Category: goals

The First Noel

We made it, Constant Reader!

The end of the wretched 2018 is on the horizon; mayhap 2019 will be a better year for everyone and the world.

One can hope, at any rate.

I actually slept for almost eleven hours last night; I cannot recall the last time I ever slept so late. I feel good, but also kind of like I’ve lost my morning. But it’s a four day weekend so who cares? 

And see, that’s how it starts–the downward slippery slope into getting nothing accomplished. It is amazing how quickly and easily my mind will come up with reasons not to write, not to edit, not to get anything done–pretty much anything will do. But this is how it goes….and it’s also very easy to fall into the mindset of nothing matters, you’re terrible at this, you slave away and for what, everyone else gets time off….and on and on and on it goes.

But you have to make sacrifices if you’re going to be a writer. And sometimes, your lazy time (which you love because you are at heart incredibly lazy) is what you do have to give up. And I need to view this long, deep, wonderful sleep as ‘well, you clearly needed the rest, but that has to count as your lazy time for the day.’

I wrote another fifteen hundred words or so on Bury Me in Satin, whose title, going forward, is going to be changed. “Bury me in satin” is a lyric from a song I love, “If I Die Young” by the Band Perry, and while technically I don’t need their permission to use the title, I kind of should ask–it’s the done thing, and since I neither want to bother (lazy!) nor does the title really fit the book (it kind of  only does in the mood I am trying to set, and I’ve already gotten the mood down) I’ve been thinking I want to change it. As we all know, I am very reluctant to make changes–I resist and resent change with all of my being–last night the new title came to me. Part of the resistance was I liked having Bury Me in the title, and last night I figured out a way to retain those words but change the rest of the title from the song lyric. I like the new title, but I think I’m going to keep it under wraps for a while. I usually don’t refer to works-in-progress by their titles; but I’ve called the “one for agent search” the WIP for so long I now think of it that way in my head; I can’t call anything else the WIP anymore. But–and this is an important but–it’s really what I called “the Kansas book” forever; I am going to rebrand it in my head and call it “the Kansas book” again, and the one I am currently working on will be the WIP. I also thought of some new ways to deepen the main character and iron out some plot issues I was having with the WIP. (see what I just did there?) So, my decision to stop writing new chapters after finishing Chapter Eight while I go back and clean up those already written was clearly the right decision to make.

Hopefully, that will also be the case with the final polish of the Scotty book. One can hope, at any rate.

And…the kitchen and entire house is a disaster area yet again, so there’s cleaning and organizing to be done as well.

And on that note, I need to get back to the spice mines.

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Silent Night

Friday and we are somehow getting through this infernal time between Christmas and New Year’s. Every year I think to myself self, next year you need to take this time off, and every year I forget. Like an idiot.

I’m putting this on my 2019 calendar right the fuck now.

Seriously.

But we’ve made it to Friday, haven’t we, Constant Reader? I’ve managed to get back to work writing–although I should be working on polishing the Scotty, I’ve been bogged down with Bury Me in Satin so keep trying to work my way through it. But I need to get back to the Scotty and cleaning it up; the problem being I am so heartily sick of the opening chapters I don’t even want to look at them anymore. I am going to try to revise and polish the last six chapters, and then work my way back through the entire manuscript, and I still have to write the epilogue. I need to snap out of this malaise/funk I’ve been in ever since the Great Data Disaster, and seriously climb back into the writing and editing, else it will never be done. NEVER. I also need to start reading again. I’d like to finish my reread of The Shining, so I can move on to my reread of Pet Sematary, and then I am going to work my way through the TBR pile….as I’ve said before, I’m going to try to read more minority and diverse writers this next year. I’ve been buying their books all this time, of course, but the books have been languishing in my TBR pile–along with a lot of other books and authors–and I also need to read outside of the crime genre for a while, as well.

I’ve always believed reading is a crucial part of writing; you can’t be a good writer if you don’t love to read, and reading is also an excellent education in writing. The best writers should inspire you to want to equal or better them, or at least to do better with your own writing. I think not publishing anything for quite some time has also done a number on my confidence as a writer; I think we all tend to be our own harshest critics. I need to stop listening to those horrible voices in my head with their nasty whispers that undermine my confidence and make me worry about my writing; that give me Imposter Syndrome and encourage me to not bother writing anything.

Which is also self-defeating, and self-annihilation, and self-destructive.

So I am going to try to use this long weekend to reboot my life and reboot my brain and get back on track with everything. I need to read some more New Orleans history, and I need to figure out what short stories need to be finished or reworked; I realized the other day what is wrong with my story “The Problem with Autofill” and I don’t know if I can rework it properly; I don’t think the premise actually works. I probably need to free-associate the story and the root problem at its core, and figure out how to fix it. The title is probably going to have to go–perhaps I can use it for another story with a different plot–but I think there’s something there with the story and I can make something work with it.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines.

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White Christmas

Christmas is now over, and New Year’s looms; Carnival is just around the corner. Mardi Gras is late this year, I believe; but I can’t be bothered to look it up at the moment so take my word for it.

Our holidays were lovely and relaxing; now there are simply three days to get through before the next holiday, so getting through the rest of this week should be relatively simple. One would think, at any rate. I am quite pleased with how the weekend turned out; I didn’t read or write or edit nearly as much as I should have, but that’s the way the holiday weekend goes sometimes, you know? I did get some brainstorming in, which is always important, and I got a lot of computer filing done. I almost got all the physical filing done as well. There’s a sink full of dirty dishes that I hope to take care of this morning as well; but we shall see. I am a little groggy this morning; as I suspected, getting up to an alarm earlier than I’ve been doing these last four days was just as problematic as I had feared it would be this morning. And I have to get up even earlier the next two mornings…heavy heaving sigh.

But I am sure the coffee–once it kicks into gear–will be most helpful.

We continued watching that Australian series Wanted yesterday, and paid to stream Avengers: Infinity War from iTunes. It was quite enjoyable, and very well done for what it was, despite having to juggle all these stars and super-heroes and story-lines, and the ending was just as sad and heartbreaking as everyone said it was when the movie was released. And yet….being an old hand at comics and super-heroes, isn’t it obvious how this will go? Thanos will somehow either be defeated in the sequel, and/or convinced to use, the Infinity Stones that control time and space to go back and not allow him to erase half of the life in the universe.

Which is fine, and makes for great drama, but it’s precisely the problem that eventually drove us off from watching Arrow and Flash: the stakes aren’t high when people can be brought back from the dead, or you can change the time-line to save them.

Although watching this movie gave me the idea of how to write the epilogue for the new Scotty, which is incredibly cool. Yay?

Well, not so much as gave me the idea as the idea came to me while I was watching the movie.

Which is a completely different thing, really.

Maybe for New Year’s, I’ll watch The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi again, back-to-back.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader!

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Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

So it’s Christmas Eve. May you all who celebrate have a lovely day, and those of you who don’t, may you also have a lovely day! I’m not really sure what’s on the agenda for today around the Lost Apartment, to be honest. I know I want to do some writing and reading and possibly some editing–I don’t think the old but it’s a holiday is going to kick in for me today after all. I had a terrific day yesterday; I cleaned and organized, the Saints won (although why they always want me to have a heart attack before the conclusion of every game is beyond me) and now have clinched the Number One seed and home games throughout the play-offs thru the Super Bowl, and I actually wrote yesterday. I wrote about another thousand words of Bury Me in Satin, finishing that bear of a Chapter Eight finally, and now I think I can move forward. I think, though, I need to go back and do some revising on the earlier chapters while writing Chapter Nine.

I also discovered something incredibly convenient–yes, I know, I am nothing if not mostly oblivious most of the time and it’s insane when something so obvious smacks in the side of the head. My computer is still acting wonky–mostly when I have Word open–and so yesterday, incredibly irritated with the Apple Spinning Wheel of Death and the concurrent Microsoft Word Not Responding message, I closed my Internet browser and Word continued to operate–still not as fast as I would prefer, but faster, at any rate–and not having the distraction of getting push alerts from Twitter and Facebook and every time I got a new email enabled me to tear right through that chapter yesterday. I had my phone with me at my desk, and so whenever I was bored or needed to look something up on-line I was able to use that. I left the browser closed, in fact, for the rest of the day, just checking in on things periodically with the phone or my iPad. This was smart, and I am probably going to do the same thing today.

I started rereading The Shining yesterday, and while I am only a few chapters in, I have to say those initial chapters are remarkable, as King sets up the Torrance family–Jack, Wendy, Danny–as initial point-of-view characters, and we get to know the three of them very well. I remember when The Shining first came out in paperback–remember, this when I was living in Kansas and there was no place to buy hardcover books because the only local bookstore (the News Depot on Commercial Street in Emporia) only carried paperbacks, so I always had to wait for the paperback editions of everything–I started reading it after I bought it and didn’t care for Jack Torrance at all, so I stopped reading before I got to the chapters from Wendy and Danny’s points of view, and put it aside. It was about a year or so before I picked it back up again–it was the shiny all silver cover, with the faceless head of the boy blending into the silver–and then read it all the way through. I didn’t reread it as much as other King novels of the period, and it’s never really been a favorite of mine, preferring ‘salem’s Lot, The Dead Zone, The Stand, and Christine by far and away; but it’s considered by many to be one of his best books and certainly one of the most terrifying books of the late twentieth century. This was also the second consecutive novel of King’s to have a writer as the main character; but Jack is a failed writer, and maybe that was one of the reasons the book never quite found a place in my heart the way other Kings of the same period did; perhaps I could relate to Jack’s failure far too much for me? I will continue reporting back as the reread progresses further.

I also managed to get some cleaning done.

Paul went out last evening after the Saints game (GEAUX SAINTS!), and so I stayed home, reading The Shining and watching A Clockwork Orange on Amazon Prime for the first time. I’ve always wanted to see the movie; I have the book somewhere in my TBR pile or on one of the TBR shelves, and when I saw yesterday that it was free for streaming on Amazon I thought what the hell and decided to watch it. It is…interesting, for wont of a better word. Kubrick was a great director; there’s no question about that, but I also felt, from the few films of his that I’ve seen, he was very cold as a director; his movies always come across as kind of emotionless and cold. That style works incredibly well with the subject matter of this film and its theme. It’s also visually stunning, and despite the cold distance afforded by the camera lens, it’s portrait of a future desensitized to all kinds of violence–both sexual and physical–and the equally horrific answer the government comes up with to it, cannot help but keep your attention but also will make one think. I suspect I will be thinking about A Clockwork Orange for some time…and now I really would like to read Anthony Burgess’ novel.

So many books I need to read. Heavy heaving sigh.

But as I said earlier, I think I am going to continue with the Short Story Project going into the new year, and I am going to also have my own Diversity Project, where I am going to try to read everything in my TBR piles that were written by minority writers of some sort. It’s called leading by example, people, and I hope some of you will join me.

And on that note, this work isn’t going to do itself, unfortunately, so yes, even on Christmas Eve, I must spend some time mining spice.

Have a lovely day, everyone!

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Blue Christmas

And a Merry Christmas Eve Eve to you all!

I cannot believe that Christmas Eve is tomorrow. But I have three more days of my holiday weekend, and I am going to try to get some writing done around other things. The apartment is a mess–something I need to focus on today–and I need to do some writing today as well. The Saints game comes on at noon; I think I may actually cook out today–it doesn’t seem that cold outside (granted, I have my fabulous space heater on in the kitchen and it was worth every penny), and even if it is, I won’t be out there in it that much, after all.

It is incredibly tempting, though, to blow it all off and not do a damned thing, as it is every damned day. I know tomorrow and Christmas I will undoubtedly do one of those but it’s a holiday! justifications to not do a fucking thing, kind of like I do on weekends–everyone else gets a weekend! 

This, as you can see, is why nothing ever gets done.

I mean, even now as I glance around the kitchen at the piles of paper than need to be filed and the dishes that need to be washed and the clothes that need to be folded, I just think fuck this I’m going to go read for a while.

I said the other day I needed to diversify my reading in the new year, which means moving all those books I’ve bought by minority writers to the top of the pile. I also think I need to read some non-crime genre novels in the new year; I think reading a lot outside of the genre in which you write helps you as a writer, just as reading the best in your own genre will inspire you. Obviously, reading outside my own experience as a white person should also broaden my mind. And you know, I am really looking forward to this, as well as continuing the Short Story Project going into the new year.

So, I think I am going to spend the rest of 2018 rereading some Stephen King (The Shining and Pet Sematary, to be exact) and then I might give The Other by Thomas Tryon a quick reread as well. And then moving into 2019, I’ll finish the novel I started reading this past week and then move into some minority writers interspersed with some of the non-crime novels I have in the pile.

And we’ll see what happens.

GEAUX SAINTS!

And now, ’tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Sleigh Ride

Today we’re going to see Aquaman. I am very excited for this, if you couldn’t tell by me pretty much mentioning it every day for the last week. I didn’t discover Jason Momoa until Game of Thrones (I know, I know, bad gay), but have been a huge fan ever since. And while my initial reaction to the news of his casting was problematic (but Aquaman is blond!) I got over it pretty quick. I’ve always been a fan of Aquaman–yes, I love Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but have always had a place in my heart for the ‘lesser’ heroes–Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, etc. So I am excited to see Aquaman get his own movie, and I do hope someday they give Green Lantern another shot.

I slept in this morning, later than usual–last night I even fell asleep in my easy chair, showing how tired I was (although that’s happened twice this week), and I feel very rested this morning. I have to run to the post office this morning, and I have some things to get at the grocery store (the Saturday before Christmas! Hurray!) before we head out for the movie. I did work a little on Bury Me in Satin a little bit last night, but I also had dinner with some friends in from out of town, which was lovely, and then we also watched the Schitt’s Creek Christmas special. I do want to talk some more about this show, but I am going to give it, I think, it’s own entry because it deserves it. Seriously, people, if you aren’t watching this show you need to. It’s hilarious, but incredibly warm and sweet at the same time.

It definitely deserves an entry of its own.

My kitchen is a mess; and I have loads of chores to do this morning. I’d like to, obviously, get as much done today as possible, so tomorrow I can focus on the Saints game and editing the Scotty book, maybe log some time in on Bury Me in Satin, do some reading, etc., and then have both Christmas Eve and Christmas to not only do some writing/editing in the morning, but spend the rest of each day relaxing, which will be lovely. I get a three day work week this week and next (huzzah!) and so here’s hoping that some of that free time will be spent productively.

Or not. We’ll see. Oh! I have to stop at the library today, too. They’re holding a book for me. Yay! I love having a library card, and being able to reserve books on-line. I do think one of these days I need to just go spend a day in the library, though; try to remember what it was like when I was a kid and used to spend whole afternoons in the Tomen Branch of the Chicago Public Library on Pulaski Boulevard. And the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue here in New Orleans is so, so beautiful.

I am also, by the way, in total denial that Carnival is just around the corner.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Do They Know It’s Christmas

Good morning, Friday, and how are you today? A four day weekend—one I have been waiting for, it seems, forever– is just over the horizon and about time, I must say. I am very tired this morning–this week and next I have to work eight hour days on Fridays instead of my usual half-day, because of the holidays, so I am up earlier than normal and quite frankly, I DON’T LIKE THIS–and I am having dinner with friends this evening, so it’s not a normal Friday for me.

But dinner will be fun, so there’s that. Yay, fun!

I am also hoping to get to see Aquaman this weekend, finish reading the book I am currently reading, and move on to another. I got some lovely books in the mail this week as gifts (thank you, generous gift-givers), so I am looking forward to reading some of the others. I also want to reread both The Shining (it’s been years) and Bracken MacLeod was talking about Pet Sematary recently, which made me realize that is one of the Stephen King books from his early period which I’ve not read more than once. The book disturbed me deeply, and I remember recoiling from it as I read it feverishly; it’s a very dark book–even for King, who’s not exactly known for light-and-fluffy–and I am thinking–thanks to Bracken–that I should revisit it now, in my fifties, to see if my own change in perspective and growing up (a lot) since I was such a sallow teen will change my opinion of the book. I also think I might spend some time in 2019 revisiting some of King’s work.

As the end of the year draws nigh, I generally start reflecting back on the year that was, wondering if I’ve accomplished all the things I set out to do and if I achieved any of the goals I set at the beginning of the year. I know I did some, and I also know I failed at others. The Short Story Project was a lot of fun, and I think I am going to sign up to do it again some in the new year; focusing on reading and writing short stories is a lovely thing, and even my blogging about terrific short stories gets even one person to buy an anthology or read a story, it’s a win.

One of the things I’m definitely going to do in the new year is diversify my reading list. I have a number of books in my TBR pile by non-white writers, and I need to start reading those books and writers. Is it an unconscious bias that makes me grab a book by a cisgender straight writer? Possibly and probably, and that’s where systemic bias comes into play; bias we don’t even think about is just as wrong as bias we do think about. It’s even more insidious, because we think we don’t have bias but it’s there, lurking in our subconscious, waiting waiting waiting…and that’s just wrong.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

I despise snow.

Oh, sure, it’s pretty and all, but there’s nothing worse in my opinion than being wet and cold–and that’s a definite result of snow. Although some of my favorite horror novels/films/TV shows are set in the cold and snow (Ghost Story, Stranded, The Terror) and I do have that Christopher Golden novel about the cold and snow in my TBR pile (Snowblind, I think is its name?).

I woke up late this morning with a definite sore throat, as opposed to the tickle I’ve been fighting all week, which isn’t a good thing. I shall liberally dose myself with NyQuil this day as I write and edit and do things around the house. Yesterday I accomplished little to nothing, quite frankly. I did start inputting the edits in “Don’t Look Down,” but stopped after a couple of pages. It was terribly easy for me to get distracted yesterday, partly because I felt so tired all day. We went to a Christmas party last night, which was quite lovely, actually–I drank too much champagne (which has nothing to do with my sore throat, thank you very much) and we took Lyft there and back. It was a very fun evening, with lots of laughter–my sides and abs ache a bit this morning from laughing so hard last night–but today I simply must get things done. I have a stack of paper sitting on my desk to the right of me, and I absolutely must work my way through that entire stack of edits today, or else.

I also have some laundry to do–two loads I started yet didn’t finish yesterday–and the kitchen is still a mess (I told you, I didn’t do much of anything yesterday), and I’d also like to get some reading done today. I am making shrimp and grits for dinner (first time in a very long time I’ve done this) and I also am going to try to make some food for the week, to make things easier on me (broiling chicken breasts, for example). This is, of course, the last full work week I have before the holidays, which reminded me that I actually need to put in a full eight hour day this Friday, as well as next Thursday and Friday. (Note to self: remember that or you’re going to get screwed with your hours)

I also need to make sure I am on track with everything I need to be on track with; which means administrative work–which as I am sure you can imagine how much I love doing that. It’s a heavy plate for a Sunday, but what can I do? It all has to be done, and I need to get this all done before the holiday weekends. I kind of just want to get some writing on Bury Me in Satin done, as well as these edits, then start tackling the Royal Street Reveillon problems over the two four-day weekends.

And then, of course, Carnival begins. Heavy heaving sigh. It’s just non-stop around here.

And now tis back to the spice mines.

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Winter Wonderland

I overslept this morning–which I don’t mind, I was extremely tired last night, as well as completely over it–and it’s dismal and gray and cold outside the windows. I didn’t get as much done as I had wanted last night because I was dealing with yet another Mac problem; my computer wanted to update it’s operating system so stupidly I agreed and clicked yes….and when the computer restarted it again didn’t recognize my phone, so I had to go through that entire nonsensical process yet again. Fortunately I had just backed the damned thing up again, so the “restore from most recent back-up” was at least current this time. But once the phone was finished “restoring” my computer started acting wonky again; the desktop icons never showed up and I tried restarting it again, only to come back and find it was still acting wonky. I restarted again, then collapsed into my easy chair, where I watched a BBC series, The Plantagenets. There wasn’t anything really new in it, other than the idea that the deposition of Richard II “cursed” the family–that deposition/usurpation led to the Wars of the Roses, and also made the sacred person of the King no longer so sacred–which meant deposing kings and crowning new ones was now an established precedent, and this mentality eventually led England down the path of constitutional monarchy. Which is true, and not something I’d read or thought about before, which is always fun when reading or watching history.

Although I probably should have read a book instead.

Today I have some errands to run, and I also need to get the revisions/edits in those stories I did this week entered into the documents so I can also get that finished manuscript turned over to my editor. I should also do some cleaning (there’s never an end to it, really) and work on revising the Scotty. And there’s other stories to write and finish, and I also want to work a bit on Bury Me in Satin this weekend. I’d also like to get to read The Shining again; I’ve been thinking about rereading it for quite some time now and it’s been a very long time. I think I am going to close out this year by rereading some Stephen King novels and reading short stories for the Short Story Project. Next weekend I have a four day weekend–two weeks in a row, woo-hoo!–and I have a lot of cleaning up/tying up of loose ends to get done before the end of the year.

And while I’ve written a lot this year, I’ve also started a shit ton of projects and short stories that I’ve not finished; which is quite despairing to think about. I’m also really annoyed at how out of it the Great Data Disaster of 2018 has made me; I am trying hard to recover the momentum I had before it happened. I am still feeling excited and positive about writing, but discombobulated about where I am and what I am doing and what I should be doing and what the next step should be.

Heavy heaving sigh.

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

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Drummer Boy

And just like that, it’s Friday again. It’s supposed to rain all day today–hurray–but again, I have a very short day at the office, and then it’s back home to get started on cleaning and organizing. I like being able to get the stuff done on Friday that I used to have to do on Saturday; I’m hoping to get the edits on the stories I’ve done this week input today, so I can start polishing the new Scotty, and maybe even get a few chapters worth of work done on Bury Me in Satin. I have two four day weekends coming up after this one, and so I should be able to get everything finished by January 1 that I want to get done.

As long as I don’t get another case of the lazies, which is always possible.

I think I am finished with Christmas shopping for Paul; one gift won’t arrive until after Christmas, but it’s just a fun little gift to make him laugh, rather than anything major that will be missed.

The kitchen is also a terrible mess this morning, as always on Fridays. I just can’t seem to find the energy on weeknights to keep up with this stuff, so it always falls to the weekend for me to get back on top of this stuff. I slept fairly well last night–not great, but not bad; I woke up fairly regularly but was always able to go back into a nice deep sleep, and so I am not tired this morning as much as one might think one would be. But I also don’t have the drive to get anything done before I leave for work…other than maybe folding the clothes currently running in the dryer and maybe moving the stuff from the washer to the dryer to run while I am at work. I also have to swing by and get the mail this morning on my way to the office. I have one more gift for Paul to order, and then I have to order my parents’ presents, and that will wrap up Christmas once and for all with a lovely little bow and maybe some tinsel.

Yay!

We have a Christmas/birthday party to attend on Saturday evening, and I think Paul has plans for the evening, so I am going to be home alone tonight with a needy kitty and lots to do; no real excuse for not getting a lot done tonight other than, of course, the need for attention from Scooter and the tired old mentality well I can always get everything done tomorrow which so frequently seems to affect me on Fridays. But the cleaning is important to get out of the way. And I have to leave the house tomorrow to grocery shop, get the mail and pick up prescriptions, then the party is tomorrow night, so I can be fairly certain that I am going to blow off doing anything tomorrow. And I need to get back into the swing of doing my reading of New Orleans history. It’s amazing how off the Great Data Disaster of 2018 has thrown me.

Ah, well. Tis back to the spice mines with me.

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