Category: crime fiction

Sweet Dreams (of You)

It saddened me to see Left Coast had cancelled; even if I am not at a conference or some gathering of writers I can always look at the pictures of my friends and smile a little wistfully, wish I was there, and then get on with it. As one does,

This has been a rough week, Constant Reader, and I cannot lie. I’ve been all over the map emotionally, eventually I got to the usual tipping point of numbness. Yesterday I got some amazing book mail; copies of some of the Edgar finalists, which is way fun. Of course, I already have an enormous TBR pile; this only expands it and makes it bigger–way bigger, but it’s lovely, always lovely, to get books. If worst comes to worst and we would up quarantined or trapped inside for a few weeks or so, I have plenty of books. And as long as we have power, there’s so much television to catch up. Books are, of course, my  happy place; I’ve always found solace and escape in reading. I think that might be why I hoard books the way I do; it’s comforting to know that I’ll never run out of things to read.

I’ve gotten no writing done, or very little; I’ve also not read a word of anything. I am debating whether it’s okay to go to the gym if I take rubber gloves with me; if I am not touching any surface with bar hands, right, and definitely cannot touch my face except with a hand towel (brought from home) and I should be okay, I think, I hate getting out of the habit of going, and I also worry that at some point I’ll be forbidden from going to the gym, so there’s that as well. At some point today I have to make a run to the grocery store–although at this point I feel certain everything is picked over and the shelves are bare. I stopped at Rouse’s on my home last night in the CBD, and while it wasn’t completely insane, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I managed to get what I was after–two loaves of bread–and Paul and I just decided to escape the world and watch The Outsider last night, which was quite entertaining. We still have two episodes to go before we’re finished, but they seem to be dragging the story out with some seriously bad filler scenes that neither advance the plot or really teach us anything new about the characters–and these filler scenes are very amateurishly done, poorly written, and essentially pointless as anything other than padding to get the show out to ten episodes. We’ll finish that today, and then go on to Dare Me, which we’ve been saving to binge. We’d watched the first two episodes before Paul started having to work late all the time and so fell behind; but I am excited to get to see it in its entirety. It already looked like it was going to be one of the best shows to ever air on television; the source material is certainly one of my favorite books of all time.

One can never go wrong reading Megan Abbott.

The Lost Apartment is a mess, frankly, and I will probably spend some time cleaning it today; it’s well overdue and I’ve not had the energy to keep up with it this week. I imagine, looking back at the week in retrospect, that I probably had some depression–I’m never really aware of it until it has passed–which explains a lot. It’ll probably come and go–there’s probably also some PTSD mixed into it, both from the days when HIV/AIDS was decimating the gay community and, let’s be honest, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. I was thinking, as I was reading articles this past week with headlines like Life is going to change forever and so forth, that I am kind of tired of life-changing events.

I also can’t help but wondering how this will change writing, and the publishing industry, and if there will be a new genre of fiction rising out of all of this. I want to think this won’t be as bad as it seems like it’s going to be–but you know, any death will cause grief and suffering, let alone on a great scale. Katrina fiction never really became a thing, although there were several novels (including my award-winning Murder in the Rue Chartres–see what I did there?) about the aftermath, and I think Katrina stories still continue to be published to this day, but to be honest I avoid them for the most part. I suppose its more like 9/11, in that the impact is actually more national than local, but even 9/11–while certainly a national trauma–was also primarily a local one. This is everywhere, and will impact everyone, and not just as witnesses, like 9/11 or Katrina. Will this be addressed in the future? Will there be a rash of books released beginning in 2021 the center this happening? How do you write a series and pretend like this didn’t happened? New Orleans series writers couldn’t ignore Katrina, pretend like it didn’t happen; we had to address it and as such anchored our series and our series characters in time. My two short stories “Survivor’s Guilt” and “Annunciation Shotgun” also dealt with the storm and the aftermath, and I’ve kind of let go of writing about it.

So, I think after running the errands today I am going to try to get some writing done. I have three stories I’d like to get finished by the end of the month, which is their deadlines, and one has to be entirely constructed from scratch–which is of course the most interesting and challenging one for me to write so I keep pushing it to the back of the queue.

And maybe it’s time to get back to work. Have a lovely, germ-free day.

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Delta Dawn

What’s that flower you have on?

I’ve always thought the song “Delta Dawn” was kind of Faulknerian in its story-telling; I’ve always felt a little bad for the poor, slightly demented woman wandering around her small Southern town waiting for her lover to come back. Because make no mistake–she was definitely from a small Southern town. Up north, they wouldn’t let her wander around the way they would down South. As Julia Sugarbaker said once on Designing Woman, “we’re proud of our crazy people down here. We put them out on the porch so everyone can see them. We don’t ask if you have crazy people in your family, we ask which side are they on.”

It’s a very strange day this morning in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday the Tennessee Williams Festival/Saints & Sinners were cancelled because of the COVID-19 outbreak–we are up to 19 cases here in Louisiana now (the majority of them in the New Orleans area and its environs) and it seems as though some people who traveled here for Mardi Gras have tested positive. If it was already here during Carnival…it staggers the imagination on what that means for transmission and infection. The cancellation of the two festivals also felt like my soul and heart were being ripped from my body. Both have been a major part of my life–Saints & Sinners since we founded it all those years ago, and TWFest since that first year Paul and I volunteered back in 1997. For so many years now my life has been built around those two events. It’s going to be weird to not have them.

I often talk about my Imposter Syndrome–just yesterday, in fact–but one of the things I use to combat it is events like the two festivals, Bouchercon, serving on the MWA board, etc. Spending time around other authors, just talking about books and writing and marketing and the struggle and publishing, is always refreshing and invigorating for me. I always, for example, come away from TWF/S&S inspired to do more work and to do better work. I missed Bouchercon last year because of a sinus infection; this year I don’t get my adrenaline shot from TWF/S&S. As I am struggling at the moment with a severe case of Imposter Syndrome (an outbreak?), I was looking forward to that weekend to talk about books and writing and creativity to chase that away. Now I am going to have to somehow manage to muddle through it all on my own.

I am debating on whether I should go to the gym today or not. I have rubber gloves to wear, but it really is a matter of touching my face with the gloves on more than anything else. I absolutely hate to lose the momentum I’ve gained from the working out since I went back to the gym, but I also missed Wednesday because of emotional and physical exhaustion and missing again seems counter-intuitive. On the other hand…

I tend to be fatalistic when it comes to infectious diseases. By all means, take every possible precaution necessary–but having spent most of my twenties and thirties just assuming it was a matter of time before I seroconverted and became HIV positive (it’s still amazing to me that I am not), I kind of am fatalistic about this sort of thing. I think perhaps the most disturbing and frightening thing I learned about pandemics and their spread from The Stand was how basic human nature contributes to it. There was a brilliant scene in the book at one of the CDC centers–the one in Bennington, where Stu Redman was eventually moved to, to be studied as to why he didn’t get the superflu–where one of the nurses sneezes and thinks to herself, oh great, just what I need, a cold and then went about her business….and she was standing by a sign that said REPORT EVERY SIGN, EVEN IF IT’S JUST A COUGH OR A SNEEZE. We all have a natural feeling of invulnerability; a sense that nothing bad will ever happen to us. I don’t know if that’s some kind of defense mechanism or not; I was thinking yesterday that well, all I can do is the best I can to not get infected and I might as well focus on doing some work because the world won’t stop turning. Work has always been a helpful distraction for me; but being creative–difficult under the best of circumstances–isn’t always the easiest during difficult times. I didn’t really write much during the Time of Troubles, but that was when my blog started. I get made fun of sometimes for still having a blog and for still writing it every day, but it’s a comfort to me and when I am not writing, well, at least I am still doing this. Having a blog helped me navigate through the most difficult of times, gave me an outlet for my rage and depression and random musings, and while it’s evolved since then–I don’t talk about politics anymore here, for one thing–it’s still helpful for me to gather my thoughts and at least put sentences and paragraphs together, hopefully in a way that makes some sort of sense to the two or three of you who come here to read my daily meanderings.

And of course, like Katrina, a pandemic affects writers in many ways. Do we keep writing our books and pretend that in our fictional universes this didn’t happen, isn’t happening, won’t happen? There’s something very comforting in going into a fictional world where some of the bad things going on in the world haven’t happened, or aren’t happening. I managed to write all of my books and pretend that the Eternal Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t going on, for example; in my fictional universes that sort of thing doesn’t happen, and it’s nice to go there and forget about all the troubles and care of the world.

I’ve always found escape into fictional worlds a great coping mechanism.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Hello Walls

Well, hello Thursday morning and a beautiful looking morning outside of my windows.

I’m not really sure what to make of what is going on in the world today. One of the reasons I always loved Stephen King’s The Stand so much was because it seemed so brutally realistic; I was amazed at how it played out and thinking wow this is exactly how it would happen, right down to the government lying and covering it up to suppression of the news and people spreading it despite containment policies, procedures and protocols. How on earth did he ever think this up?

Which is one of the biggest parts of why I love Stephen King’s writing. For one, the imagination to think up the stories–and the scale! I don’t know that I could ever create something like The Stand and do that kind of world-building, let alone keep track of all the individual characters and their story arcs, both their individual personal arcs as well as the over-arching arc of the main story. I’ve considered writing post-apocalyptic fiction–I have a really good idea for one, but I can’t make up my mind how to precisely do it, to be honest, and so it has always languished in the back of my mind. I had several different ideas for stories, actually; primarily triggered by the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980’s, and then I realized how I could weave them all into the same story. But…it’s an epic story and a massive undertaking, and I simply don’t have the confidence in my own writing abilities to actually try writing it.

And that’s the bottom line for the vast majority of the ideas and stories I have that would probably make amazing books–I just don’t have the confidence to write them.

Okay, here I am later in the evening, and I am still not sure what to think or how to process everything. Twitter and social media and the news are determined to terrify me; I don’t know what I should be thinking or worrying about or doing. I know I should use this time creatively; I should block everything out and just write and check in on the world later this evening. And yet…

I’m not sure what the deep root of the insecurity I was talking about earlier comes from. I feel confident that I’m good at what I do, but when you send a manuscript to twenty agents and only even bothers to write back to say, “Thank you but no thank you; I’m not taking on more clients at this time” it tends to wear on you. Manuscripts editors passed on were later published. Needless to say, I am very wary of agents, and still am to this day. I know I need one, should have kept trying years ago until I got one, but now…I go back and forth between your career isn’t the greatest but at least you have one, be happy with what you have and an agent will help me get better deals and better sales and my books more attention. This week I got my fifteenth Lambda Literary Award nomination; and I sold a gay-themed short story to a mainstream market (well, I haven’t heard back from them, but it’s been a bit of a week, hasn’t it?) so one would think I write well enough to draw even a little bit of interest from an agent. I’ve been nominated for numerous other, mainstream awards; I’ve even won some of them.

And yet…

AH, well. I think I need to spend some time with Scooter. Til tomorrow.

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King of the Road

Wednesday.

Yesterday wasn’t so bad–other than having to wear a mask  at work because I have a cough (stupid sinuses)–but I was still more tired than I needed to be or should have been, frankly. I did sleep better on Monday night than I did on Sunday.

I know, The Sleep Chronicles. Absolutely fascinating.

But one of the things we’re doing at work to deal with the looming pandemic is shorten our evening testing hours; it’s a long story, but basically our last clients will be seen at six because the people pre-screening clients before they can come into the building will be leaving at six, so we’re not staying open later than that. I can stay later, of course–I have data entry to do, and there are other chores around the office that need to be done every night, so I don’t have to get up and come in any earlier any day other than Wednesdays–today, in fact–which just means I need to come in around 2 instead of 4, and I can go to the gym at night when I get home from the office. It’s an adjustment, but life is nothing if not a long series of adjustments, am I right?

And today I feel perfectly fine. I slept deeply and well and later than normal, but I feel great this morning. Sinuses and head clear of phlegm and snot, throat not ticklish at all…yeah, this is great. Yay! I hate how when you’re sick you can’t remember what it feels like to not be sick anymore…but then when you don’t feel sick it’s so lovely.

For a few brief moments earlier this week my inbox was empty empty empty. It was so lovely while it lasted, really. Now here I sit with my first cup of coffee, wondering if I will ever know such bliss ever again.

Christ. But then I’ve always been a bit of a drama queen.

But yesterday’s fifteenth Lambda nomination, coming on the heels of the acceptance of my short story by that market on Sunday evening, was a nice confidence boost. It’s been awhile since the last time I was nominated–three or four years or so, at least–so I’d been beginning to think that I was out of step with their judging panels now, or at least what I was writing and publishing anymore was.  ON the other hand, I feel like Royal Street Reveillon was probably one of the best Scotty books I’ve done in the series, and I felt, I don’t know, present while I was writing it.

I probably am going to write another Scotty book, perhaps later this year, and possibly another Chanse next year; I haven’t decided, really, on the Chanse. I don’t have to use Chanse as the main character and voice on that story, but it would just be easier–and I don’t know that I want to write anything that feels easy to me anymore. I want to write challenging books that push me; making deeper dives into the characters and actually have a point to make. I just wish I could remember the mindset I used to have when I wrote the first Chanse and Scotty books, but it was a long time ago and it was pre-Katrina, so it’s all kind of a fog for me.

This morning I need to work on those emails, and I need to go to the grocery store and pick up the mail, and now that I am working 2-6 instead of 4-8 I think I am going to wait and go to the gym when I get home. I would be too pressed for time to try to get everything done before I head into the office, so I don’t see too much point in making myself crazy and rushing around. Slow down, you move too fast and all of that.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Guitars, Cadillacs

And here it is Monday again; a week that began with the loss of an hour, a massive full moon, and ends with Friday the 13th. Nope, no trepidation there whatsoever.

Yesterday was a relatively good day, despite the shortness and loss of an hour. I managed to get my email inbox trimmed down to something reasonable–which is a plus–and I also managed to get some work done not only on the Sherlock story but on the Secret Project, which was simply not working out because I couldn’t name the main character and all the names I came up with simply didn’t work for me. It dawned on me this weekend what her name should be, and I am pleased to say this also opened up the story for me. I also decided it was silly to–oh, can’t say that, never mind; but let’s just say the setting was wrong, too.

Sometimes….I never learn. Again, I was being stubborn and trying to make something work because I wanted it to work, rather than thinking “okay, why isn’t this working? It shouldn’t be this difficult” which is, of course, the key to everything.

We started watching The Outsider on HBO last night, and we are intrigued thus far. I’ve not read the Stephen King novel on which it is based (we also watched 11/22/63 without me reading the book; but I remember so little of the show it won’t affect me when and if I finally do read the book)–which is weird to me; there used to be a time when I would devour the new Stephen King the day it was released. But I also don’t have the kind of free time that I used to have, either, where I could afford to lose myself in a book for a couple of days–which I do miss, really. I did enjoy the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, but I’m also trying to remember the last time (other than those) that I loved a new King book that I tore through it without stopping from beginning to end. I’m also having some doffoculty remembering the last time (outside of the afore-mentioned Charlie Hodges series) I greatly enjoyed a King novel. It’s certainly been a hot minute or two.

I’m not feeling especially great this morning; I have a head cold or something–which of course, has me paranoid with all this talk of coronavirus madness. I am debating–since I work in a public health clinic–whether I should stay home or not. I know staying home is probably the most responsible choice for me, but at the same time it’s just a stuffy nose and the occasional cough or sneeze. I don’t have a lot of sick time accumulated, either–which is another problem with our capitalistic system; people go to work sick because they either don’t have sick pay or they don’t have enough sick pay. But I don’t think I have anything like that–it’s just a head cold, maybe slightly sinus related–and the Dayquil I took this morning already is kicking in.

I did get some writing done this weekend–not much, not nearly enough–but I did get some done, which is, naturally, a step in the right direction. I have to get three stories finished by the end of the month, and I really am going to need to step up my game here. I was thinking–wondering–why I am having so much trouble focusing and writing lately, but can’t quite put my finger on what the problem is. I do need to figure it out, though.

Oh! I also sold a short story yesterday! Isn’t that exciting? I’m not going to say where or which story yet–until the contract is signed I never want to jinx anything–but that was some excellent news that I needed to get after the shitshow last week was.

And on that note, I should get ready for work.

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Independence Day

Sunday, and bleary eyed, having woken up at my normal time which is actually an hour earlier than usual. Yes, I set the alarm, so I won’t have trouble sleeping tonight. I fucking hate Daylight Savings Time, and if anyone ran on a ticket of cancelling it once and forever, that candidate would not only have my vote but my support for the rest of my life.

Probably an exaggeration.

Probably.

I slept in until nine o’clock this morning, which is really only eight, but you know how that goes. We stayed up late finishing Harlan Coben’s The Stranger on Netflix, and it was quite good and enjoyable; an extremely complicated plot, but those are always fun–if a little confusing at first when you don’t see how all the various threads are all connect together, but as they begin to come together and you start to see the pattern–it’s pretty cool.

I am still processing Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls, and I imagine I will be for quite some time. It really is an exceptional novel, and I am really looking forward to reading the entire Goodman canon. As I said yesterday, it’s always the best writers who inspire me, give me ideas for new stories and new ways to tell stories, and inspire me to do better.

I also got about a hundred pages into Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One, which is quite entertaining and a lot of fun to read as well. I hope to have some more time to read it today; but naturally yesterday I didn’t get as much writing done as I needed to get done–I did do some cleaning and organizing STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT–but the great irony was I had two story documents open and started working on them…only to write about a thousand words between before realizing neither one of these stories is due at the end of the  month, you fucking moron. Yes, I worked on “Festival of the Redeemer” and “You Won’t See Me” instead of the Sherlock story or the others that are due at the end of the month. Why? Because I am a complete and total moron, that’s why. So, today I am going to probably work on the Sherlock story and revise the one I am submitting to the Sacramento Bouchercon anthology; I doubt it will get picked because of the content, but at least I tried, you know? And I am going to do some work on the Secret Project this morning as well.

I also need to make it to the gym today, and today is a raise-the-weights day. Yay? But the great thing about the gym is I don’t have to go until later today–they are open until five, so I might as well get my work done before i head over there, because usually once I am done with the gym I don’t really seem to have the energy to get anything else done once i get back home. I also need to wade through my emails–not something I particularly want to do, frankly, but I can’t put things off forever, no matter how much I want to.

And sometimes I like to pretend they aren’t there, you know?

But it’s time for me to get on with it, I suppose–heading on into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

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When I Call Your Name

One of the great pleasures I have in life is reading; I’ve always loved to read, always been able to escape whatever ailed me at the time–loneliness, depression, heartbreak, self-loathing–by escaping into the pages of a book; imagining myself to be a part of the story, getting lost in the words and the sentences and paragraphs of an engaging author; finding sanctuary from a far too frequently cold and cruel world. I’ve always found my solace in books–whether it was Hercule Poirot using his little gray cells to outwit a killer or Perry Mason casting a spell in a courtroom or a Gothic heroine fearing she was married to someone who wanted to kill her in a palatial mansion or castle somewhere–books were my safe place. It’s why I’ve always treasured them, why I hoard them, why I am reluctant to part with them once I’ve experienced the world contained between its covers.

I’ve heard great things about Carol Goodman and her novels over the years; I had the great pleasure of meeting her in person at the HarperCollins party at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg when I was a little the worse for wine but she was gracious and friendly and kind to me. She had recently won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for The Widow’s House, and more recently a friend (whose taste is impeccable and I trust implicitly) told me that Goodman was a modern-day Daphne du Maurier.

And for me, there is no higher praise.

So last weekend, when another friend had sent me the ARC for Goodman’s latest, The Sea of Lost Girls, I decided it would be the first of hers that I would read. Last Saturday as I sat in my easy chair, shifting around the stack of books on the end table I picked it up, thinking first ugh another “girl” title and flipped it open to the first page, just to get a taste.

The next thing I knew I was one hundred pages in and reluctantly had to put it aside to do something else. I carried it with me all week, waiting for an opportunity to delve into it again, but such a moment never happened…until this morning, as I tore through the book with my morning coffee.

And may I just say, wow?

Scan

The phone wakes me as if it were sounding an alarm inside my chest. What now, it rings, what now what now what now.

I know it’s Rudy. The phone is set to ring for only two people–Harmon and Rudy (at least I made the short list, Harmon had once joked)–and Harmon is next to me in bed. Besides, what has Harmon ever brought me but comfort and safety? But Rudy…

The phone has stopped ringing by the time I grab it but there is a text on the screen.

Mom?

I’m here, I text back. My thumb hovers over the keypad. If he were here maybe I could slip in baby, like I used to call him when he woke up from nightmares, but you can’t text that to your seventeen-year-old son. What’s up? I thumb instead. Casual. As if it isn’t–I check the number on the top of the screen–2:50 in the freaking morning.

I defy anyone to stop reading after those opening paragraphs.

The Sea of Lost Girls isn’t another one of those “girl” books that have become so prevalent since Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl became a viral sensation; the only commonality is the use of the word “girl” in the title, but Goodman’s tale is as dark and rich and layered and complex as Flynn’s. It’s also incredibly literate, but one supposes that is to be expected, given the setting is an elite boarding school on the Maine coast near Portland (the Maine coast has always held a fascination for me, thanks to Dark Shadows). The main character, a teacher married to another teacher, is a big fan of The Scarlet Letter; her troubled teenaged son is currently playing the lead in a school production of The Crucible. Both of those works have a lot of bearing and similarities to the plot of this incredible novel, but saying any more than that would be a spoiler.

The book’s set-up is that Tess’ troubled son has finally found a girlfriend–an intelligent student who is directing The Crucible–and on this night in question Tess goes to pick up her son at their “safe place”, which has to do with a rock causeway leading out to Maiden Island; legend holds that the stones are Indian maidens who drowned and were turned into rocks. Her son is soaking wet and his sweatshirt has blood on the sleeve; a nervous Tess takes him home, launders the shirt and gives her son her husband’s sweatshirt–exactly the same, drying on a radiator–to wear instead. That simple act has enormous ramifications, particularly when Rudy’s girlfriend Lila’s body is found near the rocks on the causeway.

Does Tess cover for her son? She does…but her husband, because he wore the sweatshirt jogging, now becomes a prime suspect. Husband or son?

If that was the lynchpin of the story it would be another adequate, enjoyable thriller; but there is so much more to the story of what happened to Lila–as well as the secrets Tess has kept hidden about her own past. The school used to be a Home for Wayward Girls, and the school’s own dark history, which Tess is also a part of,  has an important part to play in this riveting story of a wife and mother torn between the husband and son she loves, both suspects in a murder–which maybe her own secrets have something to do with as well.

This exploration of motherhood rates up there, in my opinion, with Laura Lippman’s And When She Was Good and Hush Hush and James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce as a classic.

And, as always when I read something extraordinary, it inspired me and gave me ideas for my own work.

It also made me want to reread both The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter.

It is being released this month. Get it now. You won’t be sorry.

It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

I cannot say I am not happy to see this past week end; for all intents and purposes, it was much more stressful than any week needs to be and equally disappointing. It was both tiresome and tiring; irritating, really, like an itchy rash that just won’t go away, frankly. By Tuesday night I was so exhausted already it felt like a Friday; and yet there were three more days yet to go and it never really got any better.

Begone, foul week! Get thee behind me, Satan!

I am so far behind on my emails now I may never dig my way out; that’s part of the plan for this weekend, at any rate; to try to get caught up on everything and make some progress. I had some stomach issues yesterday so I wound up staying home rather than heading to the office (the bathrooms aren’t close enough to my desk, and yes, I think you get the picture) so I spent most of the day recalibrating and doing some chores around the house and trying to get caught up on everything. But progress was made; I started getting my electronic files in the cloud better organized (which is quite a chore, I might add; one that is sort of mindless yet time-consuming in the worst way), and did some filing and so forth. There’s still quite a bit more to get done today, of course (isn’t there always?)  but I also want to get some writing done before the month slips away through my fingers. Ideally, I’d like to get a first draft of the Sherlock story finished as well as a revision of the one I’m revising for that anthology; and there’s another one I want to revise to send to the Bouchercon anthology. I’d also like to make some progress on the Secret Project, but that’s also predicated on my getting this short story work taken care of. I cannot believe how many stories I’ve started writing recently; it’s more than a little insane, methinks.

But then again, it seems pretty standard for my life–chaos, disorganization, and more chaos.

One would think I’d be used to it by now.

I also want to finish reading Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls today, if I can; so i can get started on Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One. I am moderating a panel with her, Elizabeth Little (Pretty as a Picture) and  Laura Lippman (Lady in the Lake) at the Tennessee Williams Festival at the end of the month, and it’s always better to be prepared to discuss their latest works. Don’t worry, I’ll also be asking Lippman about My Life as a Villainess, her essay collection coming out later this year.

We watched another episode of Harlan Coben’s The Stranger last night. It’s a fun, twisty show, with a rather complicated narrative; I think it’s actually better than his last one, The Five. I am way behind on my Coben reading–so far behind I may never catch up–but I do enjoy that he writes suspense novels built around family/friend structures. I’m behind on everyone, so don’t feel special, Harlan! I am also way behind on my reading of Michael Koryta, Jeff Abbott, Stephen King, and any number of other white males; prioritizing diverse writers and women (and a year judging the Edgars) will do that to one, I suppose. I really wanted to read The Outsider (Stephen King) before watching the show; perhaps once I finish the Goodman and the Rader-Day I can move on to the King and we can finally watch the show. I’ve become rather an enormous fan of Jason Bateman, and really can’t wait for Ozark to come back.

We also lose an hour tonight; the part of Daylight Savings Time that I really hate. But I do like having longer days; I like it still being light when I come home from work, or at least, the light fading into night rather than the velvety darkness of a winter nocturne. It’s a bright, sunny day out there today; I am debating whether I do want to go get the mail–it would be my only adventure out into the world today–and am thinking I might do it. I hate only going once in the week, but on the other hand I’m also not expecting any packages or anything urgent (read: a check) in the mail, either. But it looks like a lovely day outside–and perhaps I can do some scouting after I get the mail. We shall certainly see how I feel.

I think this morning I am going to read some more of the Goodman novel while I have my morning coffee, and then after a few hours of that I’ll decide whether I do, in fact, want to leave the house. (odds are I won’t, quite frankly. I know myself all too well)

And on that note, tis time to get back to the spice mines. May your Saturday be bright and happy and full of cheer.

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I Can’t Stop Loving You

Thursday, Thursday, what a day for a daydream.

The weather took a turn last evening; sometime after the sun settled in the western sky a storm blew in, with high winds and a lot of rain and a significant temperature drop as well. It was quite a shock when I went to get in the car after work last night; I’d worn a polo style shirt to work–even had to use the air conditioning in the car (IN EARLY MARCH), and so was freezing and shivering by the time I walked across the lot to my car. It’s gray and dreary outside right now as well, but I don’t think it’s very cold–it’s certainly not noticeably cold in the Lost Apartment, which means its undoubtedly warmer outside.

I had a lot of errands and things to do yesterday before heading into the office for my half-day; and one of those errands was, of course, going to the gym. Now that I am adding weight every week, it’s getting to be more work and more strain on my muscles, but it’s a gradual thing and quite nice to be working hard again. I don’t really have any goal as far as appearance goes–which was what my workouts were always predicated on before; I initially started working out to get in better shape and improve my health, but vanity soon began playing a part in it as well. I think after 2000 was when I started focusing on peaking my body at Southern Decadence and then again at Mardi Gras; Id always clean up my eating for a few months before and also do more, and more intensive, cardio in those months so that I’d look my best for those occasions. Decadence and Mardi Gras actually make the most sense for me to use as goals for my workouts, but I don’t know if I want to even think that way again. I don’t know that vanity is going to be enough of a motivator this time around…maybe it will eventually come back into play again, but it hasn’t reared its ugly head yet. Anyway, with the extra weight now the workouts are harder and I am feeling them a lot more–especially the legs. But I am not sore this morning–I’ve not woken up sore the morning after a workout since I got back to it–but my muscles are certainly tired afterwards, and for the rest of the day. But this morning I woke up feeling somewhat rested–there’s some tightness in the hip flexors, but that’s to be expected.

But it feels so damned good to be working out again!

Tomorrow, though, I think I’m going to wait until after work to go to the gym. It’s hard to go in the morning and then go to the office, even on a half-day, so yeah, I think it’s going to be better to go after work. I”m pretty pleased with myself–I’ve resisted the temptation to skip every single time–even to the point where I don’t even think about skipping, which is pretty awesome. I’ve only missed my Wednesday workout on Ash Wednesday, and that was primarily because the gym didn’t open until noon that day so I couldn’t go.

I did get sort of caught up on my emails yesterday morning, but of course this morning they are out of control again, which is certainly Sisyphean, isn’t it? I’m not quite awake yet this morning, so I probably won’t be able to make any progress on them until at least after I finish my second cup of coffee this morning. I also just went out to feed the outdoor kitties, and it’s brisk out there; I definitely need my skull cap today.

Yay. But in fairness, the warmer weather earlier this week was definitely an aberration.

I wrote another few sentences last night on my Sherlock tale, which was something–given how tired I was last night when I got home from work–so I am counting that as a win. Progress has been ridiculously slow on this story, but I am hoping to get through it this weekend, as well as starting to revise two other stories (I remembered there’s another anthology with a due date at the end of the month); i really need to make a to-do list this morning, and get back to getting organized as well as stay there once I have achieved that glorious state. I have too many things going on at the same time now for me to allow myself to remain as scattered as I’ve been; I was beginning to feel like I had a handle on everything and then of course it was Carnival and I’ve been treading water ever since. I always feel like there’s something I’m forgetting, and then it turns out that of course, there was indeed something I was forgetting.

In fact, yesterday I was talking to a client about the parade deaths this year, and it popped into my head that I remembered how–everything is material, remember–those tragedies could work in a short story I already had in progress, so I of course made a note and perhaps–just perhaps–I need to go through my notebook and my journal and start tracking the things I need to get done better. I remember I used to make a monthly to-do list, as a macro, and then use that to make my weekly to-do list, and then would make a daily one every morning. Extreme? Perhaps, but it worked and I was always able to get everything done that I needed to get done.

I also started looking through The Charlotte Armstrong Treasury last night–you know I’ve chosen her Mischief as my next reread–and I was reading the introduction by Alice Cromie, and thinking, yes, this is all very true, Armstrong’s heroines were all women going about their every day lives and then had to buckle up and get to the bottom of something. I also reread the first page of The Witch’s House, and Armstrong’s skill at sucking her readers immediately into the story was incredibly apparent. I seriously had to resist reading more; Mischief is the reread, not The Witch’s House, but I might definitely have to come back around to it.

I also had a brilliant inspiration for “Festival of the Redeemer” yesterday. I admire Daphne du Maurier’s short stories immensely, particularly the longer ones, and I don’t precisely remember why or how this inspiration for the story came to me, but I am very pleased with it, and it makes the story much more du Maurier-like, which naturally made me like it even more. I always have trouble with the middles of my stories and novels, as you are probably already aware, and this idea is simply perfect, especially given the way the story opens. I also discovered, when I got home last night, that I had actually written a lot more on my story “You Won’t See Me” than I thought I had, which is always a plus. Sometimes I think I’ve written something and I actually haven’t; I just thought about it, and the thought is so vivid that later I think I actually wrote it all down and didn’t.

Or I did and lost the document, which is also always a possibility.

Okay, I can feel the caffeine kicking in, so it’s back to the spice mines with me.

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Boot Scootin’ Boogie

Wednesday morning, and the month of March is already slipping through our fingers like water in a sieve. It looks again to be a gorgeous morning out there–at some point this morning I am heading to the gym. I’ve just finished the long part of my work week–the two twelve hour days, and yesterday was particularly brutal, quite frankly. I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, but alas, staying in bed all day won’t make the world go away nor will it deny the inevitability of Wednesday and all of its commitments arriving. So, I am going to slurp down some coffee, get some things organized, clean this messy kitchen/office, head to the gym, make a list of the errands I must get done today, and so on and so forth before I head into the office for four o’clock-ish.

I do feel tired this morning–I’m not sure if it’s tired from the two long days or a sleep hangover from my over-indulgence this morning–but I am sure the coffee will soon start kicking in and getting me over this hump. I did get a chance to write some more on my Sherlock Holmes story, but the primary focus for today needs to be my emails–at least for this morning–and maybe I can swing back around to working on the story later this evening. I’m relatively pleased with what I’ve done so far and the idea I have for the story; I am also working on another story with the same deadline–but this one is easier; I just have to revise a story that was turned down for another anthology and fix what was wrong with it to get it ready for this new submission.

But like the ant with the rubber tree plant, I’ve got high hopes.

This morning, the cover for the Joni Mitchell anthology I contributed to, The Beat of Black Wings, edited by the incomparable Josh Pachter, was announced and revealed over at the BOLO Books blog; click and go check out the cover  but the table of contents. I am enormously thrilled and excited to be sharing the TOC with such amazing writers as Elaine Viets, Donna Andrews, Art Taylor and Tara Laskoski, Sherry Harris, Brendan Dubois, and numerous other people who’s work I’ve enjoyed and admired for quite some time. My story was “The Silky Veils of Ardor,” inspired, naturally, by the song with the same name. When Josh graciously asked me to write something for the anthology, it was actually my friend Michael Thomas Ford (aka That Bitch Ford) who suggested which song to use. I will admit that while I am a fan and have always liked her work, I’m also not familiar with a lot of it, and also figured that the songs that I knew were most likely the songs everyone knows, and I wanted to do something not quite as famous as, say, “Free Man in Paris” or “Both Sides Now” or “Big Yellow Taxi” or “Help Me”. That Bitch Ford came to the rescue, suggested the song I used, and once I listened to it, I was like, hell yes, I can write this story.

I always say the best advice I’ve ever received or can give to a writer is to never throw anything away, and this certainly proved to be the case this time. I had written a dark yet delicious story set in a hotel bar at a writer’s conference with the TERRIFIC title “Death and the Handmaidens” (I still have hope for that title and the story, to be honest) which never got anywhere. Everywhere I submitted it to rejected it, so I clearly had missed the mark with it somehow, but I liked the seedy hotel bar setting, and after listening to Joni’s song, which is basically about a beautiful boy all the teenaged girls fall in love with, I started , naturally, thinking back to high school and the beautiful boys all the girls had crushes on…and the more I thought about it, the more I realized the seedy hotel bar setting was perfect for this, only instead of a writer’s conference it was a high school reunion, and my main character’s social anxiety disorder (something I experience from time to time) fit into this story much better than it did in the original. I took the original three paragraphs from “Death and the Handmaidens,” used it for the opening of this new story, and it just took wings (if you’ll pardon the allusion) from there. Josh gave me only a couple of edits, which was again enormously flattering, and now the story will be available soon–along with all the others, which I am truly looking forward to reading. I believe the anthology is going to be officially released in late April/early May; right around the same time that another anthology, The Faking of the President, will become available with my story “The Dreadful Scott Decision” included.

I do love writing short stories, even if it’s like amputating a finger sometimes, and I really love getting them into print. Last year saw my short story collection, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, see print with some new stories, and also saw the inclusion of my story “This Town” in Murder-a-Go-Go’s, edited by Holly West (all available for your Anthony ballots, just saying). “This Town” is probably my favorite of all my short stories ever published, at least in recent memory; if I do another short story collection I will probably make it the title story, aka This Town and Other Stories.

All right, it’s time to get my shit together. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll catch up with you again tomorrow.

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