Category: history

Half-Gifts

Thursday morning and the last day of in-office work for me. July is coming to a close, and we are slowly inching our way to the end of the dog days, when a sweat-bath is no longer included with any venture outside. For those who wonder how we can stand to live with the heat of summer, it’s primarily because, with the rare occasional cold spell, it’s beautiful here from mid-September to mid-May. It wasn’t so bad yesterday, in all honesty. When I got in my car in the morning to go to work I thought this isn’t so bad and checked my phone. The heat index said it felt like 97 degrees and I thought it was cool.

Ah, summer in New Orleans. Even when I came home, it was still high–but was a “feels like” in the low 100s, so I was actually okay with it. I was tired, though, when I got home from work. I had a ZOOM meeting but it was canceled, and I hadn’t slept well again last night. I’ve not had a good, deep sleep since around Saturday night, I think. It’s no wonder I’m feeling a bit tired. I collapsed in my chair and watched some informative Youtube history videos on the Apostolic Majesty channel; a particularly good one about Charles V’s failure of his primary goal–the creation of a unified Burgundy under his control. I love this shit, seriously. Then I got up, put on some classic dance music from the “dance all night days” (seriously, Jonathan Peters’ remix of Whitney Houston’s “My Love is Your Love” is one of the greatest dance recordings of all time) which gave me some nostalgia from the years I spent the weekends haunting the bars in the Quarter, listening to great music and dancing and just enjoying myself thoroughly. I did some dishes while listening (and dancing, and performing–I always perform) and some laundry. The dance music picked up my lagging spirits and put me in a good mood. (I was a little bummed by some things I found out yesterday, which made my spirits sink to the bottoms of my feet; I’ll talk about them both at some point, but it was a rather dispiriting day with bad energy.

But without a purring kitty sleeping my lap, I couldn’t just sit in my easy chair all evening and wallow in misery and disappointment–not when there’s fun gay dance music to dance to while I clean and do chores and so forth. Lesson learned and note taken: there’s nothing gay dance remixes can’t make better. Looking around this morning, I realize I am heading into the office for the last time this week, and I am going into the weekend with the laundry and dishes caught up, but the kitchen organized and yes, there’s still some clean-up and filing necessary to be done–but without having to worry about doing laundry and dishes and so forth? Easy-peasy. I’d like to get some writing done this weekend; some short stories need work, I need to write another one from scratch, and I want to keep working on this new work-in-progress which I’m not quite ready to talk about just yet; I want to get these first four already written chapters edited and revised and see how easy the next few chapters come before I am going to talk about it publicly yet. I do like the story, and I do like the concept behind it; I like the main character who’s a good guy but kind of a loser–well, maybe not necessarily so much a loser but someone who can never really catch a break of any kind; just one would have completely changed and transformed his life and who he is into something completely different. He’s had a hard life, been burned by lovers, and now just is kind of coasting into whatever happens next. This is more hardboiled noir than what I usually do, but I am trying not to replicate someone else’s style this time so much as to kind of create my own, if that makes sense? A friend, a fellow writer far more successful than I could ever dare hope to be, once told me, your blessing and your curse is that you can write anything and everything. It was probably the most penetrating insight anyone has ever give me about anything in my life, and I think about that all the time. Do I have a distinct authorial voice? Am I not more successful because I write all over the place, without a structured and detailed plan of what to do next and where to go and so forth.

But I also don’t know if that’s me. It was me, before the Time of Troubles when everything derailed, and since then I’ve not really just ever taken the time to sit back and really put some thought into what I want out of my writing career. Since I started writing again after the Time of Troubles, I’ve just kind of bounced from this sounds interesting to oh I think I’ll write about this next rather than, what kind of books do I really want to write and what kind of career do I want to have in the time that’s left to me, and what do I need to do to get there? I do think somehow my work has matured to another level over the last six or seven books, and I know my short stories are getting better as I write more of them. I am so fucking proud of “Solace in a Dying Hour” and “The Ditch” (forthcoming in that terrific anthology School of Hard Knox that I posted the TOC from the other day) I could just burst. I really want to write something for the Malice anthology, and there’s a couple of deadlines looming on open calls I am sort of interested in.

A rather ambitious program for the weekend, methinks. But definitely do-able.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

One More Chance

My first series will always be special to me, even though I’ve retired Chanse MacLeod…at least for now, at any rate; I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that I shouldn’t ever say never when it comes to my writing career. Chanse will always be special for me in that he was the main character in my first book to be published as well as the first series of mine to see print. I originally created Chanse in 1989–can you believe that? Thirteen years from the time I first started constructing the character and him getting into print.

When I left California and moved to Houston that year, I decided to put the miseries of the 1980’s behind me, forget the past, and try to move on to the future I wanted for myself. I still had no idea what I wanted to do to make a living, but I knew I was never going to become a writer unless I actually, you know, wrote. When I moved to Houston, I moved away from reading mostly epic fantasy and horror to reading crime and horror. Sue Grafton’s F is for Fugitive had just been released, and the bookstore–Bookstop?–I frequented in Houston had a store catalogue that had book reviews and author interviews, and Sue Grafton was on the cover. I thought the alphabet titles was a great idea, so I bought the first three and took them home. I loved them, and started diving back into the crime fiction genre headfirst. I also started reading the Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason novels again–I’d read some when I was a kid–and I also started reading the rest of the Travis McGee series (I’d read, and not liked, The Dreadful Lemon Sky when I was thirteen; I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the series) and absolutely loved them. I loved McDonald’s writing style more than anything else, and the descriptions of McGee sounded, well, hot.

I started creating Chanse MacLeod as a blend of Kinsey and Travis McGee, really; I was driving to work one day and crossed a bayou. noticing the sign for the first time, and thought “The Body in the Bayou would be a great title for his first book” and so i started constructing the character and his world. He was a former cop turned private eye in Houston; he’d played college football at Auburn but suffered a career-ending injury his senior year and so he went into law enforcement, eventually going out on his own. He had a secretary named Clara that he shared with a couple of lawyers in an office suite in downtown Houston, and most of his work involved trying to get evidence of adultery for wealthy and suspicious spouses. In 1994. after I fell in love with New Orleans, I moved Chanse to New Orleans and his college experience to LSU; I also was discovering gay crime novels around this same time, so I decided to make Chanse a gay man; from a small town in Texas with homophobic parents and family, playing a sport where homophobia is rife, and he too discovered and fell in love with New Orlean…so he became a cop when his football career ended, eventually becoming a private eye. I started rewriting the four or five chapters I’d written with the story set in Houston…but once I moved to New Orleans and began to grasp what it was actually like to live here, I threw the entire thing out and started over.

That manuscript I started over became Murder in the Rue Dauphine, and the first place I submitted it to offered me a contract six weeks after I mailed them the manuscript. Alyson was home for the first five books in the series…before Alyson Books went belly-up, without paying me the advance for the fifth book and no longer paying me royalties on the others (the entire series was still in print when Alyson folded).

Burn in hell, corporate trash who bought Alyson.

(The company had been doomed for a while, and the unfortunate last minute attempt to rescue it failed, which I thought was horrifically unfair to the person who they brought in to save it. The final collapse was hardly his fault; his predecessors had made so many unbelievably stupid mistakes there was no saving the business, really. And ebooks and so forth started eroding away at the reader base, at the same time the business began to crumble. I’ve always felt bad for the poor dude who was the last to hold the title of publisher. I don’t think he had any staff and he was the only person working there by the bitter end.)

But when Alyson went belly-up and chose to stop honoring their contractual obligations to pay their writers, I’d already moved the Scotty series to Bold Strokes Books and was doing not only anthologies for them but also editorial work for them, so moving the Chanse series there was a no-brainer.

The last two books in the series were done with Bold Strokes Books.

As with anything with my career, I had a plan for the Chanse series but of course, man plans and the gods laugh. I had always intended the series to be seven books, from the very beginning, and I had this emotional journey for him all mapped out: the series would chart his progression from lonely, damaged and scarred loner with a snide sense of humor to more centered, more grounded, more mature and more settled into his life. So, when the series opened, he was–against his better judgment–seeing a hot flight attendant, and wondering if he was actually falling in love and had the opportunity to be happy for once in his life. I really did give him a miserable backstory; alcoholic mother, abusive drunk redneck father, grew up living in a trailer park in a snotty small Texas town where no one would let him forget he was trash until he showed some football playing ability–and he was just cynical enough to understand they still considered him trash, but trash with a skill they appreciated. He went to LSU and joined a fraternity in a final attempt to banish the homosexuality from his brain (it didn’t work), and then was injured in a bowl game so his career was over–he’d been considering going for the NFL draft. He was a big man, as such; and spent a lot of time in the gym working out and keeping fit. I also had to make a horrific decision while writing the second book–with every intention of walking that ending back in the third.

And then Katrina happened, and everything changed.

My editor at Alyson Books at the time, Joe Pittman, was new. He had come on board shortly after my previous editor was let go (I had a different editor for each of the first three Chanse books, and in fact had a different for the last two–so the Chanse series went through five editors at Alyson…now I would see that as a sign), and I was assigned to him as a gay mystery writer. He got in touch with me after Katrina to check in on me and of course, to encourage me to write about Katrina, which I did NOT want to do whilst I was in the middle of experiencing the aftermath still. I was still unhoused at the time, staying with my parents in Kentucky, before moving back to Hammond, Louisiana, just before Rita to housesit. Paul and I talked on the phone one morning and suggested we do a fundraising anthology for Katrina victims…but I wasn’t interested. Joe called me that afternoon and with the same suggestion, so I told him Paul wanted to do one and that was how Love, Bourbon Street came to be. Joe also kept insisting to me that I should write a post-Katrina book as the next Chanse book, and despite my reluctance I decided to go ahead and do it. Part of the problem, as I saw it, was, how do you end a book on a hopeful note when the city is still in ruins and most of the population still displaced? Joe kept pushing me, and I finally agreed to write Murder in the Rue Chartres–and I really don’t remember anything about writing the book other than I did actually write it, and it turned out to be one of my best books. It won the Lambda, for one thing, and got great reviews everywhere.

The fourth Chanse novel was, in my opinion, the weakest of the series. They’d fired my editor before I signed a contract for the fourth book, and when that finally happened, they needed me to write in like eight weeks. I asked for a two book contract so I would never have to write another book in eight weeks again (LOL at my naivete), and they were so desperate for the fourth they agreed. (I had already written a Scotty book that was just sitting in a drawer; I turned it into the fourth Chanse and to this day I think it was a mistake.) Of course, they did publish the fifth, but they never paid me a dime for Murder in the Garden District. The only money I’ve made off that book is from the ebook Bold Strokes put up–I gave them the entire Chanse backlist for ebooks, and those Chanse books still sell.

Maybe I shouldn’t have ended the series at seven?

But it felt like the right place to stop. Chanse’s personal story of personal growth and how it happened kind of got lost along the way; he grew and changed as the series progressed, but writing the last two–which I also think are good–felt a little paint-by-the-numbers for me; I felt that writing the sixth and when I felt it again in the seventh, I decided to stop there. I wasn’t getting any satisfaction for writing the books anymore, there was no joy derived from doing them, and since I’d already planned to stop at seven…I stopped at seven.

I still get ideas for Chanse books, of course. I have an LSU fraternity murder that would be a perfect Chanse story–I planned it as a novella–and of course, I’ve always wanted to fictionalize the Jeff Davis Eight murders as a Chanse novel, too. Maybe I could do three Chanse novellas published in one book?

That would make a lot more sense, and could be even more fun to write than one long single story novel.

Or I may not do anything with Chanse at all, and use those stories/plots for something else.

Treasure Hiding

Monday and back to the office with me this morning, woo-hoo! Yesterday was kind of nice. It rained overnight and we had a couple of amazing thunderstorms in the morning which cooled everything off (for a quick moment) so I was able to cuddle up under my blankets with a cup of coffee and finished reading Megan Abbott’s amazing Beware the Woman (get a copy now and you can thank me later–I prefer cash), before doing some chores around the house and getting a handle on the kitchen/office mess situation. Yesterday afternoon around one I checked the temperature and it was a mere 78 degrees here. In July, in the afternoon. Madness, am I right? But it gradually started climbing again, as always, but it was a lovely respite from the brutality that has been this summer.

I also read a short story from one of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Lady’s Man” by Ruth Chatterton, which I found interesting as it was nothing more than a little ghost story, set at a country home of none other than Noel Coward! I’m sure this must be the same Ruth Chatterton who’d been a film star in the 20s and 30s; a quick Google search answers the question that yes, the film star also was a writer! How delightful. The tale was told in a conversational style, as though Ms. Chatterton was making interesting conversation at a formal dinner, which made it really fun to read, even though the chills weren’t quite as pronounced as they were in some of the other stories I’ve read in these books. I do love revisiting these old anthologies and stories from another time.

I also spent some time going through my recent journals and marking pages with sticky notes that are applicable to things I am currently working on or thinking about going to work on. I usually brainstorm and think in my journals. It used to be just the act of writing something down was necessary for me to remember it later–which is why I never needed to really consult my notes in the Olden Days–but that is clearly no longer the case. Even writing stuff here in blog posts is no guarantee I will remember it later. It was also interesting because so much of my journal is just me scribbling, free associating names and titles then who the people are who got with both, quotes I like with attribution, and then the most bizarre things that literally make no sense at all; where did this thought come from? Is it original or did I see it somewhere and wrote it down? It’s always fun to see just how schizophrenic my creativity is when I don’t try to harness it. I actually wrote longhand in my journal last night while watching a documentary–I sometimes takes notes in case I want to blog about it later–and wound up writing several pages of a personal essay about my own experience going to Boys’ State in Kansas the summer I turned sixteen. (Yes, I was watching Boys’ State on Apple Plus, which was filmed at the Texas Boys’ State, which was interesting and well done, and a lot like I remembered it being all those years ago in a different state.) That evolved into me writing about always feeling like an outsider, observing from a slight remove, and went on for quite some time, rather indulgently, and I kind of was amused. There I was, feeling like I was creatively stifled and not able to write, yet writing in longhand in a journal, no less. It wasn’t fiction, of course, but it was still a creative expression, a free form exercise in stream of consciousness writing to see where my mind went–and inevitably, as always, I had to take the piss out of myself.

And that led to another page about my difficulties in taking myself seriously, and thus self-sabotaging myself and my career.

It truly is a wonder I have a career, or for that matter, even had one to begin with.

One thing that did come from that free form writing was a reiteration of something I think I may have posted here recently, that I should take just as much pride in my novels as I do in my published short stories. Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it, but my inner editor always wants to find and fix things in the novels, which inevitably leads to me wishing I could have another pass at it, and the reality is I will always feel like I should have taken another pass at a novel manuscript before it went to print. I need to get over that, or to at least keep it to myself and my journals rather than dragging my own work on my blog. I AM proud of my books, every single one of them, and every single one of them was the best book I was capable of writing at the time I wrote it. As I believe I continue to learn and grow as a writer the more I write, I will always think of my past work as something done when I wasn’t as mature a writer and was still learning because I am always learning. And hope to always continue learning and get better, not just as an author but as a person.

The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know, and how much I will never know. It’s kind of humbling, really.

I did decide what the next book I am going to write is going to be, and that’s a good thing. I was pretty sure of what it was going to be, because it’s in my head and needs to come out more than anything else at the moment–but there’s always something else nagging at the back of my mind saying write me write me! It has the potential to be very good, but I still need to figure some things out. I know how it starts and I know how it ends and I know the back story; I just don’t know the middle and how to get from Act One to the start of Act Three; I always struggle with the second act. I started writing it for a friend who was an acquiring editor, it was something I had been wanting to do for a while and he was interested in acquiring it once it was finished, or at least a first draft completed. So, while I was working on two other books at the same time, I was also taking one day every week and writing a three thousand word chapter and emailing it to him. I had completed Chapter Four and needed a transitional chapter that wasn’t boring or expository, so I had to put more thought into it than I had the previous four. This was last fall, when things started to get out of control in my personal life and with everything else, when I started falling behind on everything and my anxiety was out of control and I just didn’t have the headspace or creative energy to spare to figure out that chapter, so I stopped working on it.

But I never stopped thinking about it.

So, now I have to write it. I may continue to send it to him although he is no longer an acquiring editor, but he’s also a friend and I respect his opinion (he is remaining unnamed because I cannot say kind things about him publicly), so maybe I will. He was very encouraging, and sometimes I need a little bit of a push every now and then. I’ve also mentally worked out some of the kinks in those first chapters, too. I think it will be fun to write; I know I was enjoying it when I was working on it before, and it wasn’t like fuck, I don’t want to work on the structure and plot and meaning of this fucking thing, it was yeah, let’s figure this shit out.

That’s a good sign, methinks.

I’ve also decided my next read is going to be Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt. I love Kelly and I love Kelly’s work, so I can’t wait to see what this is about. She has a truly masterful grasp of the rural South, and that voice! Oh, that authorial voice! She takes me back to my childhood summers in rural Alabama, shows those folks with a clear and unblinking eye, and then writes with language so beautifully and magnificently constructed that it makes me feel seen, home, and alive. I have some more fabulous books coming–what a summer for releases! New books to come from Laura Lippman and Angie Kim and Michael Koryta on top of all the treasures that have already been released this year? I’ve got Eryk Pruitt’s latest and Scott Von Doviak’s latest on their way, with a new Donna Andrews right on their heels. I need to stop slacking and get back to reading on top of everything else! Mon Dieu, how am I ever supposed to keep up?

There simply isn’t enough time in every day, is there?

There were also short stories in my journals–either the idea or the openings or an outline–that I’ve never transferred out or transcribed, which also needs to be done. God, there are so many short stories in progress…it’s daunting just thinking about it.

But it was a good weekend. I got some rest and I accomplished some things. I got better organized, with a short way to go, and am proceeding with plans to get everything back together again and start writing again, clearly and clear-headedly moving forward on something I’m really interested in writing, something I’ve wanted to write for a very long time–and it’s enormously satisfying knowing I am finally going to be working on it for real.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. I tend to turn up like a bad penny here and there, now and again.

Essence

And here we are, on a very hot Saturday July morning in New Orleans, feeling rested and relaxed, which is becoming the norm and I have to say I really quite like it. I think some of it has to do with the lessening of stress and anxiety with the lightening of my over-all schedule; it’s nice not being constantly busy and always feeling guilty (anxious, stressed) about the things undone when I had to call it quits for the day from sheer exhaustion…and then of course that stress/anxiety/guilt made it impossible for me to sleep. I even cut back drastically on my caffeine intake during this period–cutting back to only three cups of coffee (which is probably still too much, really) and only one 16 ounce bottle of Coke per day. It’s helped my sleep some–and I am not willing to up my caffeine intake to find out, either–but I’ve been sleeping so well the last few weeks since I recovered from the trip that I am almost not afraid talking about it will jinx it…but the streak continued again last night. I’m not sure what the difference is–probably the reduction in stress and anxiety.

Finding out that my mother suffered from anxiety was also incredibly helpful. Finally, at age sixty-one, nearly sixty-two (less than a month away), I realize that I, too, suffer from almost crippling anxiety, but never realized it because it’s just my reality, if that makes sense? Everything stems from anxiety: the self-deprecation, the not taking my work as seriously as I should as well as being dismissive of it rather than proud, the issues with public speaking–all of it stems from anxiety. But that’s because it’s always been for me, I just figured, as one would, that it was normal and everything else has the same issues because that’s all I know. The Xanax has helped somewhat with reducing my anxiety or lessening it enough for me to be functional, and now recognizing that it is an actual chemical brain condition that I’ve had most of my life has opened my eyes in many ways, and I am trying to rewire my brain to accept and understand that anxiety causes me to want to self-destruct at times. I wish I had known this about twenty years ago, even forty, but would it have made a difference?

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day, really. I woke up later than usual (same this morning, staying in bed until just past seven thirty like a lazy slattern) and feel very rested. I spent most of the day going over forms doing Quality Assurance as well as did some on-line trainings. Once the work day was over, I repaired to my easy chair with my journal and scribbled notes in it for awhile until Paul got home from the gym. We watched this week’s episodes of Minx (smart adding Elizabeth Perkins to the cast for the second season), The Crowded Room, and Hijack, and moved on to some more Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite half-hour comedies of all time (the queefing episode is a non-stop laugh riot, seriously).

Today I want to spend some more time on a kitchen cleaning project, in which I am cleaning out the drawers and the cabinets in the kitchen. Things tend to accumulate around here, and there are things that get tossed in drawers that I’ll never need, have never needed, and just held on to for some reason unknown to my conscious brain. I also want to work on the kitchen rugs (which never stay in place, ever) and the floors a bit more. I need to purge more books, too, and work on the kitchen. There’s a mess now because I cleaned out some things already and now that stuff is scattered all over the kitchen and I need to either find a place for it all or toss it, I also am going to spend some more time with Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman over my coffee and perhaps a few more Alfred Hitchcock Presents short stories before I run today’s errands: groceries, mail, library sale to drop off books, and maybe a car wash. The tire pressure light has been on in my car since I drove home from Kentucky, but the heat has been so intense I’m not sure I’ve been able to get an accurate gauge reading of the tire pressure; I’ll probably swing by the gas station before doing any errands to try equalizing the pressure again. I also want to spend some time trying to write today–whether it’s a new book project, a revision of a short story, or even a brand new short story entirely (that Malice anthology deadline is approaching), but I want to get back into writing again, flex and stretch those creative muscles that have been so dormant for so long.

I got the table of contents for another anthology that I am appearing in, School of Hard Knox, edited by the amazing Jeffrey Marks and coming from Crippen & Landau. The author of the Father Knox crime series, back from the Golden Age, had come up with a list of ten rules that should never be broken by a crime/mystery writer; we each chose a rule and wrote a story breaking it. Mine was “no supernatural events or beings”; which was kind of perfect for me. I dug out an old Alabama/Corinth County story that had been moldering in the archives for decades called “The Ditch,” which I revised and rewrote and made much stronger. I was pleased when the story was accepted, and I was even more pleased to be told that the copy editor thought my story was “powerful.” (I’ll write more about the story, and the anthology, when its release date is imminent.) I also got paid for my story “Solace in a Dying Hour,” and cannot wait to get my contributor copies of This Fresh Hell. I don’t know why I get so much satisfaction out of selling and publishing short stories; but subconsciously I think of each sale/publication as another knife into the corpse of that wretched college writing professor who told me I’d never publish. Given how revenge and “I’ll show you” will always drive me to prove someone wrong about me, I’m starting to think that professor may have been a blessing? I’ve certainly proven him wrong with over forty novels, fifty short stories, and over twenty anthologies edited, not to mention countless articles, interviews, book reviews, and essays I’ve published over the years.

Anyway, here is the TOC for School of Hard Knox:

Introduction – Jeffrey Marks
Not Another Secret Passage Story – Donna Andrews
A Matter of Trust – Frankie Y Bailey
THe Dinner Partty – Nikki Dolson
The Intruder – Martin Edwards
The Ditch – Greg Herren
Dichondra – Naomi Hirahara
Baby Trap – Toni LP Kelner
The Stolen Tent – Richie Narvaez
The Rose City Vampire: An Accidental Alchemist Short Story – Gigi Pandian
Chin Yong Yun Goes to Church – SJ Rozan
The Forlorn Penguin – Daniel Stashower
The Island Boy Detective Agency – Marcia Talley
Ordeals – Art Taylor
Knox Vomica – Peter Lovesey

Look at those names. I am so honored and thrilled to be in an anthology enabling me to share the interior with these amazing, glittering names. More on this anthology as things develop–release date, cover reveal, etc. I’m very excited to be in this book, which will be a strong contender for Best Anthology short lists next year, as well as the stories making Best Short Story shortlists. I’m particularly proud of my story, to be honest. I think my metier in writing is writing about Alabama, to be completely honest. I know I am known as a “New Orleans writer,” and to be sure, my greatest success has come from writing about New Orleans, but I feel more drawn to writing about Alabama now that I am in my sixties. I am sure some of it has to do with losing Mom–somehow, it’s like writing about Alabama keeps me connected to her in some weird, complicated and twisted logic only my brain is capable of making, but it’s true.

I’ve also decided that I am going to submit to the Nashville Bouchercon anthology, even though I am not going. The theme, being Nashville, has to do with music, and its being edited by the incomparable Brendan DuBois, who is a fantastic short story writer and has found enormous success as a co-writer with James Patterson (I also like Brendan; we served on the MWA board together and he’s really a great guy). I would love to be edited and work with Brendan, and I think the story I’m going to write for it is “The Blues Before Dawn,” a period New Orleans story from before the first world war, which I’d been thinking about turning into a Sherlock Holmes in New Orleans story. That might make it stand out from the rest, one never knows. It also could get selected out by the anonymous readers who could be homophobic–it happens, and one can never be sure if your story isn’t good enough or if its homophobia–another joy of being a gay writer of gay stories.

And on that note, I am making another cup of coffee and going to read Megan Abbott for awhile. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I am sure to be back again later.

Serpentskirt

Work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and I was able to sleep a little later this morning, which was marvelous. The heat continues to be extreme here, and we’re in yet another heat advisory. I can only imagine what my power bill is going to be next month–but it’s worth every penny. I cannot fathom living here without power in weather like this.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day by any means. I came straight home from work and lugged in my homework and laptop around the workmen (their business name has “patriot” in the title and their truck is painted in what can best be described as “Old Glory porn,” so I avoid them as much as possible) who are installing new gutters on the house. A locksmith is coming this afternoon because the handle on the deadbolt broke off–it still works, but it needs to be repaired–and we are probably going to get our new refrigerator ordered this weekend. I’ll need to do some cleaning and rearranging and so forth, but it will be nice to have a new one that works properly and has a freezer on the bottom instead of the top (I think I found one that will actually fit). I was a bit sad when I got home from work because that was my time with Scooter–when I got home before Paul got home. I felt antsy as I sat in my chair, realizing that I can’t justify sitting there watching videos on Youtube because no one needs my lap to reassure himself that I will always come home. I felt guilty because I didn’t have the excuse of a sleeping cat to continue sitting in my chair and relaxing after work!

We watched this week’s episode of The Crowded Room–seriously just give Tom Holland the Emmy now–and then another episode of something delightfully charming and funny that we’re late to the party to watch, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. Oh my God, what a hilarious delight this show is, and Awkwafina is hilarious. She has stolen every movie she’s in that we’ve seen, and as I scrolled through MAX (I hate that rebranded name) it popped up the other night, and we started watching. B. D. Wong is terrific as her father, and the actress who plays her grandmother is hilarious. And every episode is relatively short, about twenty minutes–we’re always looking for a shorter show to fill in the final half hour of every evening before I go to bed; depending on when Paul gets home and finally unplugs for the evening and we get started watching for the night. (I also generally like to do some touch-ups and do some winding down before going to bed around ten, so I always want to turn off the television around nine-thirty.)

I have to run an errand for Paul this morning, and other than that I am most likely not leaving the house today. I do need to make a grocery run at some point, but I want to take books to the library sale, so perhaps I can do all of that tomorrow. I want to get some cleaning done around here, and if I am going to submit something, anything, to the Malice anthology for 2024 I would need to write it this weekend. Heavy heaving sigh. I don’t know. I’ve not felt particularly creative lately. I went over the copy-editor notes for the secret book (as soon as I have a cover, I’ll share it along with more information about the book itself) and turned them in yesterday, and I did try to write something last night. I didn’t get very far because I think my batteries still need recharging. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll wake up and words will start flowing out through my fingers onto the keyboard and onto the screen. There are some other stories I want to pull out and work on as well; I think its still adjustments to my new schedule, too, that are causing some of the problems. I don’t know how to explain it, but in some ways I feel like there’s been a cloud in my brain since about 2020; for three years I never really had a moment to rest or relax without the constant anxiety that I was forgetting to do something important. Between the pandemic and long COVID and my volunteering around my day job and trying to maintain my writing career during a time of vast uncertainty, it’s a wonder I didn’t have a breakdown of some sort…but I know at one point I just began running on accessory and lost all track of time and purpose and pretty much everything. I feel like I’m waking up at last, if that makes any sense (and it probably doesn’t, which is fine; I know what I mean).

I also have a lot of blog entries that have backed up; drafts I’d like to either delete because they are no longer timely (seriously, some are years old) or finish because, well, I like to finish things I start.

Yesterday I guess was the day of the moon landing anniversary, as it was all over social media along with remembrances. I vaguely remember watching a man walk on the moon on television; it was a really big deal at the time even if I was only seven–my parents were so awed and excited by the event that I remember both my sister and I being very solemn about the entire thing, even if we didn’t fully grasp the monumental achievement we were witnessing. It’s really a shame the way our space program has been allowed to decline, both in funding and importance to us, in the years since. I also remember the Watergate hearings, and childishly being irritated that it was being broadcast on all three networks so nothing else was on to watch. I was too young to appreciate that I was witnessing history, and too steeped in my parents’ values and beliefs to recognize fully that Nixon wasn’t being persecuted but rightly investigated for criminality and abuse of power. (Nixon wishes he had Trump’s loyal-to-the-death fan base.) This was around the time I began questioning my parents’ values and beliefs; it was around this same time I was baptized into the Church of Christ for more indoctrination and self-loathing only to have the opposite-than-desired result. I also have begun realizing that I don’t remember as much of my childhood on the south side of Chicago as I thought I did; most of that is blurry and foggy, which is unfortunate.

I was trying last night to find the right opening for a book project I want to write called The Summer of Lost Boys, with no luck getting the words i’d formed in my head onto the page. I also tried writing the opening for Voices in an Empty Room, with no luck there, either. I then tried to start a short story, and it too, got me nowhere before I finally gave up in utter frustration and repaired for the evening to my chair.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

Pur

Wednesday Pay-the-Bill day, and I have the day off because I have a doctor’s appointment smack dab in the middle of the day, so…no choice but to take the day off. I don’t mind, despite the disruption of routine it causes. I have errands I can get done, and I can also take Megan Abbott with me to the appointment to read while I (inevitably) wait.

Coming home from work wasn’t as rough yesterday as it was Monday. I did pause once I shut the front door to wait and see if Scooter would come downstairs before remembering, which made a bit sad. It really doesn’t feel like home without a cat in it. And of course, our next cat may not be anything like Scooter. Scooter was a completely different cat from Skittle, after all–Skittle wasn’t nearly as affectionate, but he was but only when he wanted to be and for as long as he felt like it, while Scooter was constant. I’m torn between a kitten and one that’s already full grown; primarily because everyone wants kittens and it’s harder to adopt out full grown cats. Kittens are awfully cute; Skittle was a kitten when we got him. But our stairs are pretty steep for a kitten to navigate, and it also means we’d have to be a lot more careful with the front door. Scooter had no interest in going outside whatsoever; the front door could be wide open and he was having none of it. He was so disinterested in the outside he wouldn’t even stare out the windows–unless he heard Paul talking outside on his phone. That always intrigued him, and was the only time I ever worried about him going outside–if Paul was out there, Scooter would want to join him. But as a general rule, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about outside. (I’m with you, Scooter, I’d never go outside again if I could get away with it!)

I wasn’t tired yesterday either. I slept really well on Monday night–I’ve slept well ever since I finally adapted back to my life and reality after my vacation and the 4th holiday fucked with me–and we had a relatively easy day at the office. Between clients I did some more deep diving into Alabama history; I don’t know why it never occurred to me until this week that if I was going to write a short story built around an urban legend, why try Louisiana when I have all that history and lore and legends about my home state? I found a particularly gory and grotesque Civil War revenge story–based in fact–which might do the trick. One of the things that has been interesting me lately is the concept of the interior civil war inside the state of Alabama in the north hill country; Union sympathizers who didn’t believe in secession and refused to fight for the Confederacy, and some even served in the Union army. The Alabama Home Guard was particularly brutal; they were the ones who committed the atrocities that triggered the vengeance story, and that something I think I can work with. I know there’s a legend that one of my aunt-by-marriage’s ancestors served in the Union Army and when he snuck home for a visit, the Home Guard caught him and skinned him alive. Gruesome and horrible, but the back country in the South’s entire history is gruesome and horrible. There are a lot more stories to be told about the part of the country from whence I came…

I slept well again last night, too. I was able to sleep in a bit later because I took the day off for doctor appointments–I need to talk to my doctor about my arm and my toe again, heavy sigh–but since the appointment was in the middle of the day, I didn’t see any point in either going in before and returning after so took the entire day off. It’s a nice break to the week, really. We watched this week’s episode of Last Call, and then went back to The Crowded Room–mostly because we didn’t have anything else to watch last night. The first five or so episodes of the show moved really slow and you couldn’t really be sure what was going on. I figured out it was dissociative identity disorder that was plaguing the poor sad character being played (brilliantly) by Tom Holland; but the episodes we watched last night moved the story along, tied it all together, and were riveting. Paul and I agreed it was an odd storytelling choice; risking losing the interest of the viewers who might not continue because it was moving so slow and made so little sense. We wouldn’t have gone back had there been anything else for us to watch–but the performance by Tom Holland! My word, he’s quite the talent. I knew he could act–I’ve seen him give incredibly strong performances in two films, Cherry and the other one, The Devil All The Time, which was, in my opinion, terribly underrated as a film. I suspect Holland will win an Oscar at some point–if people can stop seeing him as Spider-Man.

I was thinking it might be fun–since our anniversary is tomorrow–to surprise Paul with a cat when he gets home from work tonight. But the more I think about it, the more I think that as fun as that would be, I think he’d want to be involved in the selection process. So, probably the best thing to do is talk to him about it tonight when he gets home from work, and maybe going out to the SPCA on the West Bank to see what kitties they have on hand for rescuing. I’ve looked at several websites for adoptable cats in the area, and of course want them all (Wendy Corsi Staub recently wrote a piece for CrimeSpree to promote her new book, Windfall, about winning the lottery; she asked a bunch of us what we would do should we win the huge lottery…and I should have said “buy a ranch so I could adopt all the cats in the world and give them a loving home,” because I would really love to do that), so probably its best to involve Paul in the process. Paul picked out Skittle, even though I found Scooter. I’m still missing Scooter–expecting him to come down the stairs at any moment, listening for him, and sitting in my easy chair after I get home from work just isn’t the same thing; I cannot justify sitting there doing nothing without the “cat sleeping in my lap” excuse.

I’ve got laundry going, and I need to finish the load of dishes in the sink so I can put them in the dishwasher and run it. I am going to try to get some things done around the house around the appointment, but we shall see how that goes. We’re in another heat advisory today–seriously–but this morning I am going to swill coffee, do some stuff around the kitchen, and maybe spend some time with Megan Abbott this morning. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in again later.

Violaine

Oh, I got my final panel schedule from Bouchercon over the course of the weekend; as expected, I got my Anthony nominee panels only–but there are three of them, he typed modestly.

You can find me at:

Thursday, 2 pm: Best Humorous Mystery panel, moderated by Janet Rudolph, with Catriona McPherson, Jennifer Chow, Raquel Reyes, and Ellen Byron.

Friday, 9 am: Best Anthology panel, moderated by Holly West, with Art Taylor, Josh Pachter, and Mysti Berry.

Friday 1 pm: Best Children’s/ Young Adult Panel, moderated by Alan S. Orloff, with Fleur Bradley and Lee Matthew Goldberg.

Not bad. I have to get up early on Friday morning, but the others are at times when I am usually coherent and functional, which will be incredibly cool. I also am finished with everything by Friday afternoon, so I had all day Saturday free until the Anthony Awards presentation that night. This year, I get to lose three times, as opposed to my two losses at last year’s. There is, however, no disgrace in losing to any of my fellow finalists, as I like and respect them all very much; they all are great people who do phenomenal work and they all deserve much more recognition than even this will give them. And that Best Humorous panel? I think I shall say nothing and simply sit there being entertained by the quick wits of the four comic geniuses I will be on stage with.

Coming home from work last night was just as sad as I thought it would be. I ran errands after work–mail, grocery, gas–and had bags to carry and so forth. I was putting the groceries away when I realized I was listening for Scooter to come downstairs. I shook that off, put everything away, and then went to sit in my easy chair like always to rest for a moment before doing something else productive–I have a sink full of dishes–and as I flipped through Youtube channels I was bored out of my skull…and then realized there wasn’t any need to sit in my chair because Scooter didn’t need or want my lap anymore. That made me tear up, so I watched highlights of the College World Series, but watching Florida lose (almost as much fun as watching LSU win, which makes the College World Series final from this year almost more than I could hope for as a happy place for me) but it didn’t shake off the gloom… and I also realized I was staying in the chair so as not to disturb sleeping Scooter, who wasn’t there. I cried a bit and got up to start doing some more things around the kitchen. Paul came home from the office, and he was sad because Monday was a work-at-home day for him as a general rule, but he spent the morning missing Scooter so he went to the office after his trainer. I’ve been looking at adoptable cats on-line, but of course I want them all. There’s a gorgeous fourteen-year-old ginger that I am sure is going to be hard to adopt, but much as I would love to give his final years a good home losing another one so soon would be too hard on both of us. We need a cat that’s going to give us at least thirteen years!

But then I think do I have another thirteen years? Which I don’t like to do, because it will talk me out of having a cat because I don’t want to die on my cat. Sigh.

Yesterday turned out to be okay at the office, in case you were wondering how that went. There’s no telling, of course, what is to come down that road, so as Mom always said, why borrow trouble worrying about it? I’ll be coming straight home from work tonight; I have tomorrow off for doctor’s appointments so I don’t have to get up early and there’s certainly no need to run any errands since I can run them tomorrow. It’s a bit weird and awkward around there–I think the entire department is a bit in shock–but we’ll see how it all goes. The only constant is change, right?

I started doing some more research for a short story I want to write about an urban legend–it’s for my Sisters’ chapters next anthology–and I realized yesterday that I don’t have to do something Louisiana based, and it’s not like there aren’t plenty of urban legends in Alabama. I got another Alabama history book in the mail yesterday, Hidden History of North Alabama by Jacquelyn Procter Reeves, which is mostly about urban legends and secrets from the past of the north part of the state. Where we’re actually from is more central than north; the foothills of the Appalachians, if you will. There were some horrible atrocities committed on Union sympathizers in that part of Alabama by the Home Guard–I’ve heard and read some truly horrific stuff, seriously–which might be a good urban legend to write about. I’m having the best time looking into both Louisiana and Alabama history; it’s so much easier to write about a place once you know more about it; the more you know the easier it gets, hence research.

I’ve also been reading Matt Baume’s Hi Honey I’m Homo, which is about sitcoms of the 1970’s and their fledgling attempts at gay representation. I already have been enjoying Baume’s Youtube channel for years–queer rep in culture–and I’m also really loving his book. It’s fun revisiting these shows and remembering how closeted gay teenaged me watched the shows for their queer content, eager to see if that was, indeed, who I was as a human being. I’ll talk about that more when I blog about the book–some of the rep was good, some of it was confusing–but it is fun revisiting these shows from a present day point of view and perspective.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Summerhead

I’ve lost track of how many days in a row New Orleans has been under a heat advisory, but I’m beginning to think we’ve never not been in one. It’s always hot here in the summer time, and I can remember walking to Walgreens years ago and being completely drenched in sweat by the time I got home. When I taught aerobics in the summer time I showered three or four times a day (any wonder I developed psoriasis? Although it makes for an amusing question, I don’t believe that any more than I believe the moon landing was faked; I should probably find out what causes psoriasis at some point), and the city always swelters in the summer time. The summer heat here is unlike anywhere I’ve ever lived before; Tampa and Houston had a very similar type climate to New Orleans, but both of those cities somehow seemed to not ever get as brutally hot as it does here.

I’ve started looking at adoptable cats in the area, and as usual, I want them all. If I had a house as big as my parents’, I’d probably have at least four or five cats. I do love cats (even if I came to it late in life), and I really do want to write Daughters of Bast someday. I don’t know if that’s a story I can actually write and tell–since in order for it to work, the main character would need to be a descendant from a High Priestess of Bast, which means she wouldn’t be (at least not entirely) white. I know the “#ownvoices” movement has seemed to have lost some traction (concerns about who writes what is now taking–rightfully–a backseat to concerns about book bannings), but even if publishing has stopped being concerned that non-marginalized voices are writing about marginalized characters, the lesson was learned at least by me. And while Daughters of Bast is a great concept and idea (in my opinion), I’m not sure I have the right to write that story, but I do not see how I can without venturing into problematic territory. I will write something based in or around Egypt at some point though; Egypt has fascinated for far too long a period of my life (as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by ancient Egypt, the pharaohs, the pyramids, and their culture) for me to never write about it….but then again, I’ve not written anything historical, have I? A short story here and there?

Yesterday was actually kind of lovely. I’d cry here and there, of course, when I’d have a reminder–sitting in my chair alone watching Youtube, I started to call for him to come sleep in my lap before remembering was one of those moments–and of course, it feels weird going to bed without him curling up inside my arm. I keep picking up things–toys he’d played with a couple of times before abandoning, water dish, plastic container of cat food–which make me sad, but it’s gradually grew into more of a resigned sadness by the end of the day rather than the emotional kick in the gut. We got caught up on Hijack, with Idris Elba on Apple Plus, which is really quite good; started watching Last Call on HBO, based on the Edgar Award winning true crime about a serial killer praying on gay men in New York; and then moved on to Fake Profile on Netflix, which is, as all Spanish language crime melodramas are, fricking fantastic. We’ll probably finish Fake Profile today, but am not sure what else. We also finished season one of Platonic yesterday, which was also terrific.

I did spend some time reading Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman; I only read the first chapter but its hallmark Abbott; the voice, especially, is just as haunting as always and I always marvel at how lyrically she puts sentences together. Her writing style is so evocative; it’s amazing to me how she can create an entire image in your head with a clever turn of phrase. It’s a kind of writerly witchcraft not many authors have, and while I am sure it has a lot to do with her education (she’s incredibly intelligent) and her own influences, she is just kind of a genius, really. I plan to spend some more time with it this morning, once I get some things cleaned up around here–the kitchen is a mess, and as always, dishes dishes dishes and filing filing filing. But I did do some clean-up around here yesterday and I also successfully pruned the books down. I got rid of some of the empty boxes that have piled up around here, and so progress was made on the messy, slovenly hovel I call the Lost Apartment. I slept pretty well last night, too. I also spent some time brainstorming loosely in my journal for the next book I’m going to write. (I also just realized I’ve been listening for Scooter to come downstairs and demand his breakfast; I suppose that’s going to be a lengthy wait this morning…)

I’m not really sure what I am going to do today other than some clean-up and some reading and maybe some more brainstorming. I need to write Dad, among other important tasks, and there’s still some loose ends hanging around I need to get tied up at some point. There’s always something…but at least I am starting to feel creative again, which is always a plus. I was really feeling depleted there for a while, you know? I am also making Swedish meatballs for dinner. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve cooked–I’ve really fallen down on the job as far as that is concerned–and I also have doctors’ appointments on Wednesday so my week is going to be broken up into two parts around that.

And on that note, I think I will repair to my easy chair with Beware the Woman. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Highway to Hell

I realized the other night that, of all things, I take more pride in my short stories than I do in my novels. Isn’t that strange? Novels are, in theory, much more difficult to write than a short story–even at its barest minimum, a novel should be at least fifty thousand words while short stories generally cut off around a thousand. I think it’s because I still carry the scars from that asshole writing professor in college. I always struggle with short stories, and always have; I used to say that if I wrote a successful short story it was completely and entirely by accident. But writing erotica was an excellent tutorial in short story writing; in what other type of short story is “beginning, middle, end” so clearly delineated?

My first short story that got published outside of the realm of erotica was “Smalltown Boy,” which was published in 2003, I think. It’s still one of my favorite stories of my own; it’s an Alabama story and I am still very proud of it. I used to think I’d never get a short story published anywhere that wasn’t erotica, so when my stories started getting acceptances and published in non-erotica markets, it was very cool.

I like writing short stories because I can encapsulate an idea in that short form rather than writing an entire novel. I can also experiment with voice, style, theme, setting and story. I have any number of stories that don’t work but are completed; I have a lot more than were started and stalled because I didn’t know how to finish them. I think I have around a hundred short stories or so in progress; I actually counted a few years ago because someone asked and I didn’t know the answer.\

Several years ago, an Australian crime writer I’ve known for decades reached out and asked me if I would contribute a story to an anthology her publishing company was producing, The Only One in the World, which was a Sherlock Holmes collection–but the only rule was you couldn’t set the stories in London, period; I had never written anything close to a Holmes story and have never really been much of a Holmesian (I do love Laurie King’s Mary Russell series), but it was a challenge so I said yes–because for me, I love writing challenges because they push me out of my comfort zone and make me try things I might not ordinarily try. That story became “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy” (still one of my favorite titles of all time) and it was a lot of fun to write, and I enjoyed the hell out of myself writing it…to the point I’ve considered revisiting my Holmes and Watson in 1916 New Orleans, several times.

Last year, the Sherlock editor, Narrelle Harris, reached out to me to see if I’d write something for a new anthology, The Fresh Hell, and there was a list of horror tropes we were given to chose from. Being from Louisiana, how could I not pick “haunted bayou”?

And so I started writing a story that became “Solace in a Dying Hour.”

Madeleine Chaisson opened her eyes and knew that the next time she shut them would be the last.

She cocked her head to listen. Even amongst those few (some say blessed, others cursed) who could hear them, most would describe the strange sounds they made as they danced about the dark, still waters as whistling. But Madeleine was special, different, not like the others.

She heard them clearly. She knew they weren’t whistling. They were singing.

But the sound she heard now was just the gulls over Bayou St Ferdinand shrieking as they swooped and flapped their wings looking for morsels of food. 

Dirty scavengers, she thought with a scowl. She hated the gulls; had since she was a little girl growing up in this very house.

How much gull shit had she cleaned off the dock during her long lifetime? Papa would backhand her if he saw any of the dried white splotches with black pellets on the dock when he brought the boat back in from a day shrimping out in the Gulf.

‘It rots the wood, you lazy cochon,’ he’d say in his sing-song southeast Louisiana Cajun accent while she rubbed her stinging cheek. ‘And who will have to rebuild the damned thing when it collapses? Don’t I already work hard to keep you clothed and fed?’

Even with him years in his grave, after she began wondering if that was even true, she’d still take the bucket out and scrub the gull shit from the weathered old wood.

If I were a witch like they always said, I could have snapped my fingers and cleaned it, she thought with a snort.

The new anthology debuted today, and it is available on Amazon and other sellers here in the United States; here is the link to Bookshop.org : here. This link is to the trade paper; there’s also a much more expensive hardcover edition as well if you disdain paperbacks.

“Solace in a Dying Hour” is another one of my south Louisiana stories. It took me a long while to get to the point where I was comfortable writing about Louisiana outside of New Orleans (don’t ever ask me about the colossal error in geography I made in Bourbon Street Blues…I SAID DON’T ASK!); I think my first was “Rougarou.” I also wrote and published “A Whisper from the Graveyard” since that one, and this is my third. I’ve started building a fictional world of Louisiana outside of the city over the last seven or eight years or so; it could be longer since I no longer have any sense of time anymore. I have revisited rural Louisiana in books like Need, The Orion Mask, and A Streetcar Named Murder; I have more stories and books I am going to write about my fictional rural Louisiana; I’ve also fictionalized the north shore several times already.

“Solace” is an homage of sorts to two other stories I really loved, “Do the Dead Sing?” by Stephen King and “An Unremarkable Heart” by Karin Slaughter. Both involve someone lying in bed dying, and reliving some pretty horrible things that happened over the course of their lives. I had been studying Louisiana folklore and legends for quite some time, but it was around 2017 or 2018 that I started really doing a deep dive into Louisiana history and culture. A co-worker had moved to Houma, which is deep in the bayou country, and she was doing the same. She was who suggested I write about le feu follet, the swamp lights some see. There are numerous definitions and descriptions of who and what le feu follet actually are; I decided I wanted to use the lights and the whistling aspects of their legend, and I wanted the story to focus on a woman who’s lived a very hard life and been through some things…but who could not only see le feu follet for what they actually are and appear, but could tell that they weren’t whistling, but singing. I also kind of based her on my maternal grandmother, a very quiet woman who never showed emotion and never complained about anything; things were what they were and you just dealt with them, period. I wanted to get that sense of quiet strength that you can usually only find in rural Southern women, that practical pragmatism that has gotten them through hard lives and a lot of tragedy.

My maternal grandmother was pretty amazing, really.

I am very proud of the story and how it turned out; the anthology itself is amazing, and the cover is gorgeous. I hope you enjoy it should you choose to check it out.

The Itchy Glowbo Blow

Wednesday and we’ve made it halfway through the week, Constant Reader. Didn’t think it was quite possible, did you, when Monday dawned so early and ugly? We expecting thunderstorms today in New Orleans–it feels cooler and damp this morning, but I don’t know when we are supposed to have said storms; probably this afternoon. I slept really well again last night–it’s been lovely getting good sleep lately. I felt a bit tired yesterday when I got home from work, and so took it a little easier on myself when I got home. I managed to get caught up on my emails (such a weird feeling) and did some writing last night. I think I’m still a bit in the post-book malaise phase of things, so writing anything isn’t easy (not that it ever is) but Paul got home late so was left to my own devices once I finished writing for the evening. I did watch some documentaries on Youtube about the Hapsburgs last night (I also discovered an English-language biography about her–Margaret of Austria–which I added to the my list of books to buy…which is almost as out of control as my TBR stack, which is now essentially the entire living room), and I read a short story in Hitchcock’s My Favorites in Suspense anthology; a dark little Charlotte Armstrong story called “The Enemy.” Armstrong was a writer I discovered as a tween, when Mom let me join the Mystery Guild Book Club; I got an omnibus by her (The Witch’s House, Mischief, The Dream Walker) which I greatly enjoyed. I rediscovered Armstrong thanks to the work of both Sarah Weinman and Jeffrey Marks, which enabled me to continue reading in her canon.

Armstrong won an Edgar for Best Novel for A Dram of Poison, a charming if dark little story of suspense; maybe the rare Edgar winner where there’s no dead body but the plot has to do with preventing an accidental death? It’s very clever, and incredibly charming, but beneath that clever charming surface it says something dark and awful about human nature and character–people who are unhappy spreading their misery to others. Armstrong was also made a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America. Her work may seem a bit dated in the modern day–technology and society have moved on from the times she lived and wrote in–but I think it’s well worth the read. “The Enemy” is that same style of writing as Dram, a serious subject presented charmingly, and the death of a child’s dog the catalyst for an exposé of something darker and nastier…and yes, the plot also hinges on the darkness a human being is capable of creating. It’s a really clever, if slightly dated, story–and you can’t help but smile or laugh at the last line of the story. I am really enjoying these time capsules into the past, to tell you the truth. I bought a few more of these anthologies on eBay yesterday, too. It’s nice to have short story collections around for those times when my brain can’t really focus on reading an entire novel.

I have been listening to Carol Goodman’s The Drowning Tree on Audible, but I may have to break down and finish actually reading a physical copy because I can’t keep listening every day and with my memory a literal thing of the past these days, I’m not sure I remember enough of the story to pick it up again this weekend. I also picked up copies of her new novel, The Bones of the Story, along with Paul Tremblay’s new short story collection, The Beast You Are. I do like Tremblay’s writing–A Head Full of Ghosts was one of the best horror novels of the last decade, and I’ve liked everything else of his that I’ve read–and I think this may even be his second collection. I am also hoping to pull together another collection myself this year–This Town and Other Macabre Stories–but I am not sure if I will have the time. I also got the copy edits for a short story I contributed to an anthology in my inbox last night, so that has to go onto the to-do list, and I still have page proofs to get through. But for the most part, it seems as though I have a guilt-free free weekend, which one can never truly go wrong with, either. I’ll have some errands to run, of course–I always have errands to run–but there’s no stress or pressure on me either, which is kind of nice. I think maybe that’s the reason I’ve been sleeping so well this week? No pressure and my schedule has kind of normalized, gotten back to normal, settled back into the routine my body is used to, perhaps?

Yes, that makes total sense to me.

I also have ideas and thoughts pinging around in my head. I’m itching to get back to the works I have in progress; I want to get a strong first draft of two different novels finished before I leave for Bouchercon next (!!!) month. I actually, finally, made a to-do list yesterday; I am hoping that I can get my life back on track the way it was before the pandemic and the madness of the last few years. That doesn’t mean that my blood pressure won’t continue to go up predicated on the constant assaults on everyone who’s not a cisgender straight man from the demons on the right–which is part of the reason my interest in the Civil War and the 1850’s, that terrible lead-up to the split, has been heightened these last few months. I do see a lot of similarities in the split between conservative v. progressive today, which was predicated along the lines of abolitionist/pro-human trafficking back then. One of the books my father gave me to read was called Southerners in Blue, which was a novelization of the true story (albeit poorly written) of a Union sympathizer and others like him in Winston County, Alabama. (If you’re not familiar with Winston County, the easiest way to explain it is this county did not vote for secession and essentially stated that if Alabama had the right to secede from the Union, the county had the right to secede from Alabama. They did not secede from Alabama, just said they had the right to predicated on the secession arguments being presented, but have gone down in Alabama history and lore as having actually seceded even though they most certainly did not) Basically, in some of the northern counties of Alabama there was basically a second civil war, between the “secesh” and the “Unionist” supporters, and the mountains of north Alabama were filled with deserters from the Confederate Army, This was also novelized into a book called Tories of the Hills by Wesley Sylvester Thompson, which is incredibly rare (my uncle has a copy, which my aunt won’t let be removed from her house–wise, as I would totally steal it). I had read another book also while I was up there, about the Kansas-Missouri border war–which had a decided “secesh” slant to it, of course, while complaining that all previous histories were “unsympathetic to the Missouri slave-owner point of view”. I’m sure he had a point, but simply because there are two sides to every story doesn’t mean each side deserves to be heard, or that each side’s opinion has equal weight. It did spark my interest, though, and I really think there’s a book in this little-known history of north Alabama. Again, it would be difficult to write–lots of potential landmines there–but it’s also, as I said, not very well known and with today’s tribalism mentality–not to mention how loud the Lost Cause fanatics are–it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the notion that the South wasn’t monolithic in its thinking.

Because no group of people are, really, which is why I don’t like being asked for a gay perspective on anything; I can only speak for myself.

But while I continue to research this aspect of history and try to figure out a way to get a novel out of it, I am going to map out two others. One is already in progress, and the other is a New Orleans ghost story I’ve been wanting to write for quite some time now. The trick is to make it different from every other ghost story I’ve already written. Good luck with that, Mr. Repetitive!

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.