At this point in the summer, the cool warmth of October seems a distant futuristic dream. It’s always that way in August, and I no longer have Southern Decadence to look forward to; and haven’t in years. There’s no Decadence this year, of course, thanks to the pandemic, but I have also not participated in the madness of wild partying over the course of that weekend in over a decade. My participation has been primarily limited to passing out condoms on Friday night before escaping to the deep cool of my air conditioned home for the rest of the long weekend.
But my, did I used to have a great time during Southern Decadence! (See: Bourbon Street Blues.)
We started watching Babylon Berlin last night, at long last, and are already quite mesmerized. It’s a fascinating period–pre-Nazi/post first war Berlin was quite decadent, if you believe freedom from repression of all kinds is decadent. I’ve read very little about this period, although I have read Isherwood and of course I’ve seen Cabaret about a million times, but other than as a prologue to the rise of Hitler and Nazism in histories of the second World War, I’ve not really read a lot about that period of Germany’s past; certainly not anything that goes to any great depth. I also have a copy of the book somewhere; I’ve always meant to get to it as well as other books set in Europe during the same period. I don’t read nearly as much historical fiction anymore as I used to, or as much as I would like; I’m not really sure why that is. I love to read, I love to write, and I love history, so one would think art forms that combine those things would be something I would be all over, and yet–I’ve written precisely two short stories set in the past, and not even that distant. “The Weight of a Feather” is set in the 1950’s during the gay purge of the government, and of course, “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy” (which might be my favorite title of anything I’ve ever written), is set in 1915 or thereabouts; a nebulous period of time during which the Great War was raging in Europe but the United States had yet to get involved. I have some things in progress that are historicals, or period pieces, or whatever may have you; the one I am really itching to sink my teeth into is a story set in Black Death era Rome, “The Arrow in the Cardinal’s Cap.” But I really need to be focusing as much creative energy on Bury Me in Shadows as I can right now, and so everything else isn’t going to get any real attention for the next few weeks or so. My plan is to, of course, do my day job to the best of my abilities, try to keep treading water as far as emails and everything else is concerned, and focus as much as possible on the manuscript. It’s in decent shape but very rough; the skeleton is there, but there are bones that need to be removed and replaced, others that simply need to be reset, and I also somehow have to manage a soul-transplant; replacing the one I originally created for the book with a completely new one–and these are all tricky things to manage that will require focus and energy.
And of course, one of the best things for stoking my creativity is to read really good writing, and I have Blacktop Wasteland to not only read and savor, but take inspiration from as well.
Then again, you never know.
We also finished I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, which was really quite lovely; I’m not certain that I want to read the book now, but I might. I’m not a huge reader of true crime–which doesn’t, when you think about it, make a lot of sense–and there’s so much else for me to read that I am behind on–oy, the ever-growing TBR pile in my house is as out of control as kudzu in rural Alabama–but I know I really need to start reading more of it. I think one of the main reasons I avoid it is fear that I’ll want to adapt it into fiction–just as Ethan Brown’s Murder in the Bayou sort of inspired what might eventually become another Chanse novel–and I’m not really all that interested in serial killers or rapists, if I’m going to be completely honest. I’ve toyed with the idea for a serial killer novel for quite some time now–and it has occurred to me that setting it in the past, when people weren’t quite as aware of them as we are now and before the creation of profilers (although I wanted to include a profiler who was wrong about everything in this one) might be a better way to go with it–but I’m not really sure I am the right person to write such a book.
And just like that, it is Monday again; another week, the first full week of August, the month during which I will actually turn fifty-nine (although I always add a year to my age on New Year’s Day; so on 1/1/21 I will start copping to being sixty). It’s sometimes hard to believe I’ve made it this far–when I was younger I always assumed I’d never make it to forty, then fifty, and look: here I am slipping inexorably downhill to sixty.
Surprise!
As Paul says, “one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.”
I managed to get through Chapter Ten of Bury Me in Shadows as planned yesterday–so much bad writing to fix–and now I intend to spend this week repairing the first ten chapters, and really building the character of Jake Chapman now that I know who he is, where he came from, and what he wants, and how he is going to react to everything going on at his grandmother’s house in the deep woods. I have the potential love interest all set up nicely–he needs a little more fleshing out–and of course, eye candy straight boy, who needs more edges. It never ceases to amaze me how much filler goes into an early draft of mine, and sometimes working by the chapter rather than by the page count results in repetition and contradiction.
Heavy sigh.
I slept really well last night–I have been for the last week or so–and this morning I didn’t really want to get out of bed, either. I’ve also been having really strange and vivid dreams lately; I usually don’t dream, or don’t remember them once I awake. The ones I’ve been having these last few days don’t completely fade on awakening, but generally by the time I finish my morning coffee they are gone like a will o’ the wisp. They aren’t nightmares, I can remember that much, but they are just very strange; me being a very different strangely altered world than the one in which we already live, which is kind of bad enough as it is.
We watched The Old Guard on Netflix last night, which was entertaining and also had my mind wandering about the Colin novel I’ve always wanted to write. I always thought it would be fun to give Colin his own series, almost completely independent of the Scotty series, but always held back–mainly because it was kind of fun having Colin be a man of mystery; a series of his own would kind of take that away, and it would have to be more of an action/adventure type thriller series, set in exotic locales I have never been to–and I’ve always kind of been hesitant to try writing about places I’ve never been, or to make it all up and hope that none of the readers had ever been there. I’ve been toying with an idea for an action/adventure type thriller for decades, interweaving the fall of Constantinople in 1204 to the Fourth Crusade; some ancient Biblical secret held by the Patriarch of Constantinople in hiding for centuries; the Old Man of the Mountain and his assassins; and a fabulous jewel known as the Star of Irene (a former Empress of the eastern Roman Empire). I’ve had this idea since the 1990’s–and no doubt it was slightly influenced/inspired by the Indiana Jones movies–and it was, oh, about 2004 I thought about turning the idea into a stand-alone Colin adventure. I just am shit at choreographing fights and action sequences, frankly; and that would kind of be important to such a story.
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Happy Monday, Constant Reader.
Shakespeare said “all the world’s a stage”–a quote I even used as a title for a Todd Gregory erotic story–and he wasn’t wrong, really. Sometimes it feels like we’re speaking lines and have no real control over what is happening or going on in our lives; and believe you me, I would love to get my hands on the sociopath who’s writing the play that is my life sometimes.
Yesterday was a lovely day. I slept very well on Friday night, and woke up in the morning feeling like I could conquer the world–if I could only find the spare parts. I got up and did my morning writing exercise (aka you are reading it right now, hi there!) before starting to get some things done around here. I straightened up the kitchen/office and made serious progress on sorting and organizing and finally trying to get a grasp on everything I have to do and get done. While I was sorting and organizing and so forth I watched a 1980’s Clint Eastwood movie, Tightrope, which I originally saw in the theater–which is odd, as I was never a big enough fan of his to actually go see one of his films at the theater. In fact, Tightrope might be the only I have. (I saw High Plains Drifter and Play Misty for Me at the drive-in when I was a kid.) I cannot recall why I actually went to see it, and the only explanation my befuddled mind can come up with now is it most of been one of those stoner afternoons when someone suggested a movie and I tagged along. I do remember not being terribly impressed with it, and that it was about a serial killer, and it also had Genevieve Bujold, of all people, in it as his love interest. It was also filmed in New Orleans, and set here–and I thought, when coming across it recently on the HBO MAX TCM app, that I should watch it again. Interestingly enough, it was just as bad on second viewing–Eastwood and Bujold have absolutely no chemistry together whatsoever, the plot has some promise but the script was bad, and the acting was terrible. I always think of Bujold fondly because she was a great Anne Boleyn in Anne of the Thousand Days, but between this and Earthquake, for the most part American cinema did her wrong.
The most interesting part of the movie was seeing New Orleans as it was in the 1980’s; early to mid, I think, was when this was filmed. The Crescent City Connection’s second span was under construction (and I realized this must have been around the time that the Camp Street on-ramp was most likely targeted for tear down, as a part of this new building project) and it was also seeing how Tulane Avenue looked, the Quarter, and so forth. Jax Brewery was still a decaying ruin when this was filmed, and there was one interesting moment where they were working out at the Superdome YMCA, where I used to teach aerobics before the New Orleans YMCA system imploded once and for all. (I also taught at the Lee Circle Y, which is now a luxury hotel and parking lot–and I guess we don’t call it Lee Circle anymore, do we? The statue is finally gone, but I don’t think it has been officially renamed yet–I used to always tell visiting friend “And this is politically incorrect Lee Circle”) It made me think of the novella in progress set in 1994 that I hope to get back to someday.
The plot of Tightrope was simple, really; a serial killer is targeting New Orleans prostitutes (of course), and with the bodies, there is evidence of some BDSM play–handcuffs, bondage, that sort of thing. Eastwood plays a divorced New Orleans police detective whose case it is; Bujold plays a rape counselor who thinks she can help solve the case. Eastwood’s character is into this kind of kink; in fact, some of the victims were prostitutes he had frequented. Some of them worked out of the Canal Baths, which was apparently a bath house style bordello. (It was located right across Rampart Street from Armstrong Park, which is where I think the Voodoo Bar used to be?) Eastwood also has custody of his two daughters, because for some reason his wife left him for a wealthier man and left the kids behind, which happened all the time in the 1980’s. It soon becomes apparent that the killer is specifically targeting Eastwood, if not trying to frame him for the serial murders. The Eastwood/Bujold romance follows the usual “can’t stand each other at first but somehow find common ground and of course fall in love” tedious romance that is inevitably the only type of romance that happens, or perhaps is possible, in this type of movie–it doesn’t make any sense, it’s just spoon-fed to the audience, and they have the chemistry of two mannequins stuck in a store window together. The ending was also ridiculous.
It could have been a good movie, had anyone put any effort into it. Shame, because the New Orleans locations were perfect.
I then spent some time savoring the first few chapters of S. A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland, which is just as marvelous as I thought it would be, more marvelous than everyone who’s already read it has said it is (and given the raves it’s gotten, that is saying something) and decided, after four or five chapters, to let it simmer rather than gobbling it down in one sitting, which was what I desperately wanted to do. But good writing always inspires me, and so I headed to the spice mines to get my chapters of Bury Me in Shadows finished, which I did. This pass through I am simply changing tense and switching his age from seventeen to early twenties–21 or 22–and from high school to college student. I am catching inconsistencies and a lot of repetition, and I am also seeing some simply tragic writing, but the story is there and the story does work. There’s a very strong foundation, and while I am certain it is going to be more work than I am thinking it is going to be at this moment (it always invariably is), I think when it is done it’s going to be one of my better works.
We finished watching Curon last night as well, and were riveted; it will undoubtedly get its own entry, but I do recommend it highly. The season finale was quite good, and the entire season relatively well done; and they did an excellent job of setting up the second season. It’s funny to me how much we’ve embraced foreign television series, and now I like to watch shows that are subtitled more so than anything American-made. Just think, before the pandemic we wouldn’t watch anything subtitled, and now it’s our preference.
The world has indeed gone mad.
But I slept really well again last night, which was absolutely lovely–hope this signals a new trend, frankly–and I do have to run an errand this morning; I need a few things from the Rouse’s, and I need/want to do it before the heat gets too extreme. Which of course means it’s probably too late already, since it’s nine a.m., but still haven’t had enough coffee to be completely functional enough to be out in public. Heavy heaving sigh.
And on that note, I totally need to get another cup of coffee. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, doing whatever it is you need to do
God, it was miserably hot yesterday. I know, it’s New Orleans in July; the dog days of summer (I’ve never really quite understood what that meant, honestly; probably something about how a dog pants or something–so hot I was panting like a dog, or something along those lines anyway–it always makes my think about my grandmother’s mutt dog, Shag, lying down in the shade and panting) as it were, but it still does bear comment periodically about how motherfucking hot it is here sometimes in the summer.
I slept deeply last night, and didn’t really want to get out of bed this morning. I’ve been feeling tired again lately–not that horrible exhaustion I had for those months earlier this year, thank the heavens–and yesterday was one of those days again. It may be the heat, which is the most likely explanation, but I am not wanting to go back out into it today either–I am debating the wisdom of waiting to go to the grocery store until tomorrow or even seeing if it can be put off until next week sometime–which is probably self-defeating in some ways; but I also need to write this weekend (since I didn’t do much of that this past week) and I worry that going out into the heat and lugging bags of food into the house will defeat me for the rest of the day (which is always a possibility).
Decisions, decisions.
During our The Faking of the President on-line promotional appearance the other night we were talking about the 1970’s–if I considered myself a child of the that decade, and I actually do; I do remember bits and pieces of the 1960’s, but I turned nine in 1970 and that decade more shaped who I am rather than the 1960′–and as I mentioned yesterday, I’ve kind of started looking into the films of that decade a bit more. I kind of wanted to watch more Hitchcock movies yesterday–I was going to go for some of his 1970’s work, Frenzy and Family Plot, to be exact–but they are no longer on Amazon Prime for free (they were for quite a while) and that interface has also changed again and become even more user unfriendly; I cannot understand why Amazon cannot get its shit together on their streaming service, but came across the original film version of The Stepford Wives, either on Prime or the TCM app on HBO MAX, and settled in to watch that again. It’s a film (and novel) that is firmly anchored in the paranoid zeitgeist of the 1970’s, and fits very well into a reexamination of what was going on in that decade.
As I mentioned on the live stream the other night, the 1970’s were still a decade where wives were still defined as people in terms of their husbands; it was still very difficult for women to get credit on their own (this was actually how the subject came up–student loans and student credit cards), and I mentioned that my mom’s first credit wasn’t actually in her name, but as Mrs. (Dad) Herren. She had been working as long as I can remember, but her financial identity was still as the spouse of my father. The Women’s Liberation Movement began in the late 1960’s–espousing the radical concept that women were actual human beings in their own right and didn’t solely exist in terms of the man in their lives–and the 1970’s was when the stigma of divorce began to lessen; women no longer stayed in bad marriages or with abusive husbands. Rape was still basically a misdemeanor; spousal abuse was accepted and almost expected, and women were very much second class citizens, primarily defined as wives and mothers (this has changed somewhat, but really, not enough). Ira Levin wrote The Stepford Wives as a sort of social satire, but it was no less terrifying as a result; the revenge of men against women’s liberation. (You never hear the terms Women’s Lib or ‘libbers’ anymore) The Stepford Wives basically took the concept of how dehumanized women were to the nth degree; men really only want beautiful women who don’t think for themselves, think they’re wonderful lovers, live for their men and children, and should primarily focus on making sure their homes are spotless and perfect so their men don’t have to worry about anything but their jobs. The film leaned into this fully; I think the best part of the book was the fact that it never really explained what was going on in Stepford; it was alluded to, of course, but the truth was so terrible that the women–main character Joanna and her friend Bobbie–couldn’t possibly imagine what it was.
But seeing the actual Stepford wives, played by actresses, up on screen, truly epitomized not only how horrible what was happening in Stepford was, but how strange it was for Joanna and Bobbie to deal with, strangers who had only recently moved into town. Paula Prentiss played Bobbie–and why she was never a bigger star was something I never fully understood–and of course, stunningly beautiful Katherine Ross played Joanna–which made it all the more terrifying; she was so perfectly stunning and beautiful, how could you possibly improve on Joanna? The film of course couldn’t leave the truth ambiguous and merely hinted at; which was part of the power of the book…you never were completely sure if Joanna was simply going crazy because the truth of Stepford was presented so casually and normally. (Don’t bother with the remake; despite a stellar cast, it’s truly a terrible movie.)
The Stepford Wives, book and movie, both also fit perfectly into the paranoia of the decade; the 1970’s was a time where conspiracy theories abounded; there was a lot of interest in UFO’s and the Bermuda Triangle and Revelations/the end of the world, not to mention after Vietnam and Watergate mistrust of the government and elected officials were higher than ever before. But I also see The Stepford Wives as part of another literary trend/trope of the decade; the 1970’s was also a time when, as I mentioned on-air the other night, that white flight from the cities to the suburbs and rural eras began in earnest (although it was never, in the books, attributed to its real root cause: integrated public school systems and neighborhoods). There are at least three novels I know of that take the white flight to the rural areas (better schools! clean air! zero crime!) and turn them into horror novels–Burnt Offerings, The Stepford Wives, Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home– where the urbanites discover far greater horrors out in the country than they ever encountered in the city; there are probably more (I am not certain The Amityville Horror fits into this category), but those three would make a great starting point for a thesis/essay. (Interesting enough, both book and movie of The Stepford Wives ends with a throwaway bit about the first black family moving into Stepford; I would absolutely LOVE to see a reimagining of the film by Jordan Peele from the perspective of the black family moving in, because the paranoia of the wife beginning to suspect that all is not right with all these white women who are devoted to housework and their families could also be played with from a racial as well as gender perspective.)
And as I watched the film again yesterday, I realized that my mother, with her obsessions with cleanliness and order, kind of was/is a Stepford wife.
I plan on spending the rest of this morning getting my kitchen/office–horribly out of control yet again–into some semblance of order before diving back into Bury Me in Shadows. I’d like to get the changes necessary done to the next three to four chapters today, and perhaps another four to five tomorrow, which would get me almost to the halfway point. I also need to compile a comprehensive to-do list for the coming week. I also want to spend some time with Blacktop Wasteland today as well.
We started watching a new series last night–Curon, which is an Italian show set in the Tyrol, in a region that changed hands between the Austrians and the Italians numerous times. The town is built on the shores of a lake, where the original town was submerged when the river was dammed; all that remains of the old town is the church’s bell tower, jutting up out of the water. There’s a story that if you hear the bells ringing, you’re going to die–and some seriously weird shit is going on in this town. The show opens with a flashback to the past, when a seventeen year old Anna is hearing the bells ringing and her father orders her out of the massive luxury hotel they live in; she’s not sure but she thinks she sees herself shooting her mother–a nightmare that haunts her the rest of her life. Flash forward to the present, and Anna is coming back to Curon, after leaving an abusive (it’s hinted at) husband with her twin children, now seventeen–Mauro and Daria–from Milan. Her father makes it clear they aren’t welcome there–but when Anna disappears the next day the twins are there to stay. It’s filmed very well, and there are apparently tensions still in the village from the olden days of the war between Austrians and Italians; Mauro is also hard of hearing and wears a hearing aid; Daria is boisterous, outgoing, and kind of a badass; and the teenagers they encounter, both outside of school and in it, are also kind of weird. There’s all kinds of history there, slowly being revealed to the viewer, while the tension continually builds. What is the dark secret of the town of Curon?
I also, while typing that last sentence, realized Curon also fits in with the trope of the urbanites coming from the big city to the country, and discovering far greater horrors there than they left behind in the city.
Not that the day of the week matters anymore, frankly; yesterday I thought it was Friday all day and even when corrected (I sent an email to the MWA Board of Directors and opened with HAPPY FRIDAY!) I still continued to think it was Friday.
I’m stubborn that way.
We finished watching We Are the Wave last night, after I did one of those on-line promo reading/discussion things for The Faking of the President. I recognize that these things have become a part of what is reality these days, but I’m still uncomfortable doing them. I hate the sound of my own voice, and being able to see myself staring back at me from the computer screen is far worse than any mirror I’ve ever looked into. But I suspect that even once the pandemic has come to its inevitable end–even bubonic plague eventually ran its original course–these things will become part and parcel of promotion for writers henceforth. For one thing, publishers would much rather you “tour” virtually than having to pay to send you, for one, and for the vast majority of writers, virtual touring is much more, obviously, affordable than an actual tour.
But last night I slept extremely well, which is lovely; I actually feel very rested this morning and not tired, mentally or physically, and it’s been a hot minute or two since I could say that. There are some errands I have to run today–most importantly, a prescription refill that needs to be picked up–but I am going to be spending a lot of the day doing my day job stuff here at the Lost Apartment, and yes, that includes more hours of condom packing, which means finding some movies on HBO MAX or Disney to watch. The TCM app on HBO MAX is quite marvelous, actually; there are a lot of wonderful films on there I’ve always wanted to watch, and since I spend several afternoons a week making condom packs, I can now watch them while my hands work. Alas, there are a lot of films I want to see that aren’t on there; there’s some great Hitchcock movies (I really enjoyed Foreign Correspondent, despite how dated it was) and there are some lesser known Hitchcocks which will be fun to watch as well (I could also go through Amazon Prime, but their app on Apple TV is not user friendly in the least). I was looking to rewatch Rebecca and Notorious the other day, but neither were on the TCM app, and neither was Suspicion, which was my next default. I think Shadow of a Doubt is on Prime–that’s the next one I’m looking for–and there might be some on there that aren’t on the TCM app.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about the films of the 1970’s a lot lately as well; watching Eyewitness made me think more about that decade, and we talked about it some on the virtual event last night–and there are some terrific films from the 1970’s I’d like to rewatch or see for the first time. I’d like to see Chinatown again, despite my aversion to Roman Polanski and his work–which is a whole other conversation, the old artist vs. the art thing–and there was a darker, grittier aspect to the films of the decade, despite it also being the decade that gave us Star Wars. I’d actually like to watch Cruising again, and numerous other Pacino/De Niro/Scorsese films of the decade.
I also am going to spend some time this weekend writing, and I am also going to spend some time with S. A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland. I also have some anthologies and short story collections I’d like to start dipping into; I hate that I’ve allowed myself to let the Short Story Project collapse by the wayside. I also want to spend some time this weekend trying to get organized; I have so much going on, between various writing projects and volunteerism and so forth that I am always playing catch-up, and I much prefer, as Constant Reader is very well aware, planning; the problem is that I am always juggling things as they come at me (bullets-and-bracelets from the old Wonder Woman comics is a very apt analogy) with the result that I always feel like I am getting dragged down into quicksand.
And don’t even get me started on emails. Jesus.
But it’s a good morning, I have energy and feel rested, and am hopeful this will help carry me through the rest of the day and I can get a lot done.
So, of course rather than working on Bury Me in Shadows, yesterday I spent some time writing the opening scene of a short story inspired by watching I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. This is why nothing ever gets done around here, seriously. It’s called “After the Party,” and I’m not really sure where to go with it from where I got to with it–about nine hundred words in, actually, which isn’t bad, really. But I always have to write these snippets down; they nag at my brain the way your tongue will worry a loose tooth, and nothing will get it out of my head other than to write it down.
I don’t know if it’s the show that haunts me so much as it is seeing those suburban middle class cookie cutter houses where so many of the victims of the East Area Rapist–later upgraded to the Golden State Killer–lived; having lived in a similar style house in Clovis, a suburb of Fresno, and of course, our suburb of Chicago was essentially housing developments all in the same area; Bolingbrook was never a town but was rather incorporated as a “village”; the “village of Bolingbrook”–which always struck me as a little too cutesy for words. The developments all had model houses that were “modern”–split levels, ranch houses, etc–and they had folksy names; the original one was Westbury , and I honestly don’t recall what ours was called; there was another that was townhouses and I don’t recall its name either. But the newer ones had names like Winston Woods (more expensive) and Indian Oaks (same area, less expensive) and then the newest, which start going up down the street from us a few years after we moved there: Ivanhoe, which was fancier and the most expensive of them all; the 1970’s version of McMansions, I suppose. The village of Bolingbrook grew up so fast with all those working class and middle class white people fleeing the city to get away from “crime” (read: desegregated school systems) that parents were willing to commute an hour or so up the Dan Ryan Expressway to get to work. We were bussed ten miles or so over to Romeoville for junior and senior high school; the “village” grew so quickly that Romeoville High School couldn’t accommodate everyone, and even my junior high school went to a split schedule: kids from Romeoville started junior high at 7 and classes ran till 12; the Bolingbrook kids had class from 12-5–no lunch period, homeroom, or study hall. My freshman year we got our own high school but it wasn’t finished in time for school to open; so the high school went to the same schedule: RHS from 7-12 in the morning; BHS from 12-5. It was rough for sports teams and after-school activities for both schools; pretty much everything but sports was suspended until BHS was ready for us–the gym wasn’t finished, and neither was the cafeteria and an entire wing of the school, so some classes had to make do.
It was very strange, and made even stranger because we were on a “track” system of schooling as it was, so the school could handle the student load; the village was divided into four sections, and where you lived determined which track you were on; either A, B, C, or D. Three tracks were in at all times, one track was out. You went to school for nine weeks, then rotated out for three, then back in for another nine. We were in B Track, which was kind of the best–the school system shut down for two weeks at Christmas and two weeks in the summer, and those two weeks always began right as we cycled out–so B track got five weeks in the summer and five weeks in the winter.
It was different, and for the most part, I didn’t thrive in that educational environment.
But it would also be interesting to write about.
I spent some time with Cottonmouths yesterday and am really, as I have said all along, enjoying it. But that story was nagging at my brain, and I finally had to put the book aside to write it. But I think I am willing to put aside at least an hour or so a day for reading going forward, and I look forward to not only finishing the book but giving you all the glowing book report it so richly deserves.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark continues to enthrall–we watched another two episodes last night–and I’m already, with two episodes to go, wondering about what we will watch next. Hopefully, there’s insanely fabulous Spanish-language show just waiting for us on Netflix; perhaps something else German or French; there’s bound to be something on there somewhere.
And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me. Have an awesome Tuesday, everyone.
So, who had “this revision won’t be as easy as Greg thought it would be” on their Gregalicious trials-and-travails bingo card?
Well, congratulations, you were correct. This reminds me of the time when I thought, oh I’ll just turn this Scotty manuscript into a Chanse, it’ll be easy and no, it really wasn’t. It was actually a nightmare, but eventually, after much anguish, stress, and aggravation, I did get it done and I was pretty pleased with the final outcome. I got up early yesterday morning and wrote an entirely new first chapter of Bury Me in Shadows, and one that was much better than any of the original attempts, so there’s that. Chapter Two was more of a slog, since I was trying to save more material so I wouldn’t have to write new material, but it’s going to need some going over again to make sure the transition from the old original story to the new is seamless. On the plus side–there’s always a plus side, even if I have to really dig deep down for it–the new material I am writing is good, and I like this iteration of the character much better than I did in the previous drafts; and his backstory is much better than it was originally. I also love the new opening. And making these changes actually eliminates a big hole in the story–something I could never really quite figure out–it was one of those things that had to happen for the story to happen, but it only made sense in THAT context, and that was driving me completely insane.
You can’t do that. It’s called “contrivance,” and there’s nothing that makes me more irritated or annoyed with a writer (or a movie or a TV show) where something happens only because it’s necessary for the story and only makes sense in that particular context. (I mean, obviously you can, and plenty of writers do, but it’s fucking lazy, and you shouldn’t, and if you do, and your editor doesn’t stop you…yeah, well.)
I also spent some time with Kelly J. Ford’s Cottonmouths, which I am really enjoying. I just wish I had more time to read, you know? I am so fucking far behind on my reading.
We also started watching HBO’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, which is very well done and very creepy. One of the things that terrifies me–which therefore also interests and fascinates me–is the concept of not being safe in your own home; that we all have this incredible illusion of security and safety in our homes–and neighborhoods, for that matter–and so we often are caught off-guard or by surprise by violence, or, as the theorists would say, the introduction of a Dionysian element into our safe, secure worlds. “The Carriage House” is that kind of story; so is “Neighborhood Alert” to a degree, as is the one I just sold, “Night Follows Night,” which is about not being safe in a supermarket because that was something I thought was interesting; you never think you aren’t safe in a bright public place full of employees and other shoppers until you actually aren’t. This is something Stephen King does very well; the introduction of something Dionysian into an ordinary, sedate, everyday kind of environment, and how normal everyday people react in those kinds of situations; some rise to the challenge, others do not.
Anyway, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is just that–a true crime documentary based on the book by the late Michelle McNamara about her investigation into the Golden State Killer, and how that all came about. When you listen to the stories of the victims, and remember what it was like in in the 1970’s for women who were raped (not that things have gotten much better since then, but at least as bad as it is now it’s not as bad as it was then–not a laurel we as a society should be resting on any time soon, frankly), but how the rapes and murders happened in these quiet middle class suburban type enclaves where no one ever expected anything bad to ever happen (I’ve always wanted to write a book based on a murder that happened in the suburb of Chicago I lived in during my early teens; the killer and one of the accomplices were students at my high school; I knew the accomplice’s two younger sisters quite well); and I also lived in Fresno during the later part of the Golden State Killer’s run–but he had moved on to Southern California by then. I was stuck by the old footage of these neighborhoods in Sacramento, and how like our neighborhood in Fresno (Clovis, actually; a suburb of Fresno) and how closed off the houses were from their neighbors and the street–with small front yards and an enormous garage in the very front of the houses, which were in U shapes. My bedroom was the other side of the U from the garage and there were bars on the windows so no one could ever come in. My curtains were always closed so I could never see out onto the street or no one could see in; every once in a while on nights when I couldn’t sleep I would scare myself by thinking if I opened the curtains someone would be there–because it was very easy to get to, even if the bars precluded anyone from getting inside. Sliding glass doors were also very popular in houses back then, if not the most secure thing to have in your house, really.
And naturally, I started writing a short story in my head while I watched, about a bickering couple who come home early from a party because they got into a fight and are still fighting as they pull into their driveway and arguing still as they go into the house where they find their fifteen year old daughter bound and gagged in the living room with the sliding glass door to the backyard and pool area open, the curtains blowing in the night breeze. I don’t know the whole story, or how it ends, or even where it goes from there–which is why I have so many unfinished short stories in my files.
Heavy sigh.
There’s a tornado watch in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes this morning, which probably means rain for most (or part) of the day here as well. It seems kind of gloomy and overcast out there, but brighter than it has been the last three mornings–when it rained a lot–so we’ll see how this day goes.
But it’s Monday, the start of a new week, and here’s hoping that I’ll be able to find time to not only read this week but time to work on the manuscript. Perchance to dream, I suppose.
I woke up to a marvelous thunderstorm this morning–probably something to do with Hurricane Hannah, undoubtedly–and while last night’s sleep was also sporadic, with waking up regularly and not falling back asleep right away, I feel somewhat rested this morning.
I did reread Bury Me in Shadows yesterday, and it’s actually not bad at all. It needs tweaking, of course, and there were some paragraphs/sentences/dialogue that made me wince a bit as I read, but overall it’s a fairly solid story with some really good writing already done. I have to throw out the entire first chapter and start over with it–now that the character isn’t a too-smart-for-his-age gay teenager and I’ve aged him to college student, the opening and the tone are all different, which is also going to require some changes here and there in the overall manuscript,and I think the opening of the story is much, much stronger with the new first chapter I started writing yesterday. I like the way the first chapter is going, and I like this new direction for the story, which makes it even stronger. It’s always lovely when you are pleased with your work, I think.
And I really need to not be so hard on myself about my writing. I’m pretty good at it, actually, and need to stop being so self-deprecating/down on myself.
Yesterday was, overall, quite lovely and relaxing. I ran my errands around noon to get them over and done with, which was lovely, and then I curled up in my easy chair with Scooter and started rereading the manuscript. That took me a few hours, along with the occasional break to do some chore–the house still really needs to be thoroughly cleaned–and then I wrote about 900 words of the new first chapter. Paul went and got us shrimp dinners from the Please U–a usual Saturday ritual–and then we finished watching Control Z, a really marvelous Mexican Netflix high school drama which is very intense and very well done. It’s amazing to me how different high school dramas are from other countries as opposed to the saccharine sweetness (and complete unreality) of American shows. Control Z had bullying, homophobia, transphobia, sex, drugs, alcohol, suicide, attempted murder, violence and our main character, Sofia, was emotionally vulnerable and damaged, which led to her cutting herself (her arms are decorated with scars) and a mental breakdown that sends her to a mental hospital for about a month. This was high school in all its ugliness and cruelty, and there were a few times it was hard to watch. The story focuses on Sofia, who is mentally fragile and everyone knows about her breakdown; they avoid her and think she’s a freak. But because no one talks to her and she has no friends, she observes everyone and notices things about them–very Sherlock Holmes–and then she is paired with the really cure new boy, Javier, for a science project. Javier’s father is a major soccer star, and Javier played for the national junior team–but he refuses to play soccer at his new school. That first day, during an assembly, the prettiest girl in school, Isabela, is outed as transgender when someone hacks into the computer system and plays a video stitched together from information in her phone and laptop computer. Her boyfriend knows–he’s the school’s resident hot guy–but part of the video also reveals that he is cheating on her with someone only known as Honey Bunny, and the nude videos he’s sent to Honey Bunny are a part of this video. Isabela is played by Carmen Carrera, a transgender actress who originally came to broader notice on RuPaul’s Drag Race and later came out as a transwoman; she’s terrific in the role, and it’s lovely to see such progressive subjects handled and a television show take the long overdue step of casting a trans actress in a trans role. She is also depicted sympathetically, and the cruelty of her ignorant classmates over the course of the season is heart-breaking and real; you really can’t come away from the show and still not be affected by what transfolk have to go through in their lives. (I’ve never understood why “difference” is most often met with hostility and sometimes violence, rather than with empathy and kindness) The following day more secrets are revealed with videos with other students’ secrets sent to everyone’s phones. Raul, whose father is a politician (and corrupt), and whose video exposes his father and destroys his political career, asks Sofia to find out who the hacker is. As she investigates, she and Javier become closer and soon it becomes apparent Raul is interested in her as well….but Sofia also has a damaging secret of her own. Paul and I were very impressed with this show and how well written and plotted it is; and it ended with a magnificent cliffhanger. We certainly hope there’s a season two.
I did not, however, get around to working on “A Holler Full of Kudzu,” because, as I suspected, my plans for the day turned out to be more ambitious than I had the energy or the will to complete. It was nice, though, to be relaxing, and I feel a lot less fried this morning than I have in quite a while. I also love that it’s raining. I don’t know how I lived in California with it’s lack of rain for eight years, but now I don’t think I could ever live in a dry climate ever again. (There’s a lot of rain in Bury Me in Shadows; in fact, I write a lot about rain and thunderstorms, now that I think about it.)
The plan for today is to get some more work done on Bury Me in Shadows, do some more cleaning, grill out at some point (another Sunday tradition around here; in the fall we do it on Saturdays as a makeshift LSU tail-gate), and keep on relaxing so I can get a lot done this coming week as well. I can’t believe it’s almost August already–but then again this year seems to have already lasted for-fucking-ever.
It’s Saturday, and how lovely that feeling is. I am going to try to avoid social media as well as email interactions this weekend, as I want to be productive and I really don’t need any help with getting distracted. I was a condom packing machine yesterday, and Scooter was happily cuddled up to my feet as I had my lap desk and was working. I finally came up with the working system for maximum efficiency, and ultimately I was able to double my productivity in the same amount of time, which was quite impressive. It had been bothering me that I wasn’t as fast at home as I was at the office–or rather, in my old office on Frenchmen Street–but I also didn’t have the proper set-up until yesterday. I also had taken some time on Thursday to fold inserts, which also sped up my time yesterday. I also watched this week’s Real Housewives episodes, rewatched “The Bells” episode of Game of Thrones season eight (it’s quite a spectacle; more on that later) and then Dangerous Liaisons and The Maltese Falcon on the TCM menu on HBO MAX (which I love; there’s so much excellent film on that menu–things I want to rewatch and things I’ve always wanted to see). After dinner we finished off watching Into the Night, which had a lovely cliffhanger, and then started a Mexican Netflix drama, Control Z, which is quite intense. I do have to run an errand today, and I do have to spend some time cleaning out my email inbox–it’s ridiculously out of control again (doesn’t take long!)–and then I am going to reread Bury Me in Shadows and make notes on what to keep and what has to change. I’d also like to spend some time with “A Holler Full of Kudzu,” but there’s only so much time in one day and I only have so much attention span, really.
It’s gloomy and overcast out there this morning; we’re expecting rain off and on for most of the weekend because of now-Hurricane Hannah. I slept fairly decently most of the night, but still woke up feeling a little tired this morning. As much as I would like to be lazy for the day–and really, rereading a manuscript is the epitome of lazy, since I’ll be doing it in my easy chair–but it’s quite interesting and sort of amazing how much of a difference a good night’s sleep makes in my productivity when it comes to writing. The more tired I am, the more snappish I become–so it’s always a good idea to not be on social media or answer emails, as little things really get under my skin when I’m in that condition–but hopefully that won’t be an issue this evening. We shall see, I suppose.
I’m not really sure why I got the bug in my ear to rewatch that episode of Game of Thrones–it’s really amazing, given what a cultural phenomenon the show was while it was airing, how little anyone talks about it anymore. I think this is primarily due to the enormous disappointment the majority of viewers felt with its conclusion, and I certainly can’t disagree with those disappointed feelings. I, too, wasn’t terribly pleased with how the show ended, but at the same time, I wasn’t expected this world–which mirrored actual history with all its gore and good-doesn’t-always-win and evil-sometimes-goes-unpunished reality–to come to a happy ending; although Sansa did wind up as Queen of the North, so at least there’s some sense of justice in that, after everything she went through. And with her red hair, and all the suffering she endured, an argument could be made that she was sort of based on Queen Elizabeth I–who against incredible odds and twenty-five years of living in the shadow of the executioner–finally climbed to the throne. But I want to talk more about “The Bells” and the sack of King’s Landing–which was another episode that had fans disappointed and outraged. I was one of the few fans who was all about the city being destroyed; and I was also really pleased that they showed it from the ground for the most part–with Daenarys and Drogon only seen from below as the city burns and people die. It was exactly how I imagined the sacking of cities throughout history to look–rape and murder, blood in the streets, pillaging, hysterical terrified crowds running for their lives and praying for sanctuary as their world collapses around them. Conquerers never showed mercy; the concept everyone was hoping for that to happen once the bells were rung is very modern. Cities have historically been subject to such sackings throughout history; maybe not with a dragon involved, but read accounts of the many times Rome fell, or the fall of Constantinople–this wasn’t a modern world by any means, and modern concepts of justice and mercy weren’t in play. Cersei herself said it in Season One: “when you play the game of thrones, you either win or you die.” She played, she died, and she took her capital city with her. Power politics in medieval history–the closest proximation to the world of Game of Thrones–were bloody and cruel and merciless, and the Popes and the Church were just as involved and as ruthless as any king or emperor. Arya even alluded to this when she was wearing the face of Walder Frey and wiping out his entire house: “You didn’t kill all of the Starks. You should have ripped them out, root and stem. Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe.” Ergo–if you don’t kill all of your enemies, you have no one but yourself to blame when they kill you.
Dangerous Liaisons is a great movie, and a great story as well. When the film came out, I bought a copy of the novel and was enthralled by the petty games of seduction and revenge that played out in its pages. (I didn’t see the film until years later, when I rented the video; I’ve seen both the Glenn Close version and the Annette Bening, Valmont; and of course the modern day remake with Ryan Philippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar, Cruel Intentions. There was an earlier, modern day version made in the 1960’s I’ve not seen; it’s in French and I’ve always wanted to see it.) The novel is exceptional; originally published (and banned) in France in 1782, it was quite a cause celebre at the time; depicting the immorality and debauchery of the aristocratic class, it has sometimes been described as being one of the initial steps on the road to revolution in 1789. It’s an epistolary novel; you are reading the letters the characters all write to one another, so you see how the Marquise and the Vicomte are playing with their innocent, naive friends and relatives quite well. They are only honest with each other–although, of course, in this modern age the lesson I took from it was never put anything in writing, which is just as true today as it was then–and I had always wanted to do a modern, gay version. I eventually did, with Wicked Frat Boy Ways, but while I am proud of the book I also wish I could redo it some, revise and add to it more.
The film is extraordinary, and Glenn Close was certainly robbed–as she has been many times–of the Oscar for Best Actress.
As for The Maltese Falcon, it’s still a great movie, but I didn’t finish watching–and would prefer to rewatch when I can give it my full attention. It really is marvelously written, acted, directed, and filmed. I should probably reread the novel someday.
And on that note, I am going to dive back into the spice mines. The kitchen and living room are both a mess; I have errands to run, and of course, that manuscript to read. Have a lovely, safe Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will see you tomorrow.
Looks like we made it to Friday again, Constant Reader, and believe you me, these small victories matter.
I kept thinking, last night, for some reason all evening long that it was Friday, and I’m not exactly sure why that was, to be honest. I was well aware all day, as I made go-bags for syringe access for three hours and then came back home for more condom packing (it’s not as dirty as that sounds) that it was Thursday. I’m really not sure at what point in the evening my mind decided it was Friday. AT some point while Paul and I binged this marvelous Belgian/Netflix scifi thriller called Into the Night (a Scandinavian show called The Rain didn’t last an entire episode) I realized that tomorrow (today) was actually Friday and it was quite a jolt.
It’s raining this morning–there’s a tropical storm out in the Gulf heading for Texas–Hannah, I believe is her name–and it’s heading for the southern coast of the state. We’ll be getting rain from the system apparently all weekend–they’re thinking it’ll be spread out over the weekend rather than all at once so there’s no chance of flooding, or very little, at least–so it’s a good weekend for camping out inside. I am working from home today–lots of condom packing to do (again, not as dirty or fun as it sounds)–and some other things I need to get done today for the day job. I slept pretty well last night–although at some point Scooter cuddled up to me and woke me up with his purring, and he never stopped the entire time he was lying curled up inside my arm. The coffee is helping, as it always does, but I always wonder what it’s like to be one of those people who wake up instantly.
I will never know, apparently.
Into the Night is quite entertaining, I have to say. The episodes are all between thirty-three and forty minutes long, and the premise is relatively simple. A flight to Moscow at Brussels Airport has started it’s boarding procedure when a crazed man grabs an automatic (or semi-automatic) weapon from a military guard and runs down the jetway and forces the pilot to take off, with about ten or so passengers on board. He has a crazy story that is hard to believe–he works for NATO, and something has happened to the sun so that when it rises, everyone dies when exposed to the sunlight. It sounds crazy, but slowly they begin to realize he is right, and they have to keep flying west to stay in the dark. They also face almost every possible crisis an airplane could face–I told Paul at one point, “This is like every Airport movie ever made”–but it’s done incredibly well, and the tension is completely dialed all the way up. There are only six episodes to this first season, and we made it through the first four–and stayed up later than we should to watch the fourth (hence my shock when I realized it wasn’t Friday night, but then didn’t care and watched the fourth anyway), and I am looking forward to finishing it tonight.
This weekend I intend to reread Bury Me in Shadows and also work on trying to sew together all the pieces of “A Holler Full of Kudzu.” I still want to finish reading Cottonmouths–and I have S. A Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland on deck as well. I was also thinking I might want to reread a Travis McGee novel this weekend; those novels were a huge inspiration to me when I was creating Chanse, after all, and I really enjoyed them when I first read them. I know there are sexism issues with the books–as there is with most everything from that time period–but I think it will be interesting to reread one and catch it this time; plus I loved the writing style and the voice of Travis McGee so much I want to see if I still feel the same way now that I am thirty-some books into my own career.
I also want to reiterate that my inability to finish reading Cottonmouths is not an indication of its quality at all; it’s amazing, but I only have a very short period of time to read every day, and I am always afraid that if I start reading it I won’t want to put it down–and that is very likely, as it is very good and I know myself–and if I do that I won’t get the things done I need to get done which will cause me stress. I used to do this thing where I would read for an hour and then write for an hour and go back and forth…well, would try anyway, because as soon as the book grabbed me it was all over.
And on that note, I’d best head into the spice mines.
Queer and Loathing in America 