Category: editing

Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing

And in one of those weird things, today is Wednesday but it’s also my Friday. What the hell, right? It’s also Pay the Bills Day, and tomorrow is a holiday and a four day weekend starts and I am feeling a bit groggy this morning. I slept well last night, and haven’t completely woken up yet.

I did manage to go to the gym on the way home from work; and all afternoon I was trying to talk myself out of going. I was tired, I wanted to just go home, and so on and on and on. Even after I picked up the mail in my workout attire, I was talking myself out of it all the way there, and finally just went and got it over with. It felt great, as exercise always does, and I was still energized when I got home (thank you, endorphins) so I got started on laundry and the dishes and made some progress on the book, too. But this morning I have muscle fatigue from the gym, which is what I was mistaking as not being completely awake yet. I am , but the muscles are tired and that’s what I am experiencing this morning. But I feel better physically this morning than I have in a long time. I am going to go tomorrow and do some other, non-rehab exercises for other body parts (although anything to do with the upper body involves the left biceps and shoulder), and then go back to rehab on Saturday. Also, the working out helps me sleep better, too. Now that my mind has been aroused by my morning coffee, I feel terrific–rested and alert and everything. Maybe today will be a really good day; one never knows, does one?

I am going to stop on the way home from work to get some things to cookout tomorrow–it is the 4th, after all; barbecuing is practically de rigeur at this point–and maybe pick up some cheesecake or some kind of “treat” for us this weekend. I do think tomorrow will be my “don’t write” day; in which I just read and clean all day and not worry about getting any writing done. I’ll do some planning, of course–I sort of finished Chapter Three yesterday, but I am going to go over it again because I was skipping things that need to be there because I actually wasn’t in the mood to write them (including a sex scene). The book will need a significant revision when this first draft is finished, but I am not going to worry about that now (although future Greg will be shaking his fist and threatening past Greg, I am sure). I also need to work on some short stories, too; I finally realized over this past weekend how to fix one that’s been turned down by everyone–the story I wrote for the Minneapolis Bouchercon anthology, “The Sound of Snow Falling”– because it doesn’t work; the trigger for the murder isn’t really there. So I need to do another revision of that and make it even nastier than it was; and then I can throw it into my short story collection. Sometimes I can’t see the forest for the trees.

Tree BASTARDS!

We’re watching the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders documentary on Netflix, and we really got sucked into it again. Years and years ago, somehow we discovered Making the Team, a reality series about going from try outs to the first performance of the year. It was so insane and crazy and wild, and we were just fascinated to see these beautiful young women with these extraordinary bodies getting body shamed or told they need a makeover and so on and so forth. The documentary is very similar to the old series (maybe this is Netflix’s way of relaunching the show, who knows?) but it’s a little more in-depth than the show was. The whole thing–being a part of the “team”–is very beauty pageant/sorority like; this is not a reality show where you’re going to see women fighting and arguing and throwing drinks at each other (that would be unseemly for a DCC team member) so if you’re looking for conflict, it’s going to come from watching these women not achieve their dream–which isn’t fun because you do feel sorry for them…while wondering “wow.” Some of them have been dreaming of this since they were little girls…I guess it’s the same as having a professional sports dream? It does make me think whenever I watch–the really interesting ones are the ones whose mothers were also DCC, so it’s a “family legacy.”

My friend Laura says there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure as one should never feel guilt about something you enjoy, but I do always feel a bit guilty watching these girls because they are really very sweet, and I think it’s great they are chasing their dreams. I guess the real guilt is that I feel like this is a very low bar as far as goals would go, but who am I to decide whose dreams are good and whose are bad? Just because I cannot imagine having that be my life goal doesn’t mean I should diminish or demean those who do.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines and get this day a going. I may be back later–you never can be entirely sure what I am up to these days! Have a lovely 3rd, everyone!

I Remember Mama

A number of years ago a friend–another writer–emailed me to ask if I would write a noir short story for an anthology she was pulling together with a another author, with a focus on noir in hot climates (Scandinavian noir was the “hot” thing in crime publishing at the time) that would be called Sunshine Noir, and since I lived in New Orleans, she knew I could write something dark and nasty despite the sunshine and heat.

The result was a story named “Housecleaning,” and it was also included in my collection Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. I was delighted to hear recently from wonderful Barb Goffman that she wanted to make it her “Selection” for Black Cat Weekly’s issue 148, and of course said BY ALL MEANS!!!!

And it just dropped this week.

The smell of bleach always reminded him of his mother.

It was probably one of the reasons he rarely used it, he thought, as he filled the blue plastic bucket with hot water from the kitchen tap. His mother had used it for practically everything. Everywhere she’d lived had always smelled slightly like bleach. She was always cleaning. He had so many memories of his mother cleaning something: steam rising from hot water pouring from the sink spigot; the sound of brush bristles as she scrubbed the floor (“Mops only move the dirt around. Good in a pinch but not for real cleaning.”); folding laundry scented by Downy; washing the dishes by hand before running them through the dishwasher (“It doesn’t wash the dishes clean enough. It’s only good for sterilization.”); running the vacuum cleaner over carpets and underneath the cushions on the couch.

In her world, dirt and germs were everywhere, and constant vigilance was the only solution. She judged people by how slovenly they looked or how messy their yards were or how filthy their houses were. He remembered one time—when they were living in the apartment in Wichita—watching her struggle at a neighbor’s to not say anything as they sat in a living room that hadn’t been cleaned or straightened in a while, the way her fingers absently wiped away dust on the side table as she smiled and made conversation, the nerve in her cheek jumping, the veins and chords in her neck trying to burst through her olive skin, her voice strained but still polite.

When the tea was finished, and the cookies just crumbs on a dirty plate with what looked like egg yolk dried onto its side, she couldn’t get the two of them out of there fast enough. Once back in the sterile safety of their own apartment, she’d taken a long, hot shower—and made him do the same. They’d never gone back there, the neighbor woman’s future friendliness rebuffed politely yet firmly, until they’d finally moved away again.

“People who keep slovenly homes are lazy and cannot be trusted,” she’d told him after refusing the woman’s invitation a second time. “A sloppy house means a sloppy soul.”

I’d written the first line long before I had a need for a story; I wrote it down in my journal with the title HOUSECLEANING underlined twice for further emphasis. In one of those great moments of serendipity, I had just been paging through that journal earlier that same morning and after I finished reading the email, I thought, “I’ll write ‘Housecleaning’ for this.” I literally opened a new Word document, wrote the title in all caps, hit return and typed The scent of bleach always reminded him of his mother.

And surprisingly, I was able to just keep going.

The funny thing is now I remember what triggered the initial note in the journal–I actually had that very same thought as I was filling a bucket in the sink with hot water and bleach. I poured the bleach into the water, smelled it, and thought of my mom. I then laughed and scribbled the sentence–and title–down because I rightly thought it was a great title and a great opening line. I used to always joke about my mom that she made Joan Crawford look like a slob, and it was true. Her house was always spotless. Her kitchen floor was cleaner than most people’s dishes. Her refrigerator and cabinets were organized to within an inch of their lives and she could put her hand on anything in the house within two minutes without even having to stop to think. She cleaned the house every day. I think I’ve told the story of the coffee spoons before? If you know this story, feel free to skip ahead.

Mom and Dad always drank their coffee black (she used to put milk in hers when I was a kid, but she stopped at some point) and I’ve always sweetened mine and put creamer in it. So, I need a spoon to stir it. At home, I have a spoon rest where I keep my coffee spoon so I can keep reusing it. Mom didn’t need one, so no spoon rest. Every time I’d get a cup of coffee when I was visiting once, I had to get another spoon because the one I’d just used had disappeared out of the sink. It took me another cup to realize she was washing the spoon I just used and put it in the dishwasher. I had already gone through three spoons before I caught on and kept it with me.

No one was ever going to drop in on my mother and find a dirty house. She took that seriously.

Obviously, my mother was vastly and dramatically different from the mother in this story. (I’ve always been reluctant to say my mother inspired the story for obvious reasons, but she did.)

The odd thing about this story was that I wrote it almost all in free form, with no real certainty where it was going to go, so it kind of was written organically; I didn’t put any thought into it and just started typing from that opening line, and the story came to me as I wrote it. It was messy in its first draft, but I worked on it and cleaned it up and cut out some excess, and I ended up very pleased with the story. The premise–that the main character is remembering his past growing up with his mother while doing a chore–I think really worked; even though the story is almost entirely about the past, there’s some present-day involvement that become increasingly clear as the story goes on.

Thanks again to my original friend for getting me to write the story in the first place (thank you, Annamaria Alfieri!) and for Barb for bringing it to Black Cat Weekly. And if you want to read it–and the other good stuff in the issue–you can order it here.

(I’ve Been) Searching So Long

Sunday morning and I slept late. I’ve been off both days this weekend, not really sure what that’s about…but this morning when I saw the clock and the time, I remembered that either yesterday or Friday, I was confused about taking my daily pills and I may have taken them twice…and a double dose for one day of my daytime anti-anxiety medication definitely would have led to exhaustion. Lesson learned. I am usually a lot more careful about these things, and so I need to better about paying attention.

I was sleepy for most of the day yesterday. I ran errands and came home, and then started working on things again, which was terrific. I had low energy, obviously, but I cleaned out the two remaining file boxes in the living room, thus clearing out the corner where the boxes stood, and which will now be taken up by the vacuum cleaner and the crate of Sparky toys, which opens up the living room still further. I started clearing books out of the laundry room and am on pace to get that shelf emptied and used for pantry items. This overhaul of the downstairs will obviously continue Thursday as I begin my four day weekend. I also managed to finish reading Horror Movie yesterday, which was sublime and wonderful, and started John Copenhaver’s Hall of Mirrors, between breaks so I could rest. I took a lot of those breaks, I might add–and during several of them I started to fall asleep. I did nap for about half an hour in the late afternoon, which is weird–and today I still feel a bit sleepy. All I need to do outside today is go to the gym and make a very quick grocery run, and then I get to come home and hopefully shower and get some writing done. Stranger things have happened, you know.

But the house is a mess and I am working very hard not to chastise myself for the way I left the apartment looking when i went to bed last night, barely able to stagger up the stairs. It won’t take long, really–the majority of the mess in the living room is the donation pile, which simply needs to be stacked properly and loaded into boxes. Likewise the kitchen won’t take long to look orderly again, either. There’s a lot of stuff to be put away for sure in the kitchen, and I’m not done with the laundry room, either–but it’s not a priority and can wait until the holiday weekend if necessary.

Sigh. I’m also very behind on my Pride Posts, which will defiantly continue to run through the Independence Day holiday weekend as I celebrate queer independence, and pray for our gains not to be lost to the current joke of a Supreme Court. I will never forgive anyone involved in “but her emails” or “benghazi” or anything else that smeared and slandered the most qualified candidate for president in decades so we could get fascism instead. Thanks, privileged white liberals for thinking she was corrupt or too shrill or not charismatic enough. And don’t think I won’t keep bringing that up until we’ve survived (if we survive) this election. We lost Roe v. Wade in no small part because that arrogant, narcissistic Hollywood she-bitch sneered on national television that she “don’t vote with (my) vagina.”

I hope to either spit in her skank face or piss on her grave before I die, and thank you again for making any number of films I enjoy unwatchable again because all I think about when I see her face or hear her voice is “we lost our rights because you’re an arrogant bitch who thinks she is a political expert when the truth is you don’t know jackshit and learned NOTHING from the 2000 election when you helped elected Bush.”

There’s a direct line from her performative progressivism to every justice who overturned Roe. I wish someone would bring up Nader to her in an interview. 2016 was a repeat performance of 2000. And for the record, she is not an ally. AOC is, and understands how to get things done and has evolved and learned how to work for progressive causes in Congress. She is an actual hero.

And my inability to write my Pride Post about The Rocky Horror Picture Show is because I don’t want to mention her or use any of her images, which is difficult.

Hurricane Beryl apparently is now a Category 3, with the potential for becoming a 4 once it enters the Caribbean, which is rather early maybe for a storm this size, which doesn’t bode well when we’re kicking off the season and the B storm will come ashore as a 4. It looks like the most likely path means a Yucatan landfall before crossing the Gulf again to come ashore close to the Mexico/Texas border. There are also two other potential storms out there, one in the Gulf (what if Beryl consumes this one? YIKES) and one out in the Atlantic. I guess I need to start looking into hurricane supplies and get the house stocked up again.

Okay, that’s NOT helping, so I think I should head into the spice mines for now. I am going to eat something and start working on this mess while writing another entry. I may also be back later, since one never knows what I will be doing at any given time.

Daydream Believer

Ah, Saturday morning. I have to make a brief errand run today, nothing major or horribly annoying, but it still means going outside. Tomorrow….tomorrow I am not leaving the house. We did all our errands last night, including a Costco run (we made it out for less than $300! It’s been years), and then we just hung out and watched television–the gymnastics Olympic team trials–and called it a night relatively early. I also managed to get some things done around the house, too–the bed linens laundered, the dishes put away and another load washed, cleaning up the kitchen–and was in a pretty good mood almost the entire day. I realized something else, too; I also bought the new car and took on all that additional monthly expense right around when Mom had her first stroke, too–so there was the Mom subconscious worry on top of monetary stress; something I hadn’t experienced in a very long time and I. Did. Not. Like. That. One. Bit. I am finally beginning to see a distant light at the end of a very long dark tunnel in that regard, but still. I don’t regret the car purchase; I am very pleased with the car and intend to hopefully keep it until I die. It’s hard to believe that I’ve had it now for almost eight years. That’s INSANE.

It was strangely cool and beautiful yesterday–granted, it was 86 degrees, but after the last few weeks it felt heavenly, and the damp in the air was cool not hot. I imagine that was the aftermath of Thursday night’s downpour, but regardless the reason it was lovely. The sun wasn’t out as much, either–there were a lot of clouds, so no endless punishing direct sunlight was also a pleasure to experience this close to the 4th. I am also going to have to keep watching Tropical Storm Beryl. Ah, hurricane season is already revving up for a long and busy summer.

I was also exhausted after we did the errands. I fell asleep in my chair for over an hour after getting back home, and the place is a mess. I was too tired when I got home from Costco (the last errand) to put everything away properly, and I’d also intended to do some work on the workspace, but…tired. I slept later this morning and feel better now that I am up and swilling coffee, but whew, it was hard to get up this morning and my joints all ached. The joys of being an elder, I suppose, but sheesh. I literally thought when I woke up (when Sparky woke me up) that I was too tired physically to get out of bed, but I got there eventually. I do have some errands to run today, but it shouldn’t take very long and then I can come back home and work on the house more. I also want to write this morning (and maybe this afternoon) and hopefully today I won’t get sidetracked or distracted.

The gymnastic trials were fun to watch; I always forget how fun it is to watch athletes trying to reach their dream goal of the Olympics–but of course the thrill of victory also carries with it the agony of defeat or worse, injury. It’s also hard for me to conceive that it’s an Olympic year and I’ve heard so very little about the Olympics (other than Parisians treating it all as a horror and inconvenience; I do sometimes think the Olympics will eventually die because they are too expensive to host) because naturally the election and the horrors that the Christofascists’ puppet SCOTUS are inflicting on our country are sucking all the energy and air out of the room.

I was too tired to make a Pride post yesterday, so I will definitely have to make up for it today by doing perhaps two? I am going to continue Pride through Independence Day, haters be damned, because Pride is about freedom and so is the 4th and therefore Pride should lead into a celebration of everyone’s freedom. And if straight people don’t like it, they can literally just fuck right off. I am so tired of being told how to behave and how to be an adult and how to “not upset the heteros” and you know what? Fuck the heteros and their delicate sensibilities. They’ve been tiptoed around and catered to more than enough, thank you very much. You know what offends me? Abused children, adultery, deadbeat dads, racism, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny. Clean up your own fucking house before you come for queers, thank you very much. But it’s easier to blame us than take any responsibility for the messy world you’ve created, isn’t it?

And may no one else ever have to fear about their rights every election cycle–although SCOTUS has already delegitimized itself and we know they are coming for marriage equality at some point, too–and sooner than we think. And just remember–there is no divine right of Republicans to rule. How are they any different from the Jacobean Stuart kings of England? Claiming a God-given right, or a “divine mandate”, to be in power is hardly a Christian thought; Jesus said very clearly (if you believe the Bible) that his kingdom was not of this world, and coerced religious conversion isn’t what the Jesus I read about and studied would have wanted for anyone. (I still don’t believe that, if Jesus were real, that he was sent here to start a new religion, but rather to teach by example what a life devoted to good works and godliness looked like.

Funny how all they care about is the Word and not the Deeds.

Well, that got feisty for a bit, didn’t it? I guess I am more awake than I gave myself credit for! I also managed to finish reading Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, which I really enjoyed (he is a masterful writer, and the language is superb). I am still digesting that book today, because it was a lot of ideas and intense creativity, which is why he’s one of my favorite writers and I am saddened to realize I am running out of his backlist to read, which means postponing reading more of him because I never want to be out of things to read by authors I really enjoy. I am planning on starting the new John Copenhaver today as well, which is exciting. I have quite a recent-release TBR pile–Kellye Garrett, Amina Akhtar, Angela Crook, Angie Kim, and Scott Carson, to name a few glittering names from the stack–and more just keep getting released every month. Sigh. I also need to do a book purge this weekend, too. Heavy heaving sigh. It never ends, does it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll definitely be checking back in with you later.

Midnight at the Oasis

…so put your camel to bed.

Work at home Friday, and I am delighted to have made it through another week, which was at the least bizarre and at most a really screwy one. Next week will be screwy, too, because of July 4th, but oh, well. I am taking the 5th off too so I can have a four-day weekend next weekend, which means more organizing and getting rid of things. I am going to do some more book pruning this weekend, and am going to dump more files, too. My end goal is to stop using the shelves in the laundry room for book storage and turn it into an overflow pantry, with extra stuff moved in there to clear out cabinets and so forth. I have some errands to run later today and more errands to run tomorrow; but I am hoping to make progress.

Paul was late getting home last night–he had meetings, and then stayed at the office during the massive thunderstorm that rolled through here last night. I didn’t get much done last night after I got home because I got very tired in the late afternoon and after getting the mail, I just basically collapsed into my easy chair and played with Sparky. Again, I couldn’t focus on reading, but I am hoping to finish Horror Movie this weekend and start Hall of Mirrors. The US Gymnastic Team Trials for the Olympics are this weekend, so we’ll be spending some time watching that, of course–I keep forgetting the Olympics are this summer–and I had another breakthrough on the new book last night, so I guess I can claim that I wrote last night–thinking and planning counts as writing, after all, and am getting a bit more excited about what I am doing with it, and the imposter syndrome seems to be taking a back seat at long last. I also have to do one more pass on that short story, which is due on Sunday.

I also need to bang out some more Pride Posts, which will finally come to an end on the 4th of July, and I have some plans and thoughts for that final post, too.

Something I just realized last night during my thinking session in my chair was that this weird nostalgia kick I’ve been on since Mom passed was naturally triggered by that (and all the conversations I’ve had with Dad about their early life together and his childhood) and of course, by the fact that I am writing two “historicals” in a row, both set in periods I lived through so I am trying to remember what it was like; how it felt to be gay in New Orleans during the early 1990s, and of course a lot of immersion into the early 1970s. I’ve already decided to set the book in 1994–the year my life actually truly began–so trying to remember what was where and what the city was like back then has also been flooding me with memories. The kids at work have also been asking questions about my life and past.

That, along with some other things I’ve been noticing lately, also has had me thinking deep thoughts. There was a social media post about becoming a daddy, and how people in my generation and the one right after…well, we didn’t really have a lot of men a lot older than me that were out in the 1990s to serve as mentors and/or guides to the community. HIV/AIDS had killed off a good number of them, leaving a void amongst the survivors without that oral history of the community being passed from generation to generation. There was a conversation about “role models” somewhere the other day, which is something I never wanted to be or ever thought I could be, and I’ve actively avoided it. Hanging out with and bonding with the Queer Crime Writers at conferences over the last few years was marvelous, and I actually started feeling like a part of the queer writing community again. That has also made me realize that while twenty years or so may have passed since my first publication–twenty-four in August, actually–I have done a lot, written a lot, and been nominated for a shit ton of awards, both queer and mainstream. (Hell, next year will be the twentieth anniversary of Katrina; which means it’s been almost as long ago as Betsy was when I started coming here) I’ve lasted a long time, if nothing else, and that longevity has to count for something, right? I don’t think I am the most prolific queer writer (I think Neil Plakcy and Mark Zubro are more prolific than I am, at least with the crime writers, anyway), but I have been around for a very long time, with minor breaks of a year or so here and there. Like it or not, I’ve become a community elder, and I intend to try to be better about helping out queer writers and lending a hand when I can.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back later on.

Be Thankful for What You’ve Got

Well, it’s Thursday AND it’s National HIV Testing Day! Know your status!

I feel good this morning, so I am back to the normal-yet-still-bizarre routine of being tired earlier in the week and being more awake later, apparently. I was tired after work yesterday, but I did do some writing (not much, really) before finishing the laundry and making dinner–shrimp fajitas, and they were amazing–and we settled in for the next episode of Presumed Innocent, in which Jake Gyllenhaal continues to shine but Rusty is such an unlikable prick that I forget that it’s gorgeous Jake I am watching and get repulsed by his behavior…but it makes sense for his character, and it’s a terrific performance. I didn’t get to read anything last night, but it’s fine. Tonight I need to clean the kitchen once I am home from work. I have lots to do at home on Friday for work, so hopefully it’ll be a productive day. Next week is of course the 4th holiday, and I did take Friday off for another four day weekend, which will be lovely.

And I get to have leftovers for lunch today! Huzzah!

One of the most fun things about being a writer is imposter syndrome. I do experience this (a lot) but it doesn’t mean I don’t have confidence in my writing or what I’m writing; what I experience is more along the lines of things like should you even be telling this story or are you sure you are structuring this book properly? ` But that’s the great thing about editing and revising; you can always restructure and move things around once you move on to the next draft. I don’t believe the story is too complicated and complex for me to write, by any means; i know I can write this and it will be a terrific book when finally finished. I love writing, and it’s lovely to be back in the weeds with something new. I’m writing again, and while all may not be right in the world, at least it feels like it is in mine.

I hope to finish reading the Tremblay novel this weekend and get started on another. I also have to revise and proof my story for that anthology deadline this Sunday–it’s been so long since I’ve submitted anything anywhere that I am not entirely sure how that will feel. But if I get rejected, I get rejected. Rejection is all part and parcel of the business, which can be very brutal on a fragile ego laced with insecurity. Why do I still have those insecurities? Why do I still need to get validation as a writer? I’ve written over forty books. But instead of looking at the shelves of my bookcase and feeling satisfaction (which I did do several times during the malaise), I tend to think about the books I’ve not finished, and feel like a failure because I started and never finished something. I am a completist, alas, and so as long as those unfinished novels still are hanging out in my files, it’s going to bother me that they aren’t finished. I particularly want to finish a horror novel I started writing in my twenties–can you believe I still think about that book? And what I originally wrote is absolutely terrible–and that’s not me being self-deprecating. I’ve always been able to write stories and come up with ideas, but the things I wrote weren’t good. I wasn’t very good at dialogue and I was prone to melodrama (the soap opera influence), but the raw ability and talent was always there–some were just able to see it while others weren’t. Rightly or wrongly, I was always able to write coherently; it might not have been good but the sentences were grammatically correct and my writer’s eye was sometimes able to spot something so true and honest and real that my stories stood out. The one thing I could always count on was writing a cohesive story or paper for any class, and I never feared writing papers.

I actually preferred essay tests to multiple choice, frankly.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Friday Eve!

The Entertainer

Wednesday!

Yesterday wasn’t the best day. I had low energy and I kept thinking it was Monday and…it wasn’t. But overall, it was an okay day, if not the best. I was tired most of the day, finished my morning coffee by ten in the morning, and just dragged the rest of the day. I did manage to write the second chapter of Never Kiss a Stranger, which felt terrific even if I wasn’t having the best day, and I stopped on my way home to get the mail and pick up a few things at the grocery store. I was too tired to read after I finished writing to do much of anything, to be honest. Paul went into the office late, he was leaving when I got home, so it was me and Sparky for the evening. But I think the chapter turned out pretty okay, overall, so I am looking forward to getting into chapter three.

As Pride Month comes to a close, I think I may keep doing my Pride Posts at least through the 4th of July. After all, it’s Independence Day, and while queers may not have all the rights and privileges of straight cisgender people yet, I don’t think celebrating Pride through Independence Day isn’t a stretch, really. Plus it will set off the MAGAts to combine Pride with the 4th–you know how “patriots” are–and now that I think about it, that’s actually a great idea for a 4th of July post–what is and isn’t patriotism. I could also finally finish that 1/6 post that I started in horror on the 7th and have never quite finished. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sick, terrified feeling I experienced following the news on 1/6/21 almost four years ago, which was very similar to how I felt on 9/11 and the days following. For far too long we’ve allowed the right to abscond with words like patriot, freedom, and liberty, as well as the flag and other symbols of our country–which matter more to the ‘patriots’ than, you know, actually people–and forced patriotism is just as meaningless here as it is in Russia or anywhere else with an oppressive government, which is what they really want here. The logic and cognitive dissonance required for them to think this way is beyond comprehension to me. But…another time.

I’m not entirely awake yet this morning, but I do feel less tired and achy and crabby as I felt yesterday morning. I think that’s a plus and a good thing, but we’ll have to see how the day goes. I only have one more day in the office this week–which is why I am so disoriented this week, and I plan on taking off the fifth for another four day weekend–and actually the coffee is also starting to hit. The shower will no doubt also be the final key to being awake today. Yay!

And that makes sense, as I’ve been groggy during the early part of the week and more awake and lively later in the week–which doesn’t make any logical sense, but that’s where I’ve been lately.

And of course, I just realized why I was off yesterday; today is Mom and Dad’s anniversary; the second he’s had without her, and last year I was up in Alabama with him to visit the grave and go by the courthouse where they were married. My mind always tries to protect me from painful things, it always has, and so I guess that’s why I didn’t put it all together until this morning. I don’t think you ever get used to not having your mother anymore.

And on that heavy note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Y’all have a great day, and I should be back later on with another Pride Post.

For the Love of Money

I firmly believe that writers should be paid for their work.

On the other hand, it ain’t easy making a living from writing.

Good morning, it’s Monday and I have the day off. If the plans hadn’t changed, I’d be driving back this morning and I would be very, very tired. Instead of spending the weekend visiting family, however, I spent the weekend at home getting things done. I worked on the filing some more yesterday, and will probably do so for at least part of today as well. The file drawers still need to be alphabetized, but all the “in process” book files have all been gathered together, duplicate files deleted, and I am in much better shape now with them than I have been in years. Sparky let me sleep until seven this morning, and I decided to stay up rather than going back to sleep after feeding him; since I need to get used to getting up again I thought it was smarter to just stay up. I’m going to read some this morning, and I also plan on writing today. I am going to make shrimp fajitas for dinner tonight, which is ambitious–but could be very tasty. We shall see how it all turns out, won’t we? But my kitchen is clean, the counters are all cleared off, and there’s a load of dishes that need to go into the dishwasher at some point today, too. There’s another load of laundry that also needs to be done, and I think I may just stay inside the house all day.

Last evening we got caught up on House of the Dragon and Interview with the Vampire, and I’ve got to say, Dragon moves at about a glacial pace. Very little has happened this season thus far, which is weird and odd. I mean, isn’t there going to be a dragon war? Why all this delay in getting the story moving again? They’ve all been preparing for war since the last episode of the original season and guess what? They still are. Vampire also moves at a slow pace, but it’s interesting to watch and is following the story of the book pretty closely, even with the differences and changes made to Mrs. Rice’s original works. Next week is the season finale, and I was a little taken aback that we’ve already watched so much of it already. Tonight we’ll get back to Dark Heart, and of course tomorrow it’s back to the office for one Gregalicious. I don’t mind, really, and the staycation I’ve been promising myself for August and my birthday is actually looking not only do-able but something to actually look forward to. I mean, look at all I got done this weekend! Maybe that will give me the motivation to clean and clear out the attic–stranger things have happened.

We’re also in a heat advisory until seven o’clock tonight. Hurray–and now it’s even more likely that I will not go outside today.

The opening of this entry–about writers deserving to be paid for their work–was inspired not only by today’s title, but by a post I saw on some social media by Gabino Iglesias, who is one of my favorite current writers (seriously, you need to check out The Devil Takes You Home, which was an Edgar finalist and won the Stoker for Best Novel; I can’t wait for his next book), and is one of the best authors to follow on social media because he’s all about supporting his fellow authors, giving good advice for those getting started, and basically boosting other authors every opportunity he gets. (There was also a thread from Nick Mamatas on the subject, in which he explained why some genres don’t pay well while others do.) The bottom line they both made was that everyone should get paid for their writing and no one should ever give it away–because accepting that your work has no monetary value is terrible and gives publishers an excuse for either low-balling or not paying anyone they publish. I’d never really thought about it that way, and I have been, throughout my career, guilty of doing work for free like an idiot or not properly placing a value on my work. Doing work for free has never really appealed to me; I certainly don’t give the day job one extra minute that is unpaid, but I often have gifted short stories to anthologies for one reason or another, mostly because the anthologies raise money for charity. Early on in my career, you see, I didn’t have extra money to donate to charity. When I worked for the airline, I did volunteer work for charities because I didn’t have money and that continued through developing my writing career. If I couldn’t donate cash, I’d donate my time or my work if the cause was something I believed in. I’ve also sold work that I was never paid for, either, which isn’t in the least bit acceptable.

Things to ponder.

One of the things I decided over the course of the weekend (I also figured out how to improve “The Sound of Snow Falling”, huzzah!) was that all the extra time I seem to have on my hands now that I no longer volunteer my time anymore can be better utilized than I’ve been doing; I am going to teach myself some things, I think, and I’m going to start working on doing more marketing and promotion, too. I also want to be able to take my time more with my writing; there really is no rush other than the ticking of the clock counting out the grains of sand left in my hourglass. I would like to finish every project that is unfinished at the moment, and of course I am always going to be getting more ideas all the time.

And is there any better way to unwind and relax after a day at the office than reading? I think not, and now that I can stream Spotify through the television, I am going to listen to music while I read and write and clean from now on rather than having something playing for background noise that I inevitably wind up watching rather than getting other things done.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back with a Pride post again later–I finally finished reading Sins of the Black Flamingo, and it definitely requires an entry of its own. Ta for now!

My Sharona

Saturday morning here in the Lost Apartment and I am feeling rather pleased with myself as I accomplished a great deal. After finishing my work-at-home duties yesterday, Constant Reader, I worked on the filing…and by that, I don’t mean “put files away”–no, I mean I went through the boxes of files in the apartment and cleaned them out. A lot of files are just titles and a quick scribbled note; I got rid of all files for stories/books that didn’t have at least a few paragraphs written; was able to combine duplicate files and pare them down; and I had files of research and ideas for multiple projects spread out over the various file boxes are now all consolidated and together. I still have the filing cabinet to work on, but I still feel like I accomplished quite a bit. Having everything together for the various projects will make working on them that much easier, and it’s exciting to know I went from four and a half boxes of files down to one and a half. GO ME! I also managed to launder all the bed linens, and also a load of dishes. I reorganized my workspace as well, so all in all, a most productive day and one with which I am very pleased. I am going to work on the kitchen cabinets today as well as the file cabinet and workspace. I also have to make a mail and grocery run, need to clean the car, and go to the gym for more arm rehab as well.

Sparky even let me sleep in until nine this morning, wasn’t that kind of the dear boy?

One thing I also noticed yesterday was that I turned on Spotify on the television in the living room while i was organizing the files and it helped me to focus–which reminded me that back in the day, I used to always listen to music while I wrote and it helped me go into the focus zone. Listening to headphones doesn’t quite work for background noise, but the reconnection with music as a tool for focus was wonderful. How could I possibly forget how necessary music was for going into the zone to write, or helped me focus while cleaning? It’s nice to know that I can start remembering methods and tricks that helped me write and zero in on things I was doing with laser-like focus. In some ways, I feel like I am learning how to write all over again, which isn’t a bad thing.

I also realized yesterday that what I have been feeling now for a few weeks is good. It’s been so long since I’ve felt good about anything and have been in a headspace of anything other than just getting through and surviving for so long that I am really not even sure how i managed to write and publish anything between 2016 and now, but oddly enough those books are some of my best work–Bury Me in Shadows, #shedeservedit, A Streetcar Named Murder, Death Drop, Royal Street Reveillon and Mississippi River Mischief, not to mention some of my best short stories. Go figure, right? I also have done some excellent essays during that time, too. Even on auto-pilot, as I dealt with a lot of personal and professional trials for nine years, I still improved as a writer.

Today I am going to work on the book around some more chores and the errands already mentioned, as well as work on the filing cabinet and finish the floors downstairs. There’s a load of dishes to be put away, and more organization in the living room; getting rid of those file boxes opened up space in the living room and I want to work on making the living room look more spacious rather than cramped–and that has a lot to do with paring down the books some more as well…and I haven’t even started on the attic. I also want to spend some time with the Tremblay novel this morning, which I am enjoying but want to get to the next read in my TBR stack–I am going to read two queer novels back to back, I think, and would love to be able to review them by the time Pride Month ends.

And so, on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a delightful Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back later.

Jump Into the Fire

Work-at-home Friday! Woo-hoo! I have a three day weekend to follow as well; my trip was canceled but I kept the day off. I am hoping for a productive time, but we shall see how it goes. Last night I ran by the post office as I had a delivery sent there by mistake (it was supposed to be sent to the house) and I also had to stop by Office Depot to pick up the supplies I’d ordered. I came home and spent the evening productively! I did a load of laundry, the dishes, and got organized for the book I am writing, and I also started going through old files and chucking many of them that I really don’t need. I also found things that really shouldn’t have been filed away, but a good 70% of two boxes are going into the trash. Some of the ones I am keeping for now will also probably go; in many cases it’s simply.a story idea with a title, and I can just transcribe those into a journal. The goal of decluttering moves onward, and I am quite pleased I got on with this last night–I’ve been meaning to do this since the pandemic hit, and I’ve also become more

I also got my copy of the new Wanda M. Morris novel, What You Leave Behind, which is also an exciting and delightful development. It’s always a cause for rejoicing in the Lost Apartment when the new Morris arrives! Woo-hoo!

Ugh, wordpress is not cooperating this morning so I may not be able to post this as soon as it’s finished, heavy heaving sigh. Why does technology always shoot me in the foot? This is the kind of thing, of course, that used to derail my entire day back before the change in meds, so yay for new meds? It’s also kind of aggravating because the functions aren’t working properly, and while irritating, I refuse to allow this to derail the day. This doesn’t have to be posted this morning, and in a worst case scenario, it’ll be later today. How horrible, right?

I do have some work at home duties to do, and I do need to run some errands later–prescription, groceries–and I also need to do some rehab on the arm today at the gym, but I can put that off until later. I do want to get rid of some more files today. It would be lovely to get that taken care of and those multiple file boxes removed from the living room. I also need to go through my filing cabinet, as I am certain there are even more ancient files in there that no longer need keeping, either, and I can hopefully get almost all of the files combined and compressed into one place. I also want to clean the hell out of the kitchen this weekend, too–including moving furniture as well as cleaning out and organizing the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I’d love to take down boxes from the attic, too, and start getting that cleaned out as well to make room for other storage that can be moved from the apartment up there to help bring the clutter down. I also want to really do something with the beneath the counter cabinets, too.

God, I am so exciting, how can you stand it?

On that note, I am going to get some more coffee and something else to eat. WordPress is still being a bitch, so this will have to go up later. I am also sure some Pride posts will pop out later on today as well. Have a lovely Friday!