Hello, Wednesday, how are you?
Last night was bar testing, so I am a little sluggish this morning, which, to be honest, isn’t that much different than every morning. I did sleep in later than I usually do, though.
Category: goals
Breaking Us in Two
Sunday. It’s one degree warmer than yesterday morning–wow, right? But you will undoubtedly be thrilled to know that I get everything on my list done yesterday other than go to the gym; and after spending two hours in the storage unit moving boxes of books around, I was pretty damned exhausted physically, and then braved Costco on a Saturday afternoon (it wasn’t bad at all, other than stupid people, which is every day). I also came across some books in the storage that I thought hey, these need to be reread and so I took them out. One of them was Richard Matheson’s Hell House, which seemed, at least to me, to be the proper reread after The Haunting of Hill House, in that they’re very similar; one could even go so far as to say Matheson basically took Jackson’s story structure and turned the dial up a notch. I am enjoying the reread very much; although I’m not very far into it thus far. I also found my copy of Michael Rowe’s groundbreaking anthology Queer Fear, which I reviewed in the Lambda Book Report many years ago when I worked there, and was to be my first encounter with Mr. Rowe; I remember he came up to me at the Lambda Awards the next year, introduced himself, and thanked me for the lovely review. We’ve crossed paths a few times since, and have become friends over the years. I do remember loving Queer Fear, and look forward to delving into it and rereading its short stories again.
I also found my high school scrapbook and my diaries from the 1990’s. I used to buy blank books and carry them around with me everywhere, so I could jot down story and/or book ideas, or write diary entries whenever I wanted to. I am always hesitant to reread my old diaries; I often wince from my immaturity and my over-dramatization of events in my life. Yet at the same time, the diaries also served as a very vital source of self-reflection and self-examination; I suppose this blog has served that purpose since I started it on Livejournal back in 2004 (the idea that I have been consistently blogging for thirteen years rather staggers the mind, doesn’t it? But I’ve been writing in a diary of some sort, off and on, since I was a teenager; this seems to be a natural continuation of that process).
I also found the three ring binder where I kept everything from the Virginia situation of 2005 and 2006; including the ACLU letter to the school board. I’d always intended to write a non-fiction book about it all, called Gay Porn Writer, in which I examined what happened to me in the context, not only of the times but extrapolating it out further into what was going on in publishing and the culture. My memory lies to me now, of course, so I am not certain that I’ll ever write such a book–I don’t know that I would remember things correctly, and even then, what is colored by my perceptions of things. I’ve since moved on, of course–I mentioned the incident in passing on my panel at Bouchercon and had to explain it a little, which was kind of crazy. It was so long ago, and I used to get invited to speak about it all the time. The memories are now hazy and unclear, but I am definitely going to keep all this information.
You never know.
I think I am probably just going to scan everything in the scrapbook, in order to preserve it electronically, and then throw it away. I don’t really need to keep programs from my high school football games, or from choir concerts, and scanning them will better preserve them anyway.
I have one errand to run today, and I also want to go to the gym for a little bit, start dipping my feet back into the water of working out regularly, and despite the cold, I am going to give that a try.
And hopefully, I’ll get some writing done, or at least something done that will move all projects forward.
Here’s a Sunday hunk for you:
Lawyers in Love
The cold spell we brought with us back from Toronto continues, and it’s lovely, if I am going to be honest. I had yet another good night of sleep after bar testing last night, and of course, walking back to the office through the Quarter was wonderful. It was a beautiful October night, and the Quarter is putting on its Halloween finery. There was a house completely done up with killer clowns, which was fantastic.
See what I mean?
I’m going to have to do bar testing again before Halloween so I have an excuse to walk around and look a the decorations. There’s a pair of houses on Royal Street between St. Philip and Ursulines that goes all out for every holiday; I can’t wait to see what they’ve done for Halloween this year.
I have this Friday off because I am working Sunday, doing condom outreach at the Tea Dance party along the river…which means I should have some great pictures.
I am slowly crawling out from under the backlog that piled up while I was in Toronto, which is lovely. I made a list and started working my way through it; and I am pretty jazzed. Scooter will be pleased, no doubt, because my plans for my days off this weekend entail mostly sitting in the easy chair and editing. I also have some news to announce relatively soon, which is also pretty cool.
I had decided not to re-edit Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz because, you know, I wanted the new editions to be like the originals…but then I realized the files I have are unedited; no copy edits or anything, so I am going to go ahead and try to do some mild revisions. I also think doing this will help me with the new Scotty as well.
All right, back to the spice mines.
Dead Giveaway
Tuesday morning, it’s sixty degrees and I’ve had another glorious night of sleep. I am still a bit groggy, only being on my second cup of coffee, but today it’s back to reality after the bliss of Bouchercon and being wrapped up in the world of writing and publishing for almost a week. Heavy heaving sigh. I think we brought the cold weather back down from Canada with us! But I am digging out from under–I really did go AWOL while we were gone on a lot of things–so this morning I need to get caught up on my email and get the house back in some kind of order. I have Friday off as well, since I am working Sunday (condom outreach at the Gay Halloween tea dance at Crescent Park), so that will also help some as far as getting caught up is concerned.
Methinks I need a to-do list.
I started writing a short story yesterday; it’s an idea that’s been lying around in my head for a really long time and I thought, hell, I should start writing this, partly because an idea for the opening came to me. For the longest time this dark noir story was set in Kansas in my head–I even wrote, I think, a rough draft a long time ago but have always wanted to revise it as a noir, and reading Craig Pittman’s Oh Florida! made me realize that part of the problem with the revision I was having was because it should have been set in the panhandle of Florida. (I really recommend the Pittman; Im enjoying the hell out of it and it’s bringing back a lot of memories for me of all the time I’ve spent in Florida) I had started writing another one last week–“Sorry, Wrong Email”–that I would also like to finish this week….so much to do; I really need to make that damned to-do list.
First thing on the to-do list: make a to-do list.
Second thing on the to-do list: figure out what my next horror read will be. (I’m thinking I need to finally finish off Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes trilogy with End of Watch, which is more paranormal than mystery; but I may save that for a weekend read.) Maybe it’s time to reread The Haunting of Hill House, which I haven’t gotten around to doing yet. Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions.
And man, looking around my kitchen at the messy wreckage…I need to get this mess cleaned up.
Okay, enough procrastination. It’s back to the spice mines with me, and here’s a hunk for your Tuesday morning:
Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy
Tomorrow morning at this time I will be running around, hoping that I am not forgetting to do something before we leave for Toronto. I haven’t had much of a chance to get excited about the trip, but this morning it’s starting to be kind of real to me. The kitchen is a mess–I made Swedish meatballs last night–and so I need to get the dishwasher loaded, start gathering things to pack for the trip, etc.
I also queried another agent yesterday, and submitted another short story. I have three more agents to query on my list today, and I might submit yet another short story to another market. We’ll see how that goes.
I also printed out Jackson Square Jazz last night; I am going to do the ever popular copy edit with it. It also occurred to me that this is a golden opportunity, as the ebooks for the first two Scottys are about to go live, to re-edit them and therefore make the ‘new’ versions of them worthwhile to have for people. I haven’t completely decided whether I am going to re-edit the books or not, but we shall see how it goes. It’s really dependent on the time factor, and since I am trying to finish writing another Scotty at the same time…it’s also not a bad idea, as rereading the originals will put me in a Scotty mindset, which can’t hurt, you know?
I started reading Robert Marasco’s Burnt Offerings last night, and was very quickly absorbed into the story. The beginning is reminiscent of several other horror classics–Rosemary’s Baby, Harvest Home, The Haunting of Hill House–and thoroughly enjoyable. It’s clearly a ‘haunted house/bad place’ story; I’ve never seen the movie nor had I read the book before, so I am kind of excited about it. I also need to pick out the books I’m going to be taking with me on the trip.
We also finished watching Harlan Coben’s The Five mini-series last night on Netflix. There are ten episodes, and it’s a interesting show with several different mysteries, several different crimes, and they are all connected in some strange way to the disappearance of a small boy some twenty years earlier. The main characters–Slade, Danny, Mark, Pru–were all friends, and one afternoon they were off in the woods playing, with Mark’s younger brother Jesse in tow. Being older kids, they wanted to go off and do their own thing, so they sent Jesse off on his own and he disappeared. A child molesting serial killer later confessed to killing him…but the body was never found. Flash forward twenty years, and Jesse’s DNA has turned up at a brutal crime scene, which begs the question, is Jesse still alive? How did his DNA wind up at a crime scene twenty years after he disappeared? And then his DNA turns up at another brutal crime scene. What is the connection between the cases? Lots of twists and turns, and several big surprise twists made it quite enjoyable to watch. The cast was also really good, and the mini-series format gave the writers the opportunity to delve into the characters and their lives a lot more. It also was very haunting in that it’s theme–the damage the disappearance of a child can do to those left behind–is something I am fascinated by.
Highly recommended.
And now, back to the spice mines.
All This Love
Monday, and in two days I’ll be jetting off for Toronto. Huzzah! Needless to say, this is a very exciting thing for me; Bouchercon has become one of my favorite times of the year.
In other exciting news, I discovered an electronic final copy of Jackson Square Jazz yesterday. It was there the whole time, but I didn’t think it was the final copy because the first chapter, every time I opened the file, was only like 3300 words and I thought, no, that’s not it because it’s not long enough…and then I looked at it again yesterday, saw how many actual chapters there were, pulled them all into one document and realized that yes, indeed, this actually was the version I turned in. So, it’s not copy edited, which means I’ll need to copy edit it and it won;t be the same version, ultimately, as the print version when the book goes live…but I don’t have to retype the entire thing.
I’d much rather do a final polish than retype almost a hundred thousand words, believe you me.
Another horror novel bit the dust last night, not surviving the fifty-page test. (For those of you who are wondering that that is, I give a book fifty pages to engage me in some way. If by page fifty I don’t care about the book in any way, or it has annoyed me in some way, into the donation pile it goes.) Likewise, I try to give a television show at least three episodes before giving up on it. I’m also trying to break the habit of watching shows that I once enjoyed once they’ve run out of steam. Much as I hate to say it, Paul and I have abandoned a lot of the superhero shows currently airing because they’ve either run out of steam or just gone off the rails. I loved Flash, but seriously–how many times do you go back in time and alter the timeline and fuck up everything before you decide “hey, maybe this is a bad idea”?
For the record, it should have only taken one.
So much to do before I leave for Bouchercon on Wednesday! I’ve made my packing list, still need to put together a to-do list, and figure out if it’s a stupid idea to take things with me to work on (since I never work on anything at these things, but of course, you know the one time I don’t take anything with I’ll not only have the time but will want to work on something and be enormously frustrated I didn’t bring anything); decide what books to take along to read (remember: I am only reading horror for October–I am thinking about reading Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco next), and get the suitcase started.
But I have to get through this week first. Two days at the office. Heavy heaving sigh. And I need to send out some more queries this morning.
C’est la vie.
And now, back to the spice mines. Here’s a hunk for you, to get your morning rolling.
Heart to Heart
Gah, it’s Wednesday and the week is half over and I’ve not scratched many items off my to-do list. Heavy heaving sigh. Although the weather seems to have turned here and it’s been lovely the last few days. I worked in the storage unit for about an hour yesterday; got a few more book donation boxes together and threw some things away, which was progress of a sort. The primary problem, however, is discovering that almost everything in there appears to be cases of copies of my own books, or my kids’ series–the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc.–that I will never get rid of; so I think my next move is to swap out boxes of books in the attic (or decoratively hidden around the apartment), books that I want to keep (copies of books written by friends, etc.) for the cases of my own books; it only makes sense to have easier access to them in order to donate for charity auctions or for book events where they don’t have copies of my books or aren’t able to get copies of my books. Or to sell myself. I do think from time to time I should resell my used books and make some money off them, but it also seems like an incredible pain in the ass and I barely have time to keep up with everything I need to get done, let alone adding another chore.
We’ll see.
I am one step closer to sending out the query letters. With the assistance of some amazing friends, I think I had a damned good query letter put together that just needs a tweak here and there, and has also helped me figure out what tweaking, oddly enough, needs to be done in the manuscript itself. So, the goal is to send out a wave of query emails by the end of the week, work on Scotty, finish the final revision of a short story to get sent out there, and make those manuscript tweaks.
I also put another book in the donation pile this week that didn’t pass the fifty page test, and am about to start reading R. L. Stine’s The Lost Girl. I read a lot of Stein and Christopher Pike novels in the early 1990’s–which helped inspire me to write the drafts that became Sorceress, Sara, and Sleeping Angel–so I am interested to see some of his newer work. I met him, not only at the Edgars one year, but at Stokercon in Vegas, and he is a lovely, very nice man. My original thought with those y/a’s was to link them all together at some point, the way he’d linked the Fear Street novels together, and in a way, all of my young adult novels are sort of linked together–Sara is set in a small town in Kansas; that town is where Laura, the main character in Sorceress is from; the town in California Laura moves to is where Sleeping Angel is set; and Scotty’s parents in Lake Thirteen are from the small town in Alabama where my main character in Dark Tide is from…and the town where Scotty lives now, in the suburbs of Chicago, was where Glenn in Sara moved to Kansas from. All connected. I sometimes forget that my young adult books all are in the same world and are all connected…
And on that note, I’m not going to finish my to-do list by sitting here thinking about getting things done.
Today’s Hump Day Hunk is actor Aaron-Taylor Johnson.
All Right
It’s gloomy this morning, and my heart is heavy upon waking to the news from Las Vegas. Yay, Monday.
I have a lot to get done this week, as ever. Bouchercon and our trip to Toronto looms on the horizon; I went to work on the stuff in the storage attic over the laundry room this weekend. Cleaning out the storage spaces, of course, is an exercise in letting go; I donated three boxes of books last week and will probably donate that many more this week.
I want to get at least three more chapters on the Scotty book done this week; I also want to revise a short story one final team before sending it out into the world; and I am going to get the WIP whipped into final shape so I can start sending that out to agents. It should work, as long as I don’t get sidetracked or distracted or lazy. Tonight when I get home from work I am going to make pho, for the first time; I’ve found a ‘quick” recipe that should only take about forty minutes to make.
I started reading another book yesterday that didn’t pass the first fifty page test; into the donate pile it went, and I started reading another, The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. I’ve never read Ketchum, but I’ve know who he is for years. I met him at Stokercon in Las Vegas; and since he was one of the guests of honor, I arranged for his travel and so forth. What an absolutely charming man! I bought my copy of this book that weekend, but never ran into him again after I’d bought it. It’s quite excellent so far.
And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me for the rest of the day.
Here’s a hunk to slide you into the week.
Gloria
Tuesday! I have a long day of testing facing me, capped off with bar testing tonight at Good Friends. I have my morning free, at least before I have to run my errands, so I am going to try to get some writing done. I did finish Chapter 5 yesterday, and am trying to get the next five chapters outlined before I get moving on Chapter 6. I think I know what’s going to happen next; but everything’s kind of amorphous and I really want to sit and think it all through before I try writing. Some of the stuff in the first five chapters is going to need to be redone–there’s some stuff that I might have to cut out entirely–and I am going to seriously consider that before just trying to make it all work together.
I printed out another, trimmed copy of the WIP, which is now 276 pages instead of 340. That was some serious editing I did there. I am going to wait until this weekend to read it again; although I have lots of notes about what needs to be done with it.
I also started writing another short story yesterday, “The White Knuckler.” Not sure how it turns out, but right now in my head it’s just another variation on my theme of ‘running into someone from your past on a vehicle of mass transportation,” like my story “A Streetcar Named Death.” I do seem to return to the same themes, or variations on the same type of story, an awful lot. So, I am just going to rough draft it out, and then try to figure out how not to make it just another variation on a theme. I don’t want to be reductive.
Short stories are hard.
Lisa Unger’s In the Blood continues to enthrall. We are also watching a Netflix original series, Atypical, which is about a highly functional autistic teenager and his family. His parents are played by Michael Rappaport and Jennifer Jason Leigh (of whom I’ve been a fan since Fast Times at Ridgemont High); Sam the teen is played by Keir Gilchrist, who played the gay son on United States of Tara. It’s actually a very sweet show, with strong characters played by actors very good in the roles; its focus is that Sam is now ready to start dating, or rather, thinks he should start dating. The show is both funny and touching, and we are enjoying it quite a bit.
So, this morning I am going to sign out of here, do some filing, and basically figure out what I need to do (in other words, get organized), and perhaps curl up in the easy chair with some more Lisa Unger to get inspired, as I always am by brilliantly talented people.
Here’s a Tuesday hunk for you:
You Are
It’s raining this morning here in New Orleans, and very dark outside my windows. We’re in a flash flood warning through Thursday, but from everything I’ve seen on-line this morning the eye of Harvey is going to pass far to the west of New Orleans; but a lot of Louisiana is going to be impacted. Not to the extent Houston and Texas were, of course. Just thinking about what’s happened to Houston (still happening, actually) here is terrifying. I saw on Weather.com that three times the water pumped out of New Orleans after the Katrina levee-failure has dropped on Houston…although it’s a much bigger area. Houston is going to need us all, everyone. It’s the fourth largest city in the United States; a major port and contributor to the economy, and a major cog in the oil/gas industry. Most everyone I know and love and care about in Houston has surfaced somewhere on social media, so I know they’re all okay, but the images are absolutely horrific.
It’s odd that today is the anniversary of Katrina and it’s raining, with a hurricane heading for the western part of the state. I’ve thought a lot about the post-Katrina flood these past few days as Houston has been ravaged, and my heart breaks for all the lives that are going through what so many here experienced. So many New Orleanians evacuated to Houston and stayed there, and now are going through the same experience all over again. It makes my heart hurt. I don’t doubt that Houston will rebuild; I lived in Houston for two years and have spent a lot of time there. Houstonians and Texans are, no matter what else you may think about them, are a hardy, tough lot who can’t be kept down.
HOU DAT.
The LSU-BYU game, which was scheduled to be played originally in Houston this Saturday, has been moved to the Superdome; I think we may try to get tickets. It’s going to be interesting trying to drive to work today, and even more interesting trying to get home later this evening after a day of incessant rain. Heavy sigh.
Oh, the wonderful Paul D. Marks did a blog piece about us Macavity Award finalists; you can find it here:
http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2017/08/2017-macavity-award-short-story.html
I started inputting the edits on the WIP yesterday–I stand corrected; that is more tedious than doing a line edit–and have decided my next read will be The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith, a writer I love and admire and haven’t read enough work by; I’ve read some of her short stories (wonderful) but I think the only novels I’ve read (and loved) are The Talented Mr. Ripley (which I need to reread) and Strangers on a Train.
And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines with me. Here’s a Tuesday hunk for you, Constant Reader:
Queer and Loathing in America 