Category: comic books

Your Mama Don’t Dance

Well, Monday has rolled around again after a lovely, restful weekend, and I am hopeful that this week–the tail end of July and the beginning of August–will be lovely and productive.

Yesterday I managed to have the hole in the page open and finished off Chapter Nineteen–which, once I started, was much easier than I’d thought it would be, and I was also able to get Chapter Twenty set up at the end of that chapter. I’m also, as I go into the final act, aware of things that I need to set up earlier in the manuscript; which is lovely, even though this is wrong way around; I should have known all this when I was writing it, which is my usual way of doing things. (Although, if I am being completely honest, the Kansas book wasn’t written this way, and I only figured out how to end Royal Street Reveillon while I was writing it; this is a trend I don’t like and needs to end now. Perhaps when I start writing Chlorine, things will follow the more traditional Greg writing path.)

Speaking of Chlorine, I did manage to find my copy of Tab Hunter’s memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. I met Tab Hunter years ago, at a Publishing Triangle party in New York (he was with Joyce Dewitt–yes, the one from Three’s Company, and she was absolutely charming), and he was still incredibly handsome and a very nice man. He eventually came to the Tennessee Williams Festival (yes, I played Good Husband and asked him if he would do it, got his manager’s card, and passed that along to Paul), and was again, just as handsome and charming as ever. We have a signed copy of the book, but I’ve never read it–it’s been in the TBR pile for over a decade–and I am delighted now to have a work-related excuse to read it, along with any number of other Hollywood histories and books about show business and celebrities from the 1950’s. (Must find biographies of Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, and Anthony Perkins…and George Cukor, for that matter.) It’s going to be ever so much fun to submerge myself in post-war Hollywood and Los Angeles.

Steph Cha’s novel Your House Will Pay also continues to fascinate, entertain, and enthrall. It’s quite excellent, and I am savoring the pages, the chapters, the development of the parallel stories of the two families tied together by a trauma in the past. It’s also incredibly immersive; the characters are so very terribly real, as is the world they inhabit. It’s turning out to be so much more than I thought it was going to be–and I was excited for what I thought it would be–so it’s even more of a gift than I originally thought it was going to be.

We are also getting drawn in more to the Prime series The Boys, which is also, like the Cha novel, turning out to be so much more than I’d anticipated. It’s darker, for one thing, and kind of exceptional in showing how powerful a single, average human being actually can be, without the assistance of extra-special powers of some kind. It’s also a much more complex examination of how extraordinarily gifted humans would be monetized, branded, and image controlled–very similar to the Hollywood period I am going to be immersing myself in shortly. Yay! It’s a fascinating period, and definitely one I want to know a lot more about.

And on that note, tis time to get back to the spice mines.

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Feelin’ Stronger Every Day

Sunday and the sun is shining. Does that mean rain won’t be in today’s forecast? Don’t be silly–of course it’s going to rain today. It rains every day in New Orleans, and if things go as they usually do, it will probably start raining right around the time I light the charcoal today.

The more things change, the more the stay the same.

I slept really well last night, and even allowed myself the luxury of staying in the oh-so-comfy bed for another, extra hour. It was lovely sleeping a little extra, quite nice. I am now awake, feeling refreshed and alive (I also stretched yesterday, and used the foam rubber back rolling self-massage thingee that actually does work to a degree; it’s not the same as a strong deep tissue massage from a licensed therapist, but it does the trick of loosening up the  back muscles nicely, which in turn relaxes me and relieved some of the stress I carry in my oh-so-tight back muscles) and in a moment I am going to clean the kitchen, preparatory to getting back to work on the WIP. I actually wrote yesterday–I know, I know, shocking–and really started pushing through Chapter Nineteen, and as always, even though I really had no idea what to do with the chapter, I started figuring it out as I went. I stopped when Paul woke up and came downstairs–yesterday was his “do nothing day” of the weekend, and then we spent some time together. We got caught up on Animal Kingdom, finished streaming CNN’s The 2000’s (I highly recommend CNN”s decade docuseries, for a refresher course in how we got to where we are today, for all those who apparently have forgotten), and then started watching Amazon Prime’s The Boys, which is an extremely interesting, and dark, take on superheroes–it asks the question, what if superheroes weren’t all selfless helpers? And it’s going to probably get much darker–and we are really enjoying it thus far.

Also, when I started working on my writing yesterday I closed my web browsers. Yes, I tried to go cold turkey with my social media–but kept my phone nearby in case I couldn’t quite make it. It was actually kind of nice, to be honest, to be away from it for most of the day; I think if we all took social media breaks–even for just half-a-day–it would be so amazing for our inner peace. Several years ago I started a new thing where I don’t answer emails from five o’clock on Friday thru eight a.m. on Monday; I will check my emails, and delete the junk, and might even answer some–but the answers go into the “saved drafts” folder until Monday morning, when I send them all. Emails, you see, beget emails, and I don’t want to spend time on the weekends constantly answering emails.

Sometimes you have to just walk away from the Internet.

I also managed to try–and maybe succeed–to figure out what is going to happen in the final act of the book. I have six chapters left to write (assuming I finish Chapter Nineteen today, which I think I can do, and might even start Chapter Twenty) and while the manuscript is a complete and total mess, I know what I have left to have happen, and am still not completely convinced on how precisely to end the book; I know I have to wrap up everything, and the second draft is going to be brutal on me to write, as I reorganize and cut things and add things and move things around–it certainly would have helped when I started writing this bitch to know how I planned to end the damned thing–but I think it’s going to end up being a truly amazing piece of work when I do get it to where I want it to be. I don’t recommend the writing methodology I used in writing this book by any means–this might be the first time I went full-on pantser (at least, that I can recall at the moment) while writing a book, and I really don’t, don’t, don’t recommend it. It’s probably why it’s taking me so long to finish this draft, and why it’s taken me longer than I keep thinking it will every time I try to figure out when I am going to get it finished once and for all. It was supposed to have been finished by the end of February, and here it is, a few days out from August, and it still isn’t finished.

Much as I love the characters, and I love the story, I am really going to enjoy being away from it for a few months before I start working on it again.

I also started reading Steph Cha’s absolutely marvelous Your House Will Pay yesterday morning, and the writing in it is a revelation. I knew Steph could write, from reading  Follow Her Home earlier this year as part of the Diversity Project (and I really need to finish reading her Juniper Song series), but this is positively blowing me away. The careful construction of characters, and family relationships, is exceptionally well crafted and extremely well done. I am going to take a break for a moment this morning, and devote an hour to Your House Will Pay, although I suspect I’ll wind up spending the rest of the day with it, which is what happened with Angie Kim’s terrific debut Miracle Creek. 

Damn, there are some fucking amazing books out there this year. Laura Lippman’s Lady in the Lake, which I am waiting to get a signed copy when she is at Garden District Books here in August, is tearing up the reviews lately, and I seriously can’t wait to spend a weekend with la Lippman’s prose again. This week, I also got Adrian McKinty’s The Chain, Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers, and Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys; all of which sound terrific and are getting rave reviews everywhere. There’s just so little time these days I can devote to reading, and it breaks my heart a little bit–especially when I remember how I used to spend so much time reading when I worked at home.

Gosh, how I missed the days when I spent the mornings on correspondence, wrote or edited all afternoon before going to the gym, and then spent the early evenings reading until Paul came home.

Heavy sigh. Perhaps someday again–or sooner, if I start limiting my screen time more extremely.

Today’s appreciation post is for Holly West and her anthology Murder-a-Go-Go’s. I invited myself, basically, to write a story for this anthology–Holly’s story had been accepted into Florida Happens, and I’d noticed her tweeting about her Go-Go’s anthology, so I decided for once to be forward and mention, during our correspondence about her now Anthony Award-nominated story “The Best Laid Plans,” that I wished I’d known about it because as a huge Go-Go’s fan, I would have loved to have written something for it. Rather than ignoring my broad hints, or brushing them aside, Holly very graciously told me she had a few slots still open and she would love to see something from me. I think the stories I  had to choose from were for the songs “Yes or No,” “This Town,” and there was one more I don’t remember right now. Of the three songs, “Yes or No” is my favorite, and there was a germ of a story there, of course. I started writing it, and got a few paragraphs in, but wasn’t really feeling the story. (I’ll probably go back and finish that story someday.)  I then looked up the lyrics for “This Town,” and as I read them, I saw the dark, noir potential to them, and in my head I saw these five sorority girls on Fat Tuesday, weaving their drunken way up Bourbon Street, and I knew that was the story I was going to write. I let Holly know which song I was using, and then sat down and wrote about a four thousand word first draft in about three hours–and knew I’d chosen the right story. I worried about the subject matter, and I also worried about the voice–getting the voice of a college girl wasn’t going to be easy, and neither was the subject matter. I revised it a few times, and then crossed my fingers and sent it in. (The worst time is when you submit something and then wait to hear back, certain you’ve done a good job and written not only something publishable but something rather good–but it’s always subjective, and you are always subject to the tastes of the editor.) You can imagine my relief when Holly loved the story and gave me a few notes, which I was more than happy to incorporate into “This Town.”

“This Town” is also one of those rare times when a story of mine has gone into print and I’ve gotten feedback–all of it positive–from readers. As someone who is very insecure about his short story writing abilities (thanks again, Dr. Dixon, you worthless piece of shit), you can only imagine how lovely that was–particularly since I’d been feeling a lot of Imposter Syndrome over my career the last few years.

So thank you, Holly, for the opportunity to write and publish “This Town.” Buy the book, Constant Reader–it’s also a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, so it’s a chance to help an under-insured woman get some health care and read a darned good book of crime short stories as well.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Long Train Runnin’

Ah, it’s the weekend. I went to bed relatively early last night, after watching the final episode of The Last Czars (which, of course, included the horrific massacre scene in the basement in Ekaterinburg; which is probably why everyone sees the monstrous, people-abusing, careless Romanovs as tragic figures–the way they died, as opposed to the way they lived; it’s impossible to hear the children screaming and the sound of the guns without feeling badly for them) and before that, I watched Spider-Man Into the Spider-verse, which was, without question, the absolute best superhero movie, bar none, that I’ve ever seen. Well-written, well-voiced, and extraordinarily animated, it was quite an achievement in film making, and definitely a high spot when it comes to superhero films The entire time I was watching I kept thinking imagine how incredible this must have looked on the big screen. It took me a moment to get used to the style of animation, but it was absolutely amazing, and should be used as a blueprint for origin stories for superheroes. I do hope they do another; I really loved the character of Miles Morales and his family.

This morning I woke up well rested with a shit ton of work to get done today. Yesterday I was lazy; I got home from work around one and just cleaned the house. I never manage to seem to finish getting my office in order, because there simply isn’t enough space for me to put things, and I am always afraid to put thing into my inbox because they tend to get buried once they are there. I try to put things into it in ways that they can still be seen; but I don’t always have the best luck with that, and out of sight, out of mind if I don’t have it on the to-write list (speaking of which, I don’t see it anywhere, damn it to hell), which is also ridiculous when you consider how much I have to get written, or hoped to have written, by the end of this month.

One thing at a time, cross them off the list, and be done with it.

I’m also looking forward to spending some time with Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay over the course of the weekend; after which I am going to read S. A Cosby’s My Darkest Prayer. I’d also like to get started reading the other Anthony nominees for Best Short Story (Cosby is one of my fellow nominees, along with Holly West, Barb Goffman, and Art Taylor–three of my favorite colleagues)–I still can’t believe I’m an Anthony finalist. I am very proud of my story, and its genesis; I originally wrote the first draft when I was in my early twenties or late teens, while I was still living in Kansas–close to forty years ago, and here it is, nominated for an Anthony Award.

How fucking cool is that? I had no idea when I wrote that story in long hand on notebook paper that forty years into the future it would be nominated for an award I’d not yet heard of, to be presented at a fan conference I knew nothing about, and that my life would be something I didn’t even dare dream of at that age.

I was thinking about my self-appreciation project last night, the one in which I work on stopping belittling my achievements, learn how to accept compliments, and take some pride in myself and my writing and everything I’ve done thus far in my life. Because I should be proud of myself. I’ve managed to sustain an almost twenty year career in a niche sub-genre of a genre, and not only that, I’ve accomplished quite a bit not even counting the writing itself. I was also thinking last night back to the days when I was editor of Lambda Book Report, which kind of set the stage for my publishing career. I reinvented myself, you know; I went from being a highly knowledgeable industry insider, basically running a magazine that was sort of a cross between a queer Publisher’s Weekly and a queer The Writer; for nearly two years I read a lot of queer fiction, and if I didn’t actually read a queer book, I knew a lot about it. I had already sold Murder in the Rue Dauphine to Alyson Books when I took the assistant editor job at Lambda Book Report, and that was actually the first job I ever had where I kind of flourished. It was the first job that allowed me to be creative in what I did, and where all the lessons I’d learned at various dead-end jobs along the way could be applied in a very positive way. I’d also learned how to treat writers, from being treated myself in very shitty ways by magazines and editors and papers I’d written for by this point–something I continue to do today as an editor (one of my proudest moments of my career thus far was being told by one of the contributors to Florida Happens–Hilary Davidson, a very talented writer whose works you should check out–that working with me was one of the best editorial experiences she’d had in her career thus far). Lambda Book Report seems like it was a million years ago; I actually officially resigned from the job in November 2001, three months before Rue Dauphine was published finally. I resigned because of the conflict of interest involved in running a review magazine while publishing my own novels; there was a strong sense, at least for me, that I couldn’t allow my own books to be reviewed in my own magazine, and as it was the only real game in town nationally (the odds of being reviewed in any of the national gay magazines–Out, The Advocate, Genre–were slim to none; on the rare occasions when those magazines chose to review books, it was either a straight celebrity ally’s (so they could do a feature and put straight celebrity ally’s picture on the cover), or if it was an actual queer book by a queer writer, it was never a genre work. They sniffed disdainfully at queer genre writers; kind of how Lambda Book Report did before I came along, and, all due respect, kind of how the Lambda Literary Foundation (which was always the parent apparatus of the magazine, and now runs a review website) still does. I’ve rarely been reviewed there–either in the magazine I left behind, when it was still being done as a print magazine–or on their website.

But I did a great job running that magazine, if I do say so myself, and I am very proud of everything i accomplished while working there. I met a lot of people, a lot of writers, and made some lifelong friends out of the experience.

I have also been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award, in various categories and under various names, quite frequently. I don’t know how many times I’ve been nominated, to be honest; it’s something like thirteen or fourteen times. I think the only people nominated more times than me are Ellen Hart, Michael Thomas Ford, and Lawrence Schimel. I won twice, once for Anthology for Love Bourbon Street, and once for Men’s Mystery for Murder in the Rue Chartres. The statues are somewhere around here; my Moonbeam Award medals hang from a nail right next to my desk, and my Anthony Award for Blood on the Bayou sits on one of the shelves in the bookcase where I keep copies of my books, but I’m not quite sure where my Lambda Awards are. My Shirley Jackson Award nominee’s rock is in my desk drawer, and even though it just represents a nomination (I didn’t win the award), it’s my favorite out of all the awards I’ve won. I don’t get nominated for Lambda Literary Awards anymore–I think the last time I was nominated was for Night Shadows, which should tell you how long it’s been–and I don’t really care about that anymore, to be honest. After thirteen or fourteen times…yeah, it’s just not quite the thrill it was back when I was nominated the first time. Getting nominated for things like the Shirley Jackson, or the Anthonys, or the Macavitys–those are thrilling because they come from out of nowhere, and are completely unexpected.

And let’s face it, being nominated for Best Short Story awards, for the kid who was told by his first writing instructor that he would never be published, would never have a career as a writer, and had no writing ability whatsoever–opinions all formed by reading a short story written by a kid who’d just turned eighteen–are very thrilling and satisfying. My lack of confidence in my short story writing abilities is pretty extreme, and so whenever one gets published or one gets nominated for an award or I get some great feedback from readers for one, it’s quite reassuring and quite lovely.

All right then–Steph Cha’s novel is calling my name, and I want to get some things written as well before I run my errands later this morning.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

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Give Up the Funk (Tear The Roof Off That Sucker)

I started watching Doom Patrol on DC Universe the other night, and I have to confess I was a bit intrigued–much more so than I was when Titans did their crossover and wound up at the Doom Patrol house for one episode. That episode didn’t encourage me to tune in when Doom Patrol got its own series, but I’m glad I did tune in. I love that Brendan Frasier and Matt Bomer are basically doing voice-over work, as their characters are robots and completely bandaged from head to toe; but there was also a wonderful sequence where we learn that before the accident that left him burned beyond recognition over all of his body, Matt Bomer’s character was a deeply closeted gay Air Force pilot in the 1960’s, with a wife and child. It was a lovely, sad, and poignant touch, and one that we, in our modern times, don’t think about much: what it was like to be queer between World War II and Stonewall. I am finding myself drawn more and more to historical queer life, to be honest; it’s fascinating finding the clues and small, almost completely eradicated traces of queers in history. Maybe one of these days I’ll write a book set in the past…I have an idea for one or two, the problem being I don’t have a whole lot of time for research–I don’t have a lot of time for anything these days, it seems.

We also started watching Fleabag last night, and it’s quite interesting. Very different from most other shows, really; I can’t think of anything it’s even remotely like. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is fantastic in the lead, and she also created the show and writes it.

Yesterday I worked on a manuscript I’m editing; I intend to do some more work on that today as well. There are a million other things I need to do as well today; I started making a red velvet cheesecake for a co-worker’s birthday yesterday–I made the cheesecake part, today I have to do the red velvet cake, layer them together, and make the frosting–and I also need to do some cleaning. I’d like to get some writing or editing of my own stuff done today, too–but who knows how much time I will have to get around to doing any of it? It’s so easy for me to get off-track, and I am very easily distracted, as we all know. It’s really all a matter of juggling and staying motivated. The last two nights I slept deeply until around three-thirty in the morning; after that my sleep was spotty–more awake just lying in bed or half-awake until I finally got up both mornings. Yesterday I wound up being very tired in the afternoon and wound up taking a nap; having Scooter get into my lap and fall asleep never helps; Paul and I think he drains our energy like some kind of cat-vampire; he always cuddles up to one of us and falls asleep….and before too long, whichever one of us he is lying on is asleep as well.

Naturally, he doesn’t cuddle up to me at night when I’d like to use his sleep-inducement powers.

Anyway, I feel rested this morning and I’m awake early, which means I can get a lot done if I close my browsers and ignore the rest of the world. The house is a mess, as always, and I’ve been letting things slide (I’ve not done the living room floor in quite some time and it’s very apparent), and perhaps today I can make the time to get some of it under control.

I have a short work week this week; National HIV Testing Day is a week from this Thursday, which means I have to work eight hours instead of the usual four; since our pay week runs from Friday to Thursday, that means I get to take this coming Friday off for a lovely three day weekend. Needless to say, the month is completely winding down and I still haven’t gotten the first draft of the WIP done, but I think it’s slowly starting to come together for me–what I need to get the rest of it done. I think it’s going to be pretty good once it’s finished but who the hell knows? I’m really not sure of anything anymore, to be perfectly honest, particularly when it comes to writing. One would think it would get easier the more you do it, you know? But it never gets easier…if anything, it seems like it’s getting harder the older I get.

And on that note, I’d best get going on everything.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Special Lady

Happy Sunday everyone.

Yesterday was a bit of a revelation. The other day (yesterday? Who knows? My memory has more holes than Swiss cheese) I was talking about how the Internet is such an enormous distraction, and one of the terrific things about the old dial-up modems was the process of signing onto the web was such an irritating process that it wasn’t a big deal to shut it all down when I had other things to get done and couldn’t be distracted. So, yesterday I did precisely that: I closed down both browsers when it was time to work, and guess what? Not only did I get some work done on the Scotty, I got the page proofing for Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories form filled out, cleaned the apartment (the living room still needs work) and made shrimp creole for dinner. I also wound up watching the final three episodes of Titans last night (which were quite excellent, I might add), and read some more Walter Mosley before going to bed. So, this morning I am going to finish writing this blog post before cleaning out my email inboxes, after which I am going to shut down my browsers and get to work. I want to finish cleaning the living room, have some dishes and laundry to do, some minor touches need to be done in the kitchen, and then I am most likely going to make potato leek soup for dinner in the slow cooker.

Pretty cool, huh? I felt really good in getting that work on Scotty done yesterday, and I think it’s good work. I am most definitely pleased with myself. I also need to make a list of things that need to get done this week.

I have to say, shutting down the Internet on my desktop was a pretty genius thing to do. I couldn’t believe how much free time I had yesterday to get things done. I will admit I occasionally checked my phone every few hours or so, and last night while I was watching television I also pulled out the iPad occasionally, but over all it was terrific. I had already, years ago, came up with a new rule to not answer emails over the weekends (emails always beget emails), and limiting the Internet is actually kind of genius.

I was very pleased with the entire first season of Titans. This is how you launch a television series about a super-hero team; a continuing story arc where you get to know the characters as they work together or meet each other, with back story episodes mixed in here and there to deepen and enrich the viewer’s understanding of the characters. The actors are all good in their roles–they are gorgeous and can act–and the main character arc–the growth of Dick Grayson from sidekick Robin into himself as an individual rather than what Bruce Wayne/Batman wants him, has been grooming him, to be–is very compelling, as is trying to solve the mystery of who amnesiac Kory is, and who Rachel actually is and what the source of her power is. Kudos for an excellent first season.

Friday night I watched two episodes and resisted bingeing the rest…and discovered that the pilot for the Aquaman series the CW had considered doing during the run of Smallville was available on DC Universe, starring the incredibly handsome Justin Hartley as Arthur Curry/Aquaman. (He now stars on This Is Us.) The pilot is terrible, really terrible, and I can see why the CW didn’t pick it up. Hartley went on to play Green Arrow on Smallville, which was how I came to be a fan of the handsome actor with the phenomenal body. But as I watched Titans, the actor who plays Hank/Hawk (of Hawk and Dove), Alan Ritchson, looked familiar. Last night it hit me: he played Aquaman on Smallville! After the Aquaman pilot failed and the show cast Hartley as Green Arrow, when they brought in Aquaman he was played by Ritchson, who now plays Hawk on Titans–and does a great job of it, too. And of course later, when Greg Berlanti (also involved in Titans) rebooted Green Arrow as Arrow, he cast Stephen Amell as Arrow rather than spinning Hartley off, which also worked. So, how confusing is all of this? Pretty confusing. Hartley played Aquaman and then Green Arrow; Ritchson played Aquaman but now plays Hawk; Amell now plays Green Arrow. Whether Titans will cross over with the other DC Universe shows on the CW–Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl–remains to be seen.

But I have to give it up to this rebooted television DC Universe. And this isn’t even getting into the film DC Universe.

Right? It’s a lot.

The nice thing about the DC Universe subscription is you can also read comic books on the app for free, so I don’t have to buy them anymore. Also a really good thing, because I still haven’t read all the comics on my iPad that I’ve bought. There’s never enough time, quite frankly.

All right, on that note, Constant Reader, it’s back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday.

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Brass in Pocket

Sometimes I wonder if the Internet is a good thing.

I find that I waste more time on it than I probably should, and it often sucks me in when I have other, more pressing things to do…but then I can’t tear myself away and when I finally can, I’m no longer in the mood for the writing or editing or whatever it is that I need to do. This used to happen back in the day when I had to use AOL to even log onto the Internet through my dial-up modem, and I’d wind up wasting hours chatting with friends through instant messages. I finally had to ban myself from chatting on-line, but then of course the Internet changed and turned into social media and now it’s the same thing, over and over again–Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I get lost in there for hours.

So today, after I share this on Facebook and Twitter, I am closing down my social media for the rest of the day–or at least until I get everything done that I want to get done today. Paul’s working at the office so I am home alone. I did the laundry last night, went to the grocery store (seriously, getting up early and putting my hours in at the office in the morning is clearly the way to go in the future; I went to the library, picked up the mail, and went to the grocery store. Then I came home, put everything away, cleaned the kitchen, and started the laundry…all by five thirty. How lovely is that?

Pretty damned lovely, I think.

So, today I am going to put together the proof corrections and send them off. After that, I am going to revise the new Scotty. I’ve really been dragging my feet on this, and I really just need to get it together and get it done. If I keep my head down and stay focused, I can get this finished in practically no time.

Why is it so hard for me to get started?

More of that self-defeating thing, methinks.

I’ve also started reading Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, and might I just say, wow. Yes, I am loving it, and can’t wait to get back to it. It’s very hard-boiled in its writing style–think both MacDonalds (John D. and Ross) and also very Chandler-esque. I couldn’t be more pleased. I met Walter when he gave the keynote at SinC Into Good Writing in New Orleans a few years ago; a very nice man. I was also there the night he was named a Grand Master at the Edgars by the Mystery Writers of America. I can’t believe–and am more than a little ashamed–that it’s taken me this long to get around to reading him….and there’s an enormous backlist to enjoy as well.

I also got an advanced reading copy of Alafair Burke’s The Better Sister yesterday in the mail; part of my Tennessee Williams Festival homework. I’ll start reading those works in March, as I start preparing for the panel, and am also truly looking forward to this. Moderating panels is usually an excruciating experience for me; I am always shaking and sweating and looking at my watch to try to estimate how much time is left and wondering how I am ever going to fill that time. But I shall persevere.

I’m almost finished with watching the first season of Titans, and am really enjoying it. It’s getting better as the season progresses, and it started out pretty well. I was right, this season is about the evolution of Dick Grayson from Robin to Nightwing, and I’m really looking forward to that final transformation. Nightwing has always been one of my favorite superheroes…and I can’t wait to see the costume finally arrive in live action. Last night’s episode introduced us to Donna Troy aka Wonder Girl (which was also pretty fucking awesome) and the next episode is the origin story for Hawk and Dove, before the story goes back to the one the season has followed. I’ll probably watch that tonight in fact–as a treat should I get all the things done that I need to get done today….I’m already feeling lazy which is not a good thing.

Ah well.

And on that note it is back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

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Coward of the County

Thursday! Didn’t think we’d make it this far, did you, Constant Reader?

Yesterday was cold–not as cold as it is pretty much everywhere north of I-10–but today’s not so bad. Forecast to be in the fifties with a high of 61, the sun is out and the sky is blue and full of puffy white clouds. I only have to work a half-day today and tomorrow, so I’ll be sliding into the weekend relatively casually.

I finished proofing Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories last night, and now just have to fill out the corrections form to turn in. I also watched another episode of Titans, which introduced us to Jason Todd, aka Robin 2.0, and the show has done an excellent job of casting and writing this character. The young actor who plays him–I didn’t take the time to look up who he is–is pitch-perfect; even more so than the actor playing Dick Grayson. Titans is so well-done that DC Universe really needs to use it as a guide for any other super-hero team shows it might do; so much better than Legends of Tomorrow, which I was very excited about but lost interest in very quickly; I think I only watched two episodes.

I really do miss Agent Carter.

I also read more of The Klansman yesterday, and while it is still wince-inducing, it’s actually really good–or so I think. The horror of the racism and sexism of 1965 Alabama is incredibly difficult to read, but it is in-your-face, pull-no-punches honest….a lot more honest, frankly, than To Kill a Mockingbird, which I also read for the first time the same summer I read The Klansman. One of the things the author, William Bradford Huie (who was from Alabama and lived there) does really well is pull aside the pleasant mask most racists were and expose the ugliness underneath, while also showing their humanity; a humanity that exists despite their malignant beliefs and values.

Take, for example, this paragraph:

The Atoka Hospital was the most visited institution in Atoka County. This was because the people of the county were friendly. Each day the local radio station broadcast the names of the patients admitted the previous day, so whenever a person remained in the hospital for several days he could count on being visited by most of his relatives, many of his friends, even a few of his casual acquaintances. But this visiting was not interracial. Whites visited whites; Negroes visited Negroes. In the first twenty years of the hospital’s existence, from 1945 to 1965, no white man, unless he was a doctor or a policeman, visited a Negro patient. A few white women visited their Negro cooks. But certainly no white man ever visited a Negro girl. So when Breck Stancill, after hearing Dr. Parker’s report, visited the private room occupied by Loretta Sykes at 11:20 pm, he gained invidious distinction and caused ugly talk.

(aside: I am really glad the word negro has passed out of usage; as you can see from the above paragraph, it was commonly accepted in the 1960’s and was preferred to the n word and colored. Huie also used the n word liberally throughout the book, but it’s always used in dialogue by racist characters and never in the prose, unless the prose is going inside the character’s head.)

This is the kind of world that racists want us to return to; one where ‘whites’ are superior and separated (above) from other ‘races.’ This book is set in 1965 Alabama; and I was four years old at the time. This was the world I was born into, this existed and changed during the course of my lifetime. Huie perhaps does one of the best jobs I’ve ever read of writing about the reality of racism and segregation; and by humanizing his racists he makes them all the more horrible to contemplate; the three-dimensional monster is always more frightening than the one-dimensional.

I’ll probably finish reading the book tonight, since I get off work early, and I am taking voluminous notes…but probably won’t review the book until this weekend.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Longer

There are few things more excruciating than being forced to reread one’s own work.

Seriously.

 I think that’s part of my resistance to editing my own writing; I hate to reread my own work. There’s nothing that quite makes you feel like a failure than reading your own work. I think it’s another reason I have so much anxiety about doing public readings, and it’s probably why I’ve never made my Scotty or Chanse Bibles–which would require me rereading all the books. Sometimes, sure, I will reread something I’ve written  and think, damn, this is better than I remember but most of the time I cringe and wish I  had a chance to revise it again.

So, yes, if you’re wondering, this means I spent some time trying to revise things yesterday.

Yesterday was a good day. I ran my errands successfully in the late morning/early afternoon; came home and made potato leek soup in the slow cooker (do we no longer call them crockpots anymore?); and then did some cleaning and organizing (there’s still some more filing to do this morning–never fear, it’s an endless task) before sitting down in my easy chair to watch the figure skating championships. I have a special soft spot for the ice dancing team of Joe Johnson and Karina Marta–she recently came out, so they are the first queer team of ice dancers to skate as openly queer, and their number was spectacular.

I also watched another episode of Titans last night, and was pleased to see it end with the appearance of Jason Todd, aka new Robin. This of course means old Robin, Dick Grayson, will probably be soon transforming into Nightwing sometime in this series. This is a storyline turn I can completely endorse; Dick was dull as Robin and didn’t become interesting to me as a character until he became Nightwing, after which he was one of my favorite DC Universe characters. I am also hoping they’re going to add Wonder Girl/Donna Troy to the cast soon….but this season seems to be about the creation of the team, so my fingers are indeed crossed.

I continue to read  Last Seen Leaving, and it’s a charming book; Caleb Roehrig does an excellent job of capturing the main character’s voice; the confusion and fear of realizing you’re gay as a teenager but not wanting to tell anyone–or rather, being afraid to tell anyone, that deathly terror that someone might figure it out, that you’ll lose all your friends and your life will go down the toilet. This might be the first time I’ve read something that captures that so perfectly–taking me back forty years to when I was a terrified, closeted teen afraid to trust anyone. I hope to finish reading it today before moving on to The Klansman.

This morning I plan to clean out my email inbox at long last–I don’t know why I am so resistant lately to answering emails and so forth; it makes little to no sense to me. It’s more, I suppose, along the lines of I really don’t want to deal with this but after I clean up the mess left from making the potato leek soup last night, I am going to dive into my multiple inboxes to clear all this shit out. I also want to make a to-do list of what absolutely has to get done this week; my brake tag, for example, expires on Thursday so I need to go get a new one, and I keep forgetting that needs to be done. Heavy heaving sigh.

It feels cold again this morning, and the sun is hidden behind clouds. I get so tired of this weather here….and Facebook memories keeps reminding that in past years Carnival was going on during this time. It’s so weird to see old pictures of me in T-shirts and shorts out on the parade route in the sun when it’s cold now. But I guess, given the fact that many parts of the country are colder than Alaska and the Arctic, I shouldn’t complain because it could be so very much worse.

My streak of sleeping well continued again last night, which was lovely. I feel very rested today, just in time to have my two long days in a row. Huzzah? Ah, well, as long as I get a good night’s sleep on Tuesday night for Wednesday I can muddle through somehow.

And now, Constant Reader, I thank you, but it’s time to return to the spice mines.

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This Is It

I slept rather late this morning, did I not? It was a very good night’s sleep and I feel terrifically rested now. Which is a good thing, as I am braving the wilds of Costco later this morning (AIEEEE!). The objective is to get as many errands as possible done today, and to remain focused on my goals. The house is pretty well cleaned and organized; I just need to do the floors today and it’ll be good to go. The weather is also supposed to be peculiar today; from a high of seventy around noon to be followed by a nasty storm with high winds, after which the temperature is going to take a severe forty degree drop. #madness

You have to love the bipolar weather of January in New Orleans.

I watched another episode of Titans last night, the one in which we meet the Doom Patrol, and I have to say the show is really well done. The pacing is excellent; the hour (or forty-two minutes, or however long it is) flies past and the credits roll before you know it. The cast is young and attractive, and has the charisma or acting skills or a combination of the two to pull off their roles convincingly. As I said the other day, introducing a show about a team is never easy, as you have so many characters with back story that has to be told and/or explained. It’s incredibly easy to get bogged down in back story, but the writing of the show integrates the character back stories into the current story seamlessly. I am very impressed. I also watched another episode of Riverdale, and apparently missed one along the way somehow–or just didn’t remember it, but how would I not remember the appearance of Gina Gershon?–but it was fine. The show is kind of a train wreck, to be honest, and yet I find myself being pulled back to it like a moth to a flame.

I also read a bit more of Pet Sematary last night; and now that the reader knows where the story is going–yes, Louis is crazed with grief and anger, not in his right mind, surely he isn’t going to dig up Gage and take him to the Micmac Burying Ground, is he? Oh yes he certainly is!–it seems as though the train wreck of the Creed family tragedy King is writing is well on its way down the tracks. The book’s pacing also picks up dramatically along the way; the more I reread the more I am convinced that the book is actually an under-appreciated masterpiece (at least one that I didn’t fully appreciate), and I am glad I am rereading it. As much as the book disturbs me, I cannot imagine what it would be like to read as a parent. I hope to finish reading it today, and move on to the first book of the Diversity Project.

I also spent some time reorganizing and cleaning out some of my kitchen cupboards yesterday; throwing away things that have been stored in there uselessly for years; there was even a bottle of salad dressing with a 2017 sell-by date on it, and now there’s more room in the cupboards. I also need to go through the cupboards with the dishes and so forth; I’ve just been cramming stuff in there when taking them out of the dishwasher and not really trying to organize the mess very much. I am also going to do another round of purging with the book cases.

A very ambitious plan for the first day of this three-day weekend, is it not?

I also need to run by Office Depot at some point this weekend, too.

And on that note, it’s time for me to dive back into the spice mines. Keep your fingers crossed for me, Constant Reader, that I’ll have the energy and motivation to get everything done that I need to get done today.

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Upside Down

Tuesday morning, and the week is progressing relatively nicely.

I read those five chapters I’d been putting off yesterday–and there are sloppy messes–but that’s a hurdle cleared. Now on to chapters 10-14. I also started rewriting the beginning of the book, because I was never really happy with the beginning of the book and Sunday night, as I mentioned the other day, I finally thought of the perfect way to open it. Took me awhile, but I am finally there.

One nice thing about this manuscript–as it sits now, it’s over a hundred thousand words. I could, in theory, cut at least twenty thousand and still have a longer book than Garden District Gothic. I’m not quite as hung up on the length of the book as I once was; and who knows? Maybe once I start paring it down and making the sentences and paragraphs flow better, and work out the kinks in the plot and tie everything up and close the gaping holes you could drive a semi-tractor-trailer through, it might even end up that long again.

The great thing about writing is you just never know how it’s all going to turn out.

I am getting further into Pet Sematary, and I’d completely forgotten about Victor Pascow, the university student/jogger who is hit by a car and dies in the student medical center in front of Louis–and before he dies, when they are alone, warns him about going to the pet cemetery, and then his ghost appears to him again that night, and walks him out there to warn him again. It’s a terrific scene, scary and creepy yet not totally terrifying; tightly written and so suspenseful you can’t look away. The foreshadowing is strong, of course; the title of the book, the problems his wife has with death, etc. and the nearby availability of said pet cemetery makes it fairly obvious some bad things are going to have to be faced, and Louis might be making some very wrong decisions when the time comes. I mean, it is a Stephen King novel, after all. I’m enjoying the book ever so much more this time around. I don’t remember if I enjoyed reading it the first time–the actual reading of it. I just remember being so uncomfortable and disturbed by the subject matter that I was never driven to read it again; which makes me wonder if the subject of death was too much for me in my early twenties? Perhaps.

I also watched another episode of Titans last night. It’s starting to pick up steam; I also realized last night that building a television show around a team of heroes makes getting started difficult, as you have to introduce most of the characters as well as get a bit of their back story. Episode Two brought in Hawk and Dove, two lesser known DC Universe heroes I’ve alway liked who never had the marquee appeal of say Superman or Wonder Woman, which is a shame. I also noted last night while watching that all the Titans introduced thus far (with the exception of Starfire) have bird names: Robin, Raven, Hawk and Dove. The actors playing Dick Grayson and Hawk are very attractive; and of course the women are beautiful. I’m looking forward to watching another episode tonight when I get home from work.

Today is the second of my two long days of work; I slept well last night and don’t feel tired this morning. Tomorrow I’ll get to sleep a little later, which will be lovely. It’s always lovely once I get through Monday and Tuesday each week.

And on that note back to the spice mines

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