Category: horror

Under the Boardwalk

I hadn’t been sure that I would keep writing young adult novels after I revised, rewrote and published the first three (Sorceress, Sleeping Angel, and Sara) I didn’t know if it was a direction I wanted to keep going in. I knew I wanted to do stand-alones–always have wanted to do stand-alones–and I also like writing about teenagers and young adults.

You may remember (doubtful) me talking about a horror novel a while ago that I started writing in the 1980’s called The Enchantress that I only got about three or four chapters into before abandoning (because I didn’t know where to go next with it; and the first chapter I specifically remember rereading at some point in the decades since and shuddering in horror at how badly it was written), but one of the places in the book really stuck in my head–an old family-owned hotel called Mermaid Inn, which sat on the shores of Tuscadega Bay (which was my stand-in for Choctawhatchee Bay–my grandparents retired to a house on that bay and I’d always wanted to write about that area; still do–it’s where “Cold Beer No Flies” was set). After shelving The Enchantress (which I do think about from time to time, and wonder if I should revisit the idea) I kept thinking, you should write a book and call it Mermaid Inn because that is a great title!

I made a folder for it, wrote a few sketchy notes, and then… it sat in my files for a very long time.

If you will remember, I had originally planned to write an entire series of interconnected young adult novels, a la the Fear Street series by R. L. Stine, and one of the varied locations they would be spread out over would be Tuscadega, Florida, in the panhandle on a fictional bay. That was part of the note I scribbled for the folder–set this in the panhandle of Florida, and somehow connect it to the fictional Alabama county you’re going to write about someday.

I decided to write Mermaid Inn sometime after Hurricane Katrina, when I discovered yet again my own ignorance of geography. I was beginning to realize that the panhandle wasn’t the right setting for this book and decided to set it on the Alabama Gulf Coast, which made me realize I had absolutely no clue about that part of Alabama’s geography. I’d just never really given it much thought, to be honest; I knew Mobile was on the bay, and I knew that when you drive on I-10 through Mobile you have to take a tunnel below the Mobile River. I just had always assumed there was nothing south of Mobile in Alabama–I mean, it’s ON the water–and figured that those lower prongs of Alabama that reach down along the sides of the bay were uninhabitable wetlands. I discovered this to not be the case when visiting friends for the first time who lived in Alabama south of Mobile. They told me to take an exit off I-10 and drive south, which I didn’t think was possible.

Turns out it was–and I realized…this will work for my book! So I filed it away and forgot about it again.

I don’t remember precisely why I decided to write Mermaid Inn, but I did, and set in a small town on the prongs, south of Mobile; my friend Carolyn Haines helped me with some background and I know she told me some stories about closeted society men in Mobile and their hijinks and I thought, I could use this for the book and I think that may have been the impetus? And then I created my character, Ricky Hackworth, from Corinth, Alabama–po’ white trash who needs a swimming scholarship to attend the University of Alabama. (Sidebar: alert readers will recognize that Beau’s last name in Bury Me in Shadows–and at one point in the story he mentions he’s only the second Hackworth to go to college; “besides my cousin who got a swimming scholarship.”)

Bold Strokes didn’t like the title, and for perhaps maybe the fourth or fifth time in my career my original/working title didn’t make it on the cover. They recommended Dark Tide, which I really liked because it gave the sense of the book’s mood and tone and voice…and darkness.

The engine of my pickup truck made a weird coughing noise just as I came around a curve in the highway on the Alabama Gulf Coast and I saw Mermaid Inn for the first time.

My heart sank.

That’s not good, I thought, gritting my teeth. I looked down at the control panel. None of the dummy lights had come on. I still had about a half tank of gas. I switched off the air conditioning and the stereo. I turned into the long sloping parking lot of the Inn, pulling into the first parking spot. I listened to the engine. Nothing odd. It was now running smooth like it had the entire drive down. I shut the car off and kept listening. There was nothing but the tick of the engine as it started cooling.

Maybe I just imagined it.

Hope springs eternal.

The last thing I needed was to spend money on getting the stupid old truck fixed. Maybe it just needed a tune-up. I couldn’t remember the last time it had one.

Dad gave me the truck when I turned sixteen. It had been his work truck since before i was born–it was two years older than I was. He’d finally broken down and bought himself a new one. This old one was dependable and had almost two hundred thousand miles on it. Dad had taken good care of it. He’d babied it, gotten an oil change every three thousand miles without fail, and I could count on one hand the number of times it had been in the shop to be repaired.

It still had the original transmission.

It might not have been the nicest or prettiest car in my high school parking lot, but it got me where I needed to go and got good gas mileage. Since I was saving every cent I could for college, that was a lot more important than horsepower and cosmetics and a loud stereo that rattled your back teeth. The swimming scholarship I’d accepted from the University of Alabama wasn’t going to remotely cover anything close to the lowest estimate of what my expenses might be, but it was the best offer I’d gotten.

And I was grateful to have it. If they hadn’t offered, I wouldn’t be going at all.

Swimming was my ticket out of Corinth, Alabama.

That opening scene!

Dark Tide was probably my most hard-boiled young adult title published to that point. It was a dark story, and Ricky was poor–an economic condition I’d touched on with Sara, and something I generally try to avoid when writing. I’ve been poor, and I know how it feels; I don’t like remembering those days of checkbook mistakes and bounced checks and not having enough money from one paycheck to another. Ricky has taken a summer job as the lifeguard at Mermaid Inn in Latona, Alabama (Latona is another name for Daphne, which is actually a town on the prongs below Mobile), to save money to pay for college expenses his swimming scholarship to the University of Alabama wasn’t going to cover, and the water being there meant he could continue training. Once he arrives and is shown to his room on the uppermost floor of the building and meets the owner’s daughter, he learns that his predecessor from the summer before had simply disappeared–and young teenaged boys disappear with an alarming regularity over the past few years. He starts asking questions, mostly out of curiosity, and also starts having horrible dreams, about vicious mermaids beneath the water, and there are a lot of stories about killer mermaids from the days of the indigenous people and the Spanish. I wrote some terrific scenes in this book that I was really proud of–one particular dream sequence was especially chilling–and I was also trying something with the rhythm of the words, which I hadn’t done in a very long time, and I think it worked.

Writing Dark Tide was important to me because this was the book that reminded me again that I was writing stand-alones to help keep the series books fresher, more creative, and less paint by the numbers, too.

The All American Boy

I was a bit productive last night after work. I got off later than usual–after five–and we’d been busy all day as well, which was lovely. We’ve not seen that many people in a day in quite some time, and I’d forgotten what that felt like. I chose to take the highway home again after work, and it wasn’t terrible, to be honest. Yes, the ramp to 90/Westbank was backed up as always, and so was the twin spans over the river, but it was better than driving through the city and dealing with all the idiots and stupidity–which I was definitely not in the mood for. I came home, hung out with Sparky for a while, and then started working. I finished a load of laundry and started another. I emptied the dishwasher and refilled it. I cleaned off my desk and filed stuff (I really need to get the overall organization in this corner revamped, revised, and made more efficient and less clutter-prone). I have a meeting this morning on-line, after which I will do my work-at-home duties and do some writing. I was going to run some errands later, but I think they can keep until tomorrow, as I’d rather be around here all day and get things done. It’s a good plan, at any rate. We’ll see how well I obey those dictates.

I also slept well before Sparky decided it was time for me to get up and feed him. I went back to bed, and then of course that started his passive/aggressive ways of getting me up. I do like having a cat alarm–I’d missed that in our cat-free months last year. Sparky still has a lot of extra energy, but I like that about him, and I like that he has his own way of being affectionate. Such a completely different kind of cat personality than Scooter, but all cats are different and getting to know them is part of the joy of having one.

Mmmm, my coffee is quite marvelous tasting this morning.

I was checking my blog drafts page and was stunned to see how many drafts of entries I’ve started and not completed; several books, movies, and topics I wanted to write about, and of course, I need to either finish them or abandon and delete them. Some were kind of similar and started months (years) apart, so I need to get that figured out, and I really should finish writing about the things I started writing about. It was also startling to see that now my blog has become like everything else I write about–drafts and ideas and notes that aren’t completed. Heavy heaving sigh. In the olden days of live journal, I never did this; I always finished every entry I started (probably because I didn’t know whether you could save unfinished drafts there; I discovered the feature when I moved it over here). As a completionist, you can imagine how much this gets under my skin. I’m trying not to let it bother me, but it’s not working so far.

Sigh.

It’s been a weird week, really. I lost my respect for some people–looking at you, Dwayne Johnson, but I always preferred John Cena anyway, and turns out he’s an actual ally–and my concerns and worries about the decline in freedom for everyone (except straight white cisgender men) and the establishment of the 4th Reich in this country, depending on how the election turns out this fall. All of us who tried to warn you back in 2016 (and earlier, in my case) were 100% right about everything, so by all means don’t listen to us again now. I don’t understand the nihilistic mentality of voting third party to “teach us a lesson about progressive purity”–but it’s usually people too young to understand (and they don’t want to understand) how everything works. The irony that they think the Constitution and the system will protect them from a right-wing autocracy is so misinformed to the point of willful ignorance shows me, at any rate, why they shouldn’t be taken seriously or listened to. Back in 2016 I worked with two young cisgender white girls who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary because “she didn’t leave her husband for cheating on her” and “she’s corrupt and gross.” How does your loss of reproductive freedom feel, you willfully ignorant bitches? Thank God you proved your feminist and progressive purity! I, for one, will never forgive anyone who refused to see the danger we were facing in 2016, and I especially will never forgive people who mocked me for my concerns. Hope you need an abortion this year, bitches.

There’s been a lot of talk over the last decade or so about the art v. the artist; the first time I think I heard about this was the issue of H. P. Lovecraft’s deeply rooted racism in the speculative fiction community. I’ve not read much Lovecraft, if any, and that was something I felt I was missing in my education in speculative fiction, and probably why I never really have thought of myself as a specfic writer–I’d never read Lovecraft, and hadn’t reread or revisited Poe since high school. I still intend to at some point–thank you, Project Gutenberg, so I didn’t have to pay for them–but that will certainly effect my opinions whenever I can bring myself to read some of the stories. I used to read things all the time when I was growing up and throughout my adult life that don’t hold up now on rereads that went right past me on the first read because that was how things were in society and the culture at the time. I loved Gone with the Wind, both book and film, for decades before I began to realize how incredibly problematic both were. I keep meaning to go back and read it again now, but I don’t know that I can handle the idyllic portrait it paints of the old South, the war, and Reconstruction. (By the way, you know those white lady Trumpers? They are in this book as the ladies of Atlanta, and saintly Melanie was the worst of them…although a retelling as a Real Housewives of Reconstruction would be interesting. I know a Black writer retold the story from the perspective of a biracial half-sister of Scarlett’s, which I’ve always wanted to read.) Even Margaret Mitchell herself has some issues with the movie’s depiction of Tara because, in her words, it was a “working farm.”

The reason I am bringing this up is because the Chatelaine of Castle TERF showed her flat ass again this week. I did read the Harry Potter series and I did see all the movies, and I did enjoy them, even if I never had any desire to revisit them. The longer the series went on, the worse the books got, in my opinion, longer and more convoluted the stories got and she often never wrapped up anything; there were a lot of subplot false starts that looked promising that she abandoned. There was veiled anti-Semitism and fatphobia in the books that I marked as I read them as well as in the movies–straight from her hard drive. There were no queer people in her books until she retconned Dumbledore long after the fact–something all queer people should have been so fucking grateful for that we (in her mind) should have fallen on our knees in front of her and kissed the hems of her skirts for all eternity. She is the perfect example of how money corrupts weak minds. This week her TERFdom showed itself in announcing she would never accept apologies from Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe for daring not to agree with her hateful stance against transpeople, that she veils in worries about bathroom/changing room rapes…which basically comes from her assumption that all men want to do is rape women, to the point they’ll pretend they have gender dysmorphia merely to gain access to women only spaces for ease of rape/sexual assault. That’s kind of anti-male misogyny on top of the transphobia. All men are rapists, transwomen are actually men, and therefore all transwomen are rapists…and her wealth, like Elon Musk’s, have convinced her somehow that she is special and therefore her opinions have more value and weight than anyone else’s. Seriously TERF Queen, I am so sorry you had the entire world at your feet and your dark and twisted soul made you Housemaster of Slytherin and Voldermort’s mistress. I take a lot of pleasure in knowing how miserable your money and success have made you…and that you’ve decided the message of your Harry Potter series–everyone is equal, no one is better than anyone else and love is the key–was as phony as she is.

So, yes, it’s hard for me to enjoy art when I know the artist is a horrible person. And I don’t have to consume or pay for their art, just as I wouldn’t expect people who don’t like my values and beliefs to buy and consume mine.

Whew! I think I better get going on my day–this turned out longer than intended! Have a great Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. Stranger things have happened on a Friday!

What a Difference A Day Makes

Sunday morning here in the Lost Apartment, and today’s blog title seems particularly apropos; I do feel more rested and relaxed and ready to go this morning, and certainly more so than I have all weekend. Never fear, I can always derail my day at any time, but for right now I feel rested and able to get it going somehow. I did sleep later than I (and Sparky) wanted to, but I am firmly believe your body knows what it needs more than your conscious self. I was tired yesterday. I had to go make groceries to get the things I wasn’t able to get Friday evening, and when I got back home from that, I was tired. I had intended to cook out yesterday, but I also had the time for the NCAA Regional Gymnastics Finals wrong–it was on at five rather than seven, as I believed–so I didn’t have time to assemble our new grill in time. I wound up just having a turkey sandwich and Paul made scrambled eggs.

LSU did win that regional meet and qualified for the national semi-finals, and scored over 198, which is a benchmark. They also didn’t have a great vault rotation, which means they could score even higher if they hit on every event. The delightful Haleigh Bryant got two 10’s–vault and bars–and they pulled away from everyone by the end of the second rotation. We also finished Ripley, which is marvelous, and started watching Sugar on Apple, with Colin Farrell–which is also pretty good with a powerful neo-noir sensibility; Sugar, the main character, also has an affinity for old noir films, so sometimes the show is in black and white and sometimes in color, which gives that old, slick late 40’s noir feel to the viewer. It’s also set in LA, so there’s all that wonderful Chandler feel to it, too.

And the apartment is a bit of a mess today, too. I’ve done some good work this weekend getting it all under control, but it’s still not completely, which I will have to work on today around writing and doing others things. I also started reading Michael Koryta’s The Cypress House, which is really good (everything he writes is gold; if he weren’t so good we’d be burning with jealousy) and reminds me I need to really work a lot harder on my own stuff. I read quite a bit of it yesterday morning with my coffee; I will probably do the same again today. It felt good to be reading again; I was also paging through Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell, which is always a fun ride down memory lane–it’s about the horror boom of the 70s and 80s, which definitely had an impact and influence on me as a writer; I always went back and forth between horror and crime when I was unpublished, and while I mostly write about crime now I always enjoy branching out into horror sometimes–I have two more supernatural/horror type stories in draft form that I would love to get revised and put in my short story collection. I was doing a lot of thinking about works in progress yesterday while I watched the crime shows and the gymnastics; it’s been a while since my mind started roaming creatively like that, and I really liked experiencing that again; my mind has been fallow for so long I was beginning to worry (as always) that it was going to be stuck like that at some point.

I am also looking forward to reading more often and regularly now; I should absolutely 100% read for an hour every day when I get home from work and decompress; what better way than to curl up in my chair with Sparky purring in my lap? And reading a good writer before settling in to do my own word count for the day is a pretty good idea–I’ve always held that one of the best ways to write better is to read works by authors you admire, and there are so many authors I admire…I also came up with the idea for the next Scotty as well as its title, which is always a challenge. I’ll probably write that later this summer, after I get everything else I want to get done this year done. I am feeling better and am feeling good again; today I have to go to the gym and get restarted on my therapy on my own, too.

And on that note, I am heading to the easy chair with my book for the next hour or so before I come back here to dig into the day’s writing. You have a marvelous Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never knows. I have several entries that I need to finish, too.

It’s Just a Matter of Time

Sunday morning and the last day of Saints & Sinners. It’s been a lot of fun, if tiring. I headed down there yesterday afternoon in a Lyft, hung out in our suite for a bit and practiced for my reading–I read my story “The Ditch” from School of Hard Knox, and I think it went very well. It was a terrific reading session; Rob Byrnes, Jean Redmann, Marco Carocari, David Slayton, David Pederson and one other person whose name I can’t recall off the top of my head; my apologies because I really enjoyed what he read.I then went back up to our suite and came back down for the anthology launch with Paul. Those readings were also fantastic–and I am looking forward to reading the book more than I already was. I am also the judge for next year, so I’ll be reading a lot of stories in the fall. That will suffice as my volunteer work for 2024, so don’t bother to ask; the answer will be no.

I started reading an old Evan Hunter novel yesterday, Last Summer. It was a book I’d always wanted to read when I was younger, and I was reminded of it sometime during the pandemic, so I got a copy of it and its sequel, Come Winter, from eBay and so I started reading it at long last yesterday. I’ve never seen the film, either; but I do remember Barbara Hershey and Richard Thomas (aka John-Boy Walton) starred in it. It also put me in mind of another trope from that era of publishing; books with teenagers as protagonists (and/or antagonists) were almost always set during the summer, and so many were set on coastal islands–this one, Summer of ’42, A Summer Place, etc. It of course makes sense; teenagers had a lot of free time to get into shenanigans during the summer, especially when they were on a vacation somewhere. I’ve actually fallen into that trope a couple of times myself–Dark Tide, Lake Thirteen–and numerous other stories I would like to tell at some point. I do like the idea of gradually getting rid of all this paper around here by digitizing or disposing of things that I’ll never get around to writing. I don’t want to start writing fast in a frenzied attempt to write everything I want to before I die–and there’s always new ideas, too. But i know I’d really like to eventually get back to that novel where I based the victim on Ann Coulter…hmmm, maybe that could be the next Scotty. That’s actually a very good idea. Hmmmm.

It’s so nice to be around writers. It really is a balm for my soul. I did write some yesterday morning, but I am not going to even try today. I am very tired–I’ve done a lot of walking this weekend–and of course having to be “on” is tiring. The truth is I am not at 100% yet, much as I want to believe that I am, and there’s nothing wrong with that. One exciting development of the weekend is that I experienced no stress, anxiety or stage fright for my reading yesterday. Not only was I calm and not sweating buckets, I was actually able to relax and enjoy the experience. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before? It was wild. I’ve actually been relaxed the entire weekend; I don’t believe I understood before how much my anxiety impacted me at events like this. Having a calm and quiet head is a lovely thing, and now that the creativity has come back, I might actually start enjoying my life again.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time reminiscing about past S&S weekends, too; remembering how it all started, how much of it was done on a fraying shoestring because there was no money for it, and held in donated spaces at gay bars. It also used to be in May, so the weather was a LOT hotter. Paul and I used to always get the pool suite at the Olivier House for our home base, and people always used to wind up in our room later in the evening to drink and socialize and have a lot of fun. I couldn’t do that now–as it is, i stayed up past my usual bedtime Friday night and paid for it all day yesterday (legs are tired today, too). I also came up with a title for my memoir should I ever try to write one: Unreliable Narrator.

And LSU won the SEC women’s gymnastics championships last night in very dominant style. They weren’t as on as they usually are, and still set an incredibly high score and really have the potential to win the national title this year, too. And the US had a great outcome at the World Figure Skating Championships, winning two golds (men’s and ice dance) and a silver (women’s).

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely see you tomorrow.

A Big Hunk o’ Love

Saturday morning and I slept late, and feel a bit fatigued. I graduated from PT yesterday, which was awesome–but I’ll miss going. I really liked my therapist.

I headed down to the Quarter in a Lyft yesterday after finishing my work-at-home duties, and didn’t have time to write yesterday, which I hope to do this morning. We (Paul) have that lovely suite up on the fourteenth floor of the Monteleone again–but of course I come home every night to take care of Sparky (who was waiting in the window when I got home). I went to the opening reception at the Keyes House in the Quarter (it’s called BK House now instead of its old name; in which the B stands for the general who started the Civil War–he was from New Orleans), which is an absolutely beautiful space, and I just realized I didn’t take any pictures, which I should do more of today and tonight. After the reception, where I ran into any number of delightful people (namedropping here–but amongst those I ran into were Rob Byrnes, Carol Rosenfeld, Amie Evans, Eric Andrews-Katz, Susan Larson, Trebor Healey, and Margot Douaihy), I went to eat (well, to watch them eat) with Steven Reigns, Karl (K. M.) Soehnlein, Marco Carocari, his husband Mark, and Trebor Healey. We went to that bar that used to be Yo Mama’s but has a different name now. It was lovely going down memory lane with Steven over all the years of Saints & Sinners, and remembering how it all happened in the first place all those years ago. Twenty-one years now, which is pretty amazing for a queer lit fest.

Then again, I married a pretty remarkable person.

I have to read today, and I think I have settled on my story from School of Hard Knox, “The Ditch,” because it’s an Alabama story and I can pull out my accent for it. Maybe not at first, but as I get into the story more, absolutely. I’ll also need to rehearse a bit this afternoon before I head down there again. I think today I’ll wear more sensible shoes than I did yesterday, so I can take the streetcar down and walk home at the end of the evening. It’s a lovely walk and the evenings are so cool and temperate…I really wanted to walk home last night rather than taking a Lyft home, but my shoes–I was wearing my new black-and-white saddle shoes, and I worried about walking all that way in them. Not that they would be uncomfortable, but the wear-and-tear on them for that long of a walk–that’s what my Adidas are for. I also noticed on the way to the Quarter in a Lyft (thanks, Tedzin, for the ride) that the Appellate Court building on Camp Street was named for John Minor Wisdom, who’d served there with distinction for over twenty years; it just struck me as funny yesterday that a Federal Appellate court building was named minor wisdom, which I am going to have to use in a book sometime.

I also did some chores and filing and straightening up around here yesterday, so the workspace is a lot less cluttered and a lot more functional now. I’ve also decided on a major project for this summer–getting rid of paper files. I don’t need a paper file for anything that isn’t really something in progress right now, but it’s also a massive undertaking that would require going through all the files…and there are so many files…but condensing them and cleaning out the files that I don’t really need much anymore would also make the workspace more functional and the apartment far less cluttered looking. I have so many ideas I won’t be able to write them all unless I not only live to well over a hundred but don’t get any NEW ideas for the rest of my life.

I think it’s safe to assume that’s never going to happen.

Sigh, I also have to start pulling my taxes together for my accountant. Sigh. What an odious chore, but like I’ve always said–there’s nothing more patriotic than paying your taxes so the country continues to be funded. That doesn’t mean I don’t take every deduction I can and try to get the bill down as much as possible, but I don’t ever complain about paying taxes. I kind of like paved roads and infrastructure and so forth. Call me a libtard; I wear it as a badge of honor–unlike the con(servative) artists out there, or the cosplay Christians who missed all the important messages of their religion to be better people.

And on that note, I think I am going to go sit and read for a bit before I amp up for writing. Have a great day, Constant Reader–I doubt I’ll be back later, but stranger things have happened.

16 Candles

Paul moved into the Monteleone yesterday for the weekend, so I find myself home alone with Sparky, who either feels needy when there’s only one of us here, or gives me a lot more attention when Paul’s not home to make me feel less lonely. I’ll be spending most of my weekend down there myself–although I am hoping to get some writing done every morning before I head down there for the panels and parties and things. A boy can dream, at any rate. Sparky was pretty needy after I got home from work, and spent most of the night either sleeping in my lap, following me around, or riding on my shoulders.

I did spend some time going down an Internet research rabbit-hole for the new book I am looking forward to writing later this year, The Summer of Lost Boys. I found a Facebook page for the suburb we lived in that is going to be the basis for the story (the same suburb the main character of Lake Thirteen was from), and spent some time between clients going down memory lane and remembering people, places and things I’d forgotten in the ensuing fifty years or so since we lived there. (FIFTY YEARS???) Most of the members of the group are people I didn’t know or don’t remember, but there were certainly some familiar names there–including some of my bullies. Charming, but glad to see they don’t look so great now. It was a strange suburb, really. When we moved out there it really wasn’t much of a town or anything; it was mostly subdivisions that were going up very rapidly. The town (or village; it’s still called The Village of Bolingbrook) started developing more after we moved out there…the end of the street we lived on was a field about a block away from our hose…within a few years, the Ivanhoe subdivision went up in that field. We got our own high school in 1974; I was going to be in the first graduating class for BHS that had gone to BHS all four years; the older grades has spent some years attending Romeoville High in the next town over. I am going to try to immerse myself in the period–culturally, politically, and so forth–which should make the book more interesting, or at least to people my age. I’m kind of excited about it, to tell you the truth. (And yes, some of my earliest post-pubescent crushes are also there. Also didn’t age well, but hey, we’re all in our sixties now.)

I’ve also picked out the other stories I want to use to fill out my next short story collection. Those two stories need a bit of work, but I hope I can get this whole thing finished relatively soon, so I can move on to the novellas I want to finish, the two books already in progress, and then this new one I want to do. See? I’m feeling ambitious and driven again, which is lovely. I wrote some more last night, and it was good work; revising the second chapter and pulling the story and everything together, and I’ve found the voice again, which is so crucial and was part of the problem I was having before.

I also spent some more time with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) last night and realized…I’ve liked every song thus far, and I am well into the second hour of the film. I will undoubtedly write about it once I’ve finished watching, but it’s an excellent way to hear her music–some of it for the first time–and think, I really need to listen to her albums in the car and this is why she’s the biggest star in the world right now. It’s also a pretty amazing show; the girl knows how to please an audience and make them happy.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back probably at some point later today.

I’m Gonna Get Married

Wednesday middle of the week blog, in which it is a miserable 48 degrees this morning in New Orleans, with a forecast high of a mere 67. Oh, well, I’ve survived worse, have I not? Indeed I have.

Yesterday turned out to be a good day. I finished the first draft of the short story (huzzah!) and started editing the first chapter of the book, primarily to get me back into the voice and swing of the story, and I feel like it’s already better than it was. It also felt delightful to be writing again, and the words were simply flowing out of me, which also was lovely. Needless to say, I was in a very good mood when I saved the files and closed Word. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to get some more work done, and yes, I slept extremely well last night, too. I just felt better than I have about everything in a very long time.

I always forget how much I love to write, you know? I love writing and creating; which are my favorite things in the world to do. Part of the reason I was in the throes of another long-lasting malaise was because I wasn’t writing, which always affects my moods and how i feel about everything in my life and the world in general. The short story needs work, of course, it’s just a first draft, but once I finished it, I realized how to make the story stronger and make more sense to the reader. Huzzah for writing again! I also have my last supervised PT session this Friday morning, and then I am to do it all on my own. I have a lot of questions about that I will get cleared up at this last session. And once the Festivals are over, we’ll be back on our normal, most of the year schedule. I feel good still this morning–well rested, still pleased with the work I got done yesterday and very much looking forward to getting even more done today. The friend I had drinks with Monday night reminded me that I love to write, and that everything else is just a side effect. I’ve had some disappointments lately for sure–but that’s part of the up-and-down cyclical nature of the business side of things. Not everything is going to be as successful as you’d like, and it doesn’t mean I am a terrible writer or the book wasn’t good but rather that not enough people knew about the book to consider buying it. I’ve always been terrible about the business side of being an author; I need to make more of an effort in the future and learn how to do all the things I generally don’t like to do–but I also need to get over that and stop feeling like a carnival barker selling snake oil when I am doing it.

I am good at writing. And if I were able to devote all of my energy and focus into a book, that would be different.

I think my next read is going to be either a cozy or a Barbara Michaels reread. I’ve not reread some of my favorites of hers in years (I always end up going back to Ammie Come Home and Be Buried in the Rain but there are others I love almost as much, like The Dark on the Other Side, Witch, Prince of Darkness, and House of Many Shadows). I do want to write another Gothic at some point soon–I love Gothics–and there’s no better writer than Michaels to help get me into the mood and find the voice. There’s a New Orleans ghost story I want to write, and there’s at least one more Alabama book I want to write as well. I was thinking about reading She Who Was No More, the book Diabolique was based on, which is a fantastic and grim story. (I originally saw Diabolique in its American television movie remake, Reflections of Murder, which Sam Waterston, Joan Hackett, and Tuesday Weld.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader; I may be back later, one never can be entirely sure.

Lipstick on Your Collar

Tuesday morning and the temperature dropped over night, so I had to turn on the heat once I got up. I was exhausted yesterday when i got home from having a drink with a friend, and was nodding off in my easy chair by eight o’clock, finally deciding to just go ahead and go to bed early. Maybe it was the alcohol? But I slept deeply and well, and because of the cold (and a cuddling purring kitten) I really didn’t want to get out of the bed. But I was wide awake and the day wouldn’t be denied, so I went ahead and got up to feed Sparky, threw on my sweats, and started getting the day going.

The short story is now about four thousand words, and nearing it’s completed first draft. I am hoping to get it finished tonight once and for all, so I can get back to writing the book without any distractions. I am feeling more determined than I have in a long time, and while I am sure my mind will still wander and I’ll still get sidetracked easily, but this morning? I feel like I’m a writer again, which is odd but nice. Maybe the feeling will fade eventually as the day gets underway, but it’s nice to feel like this again. It was probably talking about writing last night with my friend? Which is funny, because talking about writing and publishing and so forth last night made me feel like an outsider…because I’ve not felt part of that world in a very long time. Given the tumultuous upsets of last year, it’s not really surprising. I was coping with a lot last year and my focus went away from not only writing but reading as well. I am still reading at a much slower pace than I used to, and I don’t write as fast as I used to either–but I also flipped out of the right mindset dealing with everything from last year, and I’m still dealing with some of it even now, despite it getting a bit easier every day. I also realize this morning that despite my intent to be kinder to myself, I slipped into that incorrect mindset and have been beating myself up over not reading or writing faster, and feeling shame about it, which is insane. I had a major surgery in November, and the recovery after; of course that’s going to affect my creativity and my ability to focus.

I am actually really grateful that I changed medications to something that actually handles the problem rather than the symptoms, otherwise the post-surgery months would have been horrible, much worse than it was. Almost my entire life my focus has been on books–either reading or writing them–and I either wanted to be a writer, or was one; my identity has always involved writing in some form or another. Not being able to focus enough to write since having a cadaver tendon sewn into my arm (it sounds so much worse when it’s put that way, doesn’t it? It also sounds like something out of those horror comics I used to read when I was a kid, where it would have inevitably turned out to be from a serial killer and it’s possessed or something) would have been peak anxiety for me, but fortunately while I still had those thoughts (who am I if I can’t write anymore?), I was properly medicated so it didn’t turn into an anxiety spiral. I am also very impatient, and always want to be done with the healing/recovery as quickly as I can. I am healing physically much faster than anyone could have anticipated (had another new PT on Friday and she was constantly commenting in shock and awe at “how advanced I was”) but the mental recovery has clearly not been as fast, which then becomes a concern, and then so on and on and on.

I really don’t miss the spirals at all.

And I think I’ve decided that my next new novel (the next one after I finish everything on hand that isn’t) is going to be The Summer of Lost Boys. I can’t stop thinking about it, even though I need to put it aside and focus on everything else before I get to it–but I may start the prologue because that’s what I can’t get out of my head. And yes, this morning I am starting to feel excited about writing again…maybe all it took was a martini with another writer.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, I may or may not be here again later–one never truly knows, does on?

Sorry (I Ran All The Way Home)

It’s raining.

Sparky was cuddling with me this morning in the bed as I took my time deciding whether the siren song of the comfortable bed and blankets was resistible when I heard thunder and that decided me. I do think I will take advantage of this gloom and the falling rain and the thunder to read some more of my book this morning (The Cook by Harry Kressing) before diving into an exciting day of writing and cleaning. Yesterday I ran some errands–Lowe’s and Rouse’s–before coming home and getting back into the filing and cleaning. I got us a pizza for dinner, and when Paul got home we watched two more episodes of The Tourist, which I am really loving (despite the fact there have been no gratuitous shirtless shots of Jamie Dornan, which seems a shame and a waste). Oh, and the Saints and Sinners program is available here. I am moderating a crime fiction panel with a powerhouse panel, and I am also doing a reading. I’m not sure what I will read from, but I am leaning towards my short story “Moist Money” or “The Ditch.” Guess I should start rehearsing. Or getting ready to moderate the panel. Maybe later.

“The procrastination is strong in this one.”

But once I finish this and make myself some breakfast, I am going to take my coffee into the living room and read some more for a little while before getting cleaned up and heading back into the spice mines. I feel like I can get some good work done today. Paul will probably get up later today, and we’ll probably finish watching The Tourist, which is a fine and lovely way to spend the day, methinks. I also need to finish up some filing and emptying out my inbox, and before you know it it’ll be bedtime. I had hoped to barbecue today, but if the rain doesn’t let up that’s a no-go, alas. I also bought a new grill yesterday (Lowe’s) which needs to be assembled and the old one disposed of; I also bought blinds for the window which I fear might be too small. I am debating whether I should try to put them up myself or ask Sam our handyman to do it when he works on the windows (he’s trying to unstick them so I can get fresh air into the house), The desk and the computer need to be moved before hand, of course, which is a problem…but I also have a laptop and an iPad with a keyboard, so I have no excuse for not writing when I’m in the chair, do I? And yet…

I do feel good this morning, rested and alert and awake and raring to go; we’ll see how long that lasts. It’s very gray outside, which means we’ll most likely be getting rain for most of the day. Which is okay; I can make something else with the ground sirloin in the fridge, and I am adapting, always a good sign–I used to get so unsettled by a change in plans for the day that I’d inevitably wind up doing nothing, which was not a good thing.

I’m also thinking about what I want to do for the rest of the year, and with my career for the rest of my life. It’s weird to think in those terms, isn’t it? But I am also getting to the point where I am having to start thinking in terms of well, if you die, which idea will you be most disappointed in not writing? And this is tricky, because I am always getting new ideas that sound terrific. It’s really important, at least to me, that I spend the rest of this year finishing things in progress and getting them out of my hair. I know I want to write about both Alabama and Kansas again, and probably a New Orleans ghost story I’ve been wanting to write for a very long time now. I have a book that has about 40k done on it, but will need extensive revision and at least another 40k.

And who knows? I may even bring Chanse back ONE MORE TIME–but don’t count on it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back at some point later.

My Heart Is an Open Book

Well, yesterday was a pretty good day overall, I think. I managed to get some writing done (about a thousand or so words, give or take) which felt amazing, if too little; and of course I went to PT after work and it actually felt good. I think the working out after therapy is going to actually take hold this time? Of course, it remains to be seen what else life is going to throw at me in the meantime, but I feel pretty good about things, overall. After I finish this book I’m writing I may step away for the rest of the year and just live for a while? I’ll still write, and I want to be clear that I am thinking in terms of time off from deadlines, really. It would be nice to finish all these unfinished things I have lying around here, and I’d also like to clean out the physical files at some point in the near future. Operation Declutter is still working, but it’s an ongoing process. I am about to put a moratorium on new books, too, unless it’s a must-read book by a friend. I really need to make more progress on getting through the mountainous TBR stack without consistently adding to it, over and over. Just this week I added Angela Crook’s Hurt Mountain and Amina Akhtar’s Almost Surely Dead and Simone St. George’s Murder Road. The question of what to read next also has not yet been answered, so it may wind up being a reread, which is actually counterproductive–but something that breaks down the wall and gets me reading every day again for pleasure would be pretty fucking fantastic.

My short story that I am writing is starting to take shape, even if my gears have rusted and need to be oiled before I can really get to work on writing again. I like what I am doing with this story–which is more horror/Gothic suspense more than anything else, really, and it’s been a really long time since I finished a story. “When I Die” still needs to be significantly edited and revised, as do so many other things. I need to get working on the book again–I came up with a great name for the Miss Queer Utah queen, but alas, forgot it already. I am actually kind of getting excited this morning to write this book. I saw a news item on social media that DeSantis’ anti-gay legislation essentially got ended by a court decision yesterday–I’ve not read the entire article yet, but it was a “settlement”, which makes it more interesting because surely that would make it a civil case, rather than a criminal one? But anything that gets Rhonda Santis’ panties in a bunch, as well as a massive defeat for his hate-filled agenda (your daily reminder, Moms for Liberty, that real patriots HATE you and your hate agenda; have fun in hell, skanks), will always make me very very happy. I also saw that the West Virginia legislature, under pressure from constituents, dropped (or allowed to die) 21 anti-queer bills.

As Winston Churchill said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing–after they’ve exhausted every other possibility.”

I didn’t sleep through the entire night, but woke up a couple of times but in both instances was able to fall back asleep and get some more needed rest, which was awesome. I actually woke up this morning feeling awake rather than foggy, which is simply marvelous to contemplate. Paul was working on a grant last night, so we only got to catch up on this week’s Abbott Elementary, and soon my widowhood will end when the festivals do next weekend (not this weekend) and a dear friend is coming to town this weekend, and I hope to meet her for drinks and a good gossipy catch up. I’ve also learned this morning that when the alarm goes off the first time and Sparky makes his appearance on my pillow, to just get up and feed him…because once he’s eaten, he’ll get back into the bed and cuddle like a sweet purr-kitty, which is lovely. I really have fallen completely in love with this crazy kitty, which makes losing Scooter ever so much easier. Losing him made rescuing Sparky possible, and I imagine I will always have a cat for the rest of my life, maybe even a bonded pair at some point after Sparky goes–assuming, of course, that I will outlive Sparky.

Some more things that I ordered arrived yesterday after I picked up the mail, so I’ll have to swing by there again this afternoon, which is fine. I have to get gas, too, so it makes sense to swing uptown, come back downtown via Tchoupitoulas, and then the Shell on Jackson Avenue on the way home. Tomorrow is also payday, which is lovely–pay-the-bills day, at any rate–and then I need to start prepping for my Saints and Sinners panel. There’s always something to do, isn’t there? I also need to stop by Physiofit and pay my bill, too. I got another camera ticket yesterday, which is super-annoying–but it gave me an idea for a story or a subplot for a Scotty book, so that’s a good thing, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will most likely be back again later.