than “my best bro died.” I wanted to write the story myself, despite my lack of historical knowledge of the period or even when it was actually set, but I wanted to write about their love, their falling in love–and let’s face it, God didn’t really seem to have a lot of problems with their relationship, did he? He didn’t come to David and tell him to stop giving it to Jonathan; God didn’t curse the two of them or punish Israel for it; and yes, Jonathan is eventually killed…but even then God doesn’t come to David and say, did you not read Leviticus? I could hardly let you go on fucking him forever, you know.

So, I guess I am supposed to read it literally and just think they were best friends and loved each other as brothers. Yeah, no. There’s absolutely no reason for this story to be included in the David story in the Bible; none, unless of course there’s a kernal of truth in the story (don’t come for me, I’ve never bothered to find out if the Bible’s Old Testament kings of Israel were real people; I do know that real people turned up in the Old Testament that existed in history–Babylonians and Assyrians, for example, as well as Egyptians)but the mystery for me of why this story was included, why it was included if its merely legend or why was it included if they were real is the real question. There’s no moral lesson to be learned from the story of their friendship; their love and loyalty to each other was an issue for Jonathan because his friend’s greatest enemy was Jonathan’s own father, a king anointed by God–despite God capriciously turning His back on Saul for really such an insignificant reason that it really just boiled down to God just liked David better; I always felt sorry for Saul–how much would it suck to lose God’s favor for no good reason? Just because God found someone He liked better? (And considering the things God forgave David for, or just overlooked, really makes the hard turn away from Saul that much more petty and bitchy.)

God’s kind of an asshole in the Old Testament, frankly.

But yes, I’d love to write this story sometime. (Because I don’t have enough else to do, right?) I’d also want to write it from Jonathan’s perspective, although the death would be hard to do (Madeline Miller managed it with Song of Achilles quite beautifully) story-wise; but is the kind of challenge I love. Maybe someday, and maybe writing it will help me in my constant and never-ending life quest to come to terms with the religious grooming drilled into my brain as a child. I even have a great title for it, too.

I also have a novel in mind revolving around Michelangelo’s statue of David, too; maybe I could combine research and do them at the same time. THAT would be a challenge, would it not?

I’m Knee Deep In Loving You

And today I am having the oral surgery. Heavy heaving sigh. It will be horrible as these things inevitably are, but at least when I come out of it and start healing, I no longer will have to worry about mouth pain again, or for a while at any rate. Whew, so no big plans for my weekend other than soft and/or liquid foods and pain medication. It will be weird. It also makes a little sad, too, because the last time I had this procedure done I went to Kentucky to have it done so Mom could take care of me.

I always meant to go back up and have it done there…sigh. Oh, Mom.

But life is much better with the ability to hear. It’s really amazing, and I don’t think I ever heard this clearly in my life before, so clearly my hearing has always been a problem. And I have a new prescription for my glasses, so I’ll be ordering new pairs from Zenni relatively soon, which is great. So, soon enough I’ll be able to see clearly, I can already hear better, and the mouth pain will be finished. Yesterday was weird, because I knew I had this today, and so I am also taking off Monday and Tuesday, just in case. I also made a plan to make sure I get there and back; I am taking a Lyft there, then to the CVS for my pain prescription, and then another home. It makes more sense than trying to find someone who has the day free and is willing to give it up to cart me around.

There was a truly marvelous thunderstorm that erupted right as I was leaving the office yesterday–and I still managed to drive home without getting irritated, annoyed and aggravated at the hapless New Orleans drivers who’ve clearly never driven in the rain before because it’s so rare here. Bitch, please–everyone learns how to drive in snow because its unavoidable in places where it snows, so why are New Orleanians such shitty drivers in the rain? That is definitely an unsolved mystery.

I finished doing the page proof corrections and sent them in yesterday, and so the two books being released this fall in back-to-back months are finally, once and for all, finished and I can move on to writing other things without guilt. (I had already started writing other things, of course, but I did have that nagging guilt about these two books not being finished and in production yet.) I”m still not entirely certain what all I am going to be doing next–I have no contracts in place, but am not letting that bother me in the least (which is an improvement; being out of contract usually puts me into a panicked frenzy in which I start pitching things everywhere–which is not the best, you know; and always gets me in trouble) and I am relatively certain I won’t be lucid for most of the weekend (then again, you never know; I have a high pain threshold and I don’t think I stayed on the pain pills the first time longer than a day or two) and my terrible memory (which used to be so pinpoint sharp it was eerie) doesn’t help.

We also watched some of the US Open last night before I went to bed–I didn’t finish watching the Madison Keys match, which she should have won in the second set–which was kind of fun. I don’t feel as excited about sports as I used to; not sure what that is about, but it’s an unfortunate reality.

And on that note, I need to start getting ready. I am not wearing the hearing aids because I don’t need to hear the procedure clearly, frankly. Hopefully I’ll be able to check in tomorrow, or even later today. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader!

Out of My Head and Back in My Bed

Y’all, I can hear.

And man, is the world LOUD or what?

I have to say, it was kind of a weird thrill to walk out of Costco yesterday afternoon with the ability to hear things I couldn’t before. When I started the car, there was a weird noise I couldn’t identify before my phone started playing through the speakers. As I sat there in the car, wondering what it could be, I slowly began to realize it was the air blowing through the vents to cool the car down. I’d never heard it before. Walking through the grocery store, I could hear all the things I never heard–the crinkling of packaging in someone’s hand; the belt moving the groceries forward; and on and on it went. When I got home I could hear the squeaking of the ceiling fans, the air conditioning coming through the vents, every squeak of the floor and the stairs, and even when Paul came home–the rustle of his backpack as he slid it off, the crinkling of the packaging of his mail, the sound of him walking upstairs–all things I couldn’t hear before. I turned off the closed captioning on the television and turned the sound down. At one point I eventually grabbed my phone and turned the volume of the hearing aids down.

It’s a whole new world.

Bouchercon is beginning to look more and more like a super-spreader event, with people I was around and having hugged several times testing positive since the weekend. I tested negative again this morning, and hope I continue to do so since I am having a major dental procedure done on Friday morning. I paid all the bills yesterday, and did a lot of catching up on emails and so forth. After I left work early, I went by the post office to get the mail before getting the hearing aids, and then made groceries. I masked all day yesterday at the office and will probably do so again today and tomorrow, just to be safe. I’m not as concerned about getting it as I am about giving it to someone; to be clear. If I have to reschedule Friday I have to reschedule Friday, and there’s no sense in wasting time or energy worrying about it. I have some proofing I need to get done by tomorrow, so hopefully tonight I will be able to get home and just plant my ass in the easy chair and tear through it so I can get it turned in no later than tomorrow night. I have some other things to get done this week, too–so I am going to need to really update the to-do list so I can make sure things get done and nothing falls through the cracks; the trick is remembering everything when I make the list. I know I have some short stories that need to be finished, revised and polished; I’m still not sure the revision of my forty year old story works, to be honest. I also want to get this other one, “The Blues Before Dawn,” finished for another call. There are some other stories I need to follow up on that have been languishing in their files, and I need to start plotting out some more stories and books, too. I also want to start reading Shawn Cosby’s new book, All the Sinners Bleed, which is a great title and an even greater story, I am sure; Shawn is ridiculously talented and one of the most genuinely kind writers I know.

I am still digesting Laura Lippman’s Prom Mom, which is the mark of a great novel. I was thinking her work has slowly and slyly started critiquing gender roles, particularly the way men are shielded from consequences and inevitably fail upward. Rob Simpson, the main male in this book, from the outside appears to be a golden boy who has it all…but the truth is he’s a pretty face and an empty suit. His business success is all due to his uncle’s nepotism, and his wife actually makes more than he does. All the women in his life shield him from reality, when they are all smarter and stronger and more successful than he is, and he’s so privileged and entitled he never notices that he’d really be nothing without the women in his life–from his mother to Prom Mom herself to perfect wife Meredith.

I didn’t sleep great last night, despite being super-tired. I fell into bed around ten and then woke up at two, and never really fell back deeply into sleep, instead just dozing into a half-sleep before waking up again. Like yesterday, I got up at five (an hour earlier than usual) and figured might as well get a jump on the day and get up. I’ve had a cup of coffee and will undoubtedly have at least one more before leaving the house; I am tempted to make a cappuccino. Readjusting to reality has been a little harder this time than it usually is–the weird and wonky sleep patterns making the least amount of sense of anything–but I am slowly getting caught up, I think.

The weird thing about my hearing (circling back around to our original topic) is that I’ve always had trouble with it, even as a child. Mom and Dad always insisted I only hear what i want to hear, and there could be some truth in that. My hearing has always been erratic, and while I’ve always passed a hearing test (barely; I was always about this close to needing hearing aids before) there were things I couldn’t hear and if there was ambient noise, forget it: I heard nothing. This is why I stopped participating in dinner parties in restaurants of more than six people; anything bigger than that and there’s no point. I can’t hear anything in a bar, and so I smile and nodded a lot. I often joke on panels that I must agree to do things when I’m drunk in the bar at a Bouchercon, but the truth is I didn’t have to be drunk; it just had to be in a bar and I probably agreed without hearing because I would just smile and nod and say things like “sure” and “sounds great” and would never admit to being hard of hearing. This last hearing test confirmed everything: talking to someone in a one on one situation, I only hear about eighty percent of what is said. Add another person and the percentage drops, and keeps dropping with the addition of more noises and sounds. And if you need hearing aids do not get them from your doctor. Costco was about half the price I was quoted at the doctor’s office; Costco will also give you a hearing test as part of the purchase price; there’s a two year warrantee as well as a six year in total plan for servicing. It’s really nice to be able to hear again. It’s going to be strange being able to hear everything at work, too. I think part of the denial I was always in about my hearing–the not telling people–was because I didn’t have a confirmatory test result before and just not wanting to admit to a disability–which is incredibly stupid. Without my glasses I can’t see anything; how is hearing any different than seeing? The Shame Monster is a sly creature.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I’ll check in with you again later, Constant Reader, and have a great Wednesday.

I’ve Already Loved You in My Mind

Yesterday was a great test for me when it comes to fighting my anxiety.

I slept incredibly well, finished reading Laura Lippman’s Prom Mom, wrote three blog entries, and started doing laundry. I also spent a lot of time on social media, stealing pictures from the weekend because I never remember to take any myself, and just was kind of taking it easy for the day. We had a thunderstorm blow through right after Paul left for the gym, and therein came the test. I did all the laundry, and when the sheets were finished I took that basket upstairs (Paul hates putting on the fitted sheet and I hate shoving the pillows into their cases, so I put on the sheet and he does the pillow cases, if you were wondering) and only wearing socks–which I never do because the stairs were varnished and are insanely slippery and steep, and they make two ninety degree turns on the way up–when I stepped into a puddle after the first turn. What the hell? I thought as I stepped onto another puddled step, and still another–only to get hit on the head with several drops of water. I looked up and just before the second ninety degree turn is a light fixture–the primary one for lighting the stairs–and the water was coming from the fixture! Fortunately it was off–I don’t even want to think about if it had been on–and I put on the sheet, changed my socks, grabbed my slippers, and a handful of towels. I mopped up the mess with one towel before covering the rest of the steps that had been wet with towels, going down a few more steps with the towels just in case.

Immediately, I thought oh my God we have a leak from a big thunderstorm that caused street flooding, which means that water has probably been pooling somewhere inside the house somewhere; we haven’t had a downpour that caused flooding most of the summer (its usually a weekly occurrence in the summer time), which further led to oh no what about mold and will the wall have to be ripped out again to well at least we know where the problem is to great termites love wet wood before I was able to take a breath and recognize that I was spiraling and the anxiety was starting to spread to a physical and emotional reaction. I took a deep breath, and remembered that it’s out of my control. Getting worked up and emotional will not stop the leak or repair the wall. I was borrowing trouble and letting my mind start to control my narrative and I don’t want that. I sat down at my desk and thought, “Okay. When Paul gets home I’ll tell him to call the landlady. She’ll need to come see it, then call someone. So I have to get the living room picked up and make it look better. I still need to put away the dishes and I need to make a to-do list because I have things I need to get done this week. Will this be convenient with everything I have going on this fall? No, but when has life ever been convenient?

Never. And that’s what Paul and I discussed last night: getting frustrated, irritated, and upset by things you have no control over is a waste of time and energy. Dealing with the anxiety is a big part of this with me; I can’t control the physical reaction, but I can the emotional and mental, and as long as I keep that under control and don’t spiral, I will be okay. Things have to be taken care of, and that includes what I always call “odious chores,” or what other people might call “adulting” (I hate the turning nouns into verbs that don’t need to be verbs, and so I try not to ever use that word–it’s always grated on me. When you’re not adulting, are you childing? Of course not. That’s why it grates.). I don’t like conflict, and this is also a part of my anxiety–the fear of conflict creates anxiety and keeps me from doing things that might cause conflict, even though they rarely do. At one point last night as we caught up on our shows, I said, “I wish today was Saturday because I don’t want to get up in the morning” and Paul replied, “let it go”–we’d had a conversation about all of this and stopping being negative about things we can’t control and etc.–and I said, “you’re right. I have to get up early and moaning about it won’t change it, so why bother? It just is.” So I came back downstairs and watched this week’s My Adventures with Superman (it really is a. great show) and then Paul joined me for Only Murders in the Building, Ahsoka, and then we started a MAX (that is weird to me, just like saying X instead of Twitter–but fuck Elon, that I will never do) documentary called Telemarketers which is incredibly fascinating. There will be more on that later, once we’ve finished it (and I remember getting calls from these people back in the day; I always felt sorry for the callers as I always do with any kind of telemarketer–but after watching the first episode I don’t feel as sorry for them as I used to).

Ironically, my body clock is also all screwed up somehow. I was exhausted last night and was falling asleep in my chair by nine; so I went to bed early and am up and awake at five am this morning. It was a very good night’s sleep, too. So here I am last night whining about getting up early briefly–and this morning I voluntarily got out of bed an hour earlier than normal because I was awake and clearly wasn’t going to fall back asleep at any time. So here I am at my desk, swilling coffee and blearily thinking about all the things I need to get done before Friday. Tonight I am picking up my hearing aids after work, getting the mail, and running by the grocery store. I have to finish paying the bills. I have a million emails to respond to as well as numerous to generate.

It’s also funny that, after years of not thinking about the past or revisit it, I’ve started doing that more and more, especially since Dad is now telling me things I didn’t know before. Since I turned sixty, I started looking back over the years, which I had always seen as pointless before. You can’t do anything about the past, after all, and we also have a tendency to view the past as better and rosier than it actually was the further in the past it becomes. Sure, Mom dying earlier this year and talking to Dad about the past certainly has something to do with it all–but I had already started down that path. What is it, I wonder, about that particular milestone that resonated with me so deeply that I turned philosophical and decided to start unpacking my past? I don’t know. But I saw something on Facebook the other day about someone’s first words, and that made me remember that my parents always said I didn’t start talking until I was almost three years old (Mom would always add “and you haven’t shut up since”), but I was walking at nine months; they also always said that ruefully and with regret, because they believed the issues with my leg joints–the rolling ankles, the ease with which my hips will pop out of joint–is because I started walking too young. I never really thought anything about it, really, other than well thanks a lot for those issues…but this time I thought, “that must have really been weird and scary for them as parents barely out of their teens,” and you know every other adult and parent they knew privately judged them while offering all kinds of unsound advice and old wives’ tales from the country that made no sense and had no basis in any kind of science. Such a shame about their boy, you think he’s retarded? (Yes, that word–preferably not used anymore–was in common usage when I was a child, and yes, I heard adults talking about when they thought I was out of earshot. I think that was about the time my “selective hearing” started; being able to hear clearly for the first time in my adulthood tonight after getting the hearing aids did make me wonder do I really want to be able to hear everything?)

And yes, my primary takeaway from Bouchercon this weekend was feeling something I’ve not felt in a long time, and definitely not since the pandemic: ambitious. I told Paul last night (and someone over the weekend, probably my poor friend Teresa, aka Carsen Taite) “I kind of feel like life is happening to me, rather than me living my life, and I don’t like that feeling.” So, it’s time for me to start planning and mapping things out and deciding what I want and setting goals and figuring out how to get what I want again. I also realize I have to be very careful with what I agree to do this fall–not knowing how long some of these recoveries from procedures will take, for one thing–and I need to stop having anxiety about not having books under contract and then throwing out a bunch of proposals and getting deadlines. No, I need to plan. I need to strategize. I need to get my shit together and set some goddamned goals.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines so I can make this week’s to-do list and start tackling the email inbox. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back later without doubt.

I’ll Be Leavin’ Alone

…on a flight to Dallas this afternoon. However, in delightful news, I am sharing the Dallas-San Diego legs of the trip in both directions with none other than the Lady H, aka Lady Hermione, aka Carsen Taite. That is always fun. I don’t have enough time changing planes in Dallas on the way out to get Whataburger on the way (I’ll get Shake Shack at New Orleans airport before I leave) but here’s hoping I can get it on the way home, because I know I will be starving by the time I get to Dallas. (I just checked; I have two hours in Dallas on the way back so Whataburger fer shur! The departure flight is at eleven something California time, so I probably won’t eat anything before boarding….unless there’s donuts or something at the San Diego airport, which I am sure there is.) It’s truly sad how excited I can get about food options that I don’t normally have access to, isn’t it?

But I am all packed and ready to head to Metairie for my eye appointment on the way to the airport. It would probably be more accurate to say I overpacked–I really don’t know why every time I go to something like this I have to take so much with me, including books–what if I run out of something to read!?!?!? Um, bitch, you’re going to a convention for mystery readers. There will be free books in my conference book bag. Books will be given away at various times over the weekend. There’s a book room and several book sellers.

But yes, by all means, Greg, weight yourself down bringing coal to Newcastle.

My supervisor and I were looking around yesterday for pictures of our old office on Frenchmen Street for a presentation she is doing at the US Conference on AIDS (she’ll leave the day I return to work), and we couldn’t find any, anywhere. I knew I probably had some in my archive of photographs on the back-up hard drive (which is horribly horribly disorganized), and so I went digging around in those files after I finished packing last night. Oh, the memories–and oh, the fucking receipts! Apparently–not really a surprise to anyone who knows me–I’ve been keeping receipts for decades. Old assholish behavior from people who should know better that I’d completely forgotten about–both the person and the behavior. Also, some people have been assholes for a very long time. Stick with what you’re good at, I guess? But yes, at some point I am going to have to organize those picture files–and there are tons of duplicates.

So.

Many.

Duplicates.

Nevertheless it was a fun way to pass an hour or so while the laundry laundered and the dishes washed in their respective machines. There are so many things I need to be better about–the picture files, for example, could be incredibly useful for inspirations and/or putting me into the mood to write a particular kind of story. I found the photo file of the pictures I used to help me visualize and write Timothy; I did do this for Mississippi River Mischief, but never took the time to look at the photos before diving into writing or trying to get the work done. It probably would have helped some, and therefore I need to remember the value of visual aids for my writing going forward. I am taking stuff with me to edit over coffee, or to muse over and/or think about; I always take my journal with me when I go to panels because people say things I want to remember later, or make me think about something I am working on, sometimes solving a puzzle I’d be trying to untangle. I love being around other writers, I really do. It’s always fun, and I get to hang around smart people and listen to them tell funny stories and laugh and be amazed that I get to know all these amazingly brilliant and smart and witty people and get to call them friends? The teenaged kid in Kansas whose house had a corn field across the street and dreamed big dreams in that bedroom with the ugly beige walls and brown shag carpeting would have slept well and gotten through life a little easier had he known his life would turn out even better than he’d ever dared to dream. I complain a lot. I whine a lot. I get irritated easily and my temper frays and flares a little more lately than I’d prefer, frankly. It’s also so, so easy to go down the dark path to depression and who cares and why bother and all that morose self-pitying nonsense that doesn’t make anything any better but certainly can make everything seem worse. But I do know how incredibly lucky and blessed I am. People also seem to think I’ve led an interesting life. I don’t think so, but it’s also all I know so it just seems normal to me. I get to write books and stories and get them published. People read them, seem to like them, and want me to write more of them. I even get nominated for awards here and there and now and again…quite a lot of times, actually.

And while it may not seem like it most of the time when I’m complaining, I’m pretty happy with my life and how it’s all turned out. I’ve also realized that I’m incredibly lucky and blessed with my writing career. I’ve been nominated for the Anthony Award seven times now–twice for Best Anthology, once for Best Short Story, once for Best Paperback/Ebook Original, twice for Best Children’s/Young Adult, and once for Best Humorous. That’s really not a bad haul, you know. I’ve also been nominated for a Lefty and an Agatha and a Shirley Jackson and a Macavity–not bad for a big old queer writer of queer books, you know? It’s also lovely seeing these mainstream awards starting to slowly recognize queer writers and our books. I also found, you see, a lot of pictures of conferences and signings and readings and book events and conferences from throughout the length of my varied and odd career. It’s been a lovely ride so far, and I really wish I would allow myself the luxury of enjoying myself and enjoying my career.

My goal for this weekend is to have as much fun as possible, hug as many people as I can, and relax and enjoy the ride as a three-time Anthony nominee. That’s pretty amazing, and something that queer teenager back in Kansas couldn’t have dared to dream.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I need to do one more load of dishes before i depart and the kitchen will be thus clean. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and as always I will probably be updating social media with today’s travel shenanigans. Don’t know if or when I will be back here, but will do my best.

Heart Healer

Monday morning of Bouchercon week and so much to do before I leave on Wednesday it’s not even the least bit amusing. I somehow managed to get very little done over the weekend–I did get some things done, I always do–but I’ve really got to stop taking the weekends off and do some work other than chores. I did manage to get a shit load of books pruned off the shelves, with even more work to be done on those once I get back (and I am going to try to resist buying any books while I’m in San Diego as well).

I did make it to Costco yesterday to get fitted for my hearing aids, which I will be picking up when I get back from San Diego. When I had them in, the difference was so amazing I couldn’t believe it. The hearing tech stood in the doorway to the room with the door open to the main floor, and she spoke to me–in a soft voice–and I could hear her every word clearly and concisely, and the noise from the store didn’t muffle or down her out at all. She even said, “I can tell you can hear better because you’re speaking more softly than you did without them in–so you were even having trouble hearing yourself speak.” I came home from that, making groceries at the Carrollton Rouse’s (and just let me say, getting to the I-10 on-ramp from Carrollton heading uptown might possibly be the worst interchange/on-ramp I’ve ever experienced in my life–seriously, who the fuck designed our highway system through the city of New Orleans?) and collapsing into the cool of the apartment after being out in the “feels like 114” for far too long. I also paid for said hearing aids, which was significantly cheaper than getting them from the doctor’s office (at least almost fifty percent cheaper; always get your hearing aids at Costco, people, otherwise you’re being robbed). I need to make a packing list and perhaps start packing for the trip tonight. I have an eye appointment on my way to the airport on Wednesday morning, and when I get back from the trip I can get my hearing aids, and then that following Friday I have my dental surgery.

I also watched the latest episode of My Adventures with Superman, which is amazing, quite frankly, and then we watched The Flash, which debuted this weekend on streaming. I know we’re aren’t supposed to watch the movie because it’s star, Ezra Miller, has become extremely problematic in their (I believe they identify as non-binary and use they/them) personal life, with some arrests for deeply troubling crimes; I know there was a big push to cancel both him and the film before its release, and yes, the accusations are troubling. But…I already pay for the streaming service; I didn’t spend anything additional to watch, and yes, I gave them a view to count…and more the shame, really. It’s actually one of the better DC movies, far better than expected, and the plot was actually clever and easily understood and made sense. Miller, whose casting I questioned originally, is really good as Barry Allen. Barry Allen/The Flash has always been one of my favorite DC characters, plus it was superfun to see Michael Keaton put on the cape and cowl again as Batman. Warner Brothers has made some troubling decisions about their DC movies over the past couple of years due to the most recent conglomerate merger–cancelling the Batwoman movie and just shelving it, among others–so they put all their eggs into the basket of The Flash being big box office, and held onto that plan even after Miller’s behavior became an issue. I enjoyed the film, but cannot recommend anyone else watch it, either. I felt guilty even watching it, thinking about Miller’s victims, so all I kept thinking during the movie wasn’t just this is good but what a shame this is good. There will inevitably be a documentary and/or true crime book about Miller’s conduct and how it damaged this film and the studio–but I do think, by releasing the film, Warner Brothers sent a very dangerous message about what they will and won’t tolerate from a star they’ve put a major investment into…and I wouldn’t be surprised if the studio didn’t use money and leverage to get Miller the slap on the wrist he got.

It’s very old-school Hollywood, isn’t it?

It’s really a shame, too. I love Barry Allen, I love the Flash, and Miller is great in the role. But with them rebooting the DCUniverse and recasting everyone, it’s a done deal anyway. I hope Miller gets the help they need, and don’t hurt anyone else.

I am also really looking forward to The Blue Beetle. I’m hearing great things about it, and I am very excited to see a Latino/Hispanic cast.

Bouchercon looms, and I am leaving Wednesday. I have an eye appointment on my way to the airport–the kind of thing I would have never done in the past because of the anxiety (what if something happens? What if I get delayed there? On and on and on), so I think I am making progress now that I’ve been able to identify what the problem is. I have to make a packing list of what to take, need to be realistic about what I will and won’t be able to work on and/or get done while I am gone (nothing; I’ll be lucky to blog at all whilst I am there, let alone stay on top of emails). I did do a little writing yesterday on my story “Temple of the Soothsayer,” which I am leaving in Central America for this draft and I’ll see how offensive it turns out, all the while watching for Mayan/indigenous peoples tropes, stereotypes, and cliches. If it doesn’t work without any of that, I’ll move it to the Aegean–the Pythia makes more sense than inventing a Mayan priestess/legend, given how little I (or anyone, really) knows about Mayan mythology. But…jaguars. I’d have to give up on jaguars if I move it to the Aegean.

And I love me some cats.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. I have a lot to do before I leave Wednesday, very little time in which to do it, and I am going to need to really get organized over these next two days. Wish me luck as I head into the spice mines!

She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory

It literally just dawned on me that I will have two books out this fall, releasing in consecutive months. The cover for the one I’ve not talked about much is being revamped, so I had to delay sharing the post where I talk about the book (want to share with the actual cover rather than a simulation, of course), but yeah: I have a book out in October and then Mississippi River Mischief drops in November (pushed back from September because, well, life happened), how cool is that? Last night as I was driving home in the hellish heat (the few days of highs in the 90’s, that tragic temperature serving as a respite for the rest of the summer) I realized, you know, if you don’t feel like doing anything when you get home, you don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to work on a book, I don’t have to do anything unless I actually want to–which is hardly motivational. It also was warmer in the apartment when I got home, so I turned on the fans again and the portable coolers and that was that.

I spent most of the evening watching football highlights–August is when I prep for college football every year–and wondering about how LSU is going to fare this season. There’s a lot of hype for them–something we’ve not seen since 2019, frankly, and even then they over-performed by a long shot, and that has me a bit concerned. I have no doubt LSU will be better this year than they were last year, but all this hype-talk makes me a bit nervous. Their schedule is incredibly tough (although Auburn and Florida come to Baton Rouge this fall, and LSU’s last three national titles came in seasons where that happened), but this is also the last season of SEC football as we’ve come to know it since the last expansion, when Missouri and Texas A&M joined. Next year Texas and Oklahoma join, the conference realignments settle in, and college football will never be the same again. I don’t know how i feel about this stuff, to be completely honest. The college football I grew up watching hasn’t existed in a very long time–I remember when ABC exclusively held the TV rights for all NCAA football, so there would be one big game that aired every Saturday and then a local game of some importance–and that was it. When you look at the plethora of games to pick and choose from to watch on Saturdays in the fall now, and can remember pre-1980’s college football, it’s kind of wild.

I booked an appointment with the specialist yesterday. I didn’t get into this very much the other day, because I was frustrated and angry, but basically when I injured my left arm last January? I tore the biceps muscle. I saw my primary care doctor three days later for my biannual check-up, and he didn’t think it was anything. Flash forward to July’s biannual check-up, and now “oh yes, that’s torn, you need to see an orthopedic surgeon.” Well, it turns out that they do require surgery to repair–but it needs to be done, at most, within six weeks of the injury–you know, like when I saw my primary care physician three days after it happened? As such, the specialist he referred me to–whom I liked very much–didn’t feel comfortable performing the surgery because so much time had passed, and he referred me to a specialist at the Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine. I made the appointment yesterday, and here’s hoping we can get the surgery scheduled for sometime this fall. (The chances of full recovery, by the way, also are significantly reduced the more time that passes, so thanks again, primary care physician, whom I will never be seeing again.) So, yes, I have a big fall planned. I am getting my eyes examined on my way to the airport this coming Wednesday; I am getting fitted for hearing aids this Sunday, and I am getting my teeth fixed when I return from Bouchercon. Woo-hoo! Seriously, the excitement around here never stops. I also realized that I only have to go into the office twice this coming week before I leave for San Diego…so I probably should spend some time this weekend preparing.

I know what books I am taking with me to read on the flights there and back. I also figured out that I’ll probably get home in time to catch the final quarter of LSU’s season opener, so I will of course be checking the score regularly as I fly back to New Orleans. I am sharing the Dallas-San Diego legs with Carsen Taite, which will be a lot of fun. (I am getting Whataburger at Dallas Love and at some point whilst in California, I better get to go to In ‘n’ Out Burger.) I have a lot to do this weekend to prep. I am moderating a panel–asked to fill in at the last moment) so I need to reach out to my panelists and apologize for being so tardy to reach out, and start pulling the panel itself together. I need to write this weekend, or at least I should, but there’s a lot of other stuff I have to get done this weekend, too. I really should take the car in for an oil change tomorrow before I leave town, for one thing, and it won’t kill me, either. I can also make groceries while on the West Bank. I think I may just take the weekend as it comes and not put any pressure on myself. I need to make an updated to-do list, for sure, but I am really pleased that I conquered my anxiety to get all those appointments made.

I also had anxiety about moderating this panel, but the nice thing now is I can shrug off the panic as “oh, that’s just your anxiety trying to make you miserable” and you know what? That actually works! Oh, how I wish I had known this wasn’t normal years ago and had seen it for what it really is, because now I can come up with true coping mechanisms and work-arounds to keep it at bay. It was so freeing saying that to myself last night; the moment I said it, the power of the anxiety was defeated and I am no longer worried about how the panel will go. Like how I get anxious and put off making medical/dental appointments. It’s just anxiety, and making the calls isn’t horrible. None of this stuff is truly terrible, but my mind makes it that way.

We also started watching Swamp Kings last night, about the Urban Meyer years at Florida (he was 3-3 against LSU), which was interesting. We’ll keep watching; the first episode takes them through the 2005 season and up to the Auburn loss in 2006. (Spoiler: that would be their only loss and they’d beat Ohio State for the national championship.) I told you, I’m trying to get warmed up for football season!

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may check in with you again later.

Broken Down in Tiny Pieces

I will spare you, Constant Reader, the trials and tribulations of my medical travails; I have to see another specialist, and we’ll leave it at that for now.

I also had to research whether either of these specialists he referred me to actually take my insurance (they do) and then get to hope they can see me at some point before this gets even worse and more difficult to take care of. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and trying to put this bullshit out of my head, because all it did was make me angry all over again and, unless I am putting that anger to productive use, it’s just wasted energy. But I’m glad I’m making progress on this at any rate, and I suspect that a doctor will be the murder victim in a book I will write at some point in the next few years. I also made an appointment on Sunday to get the hearing aids process moving along–it would be so great if I could get them before the trip, wouldn’t it?–and so at least soon I’ll be able to hear again, and in about a month I’ll be able to chew again. Yay!

Always look at the positive. Life doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle; it’s how you handle it that matters.

I took a shower to wash the blech of the day off me–it’s amazing to me how that always seems to work and put me into a better mood. The symbolism of washing the negativity off of me is actually effective and works to somehow reset my brain. I also had a great mail day–picking up the mail on the way home and made groceries, too–in which I got the ARC of the new Margot Douaihy Sister Holiday crime novel (her debut, Scorched Grace, is fantastic) and Duane Swierczynski’s short story collection Lush and Other Tales of Boozy Mayhem, which I am looking forward to digging into. Paul got home rather late last night, but we did have time to watch an episode of Turn of the Tide–but I think I actually have lost the thread of the plot. But it’s entertaining enough, still. I do want to start watching Ahsoka on Disney–I’ll try anything Star Wars; so far Boba Fett is the only Star Wars series we didn’t finish.

I’m still behind on talking about the Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories I’ve read lately; but yesterday at the specialist’s office I started reading Brett Halliday’s story “Pieces of Silver” from Stories to Be Read Late at Night, and it was an interesting tale, if dated, and more than a little bit guilty of racism. I’d not read Halliday before, but I’ve heard of him; I remember seeing his Mike Shayne novels on the wire racks at Zayre’s when I was a kid, and i have one of his books Hard Case Crime reprinted, but haven’t read yet. It’s a very typical tale of its time, though–complete with the colonialist mentality toward the indigenous people of Latin America. The story is set in Mexico, and is about an ugly American-type who has come to the region looking for oil. I will say the ugly American is the villain of the story and every step of the way Halliday is very quick to point out the classism, racism, and toxic masculinity of Thurston, the American–the way he treats the locals he hires to take him up river into the jungle; the way he ogles and wants the teenaged daughter of an American expatriate who married a local girl–but while there is absolutely no question that Thurston wound up getting exactly what he deserved…it’s very hard to be sympathetic to the author’s view of Mexico as a still wild, exotic and extremely primitive place; he certainly doesn’t view the Mexican working class with the same respect as Katherine Anne Porter. (On the other hand, I’ve always been bored by Porter’s Mexico stories–because even in them there’s still an element of the privileged white woman viewing the plight of the poor Mexican working class from her lofty perch at a safe distance.)

Reading this story only served to further emphasize to me how tricky this short story from the past that I am currently trying to revise and finish will be. Originally set in the Yucatan (I wrote it after I visited the Mayan ruins there), it was one of those Alfred Hitchcock Presents/ Tales from the Crypt kind of stories, but in reviewing the story as I wrote it, I fell into the trap Halliday did with his story–making the native people exotic and othered; mysterious and primitive. I am sure there are still poor people living in remote places in Mexico, but this isn’t the way to write about them. I’d been thinking of moving the setting of my story from Latin America (in this revision, I created a fictional country) to the Aegean–like there aren’t plenty of Greek myths to build the story around, make it seem real, and of course I can create a mysterious remote Greek island no one ever visits and no one would blink twice. I just haven’t been there myself, but I need to snap out of the mentality that I can only write about places I’ve been. It does help, of course, but…when you’re creating a fictional place, you’ve never been there. No one has.

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

Alabama Pines

I sometimes wonder how dramatically different my life would be had my parents not migrated to Chicago when I was a child to provide us with a better life than we could expect in Alabama. I’ve always been somewhat grateful to them for this, because I can’t imagine or fathom what growing up in the rural South would have been like for teenaged gay Greg; Kansas was bad enough. But my heart will always have a place in it for the state I was born and where my parents grew up (and will both eventually be buried), and whenever I mine Alabama for fiction, it always comes up roses.

I was enormously pleased and flattered to be asked to participate in the Crippen and Landru anthology School of Hard Knox, and the last thing I was expecting was to get a co-editing credit. Art, Donna, and publisher Jeffrey Marks (a fine writer in his own right; check out his novels and short stories) did the majority of the heavy lifting; my contributions were more along the lines of sending an email cheering the others on or giving a thumbs up/thumbs down to a design question.

If you’d like, you can preorder a copy right here.

The premise of the anthology was that Father Ronald Knox, a scholarly clergymen, had come up with the ten commandments for writing crime fiction during the Golden Age, and each of us could chose a commandment and write a story breaking it. Obviously, it was pretty clear to me that Rule 2 was perfect for me:

All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

And I knew precisely which story in the archive I could revise and rework to break this commandment and fit perfectly into the book, “The Ditch.”

I also cannot believe who I am sharing the table of contents with. Check out this talent!

Now THAT’S a table of contents! Not sure what I am doing there with these amazing writers, but I am most pleased to be there.

And this is how my story, “The Ditch,” opens:

I‘d just finished reading my book–The Hardy Boys, The Secret of the Lost Tunnel— and was reaching to turn off my bedside lamp when my phone chirped on my nightstand to let me know I’d gotten a new text message. I frowned. It was just past ten on a weeknight. Sure, it was summer, but Mom and Dad were strict about phone usage after eight o’clock. My orange-and–-blue Auburn Tigers clock, hanging just over my desk, read a few minutes past ten [on a weeknight]. I picked up the phone and looked at the screen. My wallpaper was a photo of me standing on a white sand beach on the Florida gulf coast.

I need your help. Come over! Please! Emergency!!!

It was from my best friend, Zane Tidwell.

I closed my eyes and exhaled.  Classic Zane, always sending desperate–sounding text messages expecting me to drop everything and rush right over. Everything was an emergency to Zane, from not getting his homework done to failing a test to not having any clean underwear to having a nightmare of some kind—all of these things qualified as emergencies in Zane’s brain. He worked himself up into quite a state over the stupidest things.

“The boy who cried wolf” was all Mom would say.

The problem being, sometimes it was an emergency, like that time he broke his arm when he was home alone, or when his mother fell and hit her head, or when his dog ate rat poison.

He always counted on me keeping my head on straight and not panicking and solving the problem for him. We’d been best friends ever since we were little boys in Bible study, and things had always been this way.

I was the calm one and Zane–well, Zane was a drama queen.

He knew I wasn’t even supposed to use my phone after eight, let alone leave the house after ten.

I typed out you know I can’t it’s too late to leave the house and if I get caught they’ll take my phone and ground me forever with my thumbs.

Please you have to come I don’t know what to do I am really in big trouble now PLEASE!!!!

I stared at the screen. In big trouble? What did that mean? But if the needle on the Zane drama-meter was going up, he wasn’t above calling me on the landline.

And that would send Mom and Dad over the edge.

I sighed. I was going to have to go over there.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Zane Tidwell,” I whispered, typing out Be there soon and hitting send.

“The Ditch” is an Alabama story, of course, and has a teenaged protagonist (I’m not sure why I always write about Alabama from a young person’s perspective; probably because most of my memories are from childhood, I suppose) whose name we never really know. The ditch is actually a real place; my main character’s house is based on where my aunt and uncle lived–which is where we would visit–and about twenty or so yards behind the house was this ditch–or rather, what they called ‘the ditch.’ (I’d share a photo from Google Earth, but all it looks like from the air is a line of trees.) We used to spend a lot of time playing down there, and of course to me as a child it seemed enormous, but it’s probably a lot smaller in reality than I remember (everything seemed enormous to me when I was a child). I never knew what created the ditch, or why it was there, but it’s very similar to what I describe in the story, if smaller. There was all kinds of garbage down there–broken bottles, rusting cans, and so forth, so we were never supposed to go down there barefoot. I also remember that when we were in the ditch we weren’t visible to anyone not standing on the edge–which was a bonus for us as kids. The rope swing was also there (and now I think how fucking insane was it that adults let kids play like that? You could break your neck falling off that thing!) and I’ve also included the ditch in another, unfinished longer piece. There was something creepy yet idyllic about the place, and of course whenever I think about it as an adult it’s always what a perfect place to hide a body! What a perfect place for a ghost! and so on.

I wrote “The Ditch” originally for another anthology’s open call, but I knew when I finished it and turned it in it wasn’t going to get selected. (I was right.) I also knew it needed to be revised and the ending changed as well as some other things (minor but important) but had never gotten around to getting the revision done. So when this opportunity presented itself, I was going to use a different story but had some trouble with its ending and then was despairing when it hit me: you know how to fix “The Ditch” you just haven’t done it yet, so stop spinning your wheels with this one and do that instead, so I dug back into it and really had a great time with the revision. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you will be, too!

(Ironically, this week the ending to the other story popped into my head, so I will be working on that this week, too.)