Tuesday and tomorrow I depart for San Diego. I am trying very hard not to get anxious about everything, but I am starting to feel it a bit. I have to decide what to pack, and I need to see what the weather is going to be like. I discovered a conflict in my schedule that I have to resolve in a way I don’t want, and there’s groceries to make and mail and prescriptions to pick up and laundry and dishes to finish and yes, I am going to be hopping all day today getting ready and/or thinking about the trip and making plans. I also have a lot of work to do in the office before I leave, because the month changes while I am gone so the things I always do over the month change have to be done–or at least I can get it as ready as I can. I think I answered all the emails I needed to get answered, and I think I can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.
I ran errands last night on the way home circling a thunderstorm, and then once I was finished I drove directly into its beating heart as it gave us a little respite from the horrific, seemingly endless heat. The big cold drops of rain started splatting down from above like liquid shrapnel. I managed to get inside the house before it really started coming down, and there was thunder and lightning, too. A marvelous New Orleans summer tropical storm, like we haven’t had hardly any of this entire blighted summer of hellish heat. The kind where so much water comes down the streets fill, swirling around catch basins and rising closer to the bottoms of cars, while the potholes and low=lying cracks and buckles in roads and sidewalks immediately fill with clear water. The temperature drops precipitously, given tired air conditioning systems the opportunity to catch up and finally take a well-deserved break after weeks of going at full blast–and sometimes not being able to keep up. The kind where condensation finally appears on your windows for the first time this summer, or so it seems. And even though you know all that water means it’ll be muggy as a rain forest again tomorrow as it evaporates into the heated air once more, you can at least breathe for a moment and enjoy the blessed break from what has become an unfortunate norm this summer.
But in checking my email, I see that today’s severe weather alert is merely coastal flooding, and there’s no extreme heat warning for the day, which is actually kind of nice. Today will be a break, and tomorrow I leave for the coast. My car will be roasting, of course, in the long-term off-airport parking lot, but there are worse things. I’m really looking forward to the trip, pushing down all of my anxiety triggers around traveling, and I will get home Sunday night, have Monday off, and then return to the office on Tuesday. I’m hoping there won’t be an adjustment to time zones involved on this trip, but I am sure it will be. If I wake up at my usual time, it will be four in the morning on the coast. But the day of traveling home will wear me out, plus I’ll be exhausted from being “on” panels and socializing. I just have to get over my intense FOMO and repair to my room to rest and relax periodically; I don’t need to be non-stop on the go, etc. and need to remember I’m an introvert who primarily is used to dealing with people quietly, one on one, and not in group environments. There will be lots of overstimulation.
But I can’t wait to see my queer crime writer friends again! Woo-hoo! They are always a good time.
I was tired when I got home last night from errands and so forth, and the thunderstorm and the damp chill in the air didn’t help matters very much. Paul stayed upstairs watching the US Open–so I have no need to fear Paul’s boredom while I am gone, as he’ll have the tennis to watch. We’re also hoping to get a cat at last once I get back, although my oral surgery is scheduled for that Friday; depending on how I feel, we could possibly get one on Saturday if I don’t still need painkillers and thus have a clear enough mind to drive, which would be super-great. All of my fall plans are currently on hold until I find out when my arm surgery is going to be. I hate that, because I feel like I am wasting time, which brings the anxiety out again. It’s so much fun being me, Constant Reader, you have literally no idea. But therein lies the rub; life really always is a endless string of “hurry up and wait” or “can’t make any plans until I find this out.” The joys of being older.
I think for now at least there’s nothing potentially going to develop that will threaten Louisiana tropically while I am gone–traveling during hurricane season means one more thing to check off the list. I am sorry and worried about those in the path of this Idalia monster that has Florida strictly in its sights. (If I were an evangelical piece of shit, I’d say something like “God is clearly not pleased with deSantis”–but I happily leave that kind of blame-shame to the “christian” cos-players. Funny how it’s usually red states at risk but they don’t see that as God’s punishment, but let something happen to a blue state–or New Orleans–and they start thumping their Bibles again instead of reading them. I’m so glad I’m not an evangelical piece of shit cosplay christian.)
I was hoping to get some writing done last night, but I wound up not doing a whole hell of a lot of anything. I watched some history videos on Youtube, started to watch the latest episode of Foundation–which, truth be told, is extremely well done but difficult to follow because it doesn’t always hold my interest, but I am definitely here for hot Lee Pace–but gave up as the opening credits rolled and went back to Youtube. I did end up watching something but couldn’t tell you what it was to save my life this morning, so clearly it made no impact on me. I did greatly enjoy the recent episode of My Adventures with Superman, which is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite depictions of Superman and his cast of characters, but I think tonight–after cleaning the downstairs, packing, and cleaning out the refrigerator–I am going to read some more of Kelly Ford’s marvelous The Hunt, which I am enjoying; I do not want anyone to get the idea that I am not enjoying the book–it’s just that the heat and my mind being sort of fried has made it really hard for me to focus on reading something longform. I also finished reading the proofs for Mississippi River Mischief, which I’ll be bring with me to try to get some progress made on the proofing; if I manage to do that and nothing else while in San Diego I will be very pleased.
And on that note I think I will head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and tomorrow I will be writing to you before I leave for the coast. Huzzah!
First, some preliminary discussion. Since the enormously popular first season dropped last year and turned the cast literally into worldwide stars, the almost constant speculation (and hounding he received) about the sexuality of adorable young Kit Connor, who plays Nick Nelson, forced him to come out publicly as bisexual earlier this year (He came out on Twitter, deleted his account, and hasn’t come back). Shortly after the second season dropped, Joe Locke, who plays Charlie Spring, the other lead and Nick’s love interest, voluntarily came out publicly; he’d been out to family and friends since he was twelve, but finally decided to go public with it. If we take away the sheer adorability factor of a young bisexual man playing a young bisexual male discovering his own sexuality, while playing against an openly gay man playing an openly gay male teenager discovering his own self-worth and value, this kind of visibility–as well as the visibility of the show, and its enormous popularity–is sorely needed and is probably changing lives as I type this. I didn’t know what to expect when I went into season one, and I have to admit the show turned me into an adoring, gushing teenaged girl….so obsessed that I also went ahead and bought the original ebooks of the story and read them all in one afternoon. So, as we go into my thoughts on Season Two and some thoughts about the show’s importance–as well as some of it’s failures (much as I love the show and the characters, I can also see why people would criticize it; I love the show but nothing is above critique.)–bear in mind there are spoilers for both the season and the books contained within.
And while I know Locke is over eighteen, posting sexy-style photos of him just feels kind of wrong. He looks like such a child…but then the entire cast does, which is why the sweetness of the show hits so strong…which brings up another point about queer young adult fiction–or any medium about queer teenagers for that matter: having queer characters in juvenile and young adult fiction is already seen as dangerous by the homophobes (“grooming! grooming!”), so how do you show queer teens wrestling with their sexuality and their identity without triggering the hypocritical pearl-clutching homophobes who want us all gone? Heartstopper danced around this by focusing on identity rather than sexuality; when season one opens everyone already knows Charlie is gay because he was outed the previous year and bullied mercilessly. The bullying has died down–which isn’t often the truth in reality, but will allow it for the sake of the show–and now Charlie, in season one, develops a crush on the school rugby star, Nick Nelson–who sits next to him in form (the UK version of homeroom), and Nick is actually a super sweet, nice guy. They begin to develop a very sweet friendship–Charlie of course develops a bit of a crush, which he knows is hopeless and his very protective friends think is a bad idea…but what nobody knows is that Nick is finding himself attracted to Charlie and drawn to him, which is confusing for him. This first season was all about Nick coming to terms with his attraction and feelings for Charlie–a constant refrain from both of them is “Why am I like this?” And the entire show was incredibly sweet and lovely and very teenaged; the cast were age appropriate as well; sexuality it a topic of discussion but it’s never seen. The boys are incredibly chaste for teenaged boys. There was also a delightful lesbian couple, a wonderful trans girl named Elle, and of course Tao, Charlie’s super-protective friend. (My personal favorite character of the entire cast is Charlie’s Goth sister Tori. I fucking love her.) The season ends with Nick and Charlie becoming “boyfriends” and Nick settling into his own bisexuality, coming out to his mother (the divine Olivia Colman) in the end.
I ain’t gonna lie, I loved season one to the extent that I watched it twice and then bought the books and read them all over the course of a day–graphic novels don’t take as long to read as novels–and loved them, and the characters, all the more.
If the first season serves to introduce us to the primary couple and cast of the show, and is very sweet (other than the homophobic rugby players and Charlie’s wretched ex, Ben), the darker issues that were merely hinted at–you had to pay attention to catch them–come more to the forefront in season two; just as the graphic novels got a bit more serious as they went on. I’m not seeing the same outpouring of love for the second season that the first got, but I may not be paying enough attention and let’s face it, both Facebook and Twitter have circled the drain since the first season aired. So I don’t know if the more serious tone of the second season played well with the audience or not; it’s not all cotton candy sweetness in the second season as we get to know the characters and their personal lives a bit more. Darcy, one of the lesbians, has a homophobic borderline abusive mother; the bullying Charlie dealt with that followed his accidental outing caused some mental health damage that hasn’t been dealt with or handled until Nick begins to notice and suspect something is wrong with the boy he loves; Tao and Elle deal with their feelings of attraction to each other (and he finally cuts off that wretched curly bang thing he had going); and Nick also has to deal with a homophobic older brother and an absent father–and discovers that coming out is actually a never-ending process. The charm and queer joy is still there, of course, but as everyone who has ever had to come out has learned, the joy and relief is all too frequently followed by having to deal with all the problems your concern about coming out pushed to the back of your mind. Coming out is just the start; your world has changed irrevocably and now you have to relearn how to navigate that world as your actual self, and that is hard.
And for me, one of the more interesting aspects of how Alice Oseman chose to tell the story is that we originally see everything from Charlie’s point of view, with some of Nick’s; the point of view shifts to be more from Nick’s point of view than Charlie’s as it moves on. Heartstopper is really Nick’s story, from his first bisexual stirrings to falling in love to coming out to learning more about himself and resolving issues he is facing while being strong and supportive for Charlie.
Spoiler alert for fans of the show who haven’t read the books: the stories will continue getting darker, but that hopeful optimism that underlies both the show and the novels is always there.
And if nothing else, the show’s depiction of queer joy is worth a watch.
Saturday morning and I slept in. I stayed in bed until eight thirty (perish the thought! What a lazy lagabed!) with the end result that I will not, in fact, be driving over to the West Bank this morning to get my oil changed and fluids checked. It’s not due, but (anxiety) the heat has been so intense, I want to make sure the engine is being looked after properly and of course, the fluids. Now it will have to wait until I get back as the dealership isn’t open on Sundays and I leave Wednesday for San Diego Bouchercon. I am starting to get some anxiety about the trip, but I am trying to ride herd on that. Whereas before it was gnaw away at me and build, now I just dismiss those thoughts as “anxiety” and move on from it. I doubt this methodology will be a long term solution–I probably should see a therapist again–but I already take an anti-anxiety medication to control my mood swings; do I need something else on top of that? Probably not. I am leery of medications to begin with–the opioid disaster always is there in the back of my head, plus the fear of addiction.
But since I didn’t get up, I will be staying in for the rest of the day and working on the apartment and writing and so forth. Tomorrow I am going to get fitted for hearing aids, so anything I might need to get by going out into the world today (I was thinking about doing a minor grocery run to get a few things) I can get tomorrow at the Rouse’s on Carrollton. I am kind of excited about being able to hear properly; I don’t think I’ve ever been able to my entire life, although I always passed hearing tests. My problem is low voices and ambient noise. I can’t hear anything in a crowded bar or restaurant. And I have my appointment about my arm in a few weeks, and of course, I am getting my teeth taken care of once I get home from San Diego. I will be a completely different person by the end of the year than I was when I started the year, won’t I? Maybe not The Six Million Dollar Man, but the surgery isn’t going to be very cheap.
We finished watching Swamp Kings last night, and I was right–it was really a puff piece, focused on making Urban Meyer as good as possible and not focusing on any of the criminal charges or how the University covered it all up because at that time, Florida football was the face of college football and everyone was watching and they were making the University a shit-ton of money. (Not to single out the Gators–although this documentary was about them, so it does raise these questions organically–these kinds of abuses and corruption happen all too often at far too many programs. LSU has had its own history of cover-ups and looking the other way to protect star players in the past, for example, and I’ve always been disappointed at how those situations were handled by my own favorite team. Hiring Joe Alleva as Athletic Director at LSU was a huge mistake, as he repeatedly showed Tiger Nation, over and over again. His replacement has done a fantastic job rebuilding LSU athletics from the ashes left by Alleva’s miserable tenure.) But I love college football, and I remember that time period particularly well. I have always stuck to the SEC mantra of “hate them in the conference, root for them in the post season” (which everyone does except Alabama fans for the most part–which I just now realized is probably a leftover remnant from the Civil War “us against them” mentality and my stomach turned a bit; but that’s also a good focus for the essay I want to write about LSU and football in the south in general, “Saturday Night In Death Valley.”) I am very excited and happy college football season is nigh. Woo-hoo!
I spent some time with Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt, which is actually quite marvelous. I haven’t had the bandwidth lately to read novels–mostly sticking to my Alfred Hitchcock Presents project–but I was enjoying her book when I started reading it a few weeks ago and had been wanting to get back to it. But anxiety and stress and the fucking heat have sapped so much out of me every day that it was hard to focus on reading a novel. Kelly is a marvelous writer, which is terrific–there’s really nothing like a queer writer with a working class background writing about the South they grew up in, is there? Kelly is kind of a lesbian cross between Tom Franklin, Carson McCullers, and Dorothy Allison, with some Faulkner and Ace Atkins thrown in for good measure. Her debut novel Cottonmouths was a revelation (I can’t tell you how thrilling it is for this old man to see so much amazing crime writing coming from new queer writers), and her second, Real Bad Things, is nominated for an Anthony Award next week–so she joins the few queer crime writers of queer crime novels who’ve been nominated for an Anthony Award! We’re a small but growing club, which is also very exciting. GO QUEERS!
So, yes, a lovely day of preparation for going away next weekend. Today I should go ahead and make my packing list–I could even go ahead and pack the rolling briefcase, couldn’t I?–and clean and do things around the house and read and maybe even do some writing. It feels cool today in the house–but of course it’s still morning–and just checked my emails and yes–there it is; today’s heat advisory with temperatures feeling like up to 114 until eight pm tonight. It’s really going to feel like winter to me in San Diego, isn’t it?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later or tomorrow.
I sometimes wonder how dramatically different my life would be had my parents not migrated to Chicago when I was a child to provide us with a better life than we could expect in Alabama. I’ve always been somewhat grateful to them for this, because I can’t imagine or fathom what growing up in the rural South would have been like for teenaged gay Greg; Kansas was bad enough. But my heart will always have a place in it for the state I was born and where my parents grew up (and will both eventually be buried), and whenever I mine Alabama for fiction, it always comes up roses.
I was enormously pleased and flattered to be asked to participate in the Crippen and Landru anthology School of Hard Knox, and the last thing I was expecting was to get a co-editing credit. Art, Donna, and publisher Jeffrey Marks (a fine writer in his own right; check out his novels and short stories) did the majority of the heavy lifting; my contributions were more along the lines of sending an email cheering the others on or giving a thumbs up/thumbs down to a design question.
The premise of the anthology was that Father Ronald Knox, a scholarly clergymen, had come up with the ten commandments for writing crime fiction during the Golden Age, and each of us could chose a commandment and write a story breaking it. Obviously, it was pretty clear to me that Rule 2 was perfect for me:
All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
And I knew precisely which story in the archive I could revise and rework to break this commandment and fit perfectly into the book, “The Ditch.”
I also cannot believe who I am sharing the table of contents with. Check out this talent!
Now THAT’S a table of contents! Not sure what I am doing there with these amazing writers, but I am most pleased to be there.
And this is how my story, “The Ditch,” opens:
I‘d just finished reading my book–The Hardy Boys, The Secret of the Lost Tunnel— and was reaching to turn off my bedside lamp when my phone chirped on my nightstand to let me know I’d gotten a new text message. I frowned. It was just past ten on a weeknight. Sure, it was summer, but Mom and Dad were strict about phone usage after eight o’clock. My orange-and–-blue Auburn Tigers clock, hanging just over my desk, read a few minutes past ten [on a weeknight]. I picked up the phone and looked at the screen. My wallpaper was a photo of me standing on a white sand beach on the Florida gulf coast.
I need your help. Come over! Please! Emergency!!!
It was from my best friend, Zane Tidwell.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. Classic Zane, always sending desperate–sounding text messages expecting me to drop everything and rush right over. Everything was an emergency to Zane, from not getting his homework done to failing a test to not having any clean underwear to having a nightmare of some kind—all of these things qualified as emergencies in Zane’s brain. He worked himself up into quite a state over the stupidest things.
“The boy who cried wolf” was all Mom would say.
The problem being, sometimes it was an emergency, like that time he broke his arm when he was home alone, or when his mother fell and hit her head, or when his dog ate rat poison.
He always counted on me keeping my head on straight and not panicking and solving the problem for him. We’d been best friends ever since we were little boys in Bible study, and things had always been this way.
I was the calm one and Zane–well, Zane was a drama queen.
He knew I wasn’t even supposed to use my phone after eight, let alone leave the house after ten.
I typed out you know I can’t it’s too late to leave the house and if I get caught they’ll take my phone and ground me forever with my thumbs.
Please you have to come I don’t know what to do I am really in big trouble now PLEASE!!!!
I stared at the screen. In big trouble? What did that mean? But if the needle on the Zane drama-meter was going up, he wasn’t above calling me on the landline.
And that would send Mom and Dad over the edge.
I sighed. I was going to have to go over there.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Zane Tidwell,” I whispered, typing out Be there soon and hitting send.
“The Ditch” is an Alabama story, of course, and has a teenaged protagonist (I’m not sure why I always write about Alabama from a young person’s perspective; probably because most of my memories are from childhood, I suppose) whose name we never really know. The ditch is actually a real place; my main character’s house is based on where my aunt and uncle lived–which is where we would visit–and about twenty or so yards behind the house was this ditch–or rather, what they called ‘the ditch.’ (I’d share a photo from Google Earth, but all it looks like from the air is a line of trees.) We used to spend a lot of time playing down there, and of course to me as a child it seemed enormous, but it’s probably a lot smaller in reality than I remember (everything seemed enormous to me when I was a child). I never knew what created the ditch, or why it was there, but it’s very similar to what I describe in the story, if smaller. There was all kinds of garbage down there–broken bottles, rusting cans, and so forth, so we were never supposed to go down there barefoot. I also remember that when we were in the ditch we weren’t visible to anyone not standing on the edge–which was a bonus for us as kids. The rope swing was also there (and now I think how fucking insane was it that adults let kids play like that? You could break your neck falling off that thing!) and I’ve also included the ditch in another, unfinished longer piece. There was something creepy yet idyllic about the place, and of course whenever I think about it as an adult it’s always what a perfect place to hide a body! What a perfect place for a ghost! and so on.
I wrote “The Ditch” originally for another anthology’s open call, but I knew when I finished it and turned it in it wasn’t going to get selected. (I was right.) I also knew it needed to be revised and the ending changed as well as some other things (minor but important) but had never gotten around to getting the revision done. So when this opportunity presented itself, I was going to use a different story but had some trouble with its ending and then was despairing when it hit me: you know how to fix “The Ditch” you just haven’t done it yet, so stop spinning your wheels with this one and do that instead, so I dug back into it and really had a great time with the revision. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you will be, too!
(Ironically, this week the ending to the other story popped into my head, so I will be working on that this week, too.)
And just like that Wednesday has rolled around again, and today is the day I meet with the orthopedic surgeon to determine just what needs to be done to repair my torn left biceps muscle. I am a little nervous, to be honest, and more than a little trepidatious about it. I’ve not had any kind of surgery since having my tonsils out as a child and a potentially cancerous lesion removed in 2007, so I’ve kind of been lucky on that score (I don’t consider tooth extraction–even the wisdom teeth–as surgery; just how my mind works so don’t @ me, okay?). Dr. Google has told me that I’ll need physical therapy, a soft cast, and a sling (not the fun kind) for a while, maybe as much as six months to a year, which is definitely not pleasant or anything I want to happen to me at any time, but if needs be, it needs be, I guess.
At least after today I won’t have to wonder any more.
But my rebooting the week seemed to have done the trick. Yesterday was a good day; I slept really well and was in a very good mood when I came to work. A friend texted me to remind me that it was also my first birthday since Mom died, and so subconsciously I was probably grieving, which was why the energy felt so off Monday (the news of Tiger’s passing didn’t help much in that regard) and it really should have hit me when I got Dad’s note in the mail. It’s funny, I keep trying to tell Dad that it’ll gradually get easier but it really never does, does it? Hell, just typing since Mom died makes my eyes fill. I need to remember to keep being kinder to myself, and not so hard always on myself. After work I ran errands again–much as I hate driving all the way uptown every day, at least when I do there’s a place to park when I get home, and Paul’s expecting something, and I needed to make a little groceries on the way, too–and followed my Monday strategy of showering after emptying the dishwasher and putting my groceries away. I did finish the new draft of “Whim of the Wind” last night–and I have a place to try getting it published now–so I am going to let that sit for a couple of days before digging back into it. I’m glad that I let go of the sentimental attachment to the story since I wrote it back in college; it makes so much more sense to revise it into something different but keeping the same feel and vibe. I don’t think I stuck the landing on the second draft, but I have something to work with now, and that’s terribly important.
I tried working on another story after I finished that revision but alas the fountain had run dry by then. I did pull up both stories I want to get to work on, and maybe after my appointment this afternoon–and errands after that–I’ll be able to sit here and finish both stories tonight. I slept great last night–even better than i had the night before–and actually didn’t wake up until four (then five, then the alarm) which was probably the longest stretch of “straight through” sleep I’ve had in I don’t know how long. It was again miserably hot yesterday, but these last few days haven’t felt quite as hellish as the ones before. Paul was late getting home last night (board meeting) and after I finished writing for the evening, was kind of lost. I did do a load of laundry and another load of dishes, even going so far as to clean and straighten up the kitchen (I also showered when I got home; the twice daily showers seem to be doing the trick–getting things done and sleeping well) before repairing to my easy chair to watch some Youtube. Yesterday evening I revisited some scenes from old soaps, mostly General Hospital and All My Children–I still haven’t accepted that it’s no longer on the air–and I was also thinking about all the actors from soaps we lost to HIV/AIDS back in the day; and how many really gorgeous young men had appeared on the soaps when I used to watch and then just disappeared…which, of course, makes me wonder. (I love that the actor who played Derek Mallory, the police chief on Edge of Night back in the late 70s and early 80s, started in gay porn movies.) Someone really should write about that; and how actors had to remain closeted to have careers until the modern day era where there are only four soaps left, but they often have gay characters and storylines now. (was it Christian McLaughlin who wrote Glamourpuss, about a closeted gay soap star who gets outed, so the show makes his character gay and turns him into the villain?), I remember when Donna Pescow played the lesbian nurse on All My Children back in the day–she wasn’t around long, of course, the occasional queer character rarely lasted for long–but i would love to read a book about the history of queer actors and queer storylines on the daytime soaps–I remember the gay teen storyline on One Life to Live back in the day (Ryan Philippe’s first big break as an actor was playing that gay kid) and remember thinking wow what a difference this storyline would have made to teenaged me back in the day.
Representation matters, people. It really does. And if you’ve never not seen yourself reflected back to you in popular culture, you literally have no idea what it feels like or how moving it is when you finally do.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.
Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well.
Yesterday started well, but I got very tired in the afternoon after running errands. By the time I had the groceries put away and emptied the dishwasher, I was tired. I repaired to my chair for a bit with a protein shake (I read another Alfred Hitchcock Presents story, “Edward the Conquerer,” which was really a lovely story that turned horrifically dark at the end; I think its author, Roald Dahl, has been found to be problematic in the modern era, and after reading this story, all I can say is good.) and then tried to do some other chores and things around the house while letting ideas cook in my head. I hate this exhaustion that comes and goes ever since COVID last summer; while I am grateful it doesn’t happen all the time, I hate when it does because it’s very derailing. My mind can’t really focus while I am feeling that exhausted, too. I think the heat triggered it yesterday–and more regularly lately, too; I usually am fine when I get off work but just being out and about in the heat? It’s no wonder I’m exhausted when I get home.
Of course I am concerned about all my Southern California friends, who are in the path of a massive Pacific hurricane, which is just insane. I am hoping the colder Pacific water will have a deleterious effect on the size and power of it. And even if it does come ashore as merely a tropical storm…southern California isn’t built to handle a storm like that. There’s going to be so much flooding, and mud slides, and damage to highways and roads and low-lying areas. And what happens when winds that strong come through the desert? Does it pick up sand? Yikes indeed. And instead of laughing at Californians who’ve never experienced tropical weather before and don’t know how to handle it or what to do the way the rest of the country laughs at the South when we have a blizzard, I will send them positive energy and hope everything turns out well for them and they remain safe and unharmed. At least it’s down to a category one now before it hits this afternoon. STAY SAFE CALIFORNIA FRIENDS, PLEASE.
And yes, today is my birthday. Sixty-two, to be exact, which is in and itself a kind of miracle. I slept okay for the most part, and woke up shortly after seven, as per usual. I’ll probably try to get some stuff done this morning–writing wise, writing waits for no man–but will probably take the rest of the day off to read and chill out and relax, overall. I certainly never thought I would make it this long and this far, to be honest. It isn’t bad. I don’t have the energy I once had, I tire out a lot easier than I used to, and my memory is a thing of the past, but it could easily be much worse. I get aches and sores and pains more so than I used to, but that’s part of the price you pay for living longer. We’re in another heat advisory, and I think Mercury is about to go retrograde again (yay). Paul went out with some friends last evening and wasn’t home by the time i went to bed, and I watched Youtube videos while aimlessly trying to find something to watch. I also rewatched an old black-and-white suspense movie on Youtube that I watched and enjoyed as a kid, The Spiral Staircase with Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, and Ethel Barrymore. It was based on the novel Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White, which I’ve not read but have on my Kindle app, but it wasn’t as good as I remembered…it was actually not very good at all. (Sidebar: I am amazed at how many old movies were based on books…which often turn out to be better than the movies based on them–which is nothing new.)
I read some more stories last night as well: “By the Scruff of the Soul” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, which was in Stories That Go Bump in the Night and “The Cocoon” by John B. L. Goodman, from Stories for Late at Night. I did enjoy both stories–the Davis in particular–and of course, reading the three stories I read yesterday gave me the answer on how to finish another story of mine that is incomplete and I didn’t know how to finish. I’m actually finding the answers to a lot of my short story problems by reading these marvelous old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. It’s never too late to learn, after all, and I am itching to get to work on these stories again. I also need to get back to work on the WIP. Sigh. Why is there always so much writing that needs doing? I need to be writing. I did finish my blog about writing Mississippi River Mischief; I do need to finish writing the blog post about the other release I have coming out this fall that I’ve not told you about yet. I also need to do some cooking this morning–I want to try to make meatballs again, so I can take them for lunch this week–and some cleaning and organizing, too. I was terribly lazy yesterday, worn down a bit, as I mentioned already–I did literally nothing for most of the day after completing my errands–but that’s fine; obviously I needed the rest. I also need to unload the dishwasher and make salad (not a euphemism). I think I may even go so far as to treat myself to a cappuccino this morning; I’ve not used those accoutremént in quite some time, and that energy boost would be rather welcomed this morning. I always worry about my sleep, though, and since tomorrow is the start of another work week…heavy heaving sigh. Maybe I can set it up tonight so I can just turn it on tomorrow?
Ah, well, and so it goes.
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines for a while. Have a great Sunday, y’all, and I’ll check in with you later.
And somehow, almost twenty-one years have passed since Scotty Bradley burst forth into the world with Bourbon Street Blues, one of what I hoped was the most unconventional and original amateur sleuths in the history of crime fiction. This is neither the time nor the place to again tell the story of how I created him, or how what was supposed to be a one-off stand alone book became a series spread out over twenty years (!!!); I’ve told those stories endlessly over the last twenty years both here and on panels. But Scotty remains very precious to me all these years later, and I still care about getting him and his life right on the page. I don’t torture him or make his life as miserable as I do Chanse’s (poor, poor Chanse), but he has his own problems and issues that he has to face–but his endless optimism and willingness to face things head on and deal with them, rolling with the punches and always getting back up, has never once wavered in all the years I’ve been writing him. I love him, his family–even the stuffy Bradley side; I love that the unconventional family their son married into pushes every single one of their buttons–and I love his New Orleans.
The other night I was scrolling through Youtube and, just for the hell of it, searched for a song that I’ve been trying to find a digital copy of for my Spotify or Apple Music accounts; Erin Hamilton (Carol Burnett’s daughter) remade Cheap Trick’s “The Flame” as a dance song (she also did the same with that old 1970s classic, “Dream Weaver” and I prefer her versions to the originals), and I love the extended remix. I found the video on Youtube and as I listened to it, it brought back a lot of memories of going out to the gay bars, hitting the dance floor and staying out there all night, getting caught up in the music and just having a great time. I think this song predated the turn of the century, so it’s a late 90’s recording…anyway, it really made me think, put me back into a Scotty place in my mind, and as I listened, sang along, and bopped my head, the next Scotty book started forming in my head….and I realized that’s been part of the disconnection I felt writing the last few Scotty books; sure, I could and can still write him, and sure, I could get back into his head space, but it was much harder for me to do than it used to be. I thought it might be because I don’t go to the Quarter at all anymore, or that I don’t spend any time in gay bars anymore; that I don’t know what it’s like to be a gay man in his forties (almost fifties) today–my own memories are of a completely different world than the one we live in now. But now I know what I was doing wrong–I was listening to the wrong kind of music while writing him. If I want to ease back into Scotty’s mind and world, I need to listen to dance music I used to hear in the gay bars.
And can I say that it’s a real shame that it’s so hard to track down old gay bar dance remixes?
Knowing this means I’ll probably keep going with Scotty for a while longer, at any rate. I love him, I love the character, and I know I’ve been avoiding dealing with some things in that series that will eventually have to be addressed…but it’s absolutely lovely to know that I can slip back easily into his mind-space just by listening to great old gay dance remixes.
“I think we should turn it into a home gym,” I said into the gloom. “I mean, wouldn’t it be great to just have to go downstairs to work out? And we can put in a sauna and a steam room. What do you think, guys?”
It was the Monday night after Mother’s Day, and the termites were swarming.
That was why we were sitting around the living room in the dark. The only illumination in the entire building came from two blasphemy candles, flickering in the center of the coffee table. Modeled after Catholic prayer candles, one had a picture of Drew Brees in his Saints jersey with a halo and heavenly light shining on his head with the words Pray to Breesus around the base. The other was St. Chris Owens of Bourbon Street.
So, yeah—blasphemy candles. They’re very popular here.
Yet even the scant pale light from the teardrop shaped flames was enough to draw an occasional scout termite from the gloom. We wouldn’t see it until it landed on the glass lip of one of the candles, before dive-bombing into the flame. There would be a brief sizzling sound, and then the yellow flame flickered and turning briefly reddish as the termite immolated. Once it was consumed, the flame would be steady and yellow again.
The swarming rarely lasted more than an hour, but that hour seemed to last an eternity.
Termites have always been the bane of New Orleans’s existence. The domestic kind were bad enough. Houses and buildings were tented to get rid of infestations, the bright yellow and red stripes announcing to the world that a termite Armageddon was happening inside. The city’s original termite problem had grown exponentially worse since the particularly vicious Formosan variety had hitched a ride on a freighter to the fertile feeding grounds of our old, mostly wooden city shortly after World War II. The dampness of our climate must have made them feel like they’d arrived at termite Disney World. The little fuckers love wet wood, so the entire city was an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’d killed live oaks that had survived hurricanes, destroyed historic homes, and I’d heard that they could even chew through brick and mortar.
Maybe that was an urban legend, but it wasn’t one I was interested in proving.
Formosan termites swarmed.
The first rule of surviving Formosan termite season was speed. Every source of light had to be turned off the moment you spotted the first scout. They’re drawn to the light, like moths, but unlike moths, they’re drawn to the light in the hundreds of thousands, turning your home into a scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s ultimate cheesefest The Ten Commandments. The big streetlamps along Decatur Street outside drew the swarms, horrifying clouds of little monsters flying around, frantically trying to mate while shedding wings like revoltingly nasty snowflakes.
It is incredibly hard for me to believe that I have written seventeen or so books and countless short stories set in New Orleans and never have once addressed the swarms of Formosan termites we live through every spring. They return after Mother’s Day and haunt us in the evenings, usually between eight and nine pm, until Memorial Day, give or take. They aren’t a nightly occurrence, thank the heavens, but they are usually at their worst on Mondays and Tuesdays. No one had warned Paul and I about them, so the first time we were swarmed we didn’t know what to do. Remembering that horror from the old apartment on Camp Street (we had a massive security light attached to the house right outside our living room, so any light at all inside would draw clouds and clouds of them inside), how was it possible I had never written about the Formosan termite swarms? And with Scotty having bought the building on Decatur Street from Millie and Velma–who I sent into retirement along the Gulf Coast of Florida–and learning about the responsibilities and drawbacks to being a New Orleans home-owner, as well as trying to figure out how to redesign the interior for more functionality as a single-family dwelling? Of course, the question of what to do with the empty retail space on the first floor would be an issue; I wouldn’t want a living space right on the sidewalk of Decatur Street at any time of day or night or month or year. I also wouldn’t want to deal with renters, either, and thus neither would Scotty. But the space can’t just be left vacant, either. So, I thought it would be a great way to open the book with them sitting out the swarms in the dark, with a couple of candles lit, talking about the renovation plans?
After I finished writing Royal Street Reveillon, I was pretty damned pleased with myself. I thought it was perhaps the best Scotty book of the entire series, and reflected my growth as a writer along with Scotty’s growth and development as a character. When I finished it, I had the thought I always have whenever I finish writing a series book: maybe that should be the last one. But I immediately dismissed that thought from my head; I had left something in the personal story of Scotty and the boys hanging with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I knew there had to be one more book at least to tie off that loose end. I was also thinking about a local-ish political scandal of the last decade–the usual, a conservative Christian pro-family politician outed for having an inappropriate relationship with a teenager (who was over seventeen, the age of consent for boys in Louisiana), and a political powerhouse dynasty that had ruled a near-ish parish for generations was dead in the water. I had been thinking a lot also about taking Scotty and the boys outside of New Orleans and the safety of Orleans Parish for an adventure; as my knowledge of Louisiana grew exponentially along with my study of the state’s history, I really wanted to set a book in a part of Louisiana I could fictionalize and have some fun with. I had already created a couple of fictional parishes and towns in previous work; The Orion Mask particularly was set in fictional Redemption Parish–but Redemption wouldn’t work for this one, so I needed another one.
While I was thinking this through, I remembered that two Nancy Drew mysteries were connected to New Orleans–she was only here for a couple of chapters of The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, but most of The Haunted Showboat was set here, or just outside of the metropolitan area (a quick reread showed that “Carolyn Keene’s” Louisiana and New Orleans bore no resemblance whatsoever to the reality…but I knew I had a Nancy Drew Easter egg in Bury Me in Shadows (Blackwood Hall), and I wanted to put one in a Scotty book–so why not a showboat? The ruling dynasty of the invented parish–St. Jeanne d’Arc, for the record–was given the same name as the relatives of Bess and George’s that they and Nancy were visiting in The Haunted Showboat, Haver. I even named the house in Mississippi River Mischief the same name as the Havers’ home in The Haunted Showboat, Sunnymeade.
And yes, the Havers’ showboat/gambling casino was also named the River Princess.
I originally planned on the case coming to Scotty through his sort-of-nephew, Frank’s blood nephew Taylor; someone he met in group therapy (which he is doing to help get through what happened to him in the previous book), or possibly even a boyfriend, someone he’s seeing. I could never get it to work right…and finally, I realized it couldn’t come from Taylor. Taylor is going to continue growing as a person and as a character, but this was too soon after his own trauma for him to be trying to help other people. And then I remembered David, Scotty’s best friend, the music teacher. David’s not been in a book since Mardi Gras Mambo, but I’ve never forgotten about him. And it made sense–David has moved on from his old school and now teaches at NOCCA (our local Fame high school), and the kid is one of his students–and David finds out by confiscating the kid’s phone in class. I wanted to create a character based on this absolute sweetheart of a young man I met; I don’t remember how we met, but friends of a mutual friend were in New Orleans, and wanted me to meet them for drinks…and they had a daughter who went to school here. The kid was a friend of hers, absolutely adorable and sweet, and a ballet major at Tulane. After the daughter and her friend left, the parents immediately turned to me and asked me, “is he gay? <The daughter> think so, and so do we.” What I should have said was, “Well, he’ll let people know if and when he’s ready”; what I actually said was “absolutely.” (I did later find out the kid did eventually come out; wherever he is, I hope he is happy and living his best life. He was so sweet and charming and likable…) When I started writing the character, I made him unlikable, arrogant and sure of himself and his own beauty, and the effect it had on other people. That was wrong, and I went back and made him more of a naïve kid, with a strong sense of right and wrong; and the story worked a lot better. It wasn’t like Scotty to be so judgmental about this kid; if anything, especially after what happened to Taylor, he’s be super-protective.
And this tale–the corrupt old politician and the beautiful teenager working at the food court at Lakeside Mall–gave me a chance to dig into something from Scotty’s past that’s never been truly explored: that his first lover was his high school wrestling coach when he was about fifteen/sixteen. This came up in Jackson Square Jazz–which of course has been unavailable for thirteen years–and I always meant to circle back around to it, just never did…but over the years there have been throwaway lines in books about how Scotty has always preferred older men (Frank is fifteen years older; we’re not really sure how old Colin is), and so to bring it up again in this instance? Yes, perfect.
I loved my story about the corrupt politician, the wrecked showboat in St. Jeanne d’Arc Parish, and the teenager, but something was missing.
I realized two things: something very important was missing, and the crimes of the Haver family were just too big and too many to fit into this book, so I chose to focus on only one…and then the Murdaugh case broke. The Murdaughs were a real life Haver family, and their crimes were almost exactly the same! So, I ripped one of their crimes from the headlines and made that the primary focus of the story, and it was the right choice: the book started falling into place and the story began flowing. I was very nervous about the book–slicing out all the other crimes while building up only one was tricky, since they were all woven through the entire manuscript and the new one had to be as well. I also wasn’t sure if the subject matter was handled appropriately; the old/young daddy/boy thing is the gay community is often mistaken for something much worse than it is, and talking about gay teenagers’ sexuality is also kind of a third rail. But I trust my editor, and she loved it.
Saturday morning and my birthday eve. Yes, it’s tomorrow; Gregalicious hits the big 6-2 tomorrow. It’s been a hell of a year since my birthday last rolled around, and to say that I am in a much better place today than I was a year ago on this date would be putting it mildly. I didn’t know, for example, that I’d lose both my mother and my cat before my next birthday. It does seem weird to not have a cat on my birthday; this is my first cat-free birthday since we first got Skittle all those years ago when we lived in the carriage house. At this time last year I was trying to get my shit back together after having long COVID, but other than that I really don’t remember much of what was going on last August, to be honest. I suppose I could go read last year’s entries around these dates, but maybe it’s best not to remember. Who knows?
I did manage to get over to the West Bank Office of Motor Vehicles, and after what seemed like forever, I did finally get my Louisiana Real ID/driver’s license, and the new picture is even worse than the old. (Why do they tell you to lower your chin and look down? Everyone knows that will result in a much worse picture.) But I also made groceries, grabbed Five Guys for lunch, and then came home to finish my work-at-home chores. I managed to get the bed linens laundered and did some picking up around here. I also read some more of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories, which was fun. I dipped back into Stories to Be Read Late at Night, originally published in 1962. I read “Evening Primrose” by John Collier, which was interesting and creepy, about ghosts living in a department store, and “The Sound Machine” by Roald Dahl, which was creepy and strange and everything I would have expected from a Dahl story. I’d not read anything by him before, but I know he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as the short story one of the more famous Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes was based on–the one where the wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, which she then cooks and serves to the investigating officers. The story was, as I expected, creepy, macabre, and one of those stories where you aren’t sure if what you’re reading is happening…or if it’s all a product of the narrator’s fevered, slowing disintegrating mind. It was interesting–but both of these stories reminded me yet again of how limited my imagination and creativity is when it comes to writing short stories; why not expand my mind and try things that are different and outside of my comfort zone, and what better place to try experimental writing and experimental creating than in a short story rather than a novel? The key here is to remember that anything is possible and to not either fear trying out new things or limit myself by saying oh you can’t write that.
Because I can write anything.
I do have to go out into the heat today–mail and a few things to pick up at the store–but I’d rather not go out into the heat. Yesterday didn’t seem that terrible–it was in the high nineties but the humidity was lessened, it seemed; although it was hot as fuck, don’t get me wrong, I handled it better yesterday than I have the rest of the summer–which leads me to believe it wasn’t as humid and the heat index not as high. That, or I am getting used to it, and that’s appalling. No one should get used to this.
I also wrote a lengthy entry about the genesis of Mississippi River Mischief, as well as one about the other book I have coming out this fall that I’ve not really talked about; I also worked on my short story revision a bit more last night before collapsing into my easy chair. We watched more Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, which is amazingly funny–she really can do anything–and then retired for the evening. I slept really well again last night, which was wonderful as always; I love when I sleep well, and so hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot done today. I also want to spend some time reading this morning as well–either short stories or getting back into Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt, which is fantastic; I just haven’t had the bandwidth mentally lately to focus on reading a novel.
It feels very cool in the apartment this morning, which is, as always, a lovely thing. I’ll probably post the entry about the new Scotty book at some point this weekend; at some point this weekend I’ll also finish the entry about the other book I’ve been so mysterious about now for quite some time. I also have a Bible entry I want to finish writing, but I also need to go back and read some appropriate Bible passages to make sure I am remembering correctly; and of course, there’s nothing I want to do less than read some Bible passages.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the morning. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably check back in with you again later.
Work at home Friday, after I run some errands and take care of some things this morning. I have to go to the OMV to get a real ID (driver’s license expires Sunday), and since I am going over there, I am going to swing by the West Bank Petco to look at kitties (the SPCA has some they’ve farmed out to Petcos). That’s an exciting morning, isn’t it? I am taking Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt with me, so I won’t be bored and since I have to sit around and wait, I might as well read. It’s been bothering me lately that my attention span just hasn’t been there for novels since the heat wave broke me several weeks ago–which is when I switched over to short stories in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies–and I’d like to get this book read before I leave for Bouchercon, primarily so I can hopelessly fanboy over her all weekend (I’ll also be fanboying over Margot Douaihy all weekend, too, among many others as I always do at Bouchercon). I’ve already picked out my books to take with me on the trip (the latest S. A. Cosby, Alison Gaylin, and Laura Lippman will be going to San Diego with me, with Donna Andrews batting clean up), and also already know I will probably get no writing done while I am there. I don’t really have anything due–there will be page proofs for Mississippi River Mischief to go over at some point–but everything else is up in the air for now.
I did manage to get the edits taken care of on Mississippi River Mischief and turned it in last night, so other than the afore-mentioned page proofing, it’s effectively finished. Since the other book–I’ll post about it this weekend, no worries–is also finished and now out of my hair, I have nothing pressing at the moment. Woo-hoo! I also picked up the mail and stopped at Fresh Market to lay in supplies for a weekend of not getting into the car at all. I wrote for a while, and came to a realization about this short story I could never get to work that I’ve been revising, so I am going to go into author mode and talk about writing, so bear with me.
This particular story, “Whim of the Wind.” was the story I wrote when I took creative writing again after switching universities after my first horrendous creative writing experience (if I haven’t said it enough, the professor told me I’d never be a published writer). This story was beloved by my class and my professor, who told me I should submit it to literary magazines. I did a few times, it was always rejected, and there was a slight flaw in the story–but no one who read it could ever give me any insight into how to fix the story. It was also my first Alabama story, my first visit to my fictional Corinth county, and so it’s always kind of been precious to me. I never could figure out how to revise it or what to do with it…but as I’ve been revising it (it’s now twice as long as it was, and I’ve not finished), it’s been changing some. I think what everyone was responding to was the voice–I’ve used it again since, and people always respond to that aspect–and really, as long as the voice is intact and preserved, that’s all that really matters. I also realized last night something else–I was having to change the climactic scene in the story, and as such had to come up with a different Civil War legend to build it around–and I realized this story, along with two other, had been written using the same trope, that I have since learned was apocryphal–the evil Yankee deserter. I wrote this story using it, I wrote “Ruins” using it, and I wrote another, “Lilacs in the Rain,” also using it (that story has morphed into a novella renamed “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”); so yes, I wrote three short stories based on the same, apocryphal, Civil War urban (rural?) legend. Bury Me in Shadows evolved out of “Ruins,” and I blew up the trope in that book; that was the “Yankee deserter” story I was meant to write. So, the other two need different legends, and I found a good one for “Whim of the Wind”–but again, a delicate subject I’ll need to be very careful with–and now maybe I can make “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain” actually work, now that I know what I need to do with it. I am also having a lot of fun looking into Alabama history and finding these great legends and stories and folk tales that I should be able to find something to use.
I slept really well last night, and feel pretty good this morning. Don’t feel so great about having to go to the West Bank, but that’s okay; it’s a routine change I can live with, and I can actually do my weekend grocery shopping over there as well–and I can get Five Guys to bring home for lunch. I think after that I will have laid in enough supplies to not have to leave the house for the rest of the weekend–I may go get the mail tomorrow–and I want to clean, organize, read, and write all weekend. Paul got home late last night (another grant) so we didn’t get a chance to watch anything last night–he walked in while I was watching a Youtube documentary about the usurpation of the English throne by the House of Lancaster that set the dangerous precedent (for kings) that incompetent ones could be overthrown and replaced…and eventually led to the Wars of the Roses. I also was watching some videos–someone did a series of the greatest plays in LSU football history, which was very fun to watch and relive (I really should do an in-depth post about my love of LSU football; not that everyone who’s paying attention doesn’t already know about it, of course, but I love football and it’s fun for me to write/talk about it. I also find the fandom interesting, too.)..and they were grouped by stretches of time, eras, if you will (2007 season got its own video)–and also guided by the scarcity of available digitized video from the far distant past. (I was also thinking “don’t the networks that originally aired the games have tape? Can’t it be digitally remastered? I know the SEC Network has done this with some classic games from the past; it’s a project the NCAA should back fully, as it’s the history of the sport.) It’s very fun to revisit past games and my memories–LSU is never boring to watch, ever–and I am very excited about the upcoming season, both for LSU and the Saints. I worry that everyone is over-hyping LSU (something I always worry about) but given the over-performance from last year, it’s kind of understandable, really. LSU came out of nowhere to win ten games, beat Alabama, and beat both Florida and Auburn on the road in the same season for the first time in program history. So, yeah, understandable. I was thinking before last season that it was going to have to be a wash–new coach, rebuilding after two down years, etc.–and that this year would be the one where the Tigers would make a run. I am excited for our new quarterback for the Saints, too–he, like me, also went to Fresno State, so I have even more reason to root for him and like him–and they seem to be doing well in the preseason. GEAUX SAINTS!
I did work on the revision of “Whim of the Wind” yesterday–it’s amazing to me that I’ve taken a story that barely over two thousand words and added another almost three thousand to it, and it still isn’t done–but I am feeling good about the story, now that I’ve recognized my attachment to it that actually was hindering me from revising it. It’ll always exist in that original version, after all, and nothing I do to it in current or future versions are ruining that precious first version that meant so much to me as an aspiring writer. Sentimentality–the very thing I am always trying to guard against when it comes to almost everything in my life–got the best of me with this story. The other story I turned it at the same time, which I’ve also never been able to correct, perhaps now I can fix it, too. I had thought about expanding the other one (which is actually incredibly problematic on many levels by modern standards) into a novel, and perhaps I still will; I’ve started slowly world-building around the panhandle of Florida the same way I have with Corinth County in Alabama, but there’s no crime or mystery or supernatural thing going on in that story; so it would be a coming-of-age romance….but I may know a way (that just came to me) and there were some other ideas about it, too. You never know, right? Why not riff for a while and see what comes up?
I’m kind of getting excited about writing again, can you tell?
And on that note, I should start getting ready for the OMV and get that hellish experience over with once and for all. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader and you never know–I may be back later.
Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I have a lot to get done over the weekend–errands and chores and things, oh my! I’ve arranged for medical appointments and examinations, have gathered everything I need for the OMV, and I even spent a little time writing yesterday. Who am I, and what have I done with Gregalicious?
I slept better on Tuesday night than the previous nights, and it felt great. I didn’t feel tired or worn out or dragged out–and of course, while it was still fucking hot here, it was normal August hot, not Satan’s taint hot. I can handle normal August hot. Sure, I’ll complain, but if this summer thus far has proven anything to me, it’s that I’ll be grateful for a regular Louisiana summer from now on. Yesterday was a good day at work as well; I feel like I helped some people and was able to be a good listener for some others who needed to get some things worked through. I love my job because I get to feel like I’ve made a difference in someone’s life, and there’s always at least one client per day who makes me feel that way. It’s a good feeling. I know I am helping everyone I see, but the ones where you have to go a bit deeper than is usually necessary are really special for me. That’s what I really needed from a job all along, and if I didn’t find that out until I was in my forties, at least I finally did find out. I’ve been at my day job longer than any job I’ve had previously, and by the time I retire at sixty-seven (roast in hell for all eternity, Ronald Reagan) I will have worked there longer than I worked at all my other jobs combined. (I’m not counting writing or editing in this, by the way; those are contract jobs, not a regular paycheck with benefits, which also includes fitness instruction. No benefits nor regular paycheck there, either.)
I also loved being a personal trainer because I enjoyed helping people feel better–so much of fitness training is mental, and reshaping mindsets and attitudes and mentalities, you have no idea. I used to actually write a syndicated queer-specific fitness column, which took a holistic approach to fitness and well-being, and so sometimes I would get into the mental health/self-image stuff. I always wanted to write a holistic health and fitness book targeted to a queer audience, but the performance aspect of promoting a health and fitness book wasn’t anything I was interested in; it would mean staying in shape constantly, watching everything that I put into my mouth and limiting myself, cutting out alcohol., and above all else, quitting smoking. Once I got myself back into shape, in 1994 and then again in 2001 (after that Horrible Year That We Never Discuss), I gradually became less obsessed about the regimen I needed to maintain to continue to work toward underwear model-type body and decided I was okay with a slight roll around the middle, and not having a six pack, or veins bulging out from under the skin everywhere. Fitness instruction, and fitness writing, weren’t my passion though; I wanted to be a fiction writer and I didn’t want to use my discipline and self-control and will to push myself into trying to compete for dollars and eyes and influence in the fitness world–I wanted to use that to write the best fiction I could and get it published so people could read it.
I was also thinking that I might want to think about doing something to mark Scotty’s turning twenty-one next year (I honestly cannot believe I’ve been writing this series this long. It was supposed to a stand alone!) I am thinking I should probably write another Scotty book, so the tenth will come out during his twenty-first year of existence, but I am not quite sure what I want to do with the boys next. I have some titles and possibilities–French Quarter Flambeaux about a Mardi Gras murderer; Quarter Quarantine Quadrille which of course takes place during the quarantine; and Bywater Bohemia Bougie, which would be a long look at real estate, gentrification, and how New Orleans has lost some of its soul since Katrina. I probably should write a Scotty every year. But I don’t want him or the series to get stale; that’s what happened with Chanse and I’d originally planned to only do seven, and I was on book seven so I said, fine, we’ll end it here. I do think there are more Chanse novellas to be written at some point; I think the shorter form will force me out of the “paint by numbers” way I was feeling with that series by the end. (For the record, I think the last two books of the series are just as strong, if not stronger, than the books that came before them. The quality wasn’t slipping, but the challenge of writing them wasn’t there anymore.)
The last thing I want to feel when I’m writing something is bored. Sick of it is one thing and is perfectly acceptable to feel; by the time you’re doing the page proofs you should be so fucking sick of your book and those characters that you don’t ever want to think about them again….and the time between turning in those final corrections and the release/promotion is just long enough of a time to pass so you don’t want to slit your wrists when the subject of the book comes up. I have yet to feel boredom with writing Scotty; the fact that the stories can be insanely ridiculous and completely over-the-top helps a lot in that regard. And yet…I’ve noticed things, looking back at the older books in the series, while I was writing Mississippi River Mischief, that I need to pay more attention to in the future. A reader asked me, sometime after the release of Royal Street Reveillon, “how many car accidents has Scotty been in?” And when I started thinking about it….was like yeeesh, quite a few–to the point where I probably wouldn’t get into the same car with him. I noticed that there are books where Frank and Colin’s presence is so minimal that they aren’t even supporting characters but rather cameos; and I don’t use Scotty’s family nearly as much in the later books as I did in the earlier ones. So, when I write the next Scottys, going into them I am going to be more conscious of these things, and I am going to try to work them out organically through the manuscript. Scotty’s getting older, as are the others (my editor was very enthusiastic about how much she loved that Scotty ages in real time), and I’ve started addressing that. I do think the next case is going to have to heavily involve Scotty’s family; I’m thinking it’s about time his sister Rain took center stage in one of his cases. I love Scotty’s entire family, to be honest, and I am really glad I brought his best friend David–missing from the last four or so books–back into this one.
As you can probably tell, I was a bit concerned about my editor’s response to this one. Someone who has anxiety to the degree I do probably shouldn’t be a fiction writer, but it’s too late now, over forty novels in. But….it’s never too late to enter a new chapter of my career, either.
I slept great again last night–the slight cooling off this week has been marvelous; the air conditioning finally caught up, and I was laughing last night because I was taking some stuff out to the recycling and realized…it was chilly enough in the apartment for me to wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants (which means the temperature inside is correct), and when I was walking the stuff out I didn’t break a sweat and thought it was actually pleasant outside…and it was 94. Today I have to get through, run some errands on the way home (post office mostly–I can’t decide about the grocery store but I don’t think we need anything; I have developed the habit of making groceries whenever I get the mail since I’m already uptown) and then settle in for the night. Paul was late last night working on a grant, so when he got home we watched the first episode of Only Murders in the Building, which was a very pleasant surprise (we weren’t wild about season two, but season three got off to a great start, and of course, Meryl Streep!), and finished the evening off with an episode of Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, which is just hysterically funny. It’s nice to feel rested before the last day of getting up early and going into the office.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.
Queer and Loathing in America 