Category: revising

Point of No Return

So, what did we learn from our first Monday back at work? One, that it’s very important to get physical and mental rest from the day in, day out of full time employment, and that if I can stay focused and motivated…well, there’s really nothing I can’t do if I want to do it.

But that has always been true. It has always astounded me how much I can do–and what I can do–if I put my mind to it and ignore those horrible voice in my head (depending on what it is, they alternate between my parents, really–every so often a former teacher will pop into my head, working on my confidence and trying to paralyze me into useless futility). All that stuff I’d been dreading, and putting off? Handled yesterday with aplomb, minimal irritation or embarrassment, and now completely out of the way.

What have we learned from this? Probably nothing.

Last night, for the first time in over a month–since I was sick at Halloween, actually–I sat down, opened the latest version of Chapter One, and started revising. And while it wasn’t as easy as I would like–I deleted about a thousand words and added a thousand new ones, that make better sense and work better; certainly the voice of my main character is better defined and sounds more realistic–I still managed to get some work done, and it was good work. Very good work, with which I am very pleased. I was truly worried, frankly, that this book was never going to get kicked into gear; now it has, and now it’s possible that I might–just might–get this book finished this month and ready to do something with in January.

What a glorious feeling.

I slept really well again last night–going to bed earlier on the nights before these early mornings really does make all the difference–and since Paul was out to dinner with some friends, I came home and cleaned the kitchen, preparatory to getting some writing done, and so this morning my kitchen is pretty clean–there’s still a load of laundry in the dryer that needs to be folded, but I doubt I’ll get to that this morning–and so I am pretty pleased with that as well. I am pretty certain I’ll start feeling run down and tired by the end of the week again, but as long as I keep getting good sleep at night, I should be okay.

Or so I hope, at any rate.

It’s hard to believe it’s December already. Where did this year go? Football season can’t be almost over already, can it? Heavy heaving sigh. I was just thinking yesterday that the next few months are going to be nothing but madness, sheer madness. There’s Christmas, then New Year’s; and then of course it’s Twelfth Night and Carnival has started. There’s college football bowl games and play-offs; the Saints will be in the play-offs as well, and then after the parades are all over, at the end of March is the Williams Festival. Heavy heaving sigh. I am also heading up to New York in the middle of January; it’s been years, and that should be a lot of fun–exhausting, but fun.

And 2020! A sparkling new decade, exciting and new. That will be the decade I hit sixty at long last, and should I live that long, the decade where I finally am able to retire from the day job. Sooner would be better than later, of course; I am considering my options for going early–but that would also mean paying off most of my debt and the car. I think the car will be finished being paid off towards the end of next year or early 2021; I am on track to get it paid for in less than the five years of the loan, and who knows? I may, if there’s a windfall of some sort, even be able to get it paid for even sooner. And if I can make that Honda last twenty years–which I should be able to–I hopefully won’t ever have to buy another car before I die.

And on that cheery note, tis time to get back to the mines of spice. I want to get some more reading of Laura Benedict’s book, The Stranger Inside, done today, and obviously, it would be amazing to get more progress done on the book.

But I’m writing again, am excited about the book (as it goes into yet another draft), and feeling pretty good. Yay, Gregalicious!

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Is This Love

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, Constant Reader!

Here it is, Friday, and the last few days of my vacation, such as it was. I do not intend to mourn not getting anything much accomplished over this week; I did get some things done and for that I am profoundly grateful. I am also truly grateful for the opportunity to relax, rest, sleep, and overall just recharge my batteries; at my advanced (advancing) age that is necessary sometimes.

Yesterday was lovely. In the morning I finished reading Colson Whitehead’s terrific The Nickel Boys (more on that later), which was simply brilliant–I think I liked it better than I liked The Underground Railroad, which I also loved–and then started reading Laura Benedict’s The Stranger Inside, but didn’t get very far into before Paul woke up. (I intend to spend some times with it this morning, once I get this filthy disgusting kitchen cleaned up.) We spent the afternoon watching the first three episodes of Dublin Murders (terrib;e, terrible title), which is based on Tana French’s In the Woods and The Likeness. I’ve not read Ms. French’s work; I do know she is critically acclaimed and enormously popular–but as I always say, too many books and far too little time. I do intend, after watching the first three episodes, that I will most likely now add French to the TBR pile. I do not know, for example, if the show is a faithful adaptation; there were a few things that confused me a bit, but I imagine that is made much more clear in the novels.

We also watched the Saints game (GEAUX SAINTS!). The game was strange and sloppy and weird; the Saints had difficulty scoring touchdowns, and at the last minute it looked as though the Falcons’ furious comeback attempt might actually succeed. However, the Saints defense looked pretty amazing for the most part, and they stepped up to sack Matt Ryan on a fourth down that pretty much ended the game, with the Saints clinching the division and guaranteeing that at least their first play-off game will be in the Superdome.

As I have said before, it’s been a banner year for Louisiana football fans, between the Saints and LSU.

After the Saints game, we tried to start watching the AMC adaptation of Joe Hill’s NOS4A2, but couldn’t really get into it. I tried reading the book, but couldn’t get into it, either. I also tried with Hill’s Horns, both book and film, to no avail. Hill is a fine writer–I absolutely loved the short stories of his I read during last year’s Short Story Project–and I want to like his novels, but am afraid they just aren’t for me. I’ll undoubtedly continue reading his short fiction, and will undoubtedly try to read his novels again at some other point.

I’m also sorry I missed the bizarre end of the Mississippi-Mississippi State game; I considered switching over to it after the Saints game ended, but as I am not a fan of either team…it’s hard to watch a game simply for the joy of watching a well-played football game if you can’t root for one of the teams; I always try to pick a team in any game I’m watching when I am not a fan of either….but wasn’t up for it last night. Apparently the Rebels scored a potential game-tying touchdown in the closing seconds, and simply needed to kick an extra point for overtime. But one of the Rebels’ players mocked the Mississippi State team by going down on all fours and lifting his leg, like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant (the MSU team name is Bulldogs) and they got flagged for a fifteen-yard penalty….and then missed the extra point, so game, set and match to the Bulldogs. An incredibly stupid thing to do in the heat of the moment, although I do feel a little sorry for the player–as he will never ever live that down.

No matter how frustrated I get with college players, I always try to remember they are really just overgrown kids; most of them still in their teens.

Tomorrow will be a big day of football–with Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, and then LSU-Texas A&M; so I doubt I’ll get much done tomorrow. I do have some errands to run in the morning–prescriptions, mail, possibly grocery store–and after that I’ll be parked in my easy chair watching college football and reading during breaks. There won’t be a Saints game on Sunday, so I intend to spend that day trying to get organized and figuring out my writing schedule for the rest of the year–although I’ve not had much luck with scheduling writing this year so far, have I? But I do believe I’ve cracked the code of the current manuscript as well as the one on deck, and it’s just now a matter of writing it all down or correcting the computer files and pulling it all together.

Sounds easy, at any rate, doesn’t it?

And now to do these dishes, start my review of The Nickel Boys, and back to reading the Benedict novel.

Have a lovely day after Thanksgiving, Constant Reader!

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Let Me Be The One

Well, yesterday’s crisis was that I couldn’t find my flash drive again.

The bad news is I’ve been incredibly lazy about backing it up, so the most recent back-up is from July. The good news is my lack of productivity means I didn’t really lose much–if anything–and due to the computer problems I’ve had since the Mojave update last year, I’d been having some trouble with moving files around, so I’d been moving things into the cloud in addition to emailing them back and forth to myself, so I was able to retrieve everything that’s currently in some sort of progress.

The one time my laziness has actually worked in my favor. Yay, I suppose?

I suppose that’s something.

I did do some writing yesterday, which is something. But frankly, the annoyance over the lost flash drive pretty much ruined the day for work for me, so instead I organized and cleaned. And yes, I am fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds. I did get started on revising Bury Me in Shadows yet again; I made a crucial decision about the story over the weekend (which is part of the reason losing the flash drive was so fucking annoying) and as such, have to go back to the beginning to pull it all together. Some of the decisions I made in the original texts of the manuscript weren’t working for me; which is what triggered the problems developing in the later chapters, and sadly, most of it had to do with the primary plot and the development of my main character. The more I thought about it the more contrived the entire set-up of the book was; and as an author, this is an absolutely horrible realization. While I don’t have a problem with having an unlikable main character, I do have a problem with an unrelatable one; there is no better literary legerdemain than having a main character who isn’t likable yet the readers can relate to, and understand, that character (Scarlett in Gone with the Wind is an excellent example of this, as is Amber in Forever Amber). Chanse was a really unlikable character, who does shitty things and reacts in shitty ways to situations, but he was relatable, which is why the series managed to last as long as it did–and it may continue again. But with my main character in Bury Me in Shadows, he has to be relatable otherwise the entire book fails; and I don’t think I was succeeding. I was trying to write the book in a distant first person; but that wasn’t working as a literary exercise and by keeping him at arm’s length from the reader, I was making it difficult for the reader to become vested in him. This means more work on the manuscript, of course–and there are some other plot points that simply didn’t work and didn’t make any sense. It’s very tempting to pitch the entire thing into a drawer and start writing something else entirely, quite frankly, but I really don’t need another manuscript in that fucking drawer already–not only because that feels like utter and complete defeat, but because that drawer is already overcrowded with about a hundred short stories and essays, as well as at least two novel manuscripts, and several novellas.

Heavy heaving sigh.

We watched the latest Castle Rock, and yeah, I think it’s safe to say the show has gone off the rails completely. This episode had nothing to do with Annie Wilkes, her daughter, or the predicament they’ve become involved with in Castle Rock since their arrival; and frankly, that story has been what has been driving the season thus far. There’s some other odd thing going on, involving the Marsten House in the neighboring town of ‘salem’s Lot, which kind of involves some weird kind of possession-type thing; this entire last episode did a deep dive into the strange goings-on at the Marsten House, and not only is it confusing; as Paul said, “it’s like there are two different shows being filmed as part of the same season.” I think this story–which reminds me a bit of the back story of American Horror Story: Roanoke–could have been interesting in a stand-alone season built around the curse on ‘salem’s Lot and the Marsten House; why it was grafted onto this season’s story about Annie Wilkes doesn’t make logical sense to me–but am vested enough in the season to stick with it and see if it does, indeed, all come together at the end. (I didn’t feel like the first season accomplished this, frankly; it was enjoyable and Sissy Spacek was fantastic, but didn’t, in the end, make a whole lot of sense.)

I do have some errands to run this morning–post office, grocery store–and I am hoping after that has been accomplished that i can come home and get to work on this manuscript again; it’s irritating me, like a sore tooth that I can’t leave alone.  There’s another proposal I need to get done, that I wanted to finish this week, and here it is Tuesday already  and I am nowhere near getting anything finished that I needed to get finished, which is, of course, highly annoying. But as I said, this current manuscript just can’t be left as it is, and maybe once I get the damned thing figured out, I can move forward with everything else. I think I have it figured out; I just need to get it down so I can say, with full confidence, that it works and I am satisfied….or at least as satisfied as I ever am.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines I go. Wish me luck!

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Rock Steady

Watchmen is, quite frankly, brilliant television.

While I would never consider myself a comics nerd, I did grow up with them, and have periodically returned to them as an adult. I’m a fan of the genre of super-heroes, but would never consider myself anything more expert than any other sideline, keeps up with it slightly, fan. (Although the world of comics fans endlessly fascinates me; I’ve loved attending the local version of Comic Con, and suspect the bigger ones would be too overwhelming and too much for me.)  Anyway, that’s a roundabout way of saying I’ve never read the source material for this show, but have heard about it for years. I’m enjoying this show so much I now want to go back and read the original source material (which I’m sure is now readily available, certainly) as well as go back and watch the film that was made of it several years ago. I would say that’s a statement about how much I am enjoying the show, while admiring it at the same time; I now want to know the entire story, or as much of it as I can glean to get a better understanding of the show.

A need I never felt, quite frankly, with The Walking Dead, and only somewhat with Game of Thrones (I won’t commit to reading that entire series until it’s completed, thank you very much).

The Saints also managed to win a heart-attack inducing game yesterday, which I was felt quite certain they were determined to lose for some unknown reason. But they managed to get the last second field goal and dodged the bullet; the Panthers missed their own just moments before. The Saints aren’t playing as solidly as I would like, but I would imagine there’s an adjustment period when you have to switch quarterbacks again–and it takes some time to get fully back into the old rhythms again. Still, we’re having a glorious football season in Louisiana, one that I hope everyone is taking the time to enjoy.

This week is Thanksgiving, and as I’ve been thinking about American mythology a lot lately, it seems only fitting that yet another myth looms on the horizon; a holiday where Americans gather to be grateful and give thanks for what they have…as the final, massive full frontal assault of Christmas commercialism looms just over the horizon. I watched another couple of hours of World War II-Pacific theater documentaries yesterday–I’m not sure why I am so drawn to that particular period of history lately, or that particular theater of that particular war; draw your own conclusions–and again, found myself as a present-day prosecutor, trying the United States for war crimes for the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. It is easy to be judgmental in hindsight; my living room in New Orleans in November 2019  is vastly different than the Oval Office in Washington in July 1945, and I certainly don’t have the future of the world in the palms of my hands; it’s easy to question decisions of the past with the hindsight of the present.

But I also find it hard to believe we would have used nuclear weapons on Germany.

Hindsight.

Looking back at the past with the mindset of the present.

Watchmen‘s entire approach to racism and the past is incredibly powerful, and also incredibly important. A pivotal event in the narrative is the obliteration of the a economically strong and growing black community near Tulsa back in the 1920’s; a horrifying racist slaughter and eradication of a community for daring to believe American mythology and trying to live the American dream as non-whites.

It also got me thinking about diversity, and the push for it in publishing, particularly in crime fiction lately, given some of the incidents that have occurred recently at crime events, or involving crime fiction organizations over the last few years. It occurred to me that inclusion, and diversity, are important words that may not carry with them their own importance; what we are really trying to accomplish is the desegregation of publishing and the creative arts; integrating writers of color and queer writers into the mainstream of publishing. Integration and segregation are much more powerful words; but desegregation is an incorrect term, in that it presupposes that there are separate but equal publishing worlds, which isn’t true; perhaps that’s why integration isn’t the word we use about talking about diversity in publishing.

But I think integration gets the point across more than inclusion does.

I am still reading both The Nickel Boys and Bourbon Street, hope to get more of the Whitehead read today, in fact. This first day of Thanksgiving week vacation–after three days of essentially relaxing and doing something periodically, but mostly doing nothing active–needs to be more of an active day than a passive one. I am going to work on my emails today, I am going to write today–not sure just quite yet what it is I will be writing, but I am going to be writing today for sure–and making other arrangements as well. There’s a lot of filing and cleaning that needs to get done, but I am going to be home alone all day with the needy kitty–who will insist on sitting in my desk chair once Paul leaves for the day–and I am determined to get all of this finished….or at least progress. I’ve kind of been letting a lot of stuff slide because I haven’t wanted to deal with it; well that day of reckoning has now arrived.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines.

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Who Will You Run To

Vacation all I ever wanted….

Yes, I am off now for about nine days, which is incredibly lovely. Today I am getting the car serviced on the West Bank, and will most likely go ahead and make groceries while I am over there. After that, it’s home and chores; I’d love to get all the cleaning and organizing done today so I don’t have to worry about doing any of that over the next nine days–and possibly do some writing while I am at it. My writing muscles are horribly, disgustingly, rusty; almost as rusty as my actual muscles which haven’t exercised since earlier in the year. I am going to try to get back into a regular workout routine during this vacation period; I miss the endorphins, and I miss the feeling of genuine tiredness one gets from forcing one’s muscles to do work. I also need to stretch regularly and do the dreaded, hated cardio; I’m very disappointed in myself for letting my regular workouts fall by the wayside.

I also want to read The Nickel Boys, and get that out of the way.

We watched two more episodes of Netfix’ Unbelievable last night, and Toni Collette and Merritt Weaver are absolutely killing it. I do think this is a must-watch mini-series; the difference with which the two women treat the rape victims in their cases is such a 180 from the way the men treated poor young Marie in the first episode; and of course Marie’s entire life and experience has turned into garbage not just because she was raped but because of how she was treated, and not believed. I have a lot of thoughts about men and rape/sexual assault; I’ve had them for quite some time but have never truly articulated any of them–who am I to talk about these things?–but there’s a lot more complexity buried there that is never truly talked about or explored; as though there’s a third rail one cannot touch. I’m looking forward to finishing it, and getting caught up on Castle Rock, which is killing it this season.

Which of course always comes down, as ever, to Imposter Syndrome; the fear that I am not intelligent, smart or articulate enough to talk about sensitive things or subjects or topics; which is what holds me back from writing personal essays. Laura Lippman recently announced that her essays are being collected into a book called My Life As a Villainess, which will be released next year, and I can’t wait for it. Her essays are amazing and smart and well-thought out, articulated beautifully; but then again, she is one of our finest writers publishing today, so why wouldn’t they be? Laura once told me, when I said that I am not a strong essay writer and am not very good at them, “Um, you write a personal essay every day on your blog.” It was very kind, and meant a lot to me, and there’s possibly some truth there; but I always see the blog as a kind of free-form rambling, stream of consciousness thing that I do every morning over my first few cups of coffee as I shake off the cobwebs of my sleep–which was glorious again last night, by the way–and try to prepare to face a day of who knows what being thrown at me.

I’m also looking forward to the LSU-Arkansas game this Saturday night on ESPN. The Tigers, despite the dismal defensive showing in Oxford last Saturday, remain the Number One team the country–I still can’t believe this season and how it’s turned out–and of course the Saints game Sunday at noon. The Saints bounced back from that disgraceful outing against Atlanta two weeks ago, and we’ll see how it goes from here. It’s weird to have the top ranked team in college football at the same time as one of the top teams in the NFL; how crazy would it be if LSU won the national championship in the same year that the Saints won their second Super Bowl? Magical indeed; as well as unlikely, but my God, would that ever be cool, and the entire state would lose its collective mind.

As I have said a lot lately, I’ve felt disconnected from my writing life lately–my reading life, too–and I’m not sure what that is. I am hesitant to say “writer’s block,” because it’s not something I truly believe in; I do believe writers can go through fallow periods when they have nothing to say, or can’t think of anything to say; not being able to put words to page. But I don’t believe that–which I often refer to as a ‘malaise’–is the actual problem; I’ve always believed writer’s block is a symptom of depression. One thing I’ve often noted when reading up on writers of the past is how many of them had drinking problems, or certainly drank to excess fairly regularly; so regularly that I’ve sometimes wondered whether there’s a connection between creativity and addiction. I do think creative types are more emotionally volatile than their fellow citizens; more susceptible to vulnerability and emotional instability, which can lead to depression, which can lead to not being able to write, which then turns around in a vicious cycle to make the depression worse, and some people deal with that by using alcohol. I myself have a medicine cabinet filled with medications to help me navigate the fast-flowing, submerged danger everywhere river of my life, and they’ve helped with my own particular brand of crazy.

So, in a little bit I’m going to take a shower and head across the river to the dealership; and hopefully when I come home I’ll be able to get some clear-headed thoughts down on the page as well as some seriously deep-cleaning done on the Lost Apartment.

So it’s off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

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Something So Strong

I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning and feel like I could have easily slept another three or four hours. But alas, that is not to be; too much to do and I have to get some of it done before I head into the office for my last day of work before my vacation starts Friday (I am taking the week off next week, and decided to throw this Friday into the mix just for fun). I’m getting a little burned out–which happens a bit more frequently the older I get–and so the time off will be lovely. I need to take the car into the dealership for an oil change, which means i can have lunch at Sonic (huzzah!), and I’ll probably go ahead and make groceries while I’m over there; I’ll most likely do all of that tomorrow. I also need to write my blog entries about the Ross MacDonald and Richard Stark novels I read recently, as well as some more writing and editing and cleaning and organizing; I can’t simply blow off this entire week of vacation and get nothing done.

I started reading Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys last night, and I have to say it: Whitehead is a national treasure. It’s such an amazing book already, and the writing is superlative. I can’t wait to get back to it and savor the writing some more.

Yesterday was a good mail day for me. I got my copy of the anthology Dark Yonder, which is built around Eryk Pruitt’s bar, Yonder, that he opened this year, and the anthology was edited by Liam Sweeney, and benefits the North Texas Food Bank. It’s always delightful to write and publish a new short story, and this looks to be a very fine volume. My story is called “Moist Money” (how much do I love that title?) and I reread it last night, because I could barely remember it…and wow. It’s a dark and nasty little tale, and thematically similar to two other stories I’ve written recently (one is out on submission, the other published last year) but all three stories are dramatically different in tone, character, and setting–even if the theme and structure are similar. Anyway, if you want to get a copy of Dark Yonder–there are some terrific writers I am sharing those pages with–you can order it right here.

I also got a contract for another short story, and a finished copy of a book I blurbed; The Committee by Sterling Watson, from Akashic Books. I don’t really blurb books much any more; I simply don’t have the time to read as much for pleasure as I did, and when asked I never promise to do anything other than to try. I made an exception in this case, primarily because I respect Akashic Books very much and the subject matter of this one–the gay purge at the University of Florida in the 1950’s–was something I felt was important enough for me to take the time to read the book and provide a blurb for it if I liked it. I did like it, very much, and provided requested blurb….and now they’ve graciously sent me a complimentary copy–and the cover has a blurb from MICHAEL KORYTA, and there on the back cover am I, along with LORI ROY and GALE MASSEY. How enormously flattering for me to be a blurber along with three writers whose work I simply love.

It’s interesting how thrilling I find these little things, isn’t it?

I’m also thinking about writing more short stories. It has everything to do, no doubt, with getting the contributor’s copy of Dark Yonder and the contract for the other story–plus having Susan Larson compliment me on my short story collection the other morning–but I do love writing short stories, despite how painful they always seem to be for me; the experience can be excruciating. I was thinking last night about another story I’ve been working on for a while, “Burning Crosses”, and last night I figured out how to make the story work better. It’s a delicate subject to tackle, for sure–the title alone should make that obvious–but it’s a story I’ve had in my head for a long time, and last year I finally sat down and wrote a first draft of it. I was pretty pleased with the first draft, and have done another since then, but again felt like the story just missed the mark. Last night it hit me between the eyes what is missing from this story, and how I can make it even better, perhaps even publishable. (Something else to get worked on while I am on vacation.) My goals for the vacation obviously are going to be next to impossible to accomplish, as always; I’m going to want some goof-off time as well as some reading time, and so the writing and editing is going to be pushed off to the side for a while.

Not to mention cleaning.

Okay, on that note, I am off to the spice mines.

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Doing It All For My Baby

Well, I had two good weeks of sleeping well, and then last night…well, here we are again. It’s not as bad as it could have been, but I woke up at four and haven’t really been able to sleep again. I’m hoping this means I’ll be able to sleep tonight, but…at least I have two good weeks of sleep before the return of the insomnia.

We watched Watchmen last night after Paul got home, and i have to say, I am really enjoying this show tremendously. It’s long past time that Regina King has had such a great spotlight for her talents, and while the story has been confusing–I never read the original comic series–it’s starting to all come together a bit more for me. This week’s episode, the back story of Looking Glass, pulled a lot of the story threads together to make sense.

I also watched another two episodes of Greatest Events of World War II in Colour, these last two being the Battle of the Bulge and the Dresden Firebombing, which was truly horrific. The very idea that people in a bomb shelter basically melted in the heat, that those who took refuge in the river boiled alive, and so forth…absolutely horrific. The questions of morality raised by the Dresden firebombing, and are we becoming what they are are certainly important questions, and ones that were never really asked back in the day. How does one justify the utter destruction of a city, and over 25,000 civilian deaths? On the other hand, it’s certainly true that the Nazis waged war relentlessly on civilian populations, and their behavior in occupied land was absolutely horrific; the Nazis also showed no signs of surrendering or relenting, even as they were pushed back across their borders and defeat became inevitable; it certainly seemed as though the Germans would fight to the very last man.

And of course, we haven’t gotten to the ultimate hard question of this war: were we, the Americans, justified in the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

I’ve not started reading The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead yet, but I do have it in my bag, and perhaps between clients today I can find some time to get started on it. I didn’t write (yet again) last night when I got home from the office; my laziness and lack of writing every day is beginning to concern me. It’s getting to the point that any excuse will do–and that just can’t be, you know? I have so much to get done by the end of the year, and the clock is ticking inexorably away. There’s this entire idiotic mentality I seem to have acquired that oh you’ll be on vacation next week and you’ll be able to kick it into gear again then isn’t really working for me; I should be kicking it into gear this week. But if my sleep is going to be sucking again…yeah, I can’t even bear the thought of that possibility happening again. I didn’t feel quite so well when i first woke up, but that seems to be passing somewhat. The last thing I need in the world is to get sick again.

But again, today’s goal is to empty out the inbox–if I can–and make some progress, any progress, on some project I currently am working on. Again, we’ll see how it all works out.

It inevitably, invariably, does.

I started my new journal this week as well. I’ll still have to carry the old one around with me for a while–there are too many notes for projects in progress for me to risk not having it when I need it (hmmm, this is probably a symptom of my hoarder mentality that probably needs to be worked on–perhaps a goal for the new year?)–but in this case it’s true. I’ve had so many thoughts and ideas about this manuscript, that I kind of can’t remember them all, which is why I have been writing things down. Revising and editing and rewriting, for me, is a drudgery that I have to constantly remind myself that I actually enjoy doing.

Lord.

And on that note, I think I’m going to dive headfirst into my emails. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

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Meet Me Half Way

LSU won last night, 58-37, over Mississippi at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford; but the defense gave up a lot in the second half–yards and touchdowns–and at times had me wondering if this would indeed turn into a trap game. A couple of offensive mistakes that the Rebels capitalized on, and suddenly they had pulled back within two touchdowns to 44-30 before the Tigers scored twice more to effectively ice the game. I may have sworn at the television a few times, as LSU’s pristine, well-oiled precision in the first half got sloppy in the second.

I suppose it is a measure of LSU’s success this season that a 21 point win in a rivalry game on the road felt disappointing; I guess this is what it means to become a member of an incredibly spoiled fan base. 58 points and over 700 yards on offense–and I was swearing at the television. Lord.

But the defense is going to have to play better than this if LSU is going to win the SEC title game against Georgia, who clinched the East by beating Auburn yesterday.

Yesterday was a good day on many fronts. I cleaned and organized, which of course always makes me happy; I didn’t get to the floors yesterday, but everything else is cleaned and organized, with a few more things to finish off this morning before I get back to work. I did have a relatively good day yesterday–cleaning and organizing capped by an LSU game is always the best Saturday possible for me. I also managed to read some more of The Ferguson Affair, and making notes on it. It’s not one of the stronger MacDonald novels–definitely not as good as some Lew Archers I’ve read–but it’s an interesting story, and I do like how the entire case begins with the main character, an attorney, being called in to represent a young woman accused of stealing, or rather, being part of a burglary gang robbing wealthy residents of the small city–and how it unrolls from there. I also made some notes on my current work-in-progress; dissecting why the story isn’t playing well in my head and realizing that it’s my own stubbornness and refusal to change things–even when they aren’t working. I always try to  make it work somehow before recognizing finally that it’s not working and must be changed; I have to go back and redo the first chapters of the book–which I’ve already kind of done. Part of the reluctance to see things clearly is because I don’t want to redo work I’ve already done—but if the work doesn’t work, accept that the time was wasted and redo it, for fuck’s sake. And so that is the task that lies before me today. I am going to go ahead and finish redoing chapter 13, because I’ve been in the middle of it for quite some time now–not finishing because deep down I knew I was going to have to go back and rework the earlier stuff, and why keep going when you know you’re going to have to revise and edit and rewrite what you are currently revising and editing and rewriting? Not an effective use of time or energy…and sometimes you have to just accept that you’ve wasted the time and be done with it. But I do believe I have now solved the key problem with my story, and it will now work going forward.

The other day I talked about the Stephen King short story “The Raft” (filmed as part of Creepshow 2), primarily in the terms of a book idea inspired by the trope of the story–essentially, four (or more) young people go somewhere no one knows they are, and something bad happens to them there–and they know rescue isn’t coming because no one knows where they are, and even if they did, it would take a while before anyone figured out they needed help–and wouldn’t know where to find them. Because of this, I kept thinking about “The Raft,” and finally at one point yesterday I got down my copy of Skeleton Crew and reread the story.

It’s extraordinary, really, and a good reminder of why Stephen King is one of my favorite writers.

It was forty miles from Horlicks University in Pittsburgh to Cascade Lake, and although dark comes early to that part of the world in October and although they didn’t get going until six o’clock, there was still a little light in the sky when they got there. They had come in Deke’s Camaro. Deke didn’t waste any time when he was sober. After a couple of beers, he made that Camaro walk and talk.

He had hardly brought the car to a stop at the pole fence between the parking lot and the beach before he was out and pulling off his shirt. His eyes were scanning the water for the raft. Randy got out of the shotgun seat, a little reluctantly. This had been his idea, true enough, but he had never expected Deke to take it seriously. The girls were moving around in the back seat, getting ready to get out.

Deke’s eyes scanned the water restlessly, side to side (sniper’s eyes, Randy thought uncomfortably) and then fixed on a point.

“It’s there!” he shouted, slapping the hood of the Camaro. “Just like you said, Randy! Hot damn! Last one in’s a rotten egg!”

“The Raft” is a terrifying story, and one that is all too easy to relate to. Randy is the main character of the story, and we see it all through his point of view. Deke is his best friend and roommate, on a football scholarship, handsome and well-built and holding the world in the palm of his hands; things come easily to him, especially women. The two girls with them on this adventure are Rachel, Deke’s current girlfriend, and LaVerne–who, as it turns out, isn’t a particularly nice girl in how we tend to define that sort of thing. Randy likes Rachel but really is into LaVerne; one of the dynamics of the story is that Deke and Rachel’s relationship is ending (but she isn’t aware) and LaVerne is poised to move in on Deke–and it happens during the course of the story. Randy loves Deke, Deke is his best friend and he admires him and would do anything for him; but he also harbors a bit of resentment for his beloved best friend–for whom everything seems to be easy, and women willing to crawl into his bed are easy to find; he also resents that women don’t seem to notice him when Deke is around. This is excellent character building by King; this makes Randy relatable.

(When I first read this story in the mid-1980’s, I had already become accustomed to being the “friend no one notices”; I always had male friends who were good looking and well-built and a lot of fun to be around, so I always felt eclipsed and that no one noticed me. This continued for many years, even after I came out in every aspect of my life–that weird mixture of love and resentment one can have for a friend who is always the center of attention who doesn’t even try to be; it just happens. It also reminds me of the dynamic at the root of A Separate Peace, which I read as a teenager; I need to go back at some point and reread that book to get a better sense of the novel and the queer undertones that even I–a closeted and terrified thirteen year old–was able to pick up on.)

The building of suspense–and the terror that comes when they realize the weird little oil slick on the water not only has intelligence but is a predator–is phenomenal, and yet another example of King’s story-telling genius.

I also could relate to the story because when I was a teenager in Kansas, there was a nearby lake we often went to, for swimming and so forth; it was out in the middle of nowhere, and it, too, had a raft you could swim out to and sunbathe on. (I used that lake in my novel Sara; in what I think is probably the best, most frightening horror I have ever written–that chapter at the lake is absolutely terrifying–or at least I think so, at any rate.)

But remembering–and rereading–“The Raft” also reminds me of the Short Story Project from last year, which I hadn’t intended to stop doing, but I got sidetracked with this year’s Diversity Project, among other things. But it’s time for me to get back to work on everything this morning, and so, Constant Reader, I bid you adieu as I head back into the spice mines.

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I’ve Been In Love Before

And just like that, it’s Friday again in New Orleans, with a weekend dawning full of promise and potential. How I choose to squander that promise and potential remains to be seen, quite frankly.

But I am sure I will earn another Olympic gold in procrastination and justification. I am getting rather good at it.

So last night we watched the season finale of American Horror Story: 1984. Sigh. Another season of  great potential, an interesting and diverse cast, and a terrific idea….yet the entire season left me feeling meh. Paul and I laughed our way through the finale, which, for a “horror story” is perhaps not the best intended reaction? I guess making an homage to slasher films from the 1980’s, including a summer camp, and then making it completely camp wasn’t what I was expecting, and frankly, when it comes to clever campy homages Scream set a bar so damned high that its sequels couldn’t even clear–but they came close. For a brief moment, as I watched, I did think oh, this is clever–he’s doing a pastiche of an entire series of slasher movies, like following the arc of the Friday the 13th’s first few films or so…but no, I wasn’t right. But that would be a much more clever idea than what we were given, frankly.

I’ve always said that the line between the horror and crime genres–be it film, novels, short stories, or television–is a very thin one that gets crossed rather frequently. The Silence of the Lambs is considered a horror film (I’ve not read the book; it’s in my TBR pile along with Red Dragon, and I will eventually get to them both), but it’s also very much a procedural: Clarice Starling, federal agent, is part of the team trying to catch a brutal serial killer, Buffalo Bill. Filming it as a horror film made it suspenseful and terrifying; much more so than had it been filmed as a straight-up procedural (which is why I am very curious about the novels). I’ve always wanted to do a straight-up novel about a mass, or spree, killing–which is what slasher movies really are at heart–that begins in the aftermath of a night like Halloween, when the police are called to the scene of a mass killing with brutalized, butchered bodies everywhere–or when the state police arrive at the camp at Crystal Lake; the first quarter/third of the book is the discovery of the bodies and the lead detective trying to place together the time-line of the murders. That’s as far as I’ve ever gotten with the idea, honestly; if I can ever figure out where to go from there, I’ll probably write it (although it occurs to me that what would be rather clever would be to alternate between the night before, when it’s happened, and the following morning as the detective puts the time line together….hmmmm *makes note*).

I also have an idea about a novel set in a ghost town in the California mountains–I’ve had this idea for quite some time, going back to the 1980’s (almost all of my California ideas were born in the 1980’s, when I lived there), and my mind keeps coming back to it from time to time. I think the idea was born from reading Stephen King’s short story “The Raft”, and then seeing it on film in Creepshow 2 (Paul Satterfield in that skimpy yellow speedo made quite an impression on me; it even occurs to me now that may have subliminally had a connection to my short story “Man in a Speedo”); the basic concept was the same–five or six college students decide to spend a weekend camping in a ghost town, getting drunk and high and having sex–only to have it all go South in the most terrifying way. I also realize that the “group of young people come to a remote location and all get killed off gradually” is probably the more hoary of the horror tropes; in order to do something like that one has to not only do it exceptionally well,  but say something new. I wanted to call it Sunburst, because that would be the name of the remote ghost town; a town that sprung up around a gold mine that eventually petered out and the town died with it. I also wanted it to be set in the mountains because–well, because the mountains in California are so beautiful–I wanted to set it on a mountain top that had a lovely view across a valley or canyon to Yosemite National Park.

This is why I never get anything done, really–I have so many ideas, and get new ones all the time, and so things get pushed to the side and forgotten until something reminds me of the original idea. I also like to think that I will eventually come back around to the idea and write it…it has happened before, of course–Sara, Sorceress, Sleeping Angel, Dark Tide all come to mind–and so it’s not so hard to believe those ideas’ time will eventually come. Hell, even Bury Me in Shadows was originally conceived of in the 1980’s, as a short story I wrote called “Ruins”–and the idea was always there in the back of my mind; which is partly why I finally decided to write the damned thing.

Finishing it, on the other hand, seems to be an enormous problem thus far. I am hoping to break this lengthy non-writing streak–well, I’ve been writing a bit here and there, just not producing on a daily basis the amount I not only should be but can do as a general rule–this weekend. The LSU game is Saturday night, and while yes, Auburn-Georgia is in the afternoon, I’m not so sure I care that much about watching it. Background noise, maybe, and if it’s a Georgia rout I can always turn it off….and I’m not so sure when the Saints game is on Sunday. I am also falling into the trap of thinking oh I have a week off for Thanksgiving come up and I can finish it then. No, no, NO. I should finish it before then, so I can spend that week polishing it and making it pretty before sending it off on December 1.

I seriously don’t know what to do, to be perfectly honest. I just know I need to be writing more than I am–and if not the book, then a short story or something. AUGH.

And since I don’t have to go in until later, I might as well do some this morning.

Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

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Funkytown

And we’ve made it to Wednesday. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day, and I have errands to run this morning before I head into the office. I hate Pay-the-Bills Day, seriously; it’s the worst part of being an adult, I think. I’m self-absorbed enough to think my paycheck should be mine to do with as I please, rather than simply utilized to pay the bills. Heavy heaving sigh. But I do get an enormous sense of satisfaction–primarily because of completion–from paying the bills. It’s lovely to check them off as they are paid, make a new list of how much is owed, etc etc etc. It’s a little shocking how much money I actually do owe–particularly since I hate nothing more than I do owing money–but it’s also nice to see the numbers go down–if not as quickly as I would like them to.

It’s cold in the Lost Apartment and New Orleans this morning; so much so that I’ve got a hat on my head and the space heater going. I slept beautifully again last night–it’s so lovely to be getting used to sleeping well consistently and nightly–and it’s amazing to feel rested every day, rather than tired and cranky. It really does make a difference, a significant one, and I’m glad to be feeling more myself these days. I still haven’t gotten any writing done this week yet–it really is disgraceful, frankly–but we were busy at work yesterday, and my actual day job does, sometimes, drain me emotionally. It did yesterday, but I also provided good counseling services to people who desperately needed a friendly, non-judgmental person to listen, advise, and console. It is a rewarding job–which is why I have it and why I have lasted so long there. I do love helping my clients.

I also had gotten my email inbox under some sort of control yesterday, but I woke up to a ridiculous amount in there again this morning. It may not all need to be answered, but it all needs to be read. Sigh–that’ll teach me to  keep being a volunteer.

Today is a half-day at the office as well as being a cold day in New Orleans. Paul will be home later tonight; hopefully we can get caught up on Catherine the Great and American Horror Story: 1984 also airs its season finale this evening. I hope to get the writing done before Paul gets home; I really need to sink my teeth back into the manuscript. It also occurred to me last night that part of the reason the manuscript doesn’t feel quite right is that I may not have the best grasp of my character, and so today, between clients, I am going to start constructing his bio and figuring out who he is, so I can make him seem real. I was trying to make it more of a distant first person point of view, which can be quite effective (see everything written by Lori Roy), but it’s not working for me and so it needs to be overhauled, as does the Kansas book. But week after next is Thanksgiving, I will have the week off, and I am going to do some serious work that week–I know, I know, I always say that, and then it never happens–but I am going to focus on getting this shit together over the course of that week. I’d still like to have Bury Me in Shadows in better condition so I can get it turned in and be done with it once and for all.

And while I am yes, indeed, still walking in the clouds from the LSU win over Alabama this past weekend, I have to say I am a little surprised at how sportswriters and sportscasters have essentially buried the Alabama program and erected a headstone on the grave as a result of the loss. Um, they’re Alabama, and if you think Nick Saban is finished, think again. Alabama was beaten pretty badly by Clemson in last year’s championship game–this is certainly true–but no one wrote Alabama off as dead after that game, and I am not certain why the loss to LSU has had this effect on people. Maybe it was the twenty point deficit going into half-time? I mean, sure, it was the most points scored in the history of the series, it was the most points scored on a Nick Saban team since he went to Alabama, it’s the most points scored on them since a 2003 quadruple overtime loss to Tennessee, and all the rest of that. I guess maybe it’s the combination of last year’s Clemson loss and this year’s LSU loss? I don’t know, but it’s strange, and it’s certainly bulletin board material for the Tide for the rest of this year and for next season, to be sure. Don’t be surprised if the Tide come roaring back–you heard it here first. ANd LSU has to be ready for Ole Miss Saturday; they’d love nothing more than to spoil this amazing, magical season for the Tigers–kind of like we did to them in 2014.

I have to run some errands this morning before I go into the office, so I’d better start getting motivated to get out there into the cold–which I really don’t want to do, but have no choice. So, it’s off to the spice mines with me–have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and stay warm!

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