Category: New Orleans

Disco Lady

Sunday morning, and the final day of the Weekend o’Festivals. I am up early because I went to bed early (day drinking may have been involved). I have a reading at one and a panel at two-thirty, and after that I am heading home. Terminix gave us the all clear yesterday, so the TERMITE ARMAGEDDON is over. I think I am going to go ahead and pack up everything and head home in a little bit, just so I can get started cleaning and washing and laundering, to get a jump on it for later….four-thirty/fivish is a bit late to get started for that, really, and it will be lovely to actually be back home.

My panel went very well yesterday–I am such a nervous fool when it comes to moderating panels; and I am always terrified that I’m doing a shitty job of it and disappointing the audience. But it did go well–it always helps when you have smart, intelligent witty panelists–so thank you, Samantha Downing (My Lovely Wife, more on that later), Alafair Burke (The Wife, The Better Sister), and Kristien Hemmerechts (The Woman Who Fed the Dogs, more on that later as well). I strongly encourage you, Constant Reader, to read and enjoy and savor their books. Entertaining yet disturbing, which, of course, I absolutely love.

I actually think I am going to pack up some things and head home this morning; I don’t have to take everything with me now–I can finish taking everything home after my panel is over. I am going to have to skip the closing reception, alas; too much to do at home, I am afraid, in order to make the Lost Apartment livable again so I can bring Scooter home from the kitty spa in the morning. Tomorrow I also have to finish a writing project, get the mail, pick up prescriptions, and get groceries for the week.

The Weekend o’Festivals is always a good time, I always enjoy myself tremendously, but it’s also nice to get back on the right footing and get back into my normal routine again. I’d already decided that since it was the Weekend o’Festivals that derailed my workouts last year (and I never recovered from it) that it was silly to get started before Carnival and the Weekend o’Festivals again. So, tomorrow afternoon I am going to head over to the gym and start working out again…trying to stick to a Wednesday morning, Friday afternoon, and Sunday morning schedule, while also slipping in to try cardio on other days as well. Three days a week is the ultimate goal, going back to my mantra of three times optimal, twice better than once, once better than nothing.

At my check-up on Friday I had apparently lost another three pounds since the last time I weighed myself, so I was down to 208, with only another eight to go to reach goal weight of 200. (Once I get to 200, I will reassess; from there I think I primarily want to simply focus on losing fat while replacing it with muscle; but I also have to see how that is going and reassess. I tend to carry all my extra weight around the waist, and my rib cage is enormous, which means my torso is always going to be enormous; so what I really need to focus on is building my legs up. Sigh–I am going to become obsessed with my body again, aren’t I? But it’s not about aesthetics this time, it really is about improving overall health, getting my blood pressure down, and so forth.)

And so now I am going to go pack up my stuff and get ready to cab home.

Later all!

43532531_10151018399034997_6006133935182970880_n

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

Saturday morning and I am swilling coffee in the Tennessee Williams Suite at the Monteleone Hotel. I slept much better than I would have thought last night–the bed is ridiculously comfortable here–but that also may have had to do with the dirty vodka martini I had last night with dinner. I have to, once I finish writing this, get a bit cleaned up, swill more coffee, and start trying to work on my moderating duties for my panel this afternoon–a mystery panel at the Muriel’s location, with Alafair Burke, Samantha Downing, and Kirstien Hemmerichts. I’ve read their most recent books (Samantha’s is her debut, My Lovely Wife) and while I’ve not yet met Samantha, I did meet Kirstien at the opening reception at the Historic New Orleans Collection last night. I’m hoping to ask some interesting questions and have a terrific discussion about women in crime fiction–both as characters and as writers. I have been a long time advocate, as Constant Reader should know, of women writers, particularly in the crime genre. So, we shall see how this goes. Tomorrow I have another panel (for Saints and Sinners) and a reading to do (I am going to read “This Town” from Murder-a-Go-Go’s, which I know is probably not the self-promotional thing to do; I should read from Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, since it’s my new release–again begging the question how do I have a career?)

I also had a lovely dinner at G. W. Fins last night with the amazing Alafair Burke and the equally amazing Sarah Weinman (you really need to read her The Real Lolita); what can I say other than #ilovemylife? The dinner was superb, the service exceptional, and the conversation? The kind of thing I used to dream about when I was a teenager, late at night, before I fell asleep and dreamed my big dreams.

And hopefully, tomorrow after everything is over I’ll be able to head home and start putting the house back together after TERMITE ARMAGEDDON. I’m going to have to do a lot of laundry and a lot of loads for the dishwasher, so the sooner I can get a jump on doing that the better, obviously, since I have to return to work on Tuesday morning. It’s not like I wanted to spend my day Monday cleaning the house thoroughly and doing all that laundry and those loads of dishes, but it has to be done and I don’t really have a choice; supposedly the gas dissipates on its own but doesn’t it get in the fabrics and so forth, and better safe than sorry? Plus, it gives me an excuse to clean out the cabinets and the drawers…so yes, part of my evening tomorrow will be figuring out a more efficient way to use the cabinets and the drawers….because it’s always an ongoing thing, you know? (My spice rack actually might be something I throw away; I don’t use the stuff in it very much and it takes up counter space and collects dust.)

I do have some writing to do–website stuff–that is due on Monday, so I’ll probably get to work on that after my panel this afternoon.

Okay, and on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me!

52063609_2828952173996532_1975658344542633984_n

December 1963 (Oh What a Night)

Friday morning, and TERMITE ARMAGEDDON is nigh. I am up before dawn because they are coming to tent the house and commit genocide around eight, so I have to wrestle Scooter into his carrier before then so I can get him to the spa when they open at eight. Then I am going to drive back and leave the car at the house, and Lyft down to the hotel for the Weekend o’Festivals. I also have to go to my doctor at 1:30 in the afternoon; I think I’ll leave early and take the streetcar, so i can sightsee and read on my way. And then…it’s just about the festivals for the weekend until we are cleared to come back to the house. I’ll probably do that on Sunday after my panel, if I can, so I can start laundering things and washing dishes and moving the perishables back over from the carriage house, so I can go get Scooter first thing Monday morning and then go make groceries.

Heavy heaving sigh. I keep finding things that might get contaminated. Well, when I take Scooter to the kitty spa I guess I’ll be loading more things into the hatch of the car than I’d thought I would have to.

Now that the morning of Termite Armageddon is here, I am much calmer than I thought I’d be. My suitcases are packed, the majority of the cabinets have been emptied, and all I have to do is wrestle Scooter into his carrier. I think I can manage it on my own, although it’s usually a two-person job. I think I’m also just going to grab the streetcar and come back here to get the car; that way I can go pick up the mail as well…or should I just take the streetcar all the way so I can keep reading? Decisions, decisions. One of the things I hate the most about anything is having to rush. Rushing causes me stress–almost to the breaking point–so I always try, when I have mornings like this, to get things done and try to give myself enough time so I don’t have to get stressed and rush and freak out–which, of course, is how I always wind up forgetting things along the way.

But tonight I get to have dinner with Alafair Burke and Sarah Weinman!

ENVY ME.

Yesterday I’m not going to lie; I was stressed as all hell, so feeling so calm this morning is quite lovely. I don’t know if I am actually calm or if it’s because I’m actually not quite awake yet, but in either case, there it is, you know? It is what it is, and whatever I didn’t get out of the Lost Apartment are things that will have to be thrown away at some point when we come back home, which I’m more than fine with. Moving the perishables to the carriage house made me realize something–not only do I hoard books, I hoard food. I think it comes from being poor, being hungry, and not having anything to eat in the house (my mom’s house is practically bulging with food; now i wonder if the poverty from her early married days, when my sister and I were kids, has something to do with that as well) and I  am realizing that there’s really no reason for there to be so much food in the house. So, in some ways, the Termite Armageddon is a good thing, because it’s forcing me to clean out my refrigerator, freezer, and kitchen cabinets.

In a way, I am having spring cleaning forced on me, because definitely Monday I am going to have to spend the majority of the day cleaning the house.

Again, not a bad thing.

But it is what it is.

So, I am hoping this weekend will give me the boost I need, the kick in the part, as it were, to get me writing and thinking about my writing, again. I am having a lovely time–albeit going rather slowly–revising the WIP, and I am already thinking ahead to the next thing. I’d like to see April spent writing up a storm, and revising short stories, making another push to get some stories into print. I also need to get caught up on all sorts of other things–I still haven’t gotten the damned brake tag–and I have taxes and things to sort. I am hoping that the weekend in the suite at the hotel will do the trick; give me some time to relax, read, and get caught up on things that I have been seriously lagging on. I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a malaise thus far this year; since finishing Royal Street Reveillon, if I am going to be completely honest, and going back to the Great Data Disaster of 2018. But the Weekend o’Festivals has always given me the kick in the pants I need to get there.

And now, I need to go load the car and sneak the kitty carrier down out of the storage without Scooter seeing it, else I’ll never get him out from under the bed.

Oh, spice mines….how I wish I could resist your siren song.

43590354_10151018398709997_4371416803335733248_n

Kiss and Say Goodbye

Wednesday morning, and I could have slept until tomorrow. Paul moves into the hotel today for the Weekend o’Festivals, and I get to come home to an empty house and Needy Kitty ™. Tomorrow I get to finish packing things up and moving them out before the Termite Tent arrives sometime on Friday, which is when I get to somehow finagle Scooter into his carrier and get him to the spa for the weekend, move into the hotel, and somehow find the time (and a way) to get to my doctor’s appointment uptown later that same day.

Heavy sigh.

But that’s okay. I can manage it. I also have to start preparing for my panel, so I am going to try to finish reading Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife before Saturday. I am enjoying it–it’s quite good, and getting quite a bit of buzz this week–and I also have to decide what I am going to read on Sunday. I should probably read something from Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories–promote promote promote–but I am leaning toward reading “This Town” from Murder-a-Go-Go’s. I feel terribly unprepared for this coming weekend, to be completely honest, primarily because I haven’t had a chance to actually focus on it. I still need to pack, too.

Heavier sigh.

But…that’s okay. I have a half-day on Thursday, as I said before, and all I really have to do before and after work that day is actually get ready for the weekend. I’ve already made my packing list for my suitcase, and sometime today I’ll make a list of the things I have to get done tomorrow. I also need to figure out what I am going to need to get done on Monday–besides go get groceries, restock the house, wash the bed linens and the clothes and all the dishes (hurray!)–while also trying to readjust back to normality while feeling exceptionally tired, as I never sleep well in hotels. I also have a bit of freelance writing that’s due on Monday, and I have to fit getting that done in there somewhere. I’ve also got  to send my tax stuff to my accountant, which I should probably mail today since I am going to the post office.

But I don’t have a lot to do this weekend–I have my panel at TWFest on Saturday, then my reading and a panel at Saints and Sinners on Sunday–and other than that, and dinner with some friends on Friday evening, I can pretty much hang out in the suite for the weekend and relax, maybe get some reading and writing done most of the time. I am not the best at getting things done while staying in a hotel room, but stranger things have happened and so one never knows. Usually we have someone staying with us in the suite, but it’s just us this year.

So, without Paul being home tonight or tomorrow, I should be able to get things done that I need to get done–around dealing with Needy Kitty ™. Some cleaning and organizing, packing…and then I am ready for the weekend.

I did work some on the WIP yesterday–not much; it took me a while to get back into the story–but something is better than nothing.

I’ll just be glad when this weekend has passed and everything has returned to that semblance of normal that passes for normal around here.

And then I can focus on getting the WIP and some short stories finished in April, so I can move on to rewrite the other in May, and maybe–just maybe–start something new in June or July, depending on where things fall. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even stay on schedule.

Stranger things have happened.

And now back to mining spice.

50720442_10151048084649997_2494306771162628096_n

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

Last night when I got home from work I was so tired I literally repaired to the easy chair almost immediately, while a purring cat in my lap. I kept dozing off while I waited for Paul to get home, and finally, once he did make it through the front door, I gave up any pretense of being awake still and went directly to bed. I didn’t want to get up this morning (no different than any morning, really, other than it’s dark and rudely early), and would be more than happy to go straight back to bed for another few hours.

I did manage to revise the first chapter of the WIP yesterday; first chapters are always the hardest to do, quite frankly, and so I always end up spending the most time on them. The trick is to introduce your main character without a lot of explanation and back story–the temptation to write an entire chapter of back story is always, always present, and must be resisted; there’s no easier way to lose a reader than explaining back story….but there has to be enough for the chapter to make logical sense to the reader as well. It’s a balancing act; one that I’m not quite sure I’ve managed, but at least today I get to move on to Chapter Two.

Tonight I have to not only pack for the weekend but also continue to move perishable things over to the carriage house. I think the last thing I’m going to do is move things to the back of the car–the cat food, etc.–and since I’m not taking the car to the Quarter for the weekend (the cost of parking down there is absolutely insane) that should work. It’s also going to be a struggle getting Scooter into his travel kennel to take him to the Kitty Spa Friday morning; it’s usually a two-person job, and since he’s a Daddy’s kitty, not having Daddy to help me is going to make it a battle royale, I fear. I also have a doctor’s appointment Friday afternoon that I couldn’t reschedule before July (!), so it looks like the most likely progression here will be drop off the cat, drive back over here, and call a Lyft to take me to the Quarter, then grab another Lyft to the doctor, and take the streetcar back from there.

Madness; a weekend’s worth of utter and complete madness.

But I am feeling better about things; the lovely comments from people about my story in Murder-a-Go-Go’s plus getting some good revision done yesterday has me feeling better about my career and my ability to write again; it’s been a hot minute since I felt good about anything having to do with my writing, so it’s kind of lovely to have some confidence again. Or rather, restore the low confidence I’ve had most of my career. Writing is insane in that way; maybe the big names like Harlan Coben and Jeff Abbott and Lisa Scottoline and Karin Slaughter don’t ever suffer from Imposter Syndrome, but it’s really an integral part of my personality. I’ve had it about everything–not just writing. I constantly question, and have my entire life, whether I am good at my job (whatever it may have been at the time) or whether I am a hard worker or how clean my house is or whether I actually can write or if I am just somehow managing to cost by somehow, being read by non-discerning readers who can’t tell that I’m not a good writer.

And around and around and around it goes.

I started reading Samantha Downing’s wonderful My Lovely Wife yesterday on my lunch break, and it’s really really good. I am looking forward to moderating our “whodunit” panel this Saturday; hope to see you there.

And now back to the spice mines–because if I know anything, it’s that spice won’t mine itself.

38783121_10150999771059997_8562736763137687552_n

Love Machine

Ah, Monday of the week that ends with the tenting and the Weekend o’Festivals. Just thinking about getting through this week and this weekend makes me tired. Very tired.

We started moving perishables and other things that could be poisoned by the termite gas over to the carriage house yesterday; even as we did so, I kept remembering and finding more things that need to go over there. I’ve never experienced termite genocide before, that oh-so-uniquely New Orleans experience that so many others have before multiple times. It’s got me thinking about the possibility of murder by termite tent, of course–although I am pretty certain I’ve read a book where that happened, I think it was by Elaine Viets.

Murder-a-Go-Go’s officially releases today as well, so those who preordered it should be getting it delivered to your electronic reading devices and those who ordered hard-copies should be getting them soon. Huzzah! I love book birthdays; my own for Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories is soon to come; April 10th, officially. Order, order, order! And don’t forget, the first ever Chanse MacLeod short story is in this book!

I reread my story for Murder-a-Go-Go’s again yesterday, primarily because another idea came to me yesterday, which I shared on social media: Someone really needs to write a spring break noir called WHERE THE BOYS DIE and I would read the hell out of that. I do think that’s a terrific idea; is there any better setting for a noir than a small beach town taken over by tens of thousands of partying college students? (I also had another idea for a book, based on an actual brutal murder that took place over spring break several decades ago; hat tip to Scott Heim for reminding me of that murder) I had always wanted to do one over the course of Southern Decadence weekend as well; I still might do that one. Anyway, I’m digressing. So, on my post about Where the Boys Die some suggested I write it, others that it sounded like an anthology, and then Jessica Laine said, you already wrote this story for MURDER-A-GO-GO’S, and I loved your story. 

The thing about being a writer is that all-too-often you don’t remember things about your work once it’s finished. “This Town,” my story for Murder-a-Go-Go’s, is one of my favorite stories that I’ve ever written, to be honest; I think it’s also one of my best. But, when I read Kristopher Zgorski’s lovely review and he singled out my story as one of many for individual praise, and then seeing Jessica’s lovely comment, I decided I should probably reread the story since my recollection of what I actually wrote was so vague…and there it was. Constant Reader, it’s good. I then pulled up my story “Neighborhood Alert,” which is going to be published in Mystery Tribune, and it, too, is good. This was revelatory for me; as I may have mentioned, another story of mine was recently rejected by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and that had, of course, put me into a bit of a tailspin as far as my writing of short stories was concerned…astonishing at how easy it is to have one’s confidence in one’s own work shattered, isn’t it?

And that also got me to thinking about the second Chanse short story, “Once a Tiger,” that has tragically been stalled for so long. Short stories are actually more intimate than novels; in that you have much less space to develop a story and less room for characters so it has to be scaled back some. “Once a Tiger” is struggling because, quite simply, there are too many characters in it; how does one investigate a death at a fraternity house on a college campus when there would have to be well over a hundred brothers and pledges? That was where I struggled with the story; even the police would have trouble sorting all of this out, so imagine the trouble Chanse would have with it, working alone as he does. I still want to write a murder mystery set at Chanse’s LSU fraternity, where Chanse has to come back and solve the crime, but I just don’t–at the moment–see how that can be done as a short story. Maybe now that I’ve said that it will come to me–just like the other day, how to weave the two plots for the next Scotty book came to me from out of nowhere.

I love when that happens.

And now back to the spice mines.

51807918_2082001481887309_3231561375222333440_o

You Decorated My Life

Friday, and the weekend looms. Alas, but this weekend is deceptive; it is the last weekend before the Weekend o’Festivals which means I won’t see Paul very much and I probably won’t be able to get a whole lot of relaxing done as I will be stressing about numerous things. I need to finish reading two books by next weekend, I need to get some work done on the WIP, and I need to clean this filthy apartment. I am behind on everything (like always) and really need to step up my game. I’ve been feeling slightly overwhelmed this week, but feeling overwhelmed only leads to paralysis and inaction and chaos, so…when I get home from work this afternoon I need to get to work. I need to stay off social media, close my Internet browsers, and just get on it. I need to get chapters revised; I need to clean thoroughly; I need to do all sorts of things, and this is the last chance I have to get any of this done before the Weekend O’Festivals.

And the house is being tented that weekend for termites; effective Friday, the termite tent is going up. So we also have to prepare the house for that.

I’ve got to get my reading done as well, so I also need to focus and try not to goof off as much. Scooter, of course, won’t mind me sitting in the easy chair all weekend reading, either–which should minimize the kitty whining I have to put up with over the weekend. (there’s always kitty whining)

Heavy heaving sigh.

What I need is to have a Type-A weekend. I haven’t had one of those in a while; not sure what that’s about, but as I said, I’ve felt disconnected from everything since the Great Data Disaster of 2018. The return of my allergies hasn’t helped much in that regard, either–it’s spring in New Orleans again! I guess the first step in getting my shit together is to make a pretty solid to-do list, and stick to checking things off on it. That’s always been the most effective way for me to deal with these things, and something I’ve been rather slipshod about for quite some time.

With the river so high and all the midwest flooding, I’ve also been thinking about, of course, Katrina and the flood that followed. It doesn’t help that the lead off and title story in my soon to be released collection, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, is an aftermath story, with the character on his roof in the heat waiting rescue. It’s a morbid, creepy story; one that I was reluctant to tell, if I’m going to be honest about it. I evacuated; Paul and I packed up as much as could fit in the car, put Skittle in his carrier and fled north. We left the Lost Apartment shortly after eleven a.m. that morning; we didn’t get to Slidell until nearly seven, and the outer bands of the storm were already coming in as we crossed the Twin Spans across the lake. It does now seem like that was an incredibly long time ago, and yet the memories, while faded with time, are still relatively vivid–even though the distance makes it seem as though it happened to someone else. There’s an unreality about the entire thing, looking back over the years. It’s hard to believe something like that could happen, yet it did, and it does, every year, to somewhere. Puerto Rico is still recovering, and suffering, from Maria.

The other day on Facebook there was a post from the New Orleans Tourism Board about signs they’ve created that businesses here can hang in their windows, to show queer tourists that they are welcome in the business and in the city. Quite naturally, some homophobic trash (from Oklahoma) had to show up on the thread and say shit like well, looks like I need to cancel my reservations for New Orleans this May–guess it’s time for another hurricane! 

You really can’t fix trash. Particularly from some asshole who smugly thinks Oklahoma is immune from natural disasters. This reminded me, of course, of the congressional trash serving at the time who didn’t think New Orleans (the fifth largest port in the United States) didn’t need to either rebuild or recover from this disaster; they were willing to just let the city sink in the swamp and disappear. Steve King, the Klansman without a mask, was one of them; yesterday he said something similar again about how everyone affected by Katrina sat around waiting for help while “in Iowa we help each other.”

Really? Fuck you, you racist faux Christian piece of shit, and I do hope you have a lovely time in hell when you get there.

And despite the fact that Iowans clearly continue to reelect this excrement to Congress because he is a racist bottom-feeding monster, they still deserve our sympathy and our support and our help in this time of disaster for them.

Sorry you don’t have a soul, Mr. Congressman.

And now back to the spice mines.

IMG_0895

In America

Wednesday morning and it’s not quite sixty degrees yet this morning in New Orleans, so the space heater is on to take the chill out of my kitchen and my office space as I swill coffee and prepare for my day. I was exhausted yesterday, and fell asleep almost immediately after tumbling into bed. I had a fabulous night’s sleep, and this morning I feel very rested and well–although I could have easily stayed in bed for a while longer. Tomorrow morning I have to get up early because I have to have bloodwork done, but I am also in the home stretch of the week where the half-days are happening.

Huzzah!

I started–very slowly–revising the WIP’s first chapter last night. I’d always envisioned the book opening with the line The summer before my senior year my mother ruined my life, and while it is a great opening, it doesn’t really work with the story I am actually writing–while my character still believes that to be true, of course, as a framing device for the actual story my WIP has become it no longer works. For one thing, I am writing the book in a very close first person, present tense; so opening with a sentence and paragraph in the past tense, where he is obviously looking back to what happened that particular summer in Alabama, the shift in tense is awkward and abrupt and really doesn’t work anymore. I am horribly stubborn about this sort of thing, and it usually takes me much longer to give up and recognize that the opening I love so much has to go–so I am kind of pleased about that I’ve already gotten past that, to be honest. And the story is much better for it.

As I was writing those first ten chapters, too, I recognized holes in the plot when I saw them but, as is my wont, I simply made note of them and kept ploughing ahead. Part of the reason I want to go back and do a second draft of these chapters before I move on to the second half of the novel is because fixing those plot holes and cleaning up those mistakes will make writing the second half easier…and the book might go to twenty-five chapters, rather than the twenty I was thinking about. I”m not going to worry too much about length at the moment–that can always be worked out later–but I am very excited to be writing something new again.

And not to worry, Scotty fans–writing this doesn’t mean I’m not making notes and doing research for the next Scotty. I may not get to it until this fall, but I am going to get to it at some point.

Now I need to get on the stick and get my TWFest homework done. I have to have two books read by next weekend! This is ordinarily not a problem for me, but all kinds of crazy shit is going on around here. I have to have bloodwork done tomorrow, we have to start getting ready not only for the Weekend o’Festivals but also for the house tenting for termites that is going to occur that weekend as well–which means the easy day I have planned for that Friday is turning into a nightmare–I have to take the cat to board; I have to clean out our freezer because the power will be off; I have a doctor’s appointment that day; I have to figure out how to get all my stuff down to the hotel in the Quarter without the car (no fucking way am I paying hotel parking in the Quarter); and how to get ready for that evening’s parties and so forth….then the following Monday, also a day off for me, will require me to retrieve the cat and the car and everything else.

Just thinking about it is making me tired.

But on that note, I am heading back to the spice mines.

IMG_0978

Give Me the Night

Tuesday!

So the Midwest is experiencing horrific flooding, which always makes my antennae go up. Obviously, I feel bad for the victims and try to do whatever I can in whatever small way I can to help, but I also immediately think that water is going to end up here.

After all, the Father of Waters drains almost the entire basin between the Appalachians and the Rockies.

This is also of particular interest because the river is in flood stage right now, cresting at seventeen feet. The Bonne-Carre Spillway was opened a few weeks ago, draining some of the water into Lake Pontchartrain and eventually the Gulf (in the olden days fishermen always complained about the spillway opening, even trying to legally stop; since Katrina it’s never ever mentioned). The levees protect New Orleans up to twenty feet–but I am sure you can understand, Constant Reader if we here in New Orleans raise an eyebrow when the Army Corps of Engineers assure us about levee protection. But the flood waters from the Missouri River floods won’t be here until the end of April, and they are already discussing closing the spillway.

Yeah, I rest easy at night.

But from what I’ve seen of the flooding on the news, my heart goes out to those impacted, affected, who are losing everything. If you can help, people, please try to do so.

I’m not as tired this morning as I thought I would be, given how tired I was last night and how little I wanted to get out of bed yesterday morning. But it’s a long day, and we’ll see how well I am doing when I walk out of the building tonight to get in my car and come home.

I managed to do very little yesterday, despite not being tired; trying to keep up with my email was a challenge, also thoroughly proving my adage email begets email. I am determined to not only keep up with it today but to get through it all; we’ll see how successful I actually am at pulling that off. One can always hope, can’t one?

I know I certainly do.

I do want to go down to the river at some point and take some pictures of how high it is, even if it the level is receding.

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

IMG_0883 2

Ships

I woke up earlier this morning than I thought I would; while the cat lying on me purring for breakfast didn’t help much, I was actually already awake before Scooter took up residence on my back. It’s also chilly on this gray Saturday morning–more of yesterday’s cold and damp weather, methinks–but that’s fine. I’m not going outside–there are St. Patrick’s Day parades and celebrations throughout my neighborhood as well as Uptown New Orleans, which means drunks will be wandering the ‘hood for most of the day. I’ve actually never been to a St. Patrick’s Day parade in New Orleans, avoiding them like the plague since we first moved here–the thought of catching beads, of course, is always delightful, but they also throw carrots and cabbages and potatoes.

Never a dull holiday in New Orleans.

I intend to spend the day mostly cleaning and reading; I made a good start on cleaning the apartment yesterday and I’d like to keep that momentum going. I am itching to finish reading Alafair Burke’s new book, and I also need to read some more short stories from Murder-a-Go-Go’s. I rewatched Now Apocalypse with Paul last night–he did like it, as I knew he would–and the new episode of Schitt’s Creek; I also watched the first episode of The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I had started drinking Chardonnay while I cleaned and listened to music on Spotify, and so by the time I was finished cleaning I was a little the worse for wear for wine to be able to focus on reading anything. I also want to do some cooking today–fry up a pack of bacon for lunches next week, broil some chicken breasts for easy and healthier snacking, etc. I also need to clean out my email inbox, and I need some Apple Support on-line because I can’t seem to access my iCloud drive on my new MacBook Air. I have a Bouchercon board meeting tomorrow afternoon, so I think tomorrow might be the day this weekend I do work.

I may start working on the long-overdue Scotty Bible this weekend as well. It would be enormously helpful and I should have done it a long time ago–if I ever start another series, you can best believe I’ll do the Bible first, and then add to it with every book.

I am thinking about another series, frankly; I have been for quite some time but have had some difficulty (quelle surprise) deciding on what new series I actually want to try writing. Something more mainstream, naturally–this is a business, and I’d like to make more money than I do–but I’m just not sure what. This is actually what I’ve been trying to work out in my head for some time now; so of course, last night I started thinking about writing a series of adventures with Colin front and center. He’s a fun character and I think it would be a lot of fun to write espionage stories with him as the main character; the problem is writing a series about Colin would also eliminate all the ‘man of mystery’ mystique I’ve built around him for seven or eight books now…but I still think it would be a lot of fun. There’s always been a stand-alone Colin adventure I’ve always wanted to write; maybe then not a series, but rather a stand-alone? (I also would like to do a Frank stand-alone sometime, just to mix things up.)

Or…I could just be a lazy slug who sits around and does nothing all day.

And now, back to the spice mines.

IMG_0993