Category: editing

Dress You Up

Thursday and a work-at-home day. I have data entry to do and condoms to pack, reality shows to catch up on, emails to answer and an apartment to clean from top to bottom (always). My insomnia is back again, so yesterday when I got off work I was too tired to go to the gym or do much of anything once I got home–in fact, the evening is kind of a foggy blur. I know Paul and I binged out way through some more episodes of Happy Endings, and I did spend some time reading Bath Haus, but other than that, I can’t really think of anything interesting that went on last night around the Lost Apartment. I did get my contributor copies of the Sherlock anthology, The Only One in the World, and they are quite lovely. Yay!

At some point today I also have to make groceries. I was going to do it Tuesday night after work, but was tired that night, too. I hate that the insomnia is back, and when I see my doctor (at last!) next week I am going to talk to him about options besides the alprazolam. I need the alprazolam because it keeps my mood swings under control, but at the same time, if that prescription isn’t going to be increased–I need at least four prescriptions for six months, not three, if not more–then I am also going to need to have something else prescribed that I can take on the nights I don’t take the alprazolam.

I also need to get back to work on “Never Kiss a Stranger” tonight. I am so close to being finished with it that I hate that I’ve stalled so much on it. It would be great to bang out three thousand words today and another three thousand tomorrow, so that it will be finished in a first draft form; and then I can get to work on some other things.

And that’s the problem with the insomnia. When I am tired I can’t think; when I can’t think it becomes harder to write, and then I get stressed, and the stress leads to more insomnia, because then I am too tired also to do much of anything, let alone stay on top of everything I need to stay on top of, which begets more stress, which turns into more insomnia, and so forth. So stress management is probably the most important thing for me right now, and as such, I need to take deep breaths and remember, at all times, it is what it is. I can only do so much, and pushing myself even harder will only create more stress, lessen the quality of my work, and end up being more defeating than not getting something finished.

Which is always bad news.

I also reread–just remembered!–my story in the Sherlock anthology; I tend to not reread my work very often–generally by the time it is finished and I have gone over the page proofs, I am so heartily sick of it I never want to see it again–but usually, whenever I got a copy of the finished book or anthology, I will sit down with it and read it as a finished product before putting them on the shelf and never looking at them again. So, last night I did sit down with The Only One in the World and revisited “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy” (still one of my favorite titles ever) and you know what? It’s pretty good. I don’t ever give myself enough credit for anything I ever write or do–ever, and it’s a lifelong problem–instead, whenever I reread something of mine in print I continually edit it or rewrite it or think “why did I say it that way? This would have been better” and find flaws and pick it apart and frankly, it’s exhausting and emotionally debilitating and inevitably sparks a downward spiral of some sort. (Sometimes I wonder why I went into this field; I am clearly not emotionally strong enough for it, or mentally stable enough, for it. I also need to remember these things when I am reading about some writer from the past who was an alcoholic–I often think why were so many writers alcoholics? This is why.)

So, yeah, it’s not a bad story. It’s a nice read, there’s some lovely language and characterization, and I feel like I did a pretty good job of conjuring up the New Orleans of 1916. I would like to revisit my Holmes and Watson sometime, but not sure how to go about doing so–and perhaps someday when the inspiration or idea comes to me, I will–I do have a vague idea for another tale set in Storyville with them, based in a true story of a murder in at a brothel; but not sure I will ever have the time or investment to write “The Mother of Harlots” (also a good title.)

And now back to the spice mines.

Got to Be Real

Here it is, Wednesday and Pay the Bills Day yet again–MADNESS.

I wrote about twelve hundred words or so last night–not bad but not great–but it was also a transitional section of the novella, as we get ready to launch into the third and final act, and I’ve always struggled with transitions.But that’s cool–I did get twelve hundred words out before giving up the ghost for the evening–and while the night was not as productive as recent writing sessions, I’ll take whatever I can these days; especially on a work-at-the-office day, which tend to be more wearing than work-at-home days. Tonight, for example, after work I need to run errands before getting home and going to the gym, so not only do I have a very short window for writing, but I will also most likely be very worn out from the work out (even though it is likely to be a half-assed weeknight workout). But since this is a short week, I will be home for the next two days…

I am making a lot of progress on my efforts to get the apartment under control; I was expecting to be further along by now than I am, but Monday for whatever reason I was so exhausted I couldn’t get anything really done–cleaning or writing. I am also beginning to get the sense that July is starting to slip through my fingers again–never a good thing; I hate that time is beginning to feel like quicksilver in my hands, before I know it, it will be my birthday and I will be sixty–but the right amount of focus should be able to get me back into gear. Last night wasn’t a good night for sleeping, alas; but perhaps tonight will give me the rest I need. I am seeing my new doctor next week at long last; I am going to talk to him about upping the prescription refills and possibly prescribing something non-narcotic to help me sleep. I think Ambien is not a narcotic, but isn’t that the medication where people do things–like sleep-walk or sleep-drive? That makes me nervous…I get into enough trouble without having to add the worry of getting in trouble while I am asleep.

It looks to be a gloomy, rainy day today; which is never helpful when I am already feeling sleepy. But I shall make it through, and I will go to the gym, and I will pay these pesky bastard bills, and I will get some writing done. So let it be written, so let it be done.

I think we’re going to start watching a Swedish show on Netflix, Young Royals, which appears to be an angsty teen soap at an exclusive school with some queer content, which makes it all the more fun. I also need to get back to reading Bath Haus. My copy of S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears should be arriving today; I am itching to sink my teeth into that one, and of course I’ve got some other Diversity Project books piled up on my end table–there’s Christopher Bollen’s A Beautiful Crime–which I’ve been putting off reading because it’s set in Venice, and I wanted to get the first draft of “Festival of the Redeemer” finished before I read another gay crime story set in Venice. And since that draft is now finished–and now that I know how it ends, and I do think the ending is perfect; I just have to go through it and clean it up significantly, including rewriting some of the passages–I can move on to the Bollen after I finish the Cosby. I also have David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s Winter Counts on the table, and I really want to get to that one, too.

Not to mention everything I have on the iPad. I was thinking on my drive to work this morning that I really would like to go back and reread Mary Stewart’s Madam Will You Talk?–I really enjoyed the Reread Project when I was having difficulty reading during the pandemic; and I am overdue on my reread of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which may be my favorite book of all time; I also want to read some more of the du Mauriers that I have not already read, like The House on the Strand, Rule Britannia, and The Parasites.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

History Has Its Eyes On You

Ah, Independence Day.

That’s really what the 4th of July commemorates–the day the Continental Congress ratified, and began signing, the Declaration of Independence, when the thirteen British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard threw off the yoke of the King of England and his Parliament and said, nah, thanks–we’re going out on our own. It was extremely radical–particularly since the British Empire was the greatest power in the world since the end of the Seven Years’ War (to the colonials, the French and Indian War) in 1763; perhaps the largest empire to date in world history.

And yet…no rights for women and there was still slavery for another ninety-odd years, give or take.

Someday I will write an essay about American mythology and how I learned it as absolute truth as a child; American history (or rather, US history) was my gateway drug to world history. I should have gone into History as my major in college; it’s entirely possible that History rather than English (or business; I switched back and forth between the two for a very long time) might have garnered an entirely different result when it came to my academic career. But I also would have had to have picked a time to specialize in, and how on earth could I have ever decided? There were so many interesting periods…although inevitably, I tend to think my metiér would have been sixteenth century Europe.

Someday–probably after I retire–I am going to write A Monstrous Regiment of Women.

Yesterday was rather lovely. I actually slept late, of all things; I cannot remember the last time that happened, and thus got a rather late start to my day. I started cleaning up around the house, and organizing things, but again–a late start kind of threw me off my game a bit, and I didn’t get near enough done that I had wanted to get done. I did read a couple of short stories for the Short Story Project, and I also read some more of Robyn Gigl’s wonderful By Way of Sorrow; that was lovely. I also listened to some Bette Midler albums on Spotify (joking on Facebook that I was doing my part to break down gay stereotypes by doing so); in particular I listened to It’s the Girls and Bette Midler, before moving on to Liza with the Cabaret soundtrack, and the little known sequel to Rocky Horror soundtrack, Shock Treatment, and then moved on to the Pet Shop Boys. I made meatballs in the slow cooker for dinner, and then we watched Fear Street 1994 (which was remarkably fun), then a few episodes of High Seas (which is really fun) and a few episodes of Happy Endings before bed.

R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike, who were hugely successful writers of young adult suspense/mystery/horror in the 1990’s, actually had an influence on me as a writer, surprisingly enough. I read most of their novels when I lived in Tampa back in the day (I actually preferred Pike, to be honest), and I actually wrote three novels–Sara, Sorceress, and Sleeping Angel–for young adults during that time. I had always intended to do the Fear Street thing–where the books were all connected somehow and minor characters in one would become the lead characters in another–and spread them across the country, as opposed to one town, as Stine had done; mine would be scattered between Kansas, California, Chicago, and Alabama (one of those ideas became Dark Tide and another Bury Me in Shadows). Then I discovered, through Paul, gay mysteries and all those ideas went into a drawer, along with those manuscripts, and I started creating Chanse and his world, and what eventually became Murder in the Rue Dauphine.

Fear Street 1994 is a lot of fun, as I said, both a mystery, a slasher film, and horror–the main romantic story is a lesbian love story, which was very cool–and it also slightly involved class differentials between the town of Shadyside (often called Shittyside) and it’s wealthier, preppy neighbor, Sunnyvale. It was a fun homage to Scream as well, and it was clever, witty, and quite a fun ride. I do recommend you watch it, if you like those kinds of movies. Nothing deep, but lots of fun, and now I can’t wait for the next part of the trilogy, which drops this Friday: Fear Street 1978.

I did try writing yesterday, without much luck, logging in less than a thousand words. But rather than despairing, as I am wont to do (Oh no! I knew I was breaking my momentum!), I chose to understand and recognize that the scene I was writing needed to be set up better–which was why it wasn’t working–and it needed more than just the cursory slide over I was giving it. I am going to open the document back up later this morning–probably after getting another load of laundry finished, and emptying the dishwasher–and scroll back a bit to start revising and getting into the story again. There really is such a thing as thinking too much about what you’re writing; that’s when the door to doubt starts to open a crack and Imposter Syndrome starts saying pssst through that open crack in the door.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a happy and safe 4th of July, Constant Reader!

I Think I’m In Love With You

Good morning, Friday, hope all is well with everyone out there in Constant Readerland, as we head into a three day weekend. HUZZAH!

I didn’t write again yesterday–I know, I know; I’m trying not to read the worst into two days of not writing back-to-back–but I did reread both “Festival of the Redeemer” and “Never Kiss a Stranger” (what’s done so far), and yes, both need revision and work and clean-up, but they also aren’t as terrible and won’t require near as much work as I might have feared (well, did fear). I got the tone and mood right, which was the most important thing in these drafts, and what I was really looking for in the rereading. I was also worried they might start too slow, or be too wordy, before the story gets underway–a worry one has with a novella; finding the right spot to start because you have more room than in a short story and thus there’s a danger of that happening. But overall, I am quite pleased with both. I am going to get back to work on “Stranger” today after work, and I am then going to spend some time with a revision of “Redeemer.” I also reread other stories in progress–notably, “The Sound of Snow Falling” and “A Dirge in the Dark”–with an eye to the repairs the stories need; I already know what I need to do to fix “This Thing of Darkness,” which is an odd story and will undoubtedly need to go into the next short story collection as no one will likely publish it. I am going to try to get the other two submitted to magazines for publication; wish me luck with that, and then next week I am going to try to get back to work on Chlorine again, with a goal of finishing a very rough first draft by the end of the month–it may bleed over into August, which is also fine.

I also spent some time with Daphne du Maurier’s Echoes from the Macabre after I finished reading my own stuff, and Jesus, was she good. “Don’t Look Now” remains one of my favorite all time short stories; the tone and voice she managed to get into her work was so extraordinary and exceptional…and distinct; I don’t think I’ve ever read anyone who managed to have such a powerful authorial voice that was so easily identifiable yet managed to change enough from book to book and from story to story to ring authentic to her characters; the main characters in Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel are so incredibly distinct and different, yet you know without doubt you are reading du Maurier.

God, I need to make time to read. The books are piling up and Shawn Cosby’s Razorblade Tears will be arriving next week.

We finished watching Line of Duty last night and yes, the series finale was a little bit underwhelming. I get why it ended the way it did–every season was kind of unsatisfying at the end–and the end of the series was definitely in line with the tone and mood the show had set from the very beginning…the acting and writing remained en pointe as well, but yeah, I too was left feeling a bit saddened and disappointed. But most of all, disappointed that there won’t be more. We really enjoyed the show every step of the way, and hate to say goodbye to it. But Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, and Outer Banks will all be dropping new seasons this month, so huzzah for that!

Today I will be doing data entry for most of the day, and then it’s three day weekend time. I also spent some time last night cleaning and organizing and trying to get filing done–it’s not finished, but my work space doesn’t look as horrendous as it did yesterday morning. My primary project for this weekend is to do something with my workspace to open it up and make it more roomy rather than the tightly packed cozy thing I’ve had going on for so long. While it certainly has never affected my productivity, some of this stuff needs to go–and I really need to clean out my file cabinet, which is an odious chore I’ve put off for YEARS.

Oh! They fixed the air yesterday, so the upstairs and downstairs now are at the same temperature. It felt weird coming downstairs this morning…it’s felt like entering a meat locker for weeks, and today it’s temperate–could be adjusted down a little bit, because it’s humid outside and the air feels heavy in here this morning, which isn’t good.

I made jambalaya last night, too–I’d been hankering for some lately, and so the other day when I was making groceries I bought some turkey sausage and a box of Zatarain’s (which is excellent when you’re not in the mood to make it from scratch, which I knew I wouldn’t be. I have an excellent from scratch recipe from the Louisiana cookbook Can Your Mama Make a Roux?), but as I said, yeah, not in the mood. I cut up the sausage and sautéed it in olive oil, and then added it with the Zatarain’s and it turned out quite marvelously. I had two bowls, if that tells you anything.

And why have I not used jambalaya in a Scotty title? Seriously, falling down on my Louisiana job, aren’t I?

Okay, that data isn’t going to enter itself. Catch you in the morning, Constant Reader!

Rhythm of the Night

And now it’s Thursday, and a work at home day–the first of my two of the week, followed by a three day weekend HUZZAH!

I didn’t write last night–I wanted to get phô and a spring roll from Lilly’s Cafe, and a chicken banh mih for Paul, but alas, they are closed until July 9th for summer break, so it will have to wait until next weekend. It was a bummer, of course, but it was also a remarkably cool early evening for June/almost July in New Orleans, so I walked around Magazine Street in my neighborhood to look at how things have changed since the last time I walked around Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District–taking pictures for Instagram, natch–and by the time I got home (not sweaty, I might add), I decided to take the evening off from writing. I’ve been on a roll lately, and while there is something to be said for maintaining momentum when it’s going, there’s also something to be said for letting your batteries recharge for a day or so. I want to get a lot of writing done over this holiday weekend, and I thought it would be best to take an evening off. I was also in a remarkably good mood, so I also had a martini last night while watching television before bed, and slept really well. Coincidence? Perhaps, but I also like martinis so I may have another one tonight.

We continue to watch High Seas, whose second season got off to a rather interesting start–apparently now the ship is haunted, and they picked up survivors from another ship that sank, one of whom is apparently a psychic unironically named Casandra–but it’s so entertaining I kind of hope the Barbara de Braganza never docks in Rio, frankly. The kids at work were watching a show on Netflix this week in their community space called Happy Endings, which looked rather funny, and so we gave it a whirl last night and it was funny. It apparently ran for three seasons on network television in the early part of the last decade, but I’d never heard of it, and as Paul pointed out, even as early as when this aired (2012) we had already moved on to bingeing shows–we may have been watching DVD’s from Netflix (remember that?), but we weren’t really watching anything regularly from week to week, except on Sundays, when we would watch The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones (I still miss that show, and really need to get back to reading the books at some point…maybe when he publishes the next one? Ha ha ha ha! I’ll probably be dead before that happens.)

Looking around at the office/kitchen this morning, it really is amazing at how big of a mess I can let this place become during my three-days-at-the-office; how awful did it get when I went to work five days a week? The mind reels…but I also used to work two half-days and one day I didn’t go in until eleven thirty; so I had late afternoons and mornings most of the week to repair it gradually to order for the two twelve-hour days I used to work (which seems completely unbelievable to me now; how the hell did I ever have the energy and wherewithal to get up at six and work twelve hours two days in a row? JFC, where did that energy go?). I certainly don’t think I’ll be able to go back to that work schedule again, frankly. While I am not overly fond of the three get up before dawn work days, I do like getting home in the late afternoon/early evening; and that has proven to be a good time for me to get to the gym as well as write. I was thinking yesterday–part of the reason I decided to take the night off from writing last night–that I’ve actually written in excess of thirty-five thousand words in slightly less than three weeks, which is actually kind of impressive, and if I am able to keep going at that pace, think of everything I can get done the rest of this year…

But I am also smart enough to know that’s probably not very likely. There will be fallow days when words won’t come no matter how much I try to write them; days when I’ll be too tired; days when I will just be flat out too lazy to do any work of any kind. Again: be kinder to yourself and don’t push too hard.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines I go! Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader!

I Am What I Am

Wednesday morning and I am I ever glad to be getting closer to a holiday weekend, Constant Reader–you have NO idea. The last two days weren’t easy–while not really having insomnia all night, I did for at least half the night both Sunday and Monday nights–and as such wasn’t able to remain centered as much as I would have liked. I did sleep deeply, restfully and well last night–I think making it to the gym was a huge help in that regard–and I certainly feel much better this morning than I have since the break I’ve had to take because of the tooth extraction. Heavy sigh.

I did, however, manage to write just under three thousand words last night on “Never Kiss a Stranger,” more or less (slightly less, I actually think). While it feels good to be writing so much, and doing so much on first drafts, I am very well aware that all of these things I am working on will require editing and revision before they are fit for human consumption, or to be seen by anyone else outside of me. But I am being productive again in the old way–the way I used to be–and it’s a lovely lovely feeling to be able to produce so much work in a few hours again. “Stranger” is going to need more work than “Festival of the Redeemer,” I believe; it’s out of order and I am bunching things together that need to be spread out more across the story, but that’s what edits and revisions are for. I’m also not breaking my novellas up into separate scenes, or chapters, the way so many writers of novellas do; but that’s a decision for me to make later, during the editorial process.

This, by the way, is why I hate editing myself. Inevitably I will come to a problem section and think, fuck, I don’t want to fix this it’s going to be a huge pain in the ass why did I leave this for my later self to deal with, you asshole?

It’s also why, I think, I’ve not been as productive in the last few years as I used to be; I have a tendency to self-edit as I go and try not to spend any time writing something that I am going to have to fix later, which is stupid–don’t get it right get it written. This inevitably leads me to not wanting to do what always works–start writing and eventually, as I keep quoting Mr. King, the hole in the page will open and the next thing I know I’ve written a lot. And as much of a pain in the ass as it can be to have to fix things, it’s easier to fix things than to write something completely new. Although…maybe that isn’t the case? Since all I have to do is focus and start writing?

Heavy sigh. But I want to get this finished because I want to spend the weekend editing.

Tonight when I get off work I am going to put the dishes away and finish the load of laundry I started last night–it’s been sitting in the dryer since I went to bed last night, and so it will need to be fluffed and folded–and then I am going to try to do some straightening up around the Lost Apartment so it won’t be a complete disaster when I get up tomorrow for the first of my work-at-home days (condom packs and data entry! woo-hoo!). I also have to make a Costco list for this weekend, and I want to finish reading Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow so I can start PJ Vernon’s Bath Haus…I also want to get back to the Short Story Project; I want to reread some of Daphne du Maurier’s short storie–“Don’t Look Now” in particular, and I also want to start some organizing of this essay collection I am thinking of doing…sigh. This is, you see, why I think I am lazy. I always want to get so much more done than I am actually capable of doing, and as a result when I cannot get it all done I think it’s because I am lazy and took some time off or goofed off for a while, and never can recognize or accept that DOWN TIME IS NECESSARY.

I really need to stop beating myself up over taking down time. It is self-defeating, and leads to other mental health issues, always.

And one of my goals for the year was to be kinder to myself, so I need to stop beating myself up over this kind of stuff and always remember: it is what it is.

It is what it is.

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

You Can’t Hurry Love

So, yesterday I found the only copy of my essay “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet” from Love Bourbon Street that I have as an electronic Word file…it was the one with all the formatting instructions for the typesetter (back in the days when you had to do that) so I spent somewhere between a half hour and an hour going through it and removing all those things. I was also reading it as I went (it’s a pretty good essay, really) and it reminded me of a lot of things–what it was like in those days when we fled the onslaught of Katrina and how it felt to witness the death of the city on television; the anger from the heartlessness of so many Americans (especially from the right); and my time while gone and then the return and the beginning of cleaning up and rebuilding. It’s hard to believe it was sixteen years ago almost…rereading it didn’t make me sad, really; so much time has passed and sure, watching documentaries and news footage from back then can upset me still, but…now it almost seems, like so much of my life and my past, like it happened to someone else.

I do have a lot of essays on hand, actually; looking through the files was rather eye-opening.

I also did about thirteen hundred words on “Never Kiss a Stranger” last night, which is starting to shape up nicely. The voice of the main character is falling into place, which is really nice, and the story is beginning to fall into place. It’s sitting at just over 7200 words right now, give or take, and I am glad I am finally getting this story written. It’s been rattling around inside my head now for about fourteen or so years now–which just goes to show, I always will eventually get around to writing things–as long as I know that I don’t need to strive so hard to get it right the first time; a lesson I have to keep learning over and over again. I hope I can get it finished by the long weekend–which I am really looking forward to, to be honest. Not sure why I am so all about this long weekend, either–but I need to get some things done and regular weekends never seem to be long enough to me, you know? I am all about the four day work week, too. Would the economy come to a screeching halt if that was implemented? I think not.

We’re watching a Spanish show called High Seas–murder and intrigue on an ocean liner sailing from Spain to Rio de Janeiro at some indeterminate time in the 1940’s; I am assuming it’s post-war because there are no concerns about the war nor about the ship being torpedoed. The costumes and sets are gorgeous, and it has very high production values–and there’s so much going on! Villains and secrets and skullduggery abound–this is no Love Boat, that’s for sure.

Tonight after work I have to stop by the library and then make it to the gym again. I’ve been out of the gym now since last Tuesday–another week–and so I am going to try to ease my way back into it tonight with two sets of everything, increasing to three on Thursday, with the possibility of adding more weights into the mix on Sunday. I am way behind on my workout schedule–I had hoped to be to doing different body parts per workout by June, and now it’s almost July and I am still not there yet–but my body still feels a lot better than it did last year when I wasn’t working out as much, and certainly better than in any year prior to that. Sixty is rushing towards me now–SIXTY, and while I definitely never thought i would make it this far, here I am.

One of the essays I found was that “Letter to My Younger Self” thing I did years ago for a blog post for somewhere, I don’t remember where…I had forgotten about it completely, was reminded about it while I was in Italy at almost the last minute, and so I wrote it on the train from Florence to Venice and hit send just as the train started crossing the lagoon bridge to the station in Venice, and promptly forgot about it. (Or did I write it on the train back from Venice to Florence the next day? Oh, shoddy memory….but I do think I turned it on the way to Venice, because I think I remember that it was posted while we were in Venice, and the following day on the train was when it went as viral as anything I’ve ever done has–lots of shares and likes and comments all over social media…it was very overwhelming! And kind of cool to enjoy it while in Italy.) I had completely forgotten about its existence until yesterday when going through my files…so that will be kind of fun to revisit. I was also a bit concerned that there seems to be overlap in various essays with others–the Gregalicious tendency to repeat himself will always inevitably show up in my work…and then again so much of it is dated…but I want to review everything, hopefully this weekend, to get a clearer understanding of what I have on hand, what new material is necessary, and what needs to be fixed.

So, I will most likely be too tired after the gym tonight to read–we’ll probably both simply repair to our respective television perches and watch High Seas anyway–but hopefully I will have some time to get some more work on the novella in.

Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!

Million Dollar Bill

STOP THE PRESSES!

I have named the next Scotty book, so now it seems real to me.

Rather than the working sort-of title I had given it, it is now Mississippi River Mischief, rather than Mississippi River Bottom. I still giggle at the latter, but the former actually fits the series alliteration I have always gone for. I will probably work on it this fall, with a goal towards finishing it by the end of the year. We’ll see how that goes, though, won’t we?

And of course, this picture of Joe Jonas doing the splits would have made an amazing cover image for Mississippi River Bottom, wouldn’t it?

Ha! Yes, I always manage to somehow always amuse myself.

I knew when I was talking about sleeping well yesterday I was talking too soon–as I was talking about it, that little voice in my head was saying you’re going to jinx this, and of course, I dismissed it–so of course last night I had insomnia again. My bod relaxed but my brain never turned off–I am chalking this up to two things: not writing as much yesterday as I had wanted to, and I fell asleep in my chair yesterday afternoon. I slept really well Saturday night, and could have slept all morning yesterday had I chosen to, but I wanted to get up and get things done. I did get some things done–I revised the first chapter of Chlorine, like I wanted to, and I also read some more of By Way of Sorrow, which I am really enjoying–but while I was reading I started getting sleepy, and of course Scooter got into my lap and fell asleep. His superpower is putting us to sleep by cuddling, and it worked again yesterday afternoon. I think I went out for nearly two hours…and then of course, I wasn’t tired anymore. So, because of the nap I didn’t get done all I wanted to get done–and then we watched our television shows, I made dinner, and we watched the gymnastics Olympic trials.

And yesterday morning I did some things, too. I found a copy of my old essay “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet,” which appeared in Love, Bourbon Street, as a first step towards putting together an essay collection. My friend Mike told me that my blog post from the other day about the first openly gay guy I ever knew was a lovely essay, and I should expend it a bit. I mentioned I wanted to do an essay collection, and he was encouraging–he always is, we commiserate about this insane business together all the time–and so I thought I’d look to see if I had an electronic copy of the essay. Considering its length, it would account for a third or a quarter of a collection, and I was definitely not in the mood to retype it from the book, as the case may be. Now I am going to see what else I have on hand–I’ve written a lot of essays over the years, being published here and there, and maybe start getting that all pulled together. There are also several others I’ve started but never finished because–well, because there wasn’t a place to publish them. I also want to start pulling together the material for my next short story collection–what can I say? I am feeling rather ambitious–which would also mean editing some of the unpublished ones I have on hand and maybe writing some more. While all this work I am thinking about is daunting, it’s not overwhelming–which is a positive step in the right direction, I think.

Not to mention having the Scotty title worked out means the book finally feels real to me, which means I will probably begin working on it in earnest.

This week, I want to do the above as well as work some more on “Never Kiss a Stranger,” get the second chapter of Chlorine finished, and of course the edits for Bury Me in Shadows are going to drop at any moment. This coming weekend is a holiday; so I have two work-at-home days before a three day weekend and then another short week next wee, which is always a lovely combination–so there’s no reason I cannot get a lot of this done. I want to finish reading By Way of Sorrow so I can get into PJ Vernon’s Bath Haus…which I am really looking forward to…and we need to find some things to watch this week because we’re all caught up on everything.

I am hoping the holiday weekend will be highly productive.

I also need to do one more pass at #shedeservedit; I’m being lazy about it, which is to be expected, of course–I am always lazy when I think I can get away with it, which is most of the time which then creates anxiety, stress and pressure when I need to buckle down and get caught up–but for now, at least, the plan is to finish “Never Kiss a Stranger” in a first draft this week, spend the rest of July on the first draft of Chlorine, and then spend August revising novellas and the final pass at #shedeservedit; then doing a heavy edit/revise of Chlorine in September before spending the final third of the year writing Mississippi River Mischief. The end goal for the year would be to have, next year, #shedeservedit released in January, and turn in three books–the short story collection, the essay collection, and the new Scotty–at the end of the year so they could possibly be staggered into release throughout the fall.

We’ll see if I can meet those goals, shan’t we?

And now off to the spice mines. Have a happy Monday, everyone.

Make It Happen

Sunday morning after a fabulous night’s sleep, and I feel great! I actually stayed in bed until past eight–I got up at six and again at seven, but felt so relaxed and rested and the bed felt so comfortable I chose to remain there and keep resting. I don’t remember any dreams from last night, either–which is also delightful.

Yesterday was a very good day in Gregalicious-town. I managed to write somewhere around 3500 words, finishing the first draft of “The Sound of Snow Falling”, got some serious cleaning done around here (there’s more to do today, as there always is more to do), and then last evening we went to see our friends Pat and Michael in Riverbend, and got to hang out on their terrace (it’s too high up, really, to be considered a balcony) for several hours getting caught up. We hadn’t seen them for quite some time–even before COVID started–and I’ve missed them terribly. It was lovely talking to them and hanging out–I haven’t laughed that hard and often in I don’t know how long–and came home feeling quite good about anything and everything.

There’s really nothing like good friends, is there?

And I have so many of them. #trulyblessed #Ilovemylife

There’s still some slight pain from the empty tooth socket, but I am not too terribly concerned about it. I know it’s not dry-socket, which is always the big fear with tooth removal, and I have my mellow prescription pain pills if it becomes too much to deal with–which I doubt–and am really looking forward to getting back to solid food sooner than later. I probably should make a grocery run today–it’s not completely necessary, but it never hurts to stay ahead on things–and since I am out of the gym until Tuesday evening, it won’t hurt to get out of the house for a little while.

Today I want to revise the first chapter of Chlorine and perhaps start working on another novella–I can’t decide if I want to work on “A Holler Full of Kudzu” or “Never Kiss a Stranger”; I’ll probably decide once I actually start getting to it. I also want to reread duMaurier’s “Don’t Look Now'” this week, as well as get back into my reading–I don’t feel quite as stressed out about writing as I was a while back, so taking time out to read every Sunday doesn’t seem like too much of a distraction from writing any more.. This probably also has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve been getting so much writing done lately…I’m not as worried about the hole in the page opening and me falling in as I used to be (thank you, Stephen King, for that analogy, from Misery). I also want to do some more cleaning and organizing at some point during the day as well…and maybe, just maybe, get some editing done this week. I definitely need to make a to-do list this morning for this week, which also includes ye olde email inbox, which is truly daunting.

Mmmmmmm, my coffee is good this morning.

So, overall, a lovely Sunday morning for one Gregalicious; since I can’t go to the gym today, perhaps I’ll go for a walk later this afternoon. We shall see how it all plays out, shan’t we?

It’s lovely to be feeling so good these days, frankly. I don’t know if it’s the COVID-potentially-be-over thing, or what, but I’ve been feeling good for quite some time and hope that I can keep a positive outlook going forward. I know a lot of that has to do with me being able to sleep every night; the insomnia is such the first domino to fall in the misery sweepstakes, but again, it’s lovely to be able to sleep, to be writing again, to have energy again, and to be able to look at things in a positive light again. I always forget how important it is to stay focused on being positive; at finding the good inside the bad–which isn’t always easy–which was part of the life change I went through at thirty-three back in the day in 1994 when I started righting the ship of my life and starting to go for the things I wanted out of life. One can choose misery or joy; I try to always choose joy.

And yes, I am aware of how that may sound; how goody-goody two shoes it can come across. But as Scotty always says, life doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle–it’s how you handle it that matters.

I am really looking forward to getting back into writing about Scotty again, to be honest. It’s always fun to spend time in his world.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

The Only Way Is Up

I survived the tooth extraction! I am debating whether i want to take some of the painkillers this morning–they didn’t give me anything addicting; prescription strength Tylenol and ibuprofen only, but they made me sleepy and zone in and out all day after I got home, which made yesterday a productivity bust. But my word, how well I slept last night! I do feel pretty amazing this morning–even though I can’t go to the gym again until Monday at the earliest and no solid foods till then either; which means a steady diets of soups, yogurts and protein shakes, which are filling but not satisfying in the least–so I am hoping to get a lot done this morning. We’re going to go visit Pat and Michael this evening–we haven’t seen them since pre-pandemic–and I am very excited about that as well.

So, the plan for today is to write and read and clean and edit–the usual Saturday fare–and we’ll see how that goes. There are two blog entries I’ve begun and not finished; one talking about the first openly gay guy I ever met, and the other about Superman and Lois–so I am hoping to get those written this morning as well. The kitchen has totally slid since I cleaned it Thursday night after work, and so I am going to be doing dishes and organizing and vacuuming this morning around my cleaning (and answering of emails). I want to revisit “Festival of the Redeemer” this weekend, and try to get a first draft of “The Sound of Snow Falling” finished this weekend as well as trying to revise the first chapter of Chlorine. I also have some other in-progress story drafts open on the laptop–one called “Beauty Sleep,” which stalled because i had the opening idea and the title but don’t know where to take it from there, and I think I’m just going to try to write my way out of it. I also want to spend some time pulling what I have available for the next short story collection (This Town and Other Stories) together.

An ambitious plan, to be sure.

I tried watching Camelot yesterday on HBO MAX, and was soon bored of it. It’s simply not a good film–and Franco Nero’s almost unintelligible, heavily accented English would have been fine had the dubbing of his singing also been accented. I saw this movie in the theater when I was a kid–my grandmother took me and my sister to see it at the Colony in Chicago–and LOVED it, but have never seen it since. Maybe it would be better on the big screen–it was letterboxed, so it was meant to be seen that way–but on my big screen television, the magic was lost. It was from that period after movie musicals like West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music–lavish, enormous spectacles–did huge box office and won lots of Oscars; unfortunately, it also led to expensive gambles–like Camelot, Paint Your Wagon, Dr. Dolittle, and Sweet Charity–that were massive failures (Mark Harris does a great job exploring this phenomenon in his marvelous Pictures at a Revolution; he writes wonderful books about the film industry and I hope there will be a new one soon) that bankrupted studios and eventually ended the movie musical genre (with a few notable exceptions, like Cabaret) for a good long while, which changed the movie industry as well. (hey, Mark–why don’t you write about how the summer spectacle film, beginning with Jaws, also changed the industry by moving it away from the gritty realism and cynicism of the 1970’s? Just a thought).

Okay, I took some painkillers. I don’t know if it was actually pain or discomfort I was feeling, but regardless–there was no need for either when I had pills on hand to take care of it.

I am all about better living through chemistry, and they gave me quite a supply, so I have to assume the mentality is for me to use them as needed–which is what both bottles say anyway.

We watched this week’s Line of Duty–there’s only one more episode, the series finale–and enjoyed it, before switching over to the US Gymnastics Olympic trials. I was drifting in and out of sleep through both, so when they were over, I went to bed–at shortly after nine! And had a great night’s sleep, I might add. We also have this week’s episodes of Physical–which is great, if you’re not watching–and Lisey’s Story–also great–to get caught up on this evening after we get home from Pat and Michael’s. We also want to watch a movie on Disney–Freaky, a riff on Freaky Friday in which a spree killer and a teenage cheerleader switch bodies, which could be either hilarious or awful–and I will probably go to bed early this evening as well. My body is starting to adapt to getting up at six three days a week, and I am not sure if I like it or not. I woke up at 6:30 yesterday morning–imagine my shock to discover, around eleven, that it was only eleven…but I used to always get a lot of work done before noon in the olden days, so maybe this is a return to my old productivity? Maybe NOT getting up early every day was the change that shifted everything?

The jury is still out, and you will, of course, be updated with regularity on this situation as it develops, Constant Reader.

And now, to the spice mines.