Category: goals

When It Comes to Love

If you follow me on social media you will know already that I got my box o’books of A Streetcar Named Murder this week. The book looks stunningly beautiful, seriously; I couldn’t be more pleased with everything about the book’s packaging. The cover is gorgeous; and stacked up together they look especially gorgeous, as you can see in these delightful images from my kitchen counter.

So, Greg, why did you write a cozy mystery?

The same reason I write anything–primarily because I wanted to, and to see if I could, you know. actually write one. I’ve always liked them–I love traditional mysteries, always have–and have always admired how authors pull off the crime aspect of the story. Sure, there’s a bit of an imaginative stretch required to read a series–how realistic is it that an every day citizen will continually get involved in the solving of a crime, through no fault of their own? But…no one bats an eye about the realism of private eye series, and let’s face it: private eyes involved in murder investigations are just as rare. They spend most of their time on insurance claims or, you know, infidelity. Likewise, police investigations are often very straight-forward, without the usual twists and turns and surprises a writer needs to include to keep the reader turning the pages. The Scotty series–despite him actually becoming a licensed private eye, fits more into the cozy genre than it does the private eye; for one thing, it’s funny, and for another, Scotty is never hired, he always stumbles over a body somehow–to the point that it’s almost a running joke in the series.

I had always wanted to write a mainstream series centered around a straight woman, to be honest. I mean, let’s face it, I’ve done that queer mystery, both series and stand-alones, and I always like to keep my work fresh and interesting for me–I cannot imagine the hell writing something that bores me would be. Early on, before I sold my first book, a major figure in the crime fiction world told me that every so often she wished she could write something else, but “all anyone wants from me is *series character*,” but very quickly added, “But I’m still grateful people want that.” I always remembered that–obviously, I still do–and so while I would be eternally grateful were I ever to achieve that level of great success, I tried to always diversify my writing so I’d never get bored. The Chanse series was very different from the Scotty series; the stand-alone novels are rarely set in New Orleans; and so on.

I’ve tried spinning off my Paige character from the Chanse series into her own series; I always liked the character and thought she was a lot of fun and could carry her own stories quite nicely. I still think so, but audiences didn’t respond to her when I did finally give her those own stories–but there could have been any number of reasons why that didn’t work. The books were marketed and sold as cozies–which I think was a mistake, because I didn’t write them as cozies. Sure, Paige was a single woman, working for Crescent City magazine and a former crime reporter for the Times-Picayune, which gave her some credibility as an investigator, but Paige was sharp-tongued and foul-mouthed. Had I known that the books would be marketed to the cozy audience, I wouldn’t have used Paige–she was too centered in my head as who she was for me to change her significantly in her own series–and would have simply come up with someone new. The books were also electronic only, and oddly enough, my readers tend to prefer to read me in print hard copies.

I had actually tried writing a cozy series before–I had this great idea for one, about an English professor at a university in a fictional Louisiana town on the north shore (based on Hammond); I called it A Study in Starlet and wrote a strong introductory chapter, trying to channel my inner Elizabeth Peters/Vicky Bliss; sarcastic but not bitchy, but it never got anywhere. I actually became rather fixated on my fictional Hammond (which I called Rouen, pronounced “ruin”, and I did want to call one of the books The Road to Rouen), which I may still write about at some point–I never say never to anything–but I am digressing. But I always had it in the back of my head that I should try writing a mainstream cozy at some point in my career. And this came about in a very weird way–it’s a long story–but I wound up pitching the idea I had to Crooked Lane and they offered me a contract, which was quite lovely. (Incidentally, I signed the contract electronically on the Friday before Hurricane Ida; the last email I got from Crooked Lane that Friday afternoon after signing the contract said you’re going to be getting some emails from the team next week so keep an eye out for them and welcome aboard! So, of course the power went out on Sunday morning…)

I originally was going to write about a costume shop. There’s one across the street from Paul’s office that has a showroom and an enormous warehouse; they do a lot of costume work for film, theater, and television, which seemed like a great backdrop for a series with all kinds of potential stories for the future. Crooked Lane didn’t like that, and asked me to come up with something else, so I walked down Magazine Street writing down the kinds of businesses I saw. An antique shop was one of them, and that was what they liked. My working title for the book was Grave Expectations, because it involved an inheritance, but they didn’t like that title either, and I reached back into my archives for a title for the original spin-off idea I had for launching the Paige series–I wrote like 100 pages of the first Paige book in 2004 and it never got used–and grabbed the title from it: A Streetcar Named Murder, and hence, the title was born.

And…I had three months to finish the book, as they wanted it by January 15th. And of course there was the power situation in New Orleans, and…

Heavy sigh. I will leave the rest of the story for another day and time.

I slept really well last night; woke up again at five and since it wasn’t the alarm yanking me out of the clutches of Morpheus this morning, I feel rested. I was very tired last night when I got home; I hit the wall around three yesterday afternoon and when I got home it was the easy chair for me. We watched more Big Mouth, and then I retired to bed around ten. I am working at home tomorrow, so am hopeful this will be a good weekend for writing. I do want to watch both the LSU-Arkansas and Alabama-Mississippi games this weekend–as they could determine who wins the SEC West for the season (and I cannot believe that LSU is in the driver’s seat; I was hoping for an 8-4 season and feared that was unlikely), but I also need to get caught up on my writing and everything. Yikes.

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

Murrow Turning Over In His Grave

Pay-the-Bills Day and it’s also post-election Wednesday. Do I dare look? Do I want to know if my fellow Americans decided, once again, that my rights aren’t as important as their wallets? I chose not to look last night as I couldn’t bear it. Was there ever a time when elections didn’t fill me with existential dread? I voted, of course–I have voted in every election since I was old enough to register, in 1980–but will also admit that sometimes I miss the smaller, less-publicized elections, and those are really just as important as the big national ones. I used to lecture people about not voting, until I realized I was a hypocrite who skipped minor local elections. Yes, Greg, voting for the School Board is important even if you don’t have children.

Sheesh.

I may not have children, but my tax dollars help pay for them to be educated, so I should care about the kind of education my tax dollars are providing, right?

I was tired yesterday. I ran out of steam in the afternoon, as always, and then drove home and walked to my polling place. I worked on the book a little–I was tired, like I said–and then collapsed into my easy chair to wait for Paul to come home. I woke up at five again this morning–I suspect it’s going to take me awhile to get used to the time change and getting to actually sleep through until the alarm at six–but adjustments are, while sometimes difficult, a part of life and my body’s inability to adapt as quickly as it used to is just yet another sign of my advancing age. I am feeling better about the book, to be honest–I think the revisions of this first half, while going a lot slower than I would ordinarily prefer, are coalescing and shaping the book into something quite enjoyable. I guess it’s normal for me to have self-doubt about everything while I am in the midst of a book and wondering why I continue to torture myself the way I do. I kind of do this during every book, don’t I? I wonder if I will ever get to the point where I don’t have crippling self-doubt and loathing of my own work while it’s in progress? No, not likely.

Know thyself.

Paul and I have been watching the new season of Big Mouth, the animated Netflix series about kids going through puberty, and it’s so good to laugh like that. We’ve loved the show and its irreverent and hilarious approach to something everyone can relate to–raging hormones, the transition from childhood to adulthood–and the first episode we watched last night, “Vagina Shame,” was absolutely scream-laugh funny, and accurate. I’ll probably write more in-depth about this show at some point, but it is really funny. If you don’t offend easily, you might want to check it out.

It’s also Pay-the-Bills day, and I have to say, it’s so lovely to actually have gotten a life-changing raise. I’m not wealthy now by any means, but I also no longer have to worry about paying the bills and buying groceries. It doesn’t mean carte blanche to spend money like it’s going out of style or anything, but it is nice to not have to think about “well, if I pay this much on that credit card I can then use it to buy groceries.” Ugh. One of my goals for this year is to pay down as much of this debt as I can (I know, I know, that’s been a goal for quite some time, but I am making progress. It’s just slower going than I would prefer, quite frankly).

And here’s hoping that my energy and my mood lasts through the entire day!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Catch you tomorrow, Constant Reader!

Illume

Yesterday LSU announced that the game Saturday night registered on the campus seismograph twice: once when Jayden Daniels scored the overtime touchdown, and then again minutes later when the two-point conversion worked. I had thought this had happened several times since the famed Earthquake Game in 1988 against Auburn, when Tommy Hodson threw a touchdown pass on fourth down with less than two minutes left in the game to tie, with the extra point that followed given LSU a one-point lead that held. I would have thought it might happen during the 1997 Florida game, when the Tigers ended several Florida winning streaks as well as their Number One ranking on the season; during the 2003 Georgia game when Matt Mauck threw the winning touchdown pass with less than two minutes to go; or during either the 2007 Auburn game or the 2007 Florida game, but I was incorrect. The next time Tiger Stadium registered on the seismograph was during this summer’s Garth Brooks concert there, when he played “Calling Baton Rouge”–people who lived within a mile of the stadium didn’t hear the concert, but they could hear the crowd singing–and then twice this past Saturday night.

I still can’t believe LSU won that game. I may never believe it. I still, three days later, wake up every morning and the first thing I do is check to make sure I didn’t dream it.

So it’s Tuesday, the time has changed and it’s no longer dark when I get up in the morning. It’s kind of gray out there at the moment, as the sun hasn’t truly risen yet–so there’s a weird kind of wintry gloom outside, and I really hated coming home in the dark yesterday. My sleep still hasn’t adjusted yet–wide awake at five this morning, but stayed in bed anyway–and I am not sure how well I actually am sleeping since the time change. Yesterday morning I felt fine and didn’t really fade until I got home–and then I faded, big time. I even forgot the Saints game was last night. Paul had a meeting so he had to go into his office; I didn’t remember to turn on the game until it was already past half-time. I fell asleep while watching, and since Paul wasn’t home yet by nine thirty I just went to bed (they lost; I just checked the score. We Saints fans are indeed terribly spoiled) and I didn’t even hear Paul come home–Scooter is still cuddling with me when I go to bed still, even with Paul home–so I must have slept much better than I initially thought this morning when I first got up.

I also need to remember to vote when I get home from work today.

I did work on cleaning up the opening of the book yesterday. I didn’t get very far, but I did manage to switch the two things that I needed to switch at the beginning (anything else would be a spoiler, sorry) and so the revision is already starting to come together. Progress is progress, and I also had some–not much, but some–luck in cleaning out my email inbox. There’s still a lot that I have to get done in addition to working on the book, but as long as the book keeps moving forward, I am fine with it. I am really worried about getting it done on time–the Thanksgiving trip is going to seriously fuck with me–but the LSU game this weekend is at eleven in the morning, and while I do indeed want to watch the Alabama-Mississippi game to see if LSU can clinch the division, I should be able to spend some serious time working this weekend.

Oh, the box of books arrived yesterday! How cool is that? It’s been almost eighteen years since I’ve had a hardcover release, so needless to say that was a bit of a thrill for me. Huzzah! I posted a picture of the box yesterday–I know, I know, the thing is unboxing videos for Instagram stories and Tik Tok but I’ve always just posted pictures of the open box and I am not going to change that now, no matter what the cool kids are doing. I’ve never been one of the cool kids, have long since given up on caring about whether I was cool or not, and am smart (or experienced) enough now to know I will never be one of the cool kids. That’s a lot of pressure I used to put on myself gone, frankly. I am still working on the “completely not giving a shit whether someone likes me or not”; I am much better than I used to be about that but it still occasionally rears its ugly head from time to time. I would imagine that is something that I will never get over completely, but at least now I can see it happening and can make an attempt to try to stop it before it becomes a problem. Anyway, I need to start amping up pre-release promotion. Have you preordered your copy yet?

I am terrible at this. It really is a wonder I have a career, isn’t it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I have so much to do…it is to weep.

Miranda

Monday morning and it’s very bright this morning. The time change–I’d forgotten that it means getting up in the light and coming home from work in the dark. It’s also interesting how much that changes in one day. It was already getting dark before four yesterday, and was completely night by five. I don’t like the change, to be honest; it doesn’t help me get up in the morning and it makes me feel like the day’s been wasted by the time I get home because there’s no more daylight. It’s another one of the reasons I don’t like winter, to be honest, but at least down here in New Orleans it never gets super cold or snows, which does make it somewhat more bearable. I still don’t like coming home after dark, though.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day for me. I was very tired all day, despite sleeping really well, and never really felt like I had any energy. I tried to write for a while yesterday morning but got nowhere with it, which is causing me more than a little bit of stress today, and so I ended up watching a lot of television. We finished off the first season of Interview with the Vampire (more on that later), the first season of The Serpent Queen, watched the most recent Andor, and got caught up on American Horror Story. We also watched a movie called Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, which was interesting and a bit of a different approach to the usual “Dad gets vengeance” movie before finally toddling off to bed. I didn’t sleep especially well last night either–I kept waking up and had trouble falling back asleep, but it was a better night’s sleep than Saturday’s, so I will take it.

I think I had trouble sleeping Saturday night because I was so emotionally caught up in the LSU-Alabama game; I was a bundle of nerves and raw energy and anxiety the entirety of the game (which I still can’t believe we won; who would have ever thought we’d beat Alabama this year; everyone is very high, obviously, on Coach Kelly now). And now, of course, that we’ve actually beaten Alabama (first time in Baton Rouge since 2010) people are talking about LSU running the table this year and making it to the play-offs as the first-ever two loss team to get that far. One thing for sure is that LSU could certainly mess things up for the play-offs this year; who do they take if LSU does the improbable and hands Georgia its first loss of the season and wins the SEC? One loss Tennessee, who lost to Georgia and didn’t win their division? Georgia, defending national champion with one loss but didn’t win the SEC and lost to LSU? A two loss SEC champion LSU that lost to Tennessee? How do you decide between the three of them? And if you take two, as has been done occasionally in recent years, which two? This year is very reminiscent of the chaos of 2007–when a two-loss LSU team won the BCS title over Ohio State; the only two loss team since 1960 to be crowned national champions, and the only one of the championship game era (Georgia also only had two losses that year, and were highly ranked; they had a good argument but losing their division and not playing for the conference championship ruled them out–although both Alabama and Georgia have both won the national title without being SEC champions). It will be interesting. I am that Doubting Thomas still; certain we can win out the regular season by staying focused and disciplined, but I don’t know if LSU could match up with Georgia. I still think it likely that both Tennessee and Georgia are the most likely two to go to the play-offs, if the SEC winds up with two; but I also didn’t think LSU would beat Alabama this year, either.

Which shows how much I actually know, you know?

I wasn’t able to finish this before leaving the house for work this morning–I told you, the time change, combined with some insomnia and low energy days, have really messed with my mind; I was so tired this morning I even considered hitting the snooze button a third time–so here I am on my lunch break, trying to get it finished and posted so I don’t miss a day. (Being a completer can sometimes be a real problem, you know?) After I get off work today I have to run uptown and get the mail as well as pick up some groceries from the store–nothing much, just a couple of things, but might as well stop and get it over with, you know? I also hope to get some serious work on the book done tonight as well. I hate having lost the weekend, but low energy is low energy.

I did manage to read some of Wanda Morris’ new book this weekend (at the rate I’m going I won’t finish it until probably my trip to Kentucky), but also managed to read a new-to-me Daphne du Maurier short story, included in the collection Not After Midnight and Other Stories (it also includes, as every du Maurier collection does, “Don’t Look Now” and “Not After Midnight”). I’d gotten the book from eBay after finding out that it included “A Border-line Case”–which I enjoyed–as well as two other stories I’d not read, “The Way of the Cross” and “The Breakthrough.” This weekend during Georgia’s mauling of Tennessee I read “The Way of the Cross”, and really liked it. It’s long, as all du Maurier stories often tend to be, and it’s actually quite a nasty little story that spins out over the course of a twenty-four period with a small group of British tourists visiting Jerusalem and the Holy Land, most of them from a small village. Their vicar was supposed to be their tour guide for this visit; but he was taken ill and another available minister-type, who doesn’t know any of them and isn’t really completely comfortable taking over, has been asked to fill in. It’s one of du Maurier’s nastier little stories, but the reason it is so nasty is because of its brutal, unflinching honest view of the characters, none of whom really come out of the story well. What is particularly interesting is how illustrative this story is of du Maurier’s own cynical view of humanity, but her gifts make the characters so absolutely real it feels like the reader is literally looking inside their souls. The characters all have definite opinions of who and what they are; as well as their own histories. What happens throughout the course of this story is everyone is gradually humbled and made to take off their own rose-colored glasses and inevitably are forced to look at themselves and their lives very clearly–usually by overhearing two of the other characters talking about them. It’s a terrific story, and one I will definitely be revisiting at some point. (I also like they are visiting the Holy Land but definitely are not very Christian…)

And now it’s time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader–and oh yes, for the record: the reaction to Jayden Daniels’ overtime touchdown and later, the two point conversion did, indeed, register on the seismograph on campus. So, it, like the 1988 Auburn game, qualifies not just as an “earthquake” game but a double earthquake game.

GEAUX TIGERS!

Behind the Mask

Saturday here in the Lost Apartment and Paul is coming home tonight. Huzzah! Also a big day in college football down here in the South, with Georgia-Tennessee this afternoon and LSU-Alabama tonight (and the good news for Florida and Texas A&M fans is one of them has to win the game, so one team’s losing slide will temporarily stop). I have things to do this morning, lots of things to do and many miles to walk before I sleep. Last night I was very tired when I finished my day’s work; and so repaired to my easy chair with Scooter in my lap and watched Low Country, a documentary series about the Murtaugh family crimes in South Carolina. Ironically, I started watching it because I vaguely remembered hearing about the story–wife and son murdered, father shot and wounded, etc.–but I did not know the back story to all of it, which this series provides a small window into; it really only covers the recent crimes, not the criminality of the family going back almost a hundred years–but as I watched, I started seeing similarities to the book I am writing now (powerful corrupt wealthy family that basically rules a rural area as their own duchy), and ideas and things to make my own book better started riffing through my mind. One thing that urban people never get about rural areas is how much of that sort of thing goes on, especially in the South. I am really going to have to go back and dig deeper with what I’ve already done, but I am confident I can get that all worked out this weekend and then get to work on the second half of the book next week.

I slept really well again last night. I started falling asleep in my chair once I finished watching Low Country–again, worth the watch, and yes, very shocking that rural counties in the twenty-first century are still so feudal, so undemocratic, so twisted that any one person or family can be so above the law that they essentially control the justice system in the region, to the point that they get away with murder–and so went to bed early. Scooter has started sleeping with me at night, purring and cuddling, and that also helps me sleep (Paul and I have agreed that Scooter’s super power is the ability to put anyone to sleep by cuddling and purring) and I woke up feeling very settled and relaxed and rested this morning, which is terrific since I have so much to get done today (as always). But I am going to do some cleaning this morning while I do some computer clean-up and so forth (ugh, my files are such a scattered and disgusting mess, it’s not even funny; I would be better about this, of course, if Macs didn’t have that search function) and don’t plan to go anywhere today. I’ve ordered groceries to pick up for tomorrow–I also have to air up one of my tires–and other than that, I don’t plan to leave the house tomorrow either. I need to get caught up and reorganized and all of that–the usual stuff I complain about on here every day. The week went by relatively quickly, too. I read some more of the new Wanda Morris novel, which I took to bed with me but I didn’t stay awake long enough to read more than a few pages–which were fantastic. I can’t begin to talk about how delighted and exciting it is to see new perspectives, new voices, and new stories from marginalized authors. I’m just sorry it took so long to get us to this point, but this was exactly what our genre needed.

My book’s official release date is rapidly approaching, and I am trying not to get over-anxious and/or nervous about it. I need to start pushing the book more, but I am not really certain how or what to do, to be honest. I’m excited about it, of course. The reviews have thus far been pretty favorable–other than that snarky Kirkus one, but even it didn’t bother me at all, and besides, they’re known for being snarky in their reviews and always have been; I guess that’s growth of a sort. Bad reviews don’t get under my skin the way they used to when I first started doing this, you know. I tend to stay away from Goodreads and Amazon reviews–therein lies the path to madness–but my skin has thickened a lot over the years and I know what my reactions will be and why put myself into a position of any kind that might emotionally unbalance me? God knows I don’t need any help in that direction, for sure.

I also watched another documentary about gay porn, Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story which was very interesting. Holmes was Falcon Studios, one of the bigger and more successful brands in gay porn for a very long time, and it did give me some ideas for future projects. I will probably, most likely, keep writing Scotty books until I die (for those of you who were wondering; the next one will probably be another Carnival mystery, French Quarter Flambeaux), but I may not write anymore young adult novels. It’s not that I don’t want to or have a lot of ideas for them, but my time is limited and I want to explore other writing options and genres within crime fiction. I really am feeling the desire to work on my queer historical noirs–beginning with Chlorine–and then moving on to cover other parts of queer history from the second half of the twentieth century. Obscenity would be about gay porn; Indecency would be built around Joey Stefano’s arrest in Tampa for public indecency…and of course there would be more but that’s the original trilogy I’d want to write. They wouldn’t be connected stories–the only commonality would be the fight against oppression and repression–but I think they would be a lot of fun. I have titles for others–Beefcake, Peplum, Physique–but don’t have stories to go with those yet (although I do introduce a Bob Mizer-like character in Chlorine who could drive one of them; Peplum would be, in some ways, a sequel to Chlorine–but it wouldn’t have to be, since I’ve not really decided on the end of that book yet, but one of the possibilities does leave the path open to a sequel.

And on that note, I am going to get to work on the chores and get cleaned up and get this party started. Have a lovely Saturday, and GEAUX TIGERS!

When the Sun Goes Down

Work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and today I get to do data entry and quality-assurance on forms until my eyes cross. I have a couple of errands to run this afternoon–but other than that, I am looking forward to a nice, peaceful day at home doing my work-at-home duties and my chores. Later on, I hope to get some good work done on the book before I repair to my easy chair with the latest Wanda Morris novel. It was a tough choice between that and the new Donna Andrews, but I am thinking since Dashing Through The Snowbirds is a Christmas tale, I may save that for Christmas reading this year–it makes the most sense, and since I generally don’t watch any Christmas movies or specials anymore (I do sometimes watch A Charlie Brown Christmas–it’s my favorite), maybe I could read Christmas-themed books and stories this year in December; maybe call it “The Twelve Reads of Christmas” or something like that. Hmmm, it’s a thought.

It really is amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you after a few days of insomnia and exhaustion/fatigue.

Last night I didn’t sleep as deeply or as well as I did on Wednesday night. I kept waking up, partly due to Scooter’s restlessness and sometime need to let me know his outrage about something, but was always able to fall back asleep. I had to have bloodwork done this morning; I got an email from the lab telling me I had lab orders waiting for me, so I scheduled it. I got there this morning and checked in–mind you, I needed to fast, so I didn’t eat last night or have anything to drink or eat this morning before leaving the house–only to find out they didn’t, in fact, have lab orders for me. Hilariously, I am terrible about remembering to do the labs after my doctor appointments, so this last time in July I made the appointment for Labs the same week as my doctor appointment and had them done. Once they told me I didn’t have orders in, I looked in the app and saw that I had, indeed, had them done back in August. So, no need to fast overnight, no need to not have coffee before leaving, no need to leave, in fact. Heavy sigh. But I did start reading Wanda Morris’ new book while waiting to be told I didn’t really need to be there, and it’s quite marvelous already. I knew it would be–her debut novel was superb–and it’s such a delight, as always, to see exciting new voices grow and become even stronger as their career progresses.

Last evening as I relaxed before heading to bed I watched another documentary about the history of gay pornography–I’ll probably watch another one later today–which of course put me in mind of writing about that history. I really do need to focus on getting this Scotty book and the next thing I have to write finished so I can get back to Chlorine; my goal for the rest of this year and 2023 is to get these two books finished, finish two other in-progress projects, and wrap up some other things that are unfinished but need to be finished so I can cross them off the list. I may do another short story collection; I’m not sure but I think I have enough sold and/or published for another collection to actually be possible. This one, when it materialized, will be called This Town and Other Stories, because the strongest story I’ve done since the last collection was “This Town”, which was in Holly West’s anthology Murder-a-Go-Go’s. At least in my opinion, although The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy and Other Stories would probably sell better…

And of course, tomorrow is a big day for the Southeastern Conference, with division championships on the line. LSU can actually get a leg up in the West by accomplishing the gargantuan task of beating Alabama in Baton Rouge for the first time since 2010–but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Sure, it’s possible–anything is possible in college football on any given Saturday; I am sure no one would have thought Kansas State would shellack Oklahoma State the way they did last weekend–but despite all the hype chatter, I’m not getting my hopes up terribly high. Yes, I want the Tigers to win–but I don’t have any expectations, just as I really haven’t all season. I’m just delighted the program seems to be on the rise again after the last two horrible years. I certainly would have never thought LSU would be coming into the game with Alabama tied with them and Mississippi for first place in the division. And earlier in the day Georgia and Tennessee will play for the leg up in the East–which again, no one would have seen coming before the season started; no one really give Tennessee much thought as the program has been moribund since at least 2007, the last time they won their division (which also happened to be the year a two-loss LSU team won the national championship–see how you can see omens and portents in everything?). I am not a Tennessee fan by any means–I rooted for them during the Peyton Manning years because I thought he was a phenomenal athlete plus I despise Florida with every fiber of my being, but that was about it. I only root for them in non-conference games and bowls, but I am happy for their fans–just as I was happy for Georgia fans last year as they finally beat Alabama and won the national title; I always think back to what a glorious ride 2019 was for LSU fans, so it’s always nice to see a long-starved fan base finally get something they can be excited about. Pundits and fans are already comparing 2019 LSU and 2022 Tennessee…but it’s really not even the same. Sure, no one thought LSU would be as great as they were in 2019, but they were also coming off a 10-3 season. Tennessee was 7-6 last year, so it’s an even bigger turnaround for them on that level. I plan to get my writing and my errands and chores finished tomorrow morning well before the 2:30 Georgia-Tennessee kick-off, so I can spend the rest of the day nervously cleaning with the games on in the background. Paul also comes home tomorrow (yay!) so I am going to need groceries, too.

And my kitchen, as always, is a disaster area on a Friday morning, so it’s perhaps time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later or tomorrow.

Stand on the Rock

Thursday morning and I slept really well last night. About time, right? But it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep makes, especially coming after two consecutive nights of insomnia. It’s lovely not to feel tired, you know? I was so tired when I got home from work yesterday that my eyes were almost crossing. I was too tired to think, too tired to write, too tired to do much of anything, so I just collapsed into my easy chair–Scooter actually slept in my lap all evening, and when I got up, he’d curl up in the chair again waiting for me to come back, which was very sweet–and then I watched the documentary God Forbid, which focuses on the Jerry Falwell Jr. pool boy scandal that ended Falwell’s career, from the pool boy’s point of view, which made it a lot more interesting.

It also explored how Falwell’s father led the evangelicals into politics and set us on the downward path that put our entire democracy into the peril it still faces today. The original Falwell was a monster–racist, homophobic, misogynist–and perverted Christianity for money and power. He isn’t the first to do this–look up “Father Coughlin” sometime–and maybe not event the worst (anything is possible), but the damage done to the fabric of the culture and society, predicated on the evangelical desire to make this a Christofascist nation (definitely not what the Founders wanted), by this man and his son may even prove irreparable in the long run. Who knows? Falwell Jr. was important to the election of Trump and the evangelical embrace of this thrice-married ungodly and unChristian wannabe dictator, too. And it got the evangelicals what they’ve wanted since Falwell Senior realized that open racism wasn’t a winning ticket–but abortion could be: the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Would Falwell have backed Trump if Michael Cohen hadn’t known about the sick sexual games the Falwells were playing with a young, naïve young man named Giancarlo Granda? It would make an epic crime novel, truly–I loved John D. Macdonald’s examination of a Midwestern megachurch, One More Sunday, which I really enjoyed.

I have had this idea for a crime novel built around a cult-like church for quite some time. When I was living in Kansas, there was a college in Emporia that was owned and operated by just such a cult-like church. The College of Emporia, a Presbyterian school, had gone bankrupt and closed in 1973. A few years later it was purchased by The Way International and transformed into The Way College of Emporia. The Way College was strange. Their campus was closed to outsiders and patrolled at night by armed guards. There was all kinds of gossip around the county about what went on there and the kinds of things they believed and did; the students always wore name-tags and travelled in pairs–and would often try to corner other young people and proselytize. When I was working at McDonalds, for example, I observed them do this to a girl who was cleaning tables in the lobby. They essentially waited until she was in a part of the place that had only one way out, and once she was back there cleaning tables, they blocked the way out to talk to her. They always had this weird look on their faces, too–their eyes always seemed either glazed or vacant or both, and they always had a zombie-like smile that didn’t reach their eyes. One of the many iterations of the Kansas book took place over two time-lines, one in the 1970’s and the other the present day; where the quarterback’s murder in a sex scandal in the 1970’s gave rise to a megachurch in the town. I have done some research in the Way International (they sold the Way College and its campus to Emporia State University sometime after we left Kansas) and even have a book written by someone who belonged and got out.,,so I would never say never.

Oh, and thank you, Brazil, for ousting your Fascist. Well done!

Unfortunately, my exhaustion last night means that I have fallen another day behind on the book, which isn’t good. But it was really out of my hands, to be honest. I was so tired I don’t even really remember driving home from work last night–which is NOT a good thing at all. But I am hoping that feeling rested and not being exhausted will make a difference tonight. I am halfway done–it’s planned to be twenty chapters, and I finished Chapter Ten on Tuesday–so tonight I am going to go back and reread and edit the first half of the book. It’ll take some serious work–the kind where I have to close the Internet browsers to avoid distraction–because some of the earlier chapters need to be moved around and rearranged; the order in which the story unfolds needs to be switched up a bit–and I need to outline the first half as well as make a character list and due a timeline. I also realized that my usual Scotty thing to do–parody the opening of a famous novel–doesn’t have to be a parody of a famous novel opening–and I’ve always wanted to write something that opened the way Dark Shadows did (“My name is Victoria Winters”), so why not do that? “My name is Scotty Bradley” or something along those lines. I wonder if Victoria’s opening monologue from episode one is on-line anywhere? Better add that to the list.

And on that note, Constant Reader, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

Affairs of the Heart

Wednesday morning and the dark is pushing up against my windows again this morning. This weekend is when the time changes, isn’t it, or is it next? No, it’s this one, and that extra hour of sleep is going to fuck with me for awhile, I know. That’s just kind of how things work, isn’t it? I get used to doing something one way and it takes me forever to adjust to that change, so I figure I’ll get used to the time change sometime around the time it changes again. Yay for being old and cranky and crotchety! Heavy heaving sigh. But part of the fun stuff about getting older is becoming more set in your ways, I suppose.

Ever so much fun.

It is funny how things change, isn’t it? The other day I went on Twitter to just waste some time (really, that’s all it is, no matter how much you enjoy interacting with your friends, it’s still a time-wasting hellscape for the most part) and saw that young Kit Conner, who plays Nick on Heartstopper, has come back onto social media–from taking a break–to tweet the following:  Back for a minute,I’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18 year old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye.

This was followed up with a wave of support and outrage–as it should have been–because what was happening was this young man, who’d previously said in interviews that he was comfortable with his sexuality and fine with it, but preferred not to talk about, was accused of queerbaiting because a picture of him holding hands with someone of the opposite sex had made the rounds. I am not entirely sure what this means, to be honest; but from what I gather it’s a celebrity who “teases” that they may be queer but never comes out and says so in order to gain fans? Other examples given on Twitter were Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. I know there’s a thing about queer roles being played by non-queer actors, and queer actors not getting opportunities because straight actors are getting those roles (and being praised and getting award recognition for their “bravery”–although no one is ever considered brave for playing a serial killer or a mass murderer or a Nazi). But the thing is we don’t know how everyone identifies–that’s just the truth–and is it really any of our business? I have long deplored the culture where fans are hungry and desperate (thirsty, is the term now, I believe) to know everything about their favorite celebrities, but I don’t really care who Taylor Swift is sleeping with, or which Kardashian is now involved with what professional athlete/actor/model. I get curiosity–and of course we queers have been guilty of speculating about the sexual preferences of celebrities, primarily out of a hunger for visibility.. But we older queers need to remember that the world has changed–partly because of all the work we did being visible and so forth–and while speculating isn’t particularly harmful, this whole queerbaiting thing just strikes me as particularly nasty–especially when it’s applied to a person. A person can’t queerbait–unless they are actually pretending to be queer, for whatever reason, for financial or career gain, when they actually are not–queerbait is a term used primarily for movies and television shows that promise queer content to get us to buy tickets or tune in to watch, but don’t deliver. Like oh look there’s a queer character in Star Wars at last! Only to have it be a same-sex kiss between two characters that aren’t even in the main cast, flashed on screen for maybe two seconds. Disney is notorious for doing this. So, going after an eighteen-year-old for queerbaiting is absurd on its face, and the entire point of the show Heartstopper was, in fact, that it’s okay to be confused and not understand everything immediately, but to figure it out for yourself in your own time.

Queerbaiting also consists of pretending to be queer to give your writing about queer people a false authenticity, but that’s a subject for another time. I think it’s great we have reached a place in our culture and society that more and more celebrities are feeling comfortable enough to come out publicly, but we really need to stop speculating about people’s private lives and give them the room to figure it out for themselves. Some may never be comfortable coming out publicly, and that’s okay too. In the early days of the queer equality movement, we urged everyone to come out–power and safety in numbers, and the more visibility we had the more people would stop seeing us a “threat” of some sort. But times change, and they have. And while I certainly hope that everyone has the courage and the ability to eventually live their authentic lives they want they want to, I also understand that some may never do so. It’s a process, and it’s different for everyone.

And shouldn’t everyone be free to come out on their own timeline of comfort?

I had insomnia again last night. I was exhausted after I wrote my chapter last night–I was exhausted when I got home from work. honestly–and eventually went to bed early, around nine. Scooter woke me by caterwauling for no apparent reason right around eleven thirty–woke me from a deep sleep, I might add–and I was never able to fall back asleep. I did get my chapter written, despite being so tired, and after I did that I collapsed into my easy chair for a while. I tried to read to no avail, tried to find something, anything, to watch, and finally as I was dozing off in the chair decided it wouldn’t hurt to go to bed early. The chapter isn’t very good, either–none of this draft is good, to be honest–and last night the stress and anxiety about everything I have to do finally built to a point where it peaked, I had a bit of a meltdown, and I snapped back into normalcy, which I hope will last through the day. It has been building for quite some time now–I found myself getting angry really quickly yesterday and over nothing, really, and that’s a sign–but unfortunately there’s no way around it other than letting it build till it boils over and I get the pressure release and I am fine again. I think last night writing the chapter and knowing it was terrible and knowing I am behind and I have so much left to do and then it’s going to take such a massive overhaul to rework it all into something decent that I just started freaking about everything I have to get done and so I had my little meltdown and hopefully, that pressure won’t start building again for a while at any rate.

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

Do You Know

Tuesday and all is well again this morning–at least so far.

Yesterday was very productive. I got some day job things taken care of that needed taking care of, I worked on the book and wrote a chapter, and I managed to get some emails cleaned out of my inbox. I did start feeling a bit fatigued in the later afternoon, so decided to try to take it easy once I got home from the office but managed to plant my ass in my desk chair and get the fucking chapter written. I also managed to read three short stories by Paul Tremblay from his collection Growing Things over the weekend–he’s such a good writer, seriously, you should be reading him–which was nice, and perfect reading for Halloween times.

I had insomnia again last night–which I can’t help but wonder wasn’t tied to the cappuccino I made yesterday morning, but that’s nonsense; I’ve had cappuccinos in the morning and slept well that night, so I don’t know. I guess I was just due for another night of it at some point, and last night just happened to be the lucky night. I don’t feel physically or mentally fatigued this morning, but then again you never know. I have to work in clinic today, face to face with people, and that is usually draining on several levels. Hopefully when I get home tonight I’ll have the energy to write more on the book. But like I said, so far so good this morning. I feel physically rested, at any rate, or no more tired and fatigued than usual when I get up, at any rate.

I can’t believe it’s November already, and there are only two months left in 2022. I am going to Kentucky for Thanksgiving, so I have a lot to get done this month before I leave–I also have to have the heater in my car looked at, because it no longer blows warm air and I cannot drive up there without a working heater in the car because cold–and who knows how much that is going to cost me? Yay. You got to love these out of nowhere extra expenses–I just got a raise so of course now instead of paying down debt I’ll have to add some more, hurray. But it’s necessary, and of course the car is now at that age–almost six–where things might start to go a little wrong here and there. I’ve already had to replace the battery, and I also need a new windshield wiper for the back window.

The good news is I started solving some issues within the book last night after I gave in to Scooter’s demands for a lap to sleep in (he never stays there for longer than half an hour, which makes it even more frustrating to give in to him; he sleeps in my lap long enough to make me lethargic and remove the desire to do anything, which can be a problem. I also did some dishes and am trying to stay on top of the kitchen; I had to stop to make groceries last night on the way home (out of bread, among other things) and will have to again tonight–the store in the CBD didn’t have everything I needed, which was extremely irritating–but I have to go uptown and get the mail after work anyway. I’m still hoping my box o’books of A Streetcar Named Murder are going to arrive soon–I know it seems early since the pub date isn’t until 12/6, but they told me they’d come before the end of the month and….yesterday was the end of the month, and I am nothing if not a completely literal person.

So, anyway, as I was saying, I started solving some issues within the book last night as Scooter purred and slept in my lap and I let my playlist of music videos run on the television, and for the first time in a while I am starting to feel like this book will not be a complete disaster and may actually turn out to be fairly decent. One never knows, does one? And no matter how many books you’ve written in your career, you always fear that somehow the ability to do this is magically going to disappear from your brain overnight, and everything is going to blow up in your face. I literally was considering that very thing this past weekend, thinking that what I really needed to do was just tear up the contract and asked to be released from it and just hibernate in the apartment for a few months. But that was probably chemical–there are so many chemical issues in my brain–and an unconscious or subconscious reaction to Paul not being home, which probably depressed me and imbalanced the delicate balance of everything in my brain, which is why I wasn’t able to get very much done over the weekend the way I had hoped and planned to. Paul won’t get home until Saturday evening, and while yes, this Saturday is the double-header of Georgia-Tennessee followed by LSU-Alabama, I should be able to get up in the morning and get things done before it’s time to start watching the games–and of course, I can always just have the game on while I clean and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the morning. Have a great day, Constant Reader and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning, as always.

In the Back of My Mind

Here we are back on another Monday morning with another work week staring us in the face and not blinking. Great, right? It was a lovely weekend around the Lost Apartment, if a bit lonely; Scooter was definitely needy all weekend and it’s weird to have the bed almost entirely to myself (not including Scooter). I felt well rested both weekend mornings when I arose; yet after running my errands on Saturday and doing some cleaning I became extremely fatigued, which sent me to my chair. I did manage to get some things done once the fatigue set in–I think low blood sugar had an awful lot to do with it, to be honest–and it’s irritating, frankly. I had wanted to be a lot more productive on Saturday than I actually was; but c’est la vie and all that nonsense. I do think I am going to need to do some restructuring of the opening chapters on my book, but that’s cool; it certainly makes more sense for me to order it the way that I am going to restructure it all. And no, I didn’t get a lot done this weekend. Maybe a restful weekend of recharging my batteries was just what the doctor ordered; who knows? I am trying not to get overly stressed out about everything that is pending for me.

Stress is the mindkiller.

I’ve oddly enough been sleeping better and more restfully recently, despite the addition of cappuccino to my morning routine every morning–but maybe the caffeine crash is why I am so tired in the afternoons. Maybe, but I was also tired in the afternoons before I got the new espresso machine (which I love, if I’ve not made that clear enough already) so who knows what the new normal/Greg’s reality is anymore? I certainly don’t know.

And it’s Halloween, of course. Happy Halloween!

I was going to rewatch the original Halloween last night, but instead I rewatched Robert Wise’s 1962 adaptation of The Haunting, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson. I originally saw this movie when I was a kid, staying up late one night to catch it on the late movie, and it was absolutely terrifying. It’s exceptionally well done, and Julie Harris is so definitive as Nell–the cast is all so definitive in their roles, really–that I can’t help but see them every time I reread the book. It really is a stunning performance by Harris–she really embodies Nell–and the entire thing is so claustrophobic and terrifying, really; the concept of what you cannot see being more terrifying than what you can played up perfectly by Wise’s incredibly capable direction and camera shots–and the editing ratchets up the suspense and terror perfectly. It follows the book incredibly closely–one of the most faithful adaptations of book-to-film; up there with Rosemary’s Baby, really–and as I watched, not terrified because I’ve seen it so many times so thus able to watch for the direction and the editing, which were superb, as was the black and white cinematography, I couldn’t help but marvel at what a great job Wise did with the cast and the film. The remake was terrible, absolutely terrible–unwatchably bad; which remake a classic in the first place, especially when you’re just going to go crazy with the CGI budget, which takes away the most important suspense/terror aspect of the book and the original film: you don’t see the monsters, you don’t see whatever it is that is haunting Hill House and it is never explained. I also don’t usually like movies that have voiceovers to show a character’s thoughts, but the book itself is so intimately from Nell’s point of view that it would be hard to translate that on film and get the same feeling–and the emotive way Julie Harris does the line reading makes it work, draws the viewer in, and makes the viewing experience incredibly intimate and claustrophobic at the same time, which is exactly how Jackson wrote the book.

I also recorded Alexia Gordon’s Cozy Corner podcast yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. We talked for a very very long time–we both lost track of the time, really–and talked about a lot of things. It was seven by the time I got off the ZOOM call, and when I got up to make myself something to eat was when the fatigue hit me. Was it related to the podcast and social intercourse, which also required me to think and be smart and actually put thought into my answers? I don’t know, maybe it was but I was pretty tired by the time I made my grilled-cheese-and-bacon sandwich for dinner and repaired to the living room to watch the movie. I didn’t stay up much longer after I finished watching either; I was watching some documentary on Youtube about the Hapsburgs and started nodding off, so I decided to just go on up and go to bed early–more sleep never hurt me, after all.

I may even go to bed at nine tonight. Perish the thought!

But I think my restful weekend did the trick, and it was clearly what I needed. I do feel refreshed and alive and rested, both physically and mentally, this morning–or it could be the cappuccino. I guess we’ll find out this afternoon when the caffeine wears off.

So on that note, without further ado, I am heading into the spice mines on this lovely cool Monday morning in New Orleans. And may your day be lovely and bright, Constant Reader–I will talk to you again tomorrow morning.