Category: revising

Sleigh Ride

Today we’re going to see Aquaman. I am very excited for this, if you couldn’t tell by me pretty much mentioning it every day for the last week. I didn’t discover Jason Momoa until Game of Thrones (I know, I know, bad gay), but have been a huge fan ever since. And while my initial reaction to the news of his casting was problematic (but Aquaman is blond!) I got over it pretty quick. I’ve always been a fan of Aquaman–yes, I love Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but have always had a place in my heart for the ‘lesser’ heroes–Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, etc. So I am excited to see Aquaman get his own movie, and I do hope someday they give Green Lantern another shot.

I slept in this morning, later than usual–last night I even fell asleep in my easy chair, showing how tired I was (although that’s happened twice this week), and I feel very rested this morning. I have to run to the post office this morning, and I have some things to get at the grocery store (the Saturday before Christmas! Hurray!) before we head out for the movie. I did work a little on Bury Me in Satin a little bit last night, but I also had dinner with some friends in from out of town, which was lovely, and then we also watched the Schitt’s Creek Christmas special. I do want to talk some more about this show, but I am going to give it, I think, it’s own entry because it deserves it. Seriously, people, if you aren’t watching this show you need to. It’s hilarious, but incredibly warm and sweet at the same time.

It definitely deserves an entry of its own.

My kitchen is a mess; and I have loads of chores to do this morning. I’d like to, obviously, get as much done today as possible, so tomorrow I can focus on the Saints game and editing the Scotty book, maybe log some time in on Bury Me in Satin, do some reading, etc., and then have both Christmas Eve and Christmas to not only do some writing/editing in the morning, but spend the rest of each day relaxing, which will be lovely. I get a three day work week this week and next (huzzah!) and so here’s hoping that some of that free time will be spent productively.

Or not. We’ll see. Oh! I have to stop at the library today, too. They’re holding a book for me. Yay! I love having a library card, and being able to reserve books on-line. I do think one of these days I need to just go spend a day in the library, though; try to remember what it was like when I was a kid and used to spend whole afternoons in the Tomen Branch of the Chicago Public Library on Pulaski Boulevard. And the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue here in New Orleans is so, so beautiful.

I am also, by the way, in total denial that Carnival is just around the corner.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Do They Know It’s Christmas

Good morning, Friday, and how are you today? A four day weekend—one I have been waiting for, it seems, forever– is just over the horizon and about time, I must say. I am very tired this morning–this week and next I have to work eight hour days on Fridays instead of my usual half-day, because of the holidays, so I am up earlier than normal and quite frankly, I DON’T LIKE THIS–and I am having dinner with friends this evening, so it’s not a normal Friday for me.

But dinner will be fun, so there’s that. Yay, fun!

I am also hoping to get to see Aquaman this weekend, finish reading the book I am currently reading, and move on to another. I got some lovely books in the mail this week as gifts (thank you, generous gift-givers), so I am looking forward to reading some of the others. I also want to reread both The Shining (it’s been years) and Bracken MacLeod was talking about Pet Sematary recently, which made me realize that is one of the Stephen King books from his early period which I’ve not read more than once. The book disturbed me deeply, and I remember recoiling from it as I read it feverishly; it’s a very dark book–even for King, who’s not exactly known for light-and-fluffy–and I am thinking–thanks to Bracken–that I should revisit it now, in my fifties, to see if my own change in perspective and growing up (a lot) since I was such a sallow teen will change my opinion of the book. I also think I might spend some time in 2019 revisiting some of King’s work.

As the end of the year draws nigh, I generally start reflecting back on the year that was, wondering if I’ve accomplished all the things I set out to do and if I achieved any of the goals I set at the beginning of the year. I know I did some, and I also know I failed at others. The Short Story Project was a lot of fun, and I think I am going to sign up to do it again some in the new year; focusing on reading and writing short stories is a lovely thing, and even my blogging about terrific short stories gets even one person to buy an anthology or read a story, it’s a win.

One of the things I’m definitely going to do in the new year is diversify my reading list. I have a number of books in my TBR pile by non-white writers, and I need to start reading those books and writers. Is it an unconscious bias that makes me grab a book by a cisgender straight writer? Possibly and probably, and that’s where systemic bias comes into play; bias we don’t even think about is just as wrong as bias we do think about. It’s even more insidious, because we think we don’t have bias but it’s there, lurking in our subconscious, waiting waiting waiting…and that’s just wrong.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Santa Baby

Well, yesterday was interesting.

I have some thoughts about yesterday’s recent blow-up within the crime fiction world; deep thoughts that I’ve not been able to coherently pull together in order to share as of yet. These thoughts began to form, and swirl around, inside my head during the last dust-up within my chosen world of crime writing; I’ve been playing with them and trying to put them into a some sort of sense ever since. Yesterday I was busy almost my entire twelve-hours at the office, only able to check in with social media via my phone periodically–and watched, in horror, as the fire not only spread but gasoline was thrown onto it. But as I’ve said before, I no longer want to say things in the heat of the moment, when emotion is running rampant within my head and through my body, and would prefer to sit on it for a few days, think about what I am going to say, and try to say it ina  reasonable way.

Even despite the fact that quite a lot of what’s been happening in my community has been, quite frankly, un-fucking-reasonable.

But sometimes…to effect change you have to wait and allow a cooler head to prevail. Sigh. I hate being more mature.

Needless to say, I got little to no writing or editing done yesterday. Having the lengthy work day is part of the problem, of course–at the end of one’s second twelve-hour day one is a bit tired–so when I got home last evening I simply collapsed into my easy chair and spent the rest of the evening bingeing Schitt’s Creek until I actually fell asleep in the chair. So, yes, in case you’re wondering, I did sleep really well last night. I moved from the chair to the bed and immediately fell back asleep; I think I woke up once around three in the morning but embraced Morpheus again almost instantly. I feel most wonderfully rested this morning; and hopeful that I’ll be able to get back on the horse from which I’ve fallen and get some more work done. I have to get through three more days of work before a four day weekend–and I do think we’re going to go see Aquaman this weekend–and I am equally hopeful I’ll be able to get a lot done this weekend as well.

Fingers crossed, for sure.

I’m also really glad I did all that cleaning on Monday night during the Saints game. *Whew*.

And Christmas is less than a week away now. YIKES.

I am swinging by the post office this morning, hopeful that the last of the gifts I ordered for Paul will have arrived, so I can hide them in the back of the car until such time as I can sneak them into the house and wrap them. I also ordered some gifts for myself–what can I say, I’m a giver, and sometimes you need to order something extra for the free shipping–and hopefully all those have arrived. I actually ordered copies of two comic books from my childhood that, for some reason, resonated with me: DC’s The Brave and the Bold, issue 98, and Charlton Comics’ Ghostly Tales from the Haunted House issue 91: “Bloody Mermaid.” I recently reread The Brave and the Bold #98, and regret to inform you, Constant Reader, that the tale doesn’t stand the test of time; but it did provide me with a kernal of an idea for a book (and in all honesty, when I first read it when I was ten it inspired an idea for a book, and part of the reason I ordered the comic was to see if the idea still remained okay–which I think it does). I have yet to reread “Bloody Mermaid”; I’ve already discussed how it inspired a germ of an idea that eventually became my novel Dark Tide.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a fabulous Hump Day, Constant Reader!

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Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

I may have to rethink this two-twelve-hour-days-to-start-the-week thing.

Or maybe it’s just this week that’s the problem. I know there’s a four day weekend lurking just over the horizon, and all I really need to do is just get through this week and then I can rest and relax and enjoy the holiday and spend a lot of time thinking oh, it’s a four day weekend I can get things done tomorrow until suddenly it’s Tuesday night and I have to go back to work the next morning.

I also felt like crap all day; that certainly didn’t help. I don’t know if it was low blood sugar, or what, but I just didn’t feel good, and that’s always unpleasant when you’re at work. I soldiered through though. This morning, I feel somewhat better–there’s still an itchy feeling in my throat which I don’t much care for–but at least I feel better rested ths morning than I did yesterday.

I also cleaned the apartment. The Saints game was giving me extreme levels of stress, so rather than sitting there and allowing it to make me crazy, I got up and started cleaning. Dishes, laundry, vacuuming…yes, I managed to get that all done during the Saints victory last night–which was in doubt until the fucking very end. I’m not sure what is up with the Saints exactly lately–whether it is some kind of late-season “we’ve made the play-offs already” malaise…but it’s painful to watch, even as they manage to eke out the win.

I don’t understand why they want us to  have cardiac arrest and hypertension, but there you have it.

I do feel better this morning; more tired than anything else, but I’ve also already taken my morning dosage of DayQuil. The DayQuil didn’t seem to help a whole lot yesterday, but on the other hand, it may have been worse had I not taken it. My nose is raw (again) after having to repeatedly blow/wipe it, and that is also highly annoying.

But…tomorrow I get to sleep later, and run pick up the mail before I come into the office. I am so not an early morning person. I can handle getting up at seven, but these two mornings of rising at six are horrific. I did drink some of that “help you sleep” tea last night, and so I slept deeply and well…but that also could have come from being so worn out and tired. But today and tonight I am hoping to get some chapters of Scotty reread and revised between clients, and maybe take some notes on Bury Me in Satin. I also am thinking about getting back to doing some work on short stories that are in progress; “Never Kiss a Stranger” has literally been languishing for weeks, and there are several others that I’ve started and not gotten very far on. I also want to get back to reading my New Orleans histories, as well.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.

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Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

I despise snow.

Oh, sure, it’s pretty and all, but there’s nothing worse in my opinion than being wet and cold–and that’s a definite result of snow. Although some of my favorite horror novels/films/TV shows are set in the cold and snow (Ghost Story, Stranded, The Terror) and I do have that Christopher Golden novel about the cold and snow in my TBR pile (Snowblind, I think is its name?).

I woke up late this morning with a definite sore throat, as opposed to the tickle I’ve been fighting all week, which isn’t a good thing. I shall liberally dose myself with NyQuil this day as I write and edit and do things around the house. Yesterday I accomplished little to nothing, quite frankly. I did start inputting the edits in “Don’t Look Down,” but stopped after a couple of pages. It was terribly easy for me to get distracted yesterday, partly because I felt so tired all day. We went to a Christmas party last night, which was quite lovely, actually–I drank too much champagne (which has nothing to do with my sore throat, thank you very much) and we took Lyft there and back. It was a very fun evening, with lots of laughter–my sides and abs ache a bit this morning from laughing so hard last night–but today I simply must get things done. I have a stack of paper sitting on my desk to the right of me, and I absolutely must work my way through that entire stack of edits today, or else.

I also have some laundry to do–two loads I started yet didn’t finish yesterday–and the kitchen is still a mess (I told you, I didn’t do much of anything yesterday), and I’d also like to get some reading done today. I am making shrimp and grits for dinner (first time in a very long time I’ve done this) and I also am going to try to make some food for the week, to make things easier on me (broiling chicken breasts, for example). This is, of course, the last full work week I have before the holidays, which reminded me that I actually need to put in a full eight hour day this Friday, as well as next Thursday and Friday. (Note to self: remember that or you’re going to get screwed with your hours)

I also need to make sure I am on track with everything I need to be on track with; which means administrative work–which as I am sure you can imagine how much I love doing that. It’s a heavy plate for a Sunday, but what can I do? It all has to be done, and I need to get this all done before the holiday weekends. I kind of just want to get some writing on Bury Me in Satin done, as well as these edits, then start tackling the Royal Street Reveillon problems over the two four-day weekends.

And then, of course, Carnival begins. Heavy heaving sigh. It’s just non-stop around here.

And now tis back to the spice mines.

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Winter Wonderland

I overslept this morning–which I don’t mind, I was extremely tired last night, as well as completely over it–and it’s dismal and gray and cold outside the windows. I didn’t get as much done as I had wanted last night because I was dealing with yet another Mac problem; my computer wanted to update it’s operating system so stupidly I agreed and clicked yes….and when the computer restarted it again didn’t recognize my phone, so I had to go through that entire nonsensical process yet again. Fortunately I had just backed the damned thing up again, so the “restore from most recent back-up” was at least current this time. But once the phone was finished “restoring” my computer started acting wonky again; the desktop icons never showed up and I tried restarting it again, only to come back and find it was still acting wonky. I restarted again, then collapsed into my easy chair, where I watched a BBC series, The Plantagenets. There wasn’t anything really new in it, other than the idea that the deposition of Richard II “cursed” the family–that deposition/usurpation led to the Wars of the Roses, and also made the sacred person of the King no longer so sacred–which meant deposing kings and crowning new ones was now an established precedent, and this mentality eventually led England down the path of constitutional monarchy. Which is true, and not something I’d read or thought about before, which is always fun when reading or watching history.

Although I probably should have read a book instead.

Today I have some errands to run, and I also need to get the revisions/edits in those stories I did this week entered into the documents so I can also get that finished manuscript turned over to my editor. I should also do some cleaning (there’s never an end to it, really) and work on revising the Scotty. And there’s other stories to write and finish, and I also want to work a bit on Bury Me in Satin this weekend. I’d also like to get to read The Shining again; I’ve been thinking about rereading it for quite some time now and it’s been a very long time. I think I am going to close out this year by rereading some Stephen King novels and reading short stories for the Short Story Project. Next weekend I have a four day weekend–two weeks in a row, woo-hoo!–and I have a lot of cleaning up/tying up of loose ends to get done before the end of the year.

And while I’ve written a lot this year, I’ve also started a shit ton of projects and short stories that I’ve not finished; which is quite despairing to think about. I’m also really annoyed at how out of it the Great Data Disaster of 2018 has made me; I am trying hard to recover the momentum I had before it happened. I am still feeling excited and positive about writing, but discombobulated about where I am and what I am doing and what I should be doing and what the next step should be.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

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O Come All Ye Faithful

Thursday and the hard part of the week is already over; the one where I work thirty-one hours in three days at the office. This is the part of the week where I work nine hours in two days, easing into the weekend, as it were. We have a Christmas party to attend on Saturday evening, but other than that and some errands, I intend to spend my weekend primarily working and editing and inputting the hard copy edits I’ve done on my short stories this week.

That’s the plan, at any rate.

But I slept really well again last night–two glorious nights in a row–and I feel incredibly well rested today. Does that bode well for writing this morning before work, and this evening after? Here’s hoping. I’m still trying to adapt and adjust to my new work schedule, and I feel like I am settling into it at long last, which is lovely. It gets harder to adapt to changes, I find, the older I get.

I still feel completely disconnected in some ways from the creativity surge I was feeling before the loss of the jump drive and the frying of the back-up hard drive; like the momentum wave I was riding has somehow now passed me by and I am dog-paddling like crazy in water that’s over my head. (To be fair, I often feel this way, particularly when the work isn’t going so well.) But I am absolutely delighted to discover that the stories I was re-editing and revising for the collection are now in pretty good shape, and now I can even get started (maybe) on tentatively pulling together the second one. I also kind of have lost momentum on my New Orleans research as well as my essay collection; partly because that was some of the work I lost. I did reconstruct some of it this past weekend–table of contents, etc., as well as some other things; writing things up in my journals–something I returned to doing this year–really helped lessen the impact of the Great Data Disaster of 2018. Hurray!

And with the end of the year approaching, I am wondering now what new goals I should set for 2019. Obviously, some of the ones I set for 2018 didn’t happen, but that’s okay; I don’t look as not achieving a goal as a failure. I do think one of the things I am really going to try for in 2019 is getting published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. It’s been on my bucket list forever, and so I am going to really give it a try. I think my story “One Night at Brandy’s Lounge”–unfinished–might be the one to do the trick.

All right, it’s time to get back to the spice mines. The spice must flow.

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Do You Hear What I Hear

Wednesday. Paul made it home late last night, and is sleeping away this chilly morning in the Lost Apartment. I started feeling a bit under the weather yesterday–scratchy throat, usually not a good sign–but am hoping I can power through today and hopefully will feel better tomorrow. I hate to call in sick, but at the same time I don’t particularly want to get any of our clients sick, either.

I finished editing “Don’t Look Down” and “This Thing of Darkness” last night; I am hoping to get through “The Snow Globe” and “Moves in the Field” this morning, and have my fingers crossed that I can get back to work on Bury Me in Satin tonight. One can hope, at any rate. I also want to get some work done on the revision of Royal Street Reveillon, and I also have to get the afterward to that one written as well. So, I am hopeful by the end of the weekend I’ll have Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories completely banged out and ready for the copy edit, so I can get RSR finished over the Christmas weekend, and maybe–just maybe–get Bury Me in Satin finished by the end of December–a reach, but something I am going to still try to accomplish.

I’d also like to have a strong first draft of “Never Kiss a Stranger” done, but let’s not get crazy.

I can’t believe Christmas is less than two weeks away. I think I’ve done all my shopping for Paul; all I need to do now is buy something for my parents and it’s over. (I know what to get them, so not an issue.) This has been a kind of weird holiday season. Thanksgiving was early, and that built up a false sense of security that there was plenty of time before Christmas…then BLAM, it snuck up on me.

But…I have four day weekends for Christmas and New Year’s, and our annual trip to Commander’s Palace for lunch on New Year’s Eve with Jean and Gillian to look forward to, which is lovely, and LSU is playing in a New Year’s Day bowl, so there’s that. The Saints won their division and are going to the play-offs, hopefully with a bye the first week and maybe even home field advantage the whole series…so maybe, just maybe, we could end up in the Super Bowl again this year. (I probably shouldn’t have said that…because I truly believe that my fandom has enough power to jinx the teams I root for, because it’s all about me.)

But I am thrilled to have made it through the roughest part of the week. Monday and Tuesday’s twelve hour days are rough; yesterday it felt like I was coming down with something–I had a scratch at the base of my throat–and I wondered if I was really getting sick or if it was just from being tired. I slept really well last night–even slept in later than I wanted or planned–and this morning I still feel a bit off…but much better than yesterday. I don”t feel quite the same way today–the little tickle is still there, but not as bad as yesterday–and I may have to stop and buy some teabags so I can just drink tea with honey and lemon all day. I’ve also been really dehydrated lately, so have been drinking Gatorade a lot.

I hate being sick, so here’s hoping it can be warded off.

Last night before I retired to bed early, I also managed to revive the next and final draft of Royal Street Reveillon. I work by chapters, which I know is probably weird to most other writers; they write usually in terms of pages, i.e. “I wrote ten pages today”. I don’t. I go by word counts and chapters; I always try to write a chapter every day, and in early draft form those are anywhere from 2200-3000 words; sometimes less, sometimes more. The Great Data Loss of 2018 took all the final chapter drafts of the manuscript as it was turned in, including the version where I pulled it all together and sent it in to Bold Strokes as one document. This, as you can imagine, was a disaster almost unimaginable; trying to recreate to copy edit and tweak a manuscript you no longer have the final version of is the worst nightmare any writer could have (at least in my opinion). However, the manuscript was in my “sent mail” file; so I was able to download that copy and last night I started breaking it down into chapters again for me to work on. I am also trying something different this time–I am going to work backwards. So I created new draft chapters for the last five chapters, and hopefully will be able to get to work on them this weekend as the end draws near.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Magic

Friday evening, with the weekend looming large and lonely, as Paul is gone and the Lost Apartment is really weirdly quiet without him. He’s not very big nor is he loud, but when he’s gone the apartment just seems enormous and empty.

Funny how that works.

But the Lost Apartment is an utter and complete mess, and I am going to try to focus and get a lot of cleaning done today. I am tired and drained from the work week–despite only working five hours yesterday and merely four today–and so I think mindless cleaning is in order to reset my mind and creativity. Tomorrow I need to run get the mail and return a library book–a short voyage that should over-all take less than an hour; I was thinking about getting the car washed tomorrow but it’s supposed to rain all day so there’s no point in bothering with that (and I am sure the rain means a return of the hideous cold weather; yay!) and so I am going to try to get some writing/editing done–even if said editing is simply rereading manuscripts and making notes.

I also think I need to rework the first five chapters of Bury Me in Satin. They are just so…bare, and I am thinking up new things as I write that need to be threaded back into the beginning. I love when the story starts to emerge from the fog, and I think, oh yes, this makes sense, but I need to go back and put this stuff into earlier chapters because I can’t just spring it on people.

So, the last load of bed linens now agitates in the washer, and the second-to-last is spinning in the dryer. I have another load of laundry to do–how I am creating so much laundry with Paul gone?–and I need to unload the dishwasher. Scooter also is feeling particularly lonely and needy this evening as well–he has been ever since Paul left. It’s really sweet–although I know I am a mere substitute–because he curls up inside my arm every night in bed, purring, and stays there most of the night. (He usually does this with Paul, but you know what? It’s still sweet. Scooter is an incredibly sweet cat.)

All right, I’m going to do the floors.

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Do That to Me One More Time

New Orleans bipolar weather has sadly struck again. And while it certainly hasn’t gotten as cold as it was a few weeks ago, when the sun is down it’s been in the forties only heating up to the high fifties and low sixties in the sunshine; but in the mornings it hasn’t warmed up enough yet as I sit at my computer, shivering in horror. But the coffee is definitely warming me up. I have a short day at work today and a short day tomorrow; I am hoping I can get most of the errands done on these two days so I can spend the weekend (other than a Christmas party on Saturday night) with my nose in my manuscripts.

Must. Get. Them. Done.

In other exciting news, the cover for Murder-a-Go-Go’s, an anthology edited by Holly West, has dropped this morning! You can view it here at BOLO Books. My story is called “This Town,” and is probably one of the most deliciously wicked tales I’ve ever written; probably deeply inspired by the work of the amazing Megan Abbott (read her books, if you haven’t; her Give Me Your Hand is making all the Best of 2018 lists).

Work on the book has slowed to an incredibly passive crawl; I did have a big burst Tuesday night, as I already mentioned, but yesterday was one of those can’t seem to get started days. When I got home from work last night I was both cold and tired; Scooter was incredibly needy, and for lack of anything better to do, I just got into bed and reread an old Barbara Michaels favorite until I got sleepy. I did sleep incredibly well last night, which was lovely, with Scooter curled up with me, purring non-stop. I hated getting out of bed this morning; after he got up and I fed him, he nagged me to come back to bed and finally gave up about twenty minutes ago. But I am being incredibly productive this morning since awakening; already finished folding a load of laundry and a second is in the dryer; once I finish this I will put the dishes away and do the ones in the sink.

Huzzah!

I am also hopeful that I’ll get the next chapter of Bury Me in Satin finished today. One can hope, can’t one?

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

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