Category: revising

How Will I Know

Well, somehow I managed to make it to Friday. This wasn’t a great week; sleep issues, mostly, but last night I finally slept well despite some truly strange dreams…which are fading away from me now. That’s fine, but they were seriously weird; I did wake up a few times during the night thinking okay, that was just weird. But as usual, now that I am awake and drinking my coffee, I don’t really remember any of them. I would have loved to stay in bed longer, but I have a meeting this morning at the office. It’s my short day, which is also incredibly lovely, and I am hoping to  have a nice relaxing weekend of catching up on things, including rest.

I managed to get “Fireflies” revised and ready for a read-aloud this weekend; that’s several stories I get to read aloud this weekend, including “Don’t Look Down” and “This Town”. Three stories to read aloud, even if “This Town” is just to check for extraneous words and trim it down a bit, if possible. I also started writing “This Thing of Darkness” yesterday, and it’s coming along swimmingly. I got about 1400 words or so done. I need to get back to the Scotty book this weekend as well; I am going to reread the entire thing before I get back to it, though. I also have to go to the post office as well as do that grocery store thing.

And of course, the apartment is a disaster area.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But I’m pretty jazzed about getting through this day and getting home to start the cleaning, and get to reading Lori Roy’s The Disappearing. She really is quite an extraordinary writer. If you aren’t reading her, you need to be. Seriously.

I am also going to discuss a short story today, which means we are back to the Short Story Project, and might even be able to get another one knocked out tomorrow.

Today’s is “e-Golem” by S. J. Rozan, from the September/October 2017 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine:

Bookstore dust was not the same as other dust. Loew had noticed this before, sweeping out the cluttered aisles of his used-book shop. It settled more gently, but at the same time seemed more weighty, each mote carrying both wisdom and whimsy, erudition and imagination. He shook his head. Loew, he told himself, this is why you’re doomed. WHy you’re barely eking out a living, selling forgotten things no one wants in a store you soon won’t be able to afford.

For most of his life, first working after school in his father’s shop in what was then the Jewish, later the Chinese, and lately the gentry’s Lower East Side, and on through the almost imperceptible transition when the shop became his, Loew had found pleasant this sense of gentle churning. Books no longer needed in one place lodged in the shop until they found a home in another, and customers came periodically to discover what treasures had rolled to the surface. This churning and discovering still went on, he understood, but less tenderly and on the Internet that soul-destroying virtual world where all was about price and little about love. People who bought rare books online did so speculatively, hoping their value would increase. How different from Loew’s customers, who held a book, fingered its pages, inspected its cover, to decide whether this book, this copy, was meant to be theirs. A customer who turned a book down was never a disappointment to Loew. It meant the two didn’t belong together. The customer would find his book, and the book would find its owner. Until it did it had a home here on Loew’s shelves.

S. J. Rozan is one of my favorite crime writers, bar none. This story, which is both clever and slightly sly at the same time, is an example of her work at its best. Loew discovers an old book of mysticism in his store, and half-heartedly tries to create a golem to go after his biggest enemy–Amazon. What happens next is why Rozan is one of the greats of our time in crime fiction; clever twists and turns that one never sees coming. But what really struck me the most about this story is how good she is at voice. Never once does she hit a false note in this story; every word is perfect and fits with the character’s voice. Were I ever to teach a class in crime writing, I’d use this story as an example of how to do voice perfectly.

And now back to the spice mines.

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I Miss You

Well, “Don’t Look Down” is now ready for the read-aloud phase. Huzzah! I am pretty darned excited about it, too. I think this most recent draft is actually not bad, to be honest–and I am pretty psyched to be so close to done with this collection. Huzzah! Perhaps it will happen this very weekend. Hope springs eternal.

The question is, does it need an author introduction? I don’t think it does, to be honest; and every time I’ve tried to write one I’ve either drawn a blank or written something that sounded so pompous it annoyed me.

I’m really uncomfortable talking up my accomplishments, because it feels like bragging, and every time I do, I hear a voice sneering in my head, really? I hate that; it always undermines my confidence and makes me doubt myself, which then leads to me not getting anything done or not putting myself forward for anything, and on and on and on it goes.

I also reread the fourth chapter of the most recent revision of the WIP, and it was embarrassingly bad. I literally cringed reading it–and this is not me being self-deprecating or not taking myself seriously. I mean, it’s bad. I’ve not gone back and reread the first three chapters, and I do realize that a lot of this has to do with switching from limited third person POV to first person POV–I am basically just going through and changing the POV, but as I was doing that in this chapter I was really struck by how bad so much of the actual writing was. It was kind of boring, and that’s death for a y/a.

I guess now I know why no agent responded to my queries. I was also right in worrying that it was too early to send it out. The problem is I need to learn how to discern between serious, honest concerns about my writing and the tendency to trivialize, minimize, and self-defeat myself.

Case in point: I was convinced Royal Street Reveillon was terrible. I reread some bits to revise, and realized, nope. it’s not terrible at all. It needs some polish and some work, but it’s pretty good.

I need some serious therapy.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Sentimental Street

It’s Saturday morning! Lots to do today; Chapter Fifteen, read “My Brother’s Keeper” aloud, work on “Don’t Look Down,” revise “Burning Crosses,”–the list goes on and on. It’s supposed to rain today as well; not sure if that’s going to actually be a thing today, but it does look sort of gloomy-esque outside my windows this morning.

And the Apartment is, of course, a complete and total mess.

I was thinking last night, as I started reading Megan Abbott’s extraordinary Give Me Your Hand, about my own writing (reading amazing writers always makes me contemplative) and putting into some perspective. Megan is one of our best writers, and the crime genre is very lucky to have her writing within our boundaries. Reading her work is always very humbling for me, whether it’s a novel or one of her jewels of a short story (hello, publishers! A Megan Abbott short story collection is way overdue! Get! On! It!), as I find myself wondering how does she think of putting these words together? Her sentences are never overly complicated and yet she manages to put them together in such a way as to create a very vivid and complex image, not to mention how she uses her sentence structure to create these characters that are so nuanced and real and complicated…she really is a master of the written word. I will dive back into her novel today, when I am finished with all of the things I must, I have to, do today; it’s always lovely when there’s a wonderful reward waiting for you at the end of tedious writing and editing and cleaning. (I also have ARC’s of Lori Roy’s The Disappearing and Alex Segura’s Blackout; I cannot wait to dive into those as well.)

And while I should be thinking, of course, about where the Scotty novel needs to go in Chapter Fifteen and going forward from there, I was thinking last night about short stories. I always abhorred writing short stories before, thought them incredibly difficult to write, and a discipline of writing that I was not particularly good at (I am also horrible at writing horror fiction, for example). I always believed that whenever I was actually successful at writing a short story, it was purely by accident; not anything conscious that I managed because I wasn’t good at the form. But in writing these reams of short stories this year, I am finding that not to be true; I am having to revise my thinking about so many things I once believed true about me as a writer. Yes, a short story might fail; everyone makes false starts. The Archer Files, with its final section of short story fragments that Ross Macdonald had started yet never finished, taught me that. My own files are filled with fragments of short stories that I began yet never finished; first drafts of stories I never finished because I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t convinced, that I knew how to fix and repair, how to edit and revise to make right. But that doesn’t mean I am a failure at writing short stories. It simply means those stories are ready to be finished; that I, for whatever reason, am simply not ready to finish them. And there’s nothing wrong with that, of course.

This is, and has always been, just another way my lack of self-confidence in my ability to write manifests itself.

I started writing another story last night, currently untitled; I’m not sure what its title will be but I do have a vague idea of what it’s about. There’s a great little place to eat in my neighborhood, in the same block as my gym, called simply Tacos and Beer; I am meeting someone in town for an early dinner there on Sunday. That, of course, got me thinking about that great simple name for the place, and what a wonderful opening that would make for a story; someone going there to meet someone for dinner and choosing that place because it’s simple, straightforward name pleases them so much. The story is still amorphous, of course. But perhaps I’ll be able to work on it today. I’m also thinking I might even get to work on Muscles  a little bit today.

Who knows? The day is fraught with possibilities still. I may wind up being lazy and not doing a fucking thing.

Here’s the raw opening of “Burning Crosses”:

“Population four thousand four hundred and thirty two,” Leon said as they passed the Welcome to Corinth sign. There were a couple of bullet holes in it, as there had been in every official green sign they’d passed since crossing into Corinth County. “I guess it’s not hard to imagine lynching here.”

“I can come back with someone else,” Chelsea Thorne replied. Her head ached. She needed coffee. Her Starbucks to go cup was long empty. “Can you check on your phone and see if there’s a Starbucks in town?”

Leon laughed. “I don’t have to look to know the answer is no,” he shook his head. “There’s not even five thousand people in this town, girl. There ain’t no Starbucks. I’ll bet there’s a McDonalds, though.”

“It’ll have to do.” The throbbing behind her temple was getting worse. It didn’t help they’d gotten lost trying to find this little town, the county seat of a county she’d never heard of, let alone knew where to find. It wasn’t even near a highway. They’d had to take a state highway out of Tuscaloosa and drive about an hour or so, depending on the roads and depending on traffic. It took longer to get out of Tuscaloosa than they’d planned, thanks to some road work and then another delay because of Alabama Power cutting down some tree limbs, but they’d finally gotten out of town when she was halfway through her latte. Leon had dozed off, snoring slightly with his head against the window as they got out of town on the state road, passing through fields of cotton and corn and orange-red dirt. The state road was stained orange on the edges, the white lines looking like her fingertips after eating a bag of Cheese Puffs. It was supposed to be an easy drive; she didn’t need to make any turns, just keep following the state road that would take them straight to Corinth. But a bridge over a stream was being worked on and there was a detour, taking them down an unpaved road with cotton fields on either side, barely room for her Cooper Mini, and God help them if they met a truck or something coming the other way. Ten minutes down that dirt road and her latte was gone, finished, nothing left. Then she’d turned the wrong way when she’d reached the other state road—but it wasn’t her fault. She’d thought the sign was wrong—how could a right turn take her back to Tuscaloosa? But then she’d figured there must have been more twists and turns on the back road than she’d thought, and turned left. She’d gone almost seven miles before she say the TUSCALOOSA 7 miles sign, and had to make a U-turn in someone’s driveway.

She knew it was wrong, she knew it was stereotyping, but she hated driving on country roads in rural parts of the South.

You can see how rough the story is in its initial stage; it definitely needs work. There are also things missing from it in this draft; things I need to add in to make it stronger, to add nuance, to make the sense of dread and discomfort the characters feel more clear; I want the reader to feel that same sense of unease.

And I do think writing all these short stories this year has been enormously helpful to me, not only as a short story writer but as a writer in general; short stories give you the opportunity to stretch and try things you can’t try in a novel; different themes and voices and styles.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Dress You Up

I started writing another book yesterday.

Please note I didn’t say worked on the book, but started writing another book. Yes, that’s right; I am working on a Scotty book (I did start writing Chapter Fifteen yesterday), have the WIP as well that I’ve not touched in a while, and am trying to whip the last two stories for my short story collection into shape–but I started writing another book yesterday.

I am clearly completely insane.

I’ve been toying with an idea for a noir novel for awhile, with a gay main character; kind of a Hard Case Crime-style novel with a gay male protagonist. I know who my main character was; I knew who the young, sexy young man and young woman who would be the focus of the cover were, and even had a slight, amorphous idea of the plot of the book; I even knew the opening scene of the book would take place in a deserted alley late at night behind the gym the main character owned; the gym was simply called Muscles, and that was also the name of the book. But as I finished polishing “My Brother’s Keeper” for it to be read aloud for its final polish, an idea kept nagging at me. And as I started writing Chapter Fifteen, it began taking shape in my mind. And I knew it was the opening of Muscles, which I’ve never known quite how to structure. It came to me yesterday while I was working on other things, so I decided–in my Greg is completely crazy way, that the smart thing to do was go ahead and write it down, before I forgot it–I’ve done that so many times–and so I started writing it. Next thing I knew I was a thousand words in, and I ran out of words–but I know where it needs to go from that opening, and I even know how chapter two is going to play out. I really have this wonderful idea for the continuation of the chapter that I really want to try to do–weaving back story in around action–which is going to be hard to pull off, but I am very excited to try it.

I can’t wait for this weekend to get here so I can seriously work on all of this stuff!

I’ve also had three more ideas for short stories pop up lately–all amorphous, all thoughts simply swirling around inside my head, without form, without fully formed characters, without a cohesive plot or story–but the titles are there: “Malevolence,” “Headshot”, and “One Night at Brandy’s Lounge.” It feels so good to be creative again, you have no idea, Constant Reader; last year was such a barren, fallow experience creatively that, while it’s frustrating in some ways to have so many ideas swirling around inside my head, making it hard for me to focus the way I need to on the stuff that needs to be focused upon, it’s also kind of a blessed relief to know my creativity is still there. It’s also weird, because I’d forgotten that it’s always like this when I am writing a book; my creative ADD kicks in and I am all over the place, and every time I have to re-discipline myself, keep it under control and focus it on the work at hand. I think this is also why I never like my novels very much and am never very satisfied with them; because the entire time i am working on them I want to be working on something else and it feels forced.

WHY DIDN’T I FIGURE THAT OUT THIRTY BOOKS AGO?

Sigh.

At least I’m still capable of learning, which is something.

So, in honor of me learning something, here’s the opening of the first Chanse MacLeod short story EVER, “My Brother’s Keeper”:

It had been twenty-five years but Cottonwood Wells still stank.

I’d forgotten about the smell from the oil refinery just outside of town, near the oil fields where my father had worked. It hung over the town like a shroud, poisonous and foul. When the wind blew from the north the stench was almost unbearable. The trailer park where we lived was on the side of town closest to it so there was no escaping it, but I never got used to it. I tolerated it, like so many other things I tolerated growing up in that town, but I was always aware of it.

There was a Best Western now at the exit from I-10, and a Days Inn across the street. I pulled into the Best Western parking lot because it was easier. I got my briefcase and rolling suitcase from the hatch of my Subaru Forrester. In the distance, on the other side of town, I could see the flaming stacks where they burned off excess gas at the refinery. What used to be fields just on the way into town from the highway was now the enormous parking lot of a sprawling Wal-Mart Super Center, a Lowe’s on the other side. Like everywhere else in America, Cottonwood Wells had fallen victim to the plastic commercialization of the chain stores. There was a Whataburger and a McDonalds on the other side of the highway, and gas stations. I could see the line of fast food signs on the way into town past the Wal-Mart: Burger King, Arbys, KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut. All we’d had when I was a kid was a Sonic Drive-in downtown on the main drag, and a McDonalds.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Fresh

Well, I managed to get that slog of Chapter Fourteen finished yesterday; only managed about twenty-seven hundred words, but as I mentioned in the morning, I was tired and slightly out of sorts all day. I also worked on “My Brother’s Keeper” a little bit; not enough to get it finished and ready for what I call the “read aloud polish”, in which I read the story out loud to make sure the language and sentences flow properly. It also helps me catch repetitions. But its getting closer to that stage, and I am most happy about that; perhaps I’ll be able to do the read-aloud this weekend. I’d also like to do a read aloud of another story–not “Don’t Look Down,” there’s a lot more work necessary on that story, pruning and tweezing and adding things; since it’s a longer story I need to know my main character a lot more, and I am still not sure I have the opening right.

I have also decided that I am going to try to write a story for the Malice Domestic anthology for 2019; it has a gastronomy theme. I love testing myself with themed anthologies; to see if I can write to the theme, stretch the theme, and stretch myself as a writer. I rarely, if ever, get into these anthologies, of course; but I enjoy the challenge of trying.

(Oh, sure, I get a little bitter when I don’t get accepted, but then I move on and get over it. Life’s too short, you know. Well, is IS.)

We were also terribly distressed to realize last night that we were caught up on The Terror; I hadn’t realized the show was still airing. Sigh. Now we have to find something else to watch, as another episode won’t be available until next week. Incredibly annoying, but there you have it. I do have some thoughts about it–some especially about the gay character of Cornelius Hickey, adroitly played by Adam Nagaitis, who may be stealing the entire series out from under the rest of the cast–but I am going to reserve those opinions until I finish watching the series. It does, however, speak to how compelling and good the show is that Paul and I were both enormously disappointed to realize we had to wait until next Wednesday for another episode; we were really looking forward to seeing it through until it’s inevitable end this week.

Adam Nagaitis:

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And here’s hoping Chapter Fifteen will not be the slog Chapter Fourteen was.

And now back to the spice mines.

 

All She Wants to Do is Dance

Hello, Wednesday, how are you this morning? I’m a little out of sorts this fine spring morning in New Orleans; my sleep has been restless this week and thus I am not as rested as I would prefer. The book has turned once again into a slog, but the best thing about the slog is–as I was slogging through Chapter Fourteen yesterday–I had one of those “only when I am writing a Scotty book” moments: when I get bored with what I’m writing so I toss in a plot twist out of nowhere. And it’s a good one too; I can’t believe it never crossed my mind to do this. It also makes sense with what else is going on. I do think this book is going to eventually turn out to be something pretty decent; it’s just getting this slog of a first draft finished. It’s going to be a lot more sloppy than the first drafts usually are; because I am not going back and polishing whenever I get stuck, I am simply forcing myself to keep going.

It also occurred to me yesterday that since it was May 1, I am officially further behind than I’d wanted to be. I wanted to have the first draft finished by now, and obviously, I am still slogging through the middle, with at least another eleven chapters to go. Zounds! Zoinks! Heavy sigh! I also need to finish revising/rewriting some short stories, and need to remember to buy and send a mother’s day card to my mother.

Must. Make. List. Must. CONSULT. List. Regularly.

There’s no point in having a list if you don’t look at it, after all, and avoiding consulting the list for fear its length, and the things still to be crossed off, is not an excuse. It’s simply enabling the procrastination.

So, despite being tired, I am determined to get Chapter Fourteen finished today, and I am going to go back and polish/revise “My Brother’s Keeper.” That is the goal for the day (well, that and paying bills since its payday; avoiding thinking about it because it’s depressing isn’t going to make it go away).

Sad, harsh truths.

What was really funny was yesterday I was looking through real estate listings for a part of New Orleans where one of my characters in the book lived; I’d found a house the day before whilst working on Chapter Thirteen and described it. But the website was still up yesterday, and I looked at it again, and the perfect house for this character was sitting right there, a couple of rows below the one I’d used; one of those ‘faux Tara’ type houses that pretentious nouveau riche southern people like to build and live in; with the wide veranda and, of course, the ever-present, stereotypical COLUMNS. But I wasn’t feeling particularly witty at the time, nor did I want to take the time to revise the entire section, so I simply put in a note in bold, revise this and make it a plantation style house and make lots of snarky Gone with the Wind jokes.

I do love when that happens.

We are also still watching The Terror, which is quite well done. I am always amazed when the credits roll because the episodes go by rather quickly, despite the fact that the story actually moves rather slowly. I did comment last night, after we had watched two episodes, that I couldn’t believe we were only five episodes in, because the show is so complex and layered yet seems so simple on the surface, that it seems we’ve been watching for a long time and should be closer to the end than we actually are. That’s some pretty masterful storytelling, I think. I think I’ll be terribly sorry when this is finished.

In other exciting news, I got an ARC of Megan Abbott’s forthcoming Give Me Your Hand in today’s mail, which has me thrilled to no end. I love her work; and she somehow manages to surpass herself with each successive novel, which is no easy trick. Now, to find the time to read it. I also have ARCs of Lori Roy’s new novel as well as Alex Segura’s, and I simply have got to find the time to read these books.

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I know I’ve not been keeping up with the Short Story Project, but I have read a shit ton of stories already this year! I’ll get back to it, I promise, but I also think I’m going to proceed a little differently than I have been. I’ve been talking about every story I’ve read here, and I don’t think I am going to do that from now on; instead, I am only going to talk about ones that hit it out of the park for me. That may also mean I don’t post about newly read stories every day, but I think I would rather do this than try to find something to say about stories I didn’t care for as much as others; this ends up diluting the Short Story Project, and not allowing me the time nor the opportunity to delve as deeply into the stories I really enjoy.

And now, back to the spice mines. I only managed two thousand words yesterday; and as I said, I am behind. So, must make daily word counts!

Fortress Around Your Heart

It’s Monday, and I didn’t get near what i wanted to get done over the course of the weekend; which is something I should simply refer to as Monday’s Lament from now on. I did get Chapter Twelve finished, and I got started on Chapter Thirteen; and I sort of know where the (meandering) story is going; and there are some things I am definitely going to need to go back and fill in later. And it’s Monday, of course; the start of a new week in which I can certainly hope to get a lot finished.

We watched a wonderful series from Australia this weekend on Netflix, called Deep Water. It’s a crime show, and it opens with the discovery of the body of a brutally murdered gay man. As the investigating officer starts digging into the case, she begins to suspect that this murder is somehow connected to some other murders–over twenty years earlier–of gay men in the same part of Australia. The more she digs, the more convinced she becomes, and she soon begins to suspect the accidental drowning of her older brother, on Christmas Eve, 1989, is yet another one of a string of murders, hate crimes, committed against gay men all those years ago. It’s extremely well-written, and powerfully acted; it also deals with sexism against women in the police department; the old boys’ network of the police; homophobia; cover-ups; and how much–and how little–society has changed in the past twenty-five years.

We also watched the second episode of Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale. I had wondered if the second season of this show would be near as bleak, depressing, and heartbreaking as the first, and so far the show continues to deliver. This particular episode, in addition to dealing with Offred’s situation, also brought back Alexis Bledel’s character, off at the brutal world of the Colonies, where the unwomen are sent. If you will recall from the first season, Alexis Bledel played the lesbian Ofglen/Emily; she was originally punished and then committed another crime, resulting in her being sent to the Colonies. This episode, while focusing on Offred/June as always, shows the Colonies and what her life is like there, while she remembers how the downfall of democracy and the rise of religious fascism and its impact on her as a married lesbian with a child. I love how The Handmaid’s Tale is not afraid to go there, quite frankly; and its message is quite plain: women and queers have common cause against the patriarchy.

Coupled with Deep Water, watching this episode put me into a deep, contemplative place. I haven’t really quite formed the thoughts yet, but there are some nascent ideas and thoughts forming in my head. I read a piece this weekend about Mort Crowley, The Boys in the Band revival on Broadway, and the disappearance of gay culture. I also have had come conversations with younger gay men over the course of the past two weeks. Paul and I were also listening to some gay dance remixes from our partying days of going to clubs and dancing the night away last night before bed, and we recalled those times with a bit of sadness; I do miss the fun we used to have, but do I want the full-on oppression that came with it?

It wasn’t that long ago, as Deep Water showed, that we were seen as disposable, human garbage on the fringes of society and no one cared if we were assaulted, murdered, disappeared. (There’s a serial killing investigation going on in Toronto right now that has been glossed over, ignored, despite all evidence to the contrary, for years: Toronto.) One of the reasons I originally wrote Murder in the Rue Dauphine  was precisely for this reason: who cared if some gay man was murdered? I think about the story line for that book from time to time, and often shake my head, thinking, “oh, that book could never be written today; it wouldn’t hold up, no one would believe that a closeted man would or could be blackmailed today.” And yet there is a story line in my current book along those same lines, that i struggle with; is this realistic in this day and time? Is this a secret someone would be willing to protect today? On the other hand, we do still see outings; there was a recent scandal in Metairie where the parish president was outed for pursuing a teenaged boy who worked at Lakeside mall. So, it’s not completely out of the question for a crime storyline anymore.

And this also makes me reflect, again, on ambition, and my tendency to self-defeat myself; my fear of failure, and how I built my career in such a way as to guarantee that I would never become hugely successful; writing gay characters and gay themes in crime fiction essentially guaranteed, almost from the first, that i would never be a New York Times bestseller or would win an Edgar Award or get reviewed in major newspapers; I could be published, but as a gay writer of gay stories, the expectations were low; no one would expect me to sell hundreds of thousands of copies in my little niche within a niche within a niche market. Did I subconsciously set out to sabotage my own career from the very start, setting myself up for low expectations from the start? I’d always intended–and it is there, in my journals–to eventually move to writing mainstream fiction; mainstream crime fiction. And yet, in all these years, of writing millions of words and creating hundreds of characters and telling all these stories, I’ve only recently (in terms of the years of my career) begun to try to write something more mainstream. It would take very little work to make that book appealing to my current publisher; it’s always there in the back of my head as I struggle with it and try to place my finger on what’s wrong with it and why no agent seems to want it–and then I remember that I’ve actually only sent tentative queries to a handful of agents, and am I giving up on it too soon? The amount of time I’ve actually spent on this piece of work isn’t that long in the overall scheme of things; I’ve worked on it around other things I’ve had under contract.

The entire point of last year was to work on it, get it finished and polished and ready for submission, and yet I allowed myself to waste most of the year in feeling sorry for myself and paralyzed and unable to write anything; was this simply another way of defeating myself, of fearing to fail and therefore not even trying?

You cannot succeed unless you aren’t afraid to fail.

Failure is the best way to learn.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Private Dancer

Jessica Knoll, whose debut novel Luckiest Girl Alive I absolutely loved, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times recently in which she unabashedly talked about her ambition, how she wanted to not only be a writer but to be a successful one; that she wanted to make as much money as she possibly could from her writing. Called “I Want to Be Rich and I’m Not Sorry” (you can read it here), I thought it was terrific. I thought it was lovely to hear a writer talk about how much they wanted or desired success in their chosen field; I also thought it was interesting to read about how she had always been underestimated because she was a woman; that somehow success isn’t expected for women; and that women are often not only talked out of ambition but derided, mocked, and shamed for having it. It was kind of refreshing, honestly; I also loved reading an author talking, unashamed, about wanting to be successful and make money at writing–as much money as possible.

The comments on the piece were mostly, not surprisingly, negative; everything she talked about in the essay were right there in the comments, posted without any sense of irony by the posters: I’m also a woman writer but I’m looking for books to read that have something to say. I won’t be reading yours.

Oh, the pearl-clutching.

It’s been a while since I read Luckiest Girl Alive, but I do remember it having a lot to say; about class, about success, about being a woman, about dealing with public shame and then trying to insulate yourself from pain and suffering by marrying a successful man and shielding yourself behind his money. The book carried two time-lines: the present day, where the main character was planning her wedding to a wealthy man while filming a documentary about what happened to her back in high school, flashing back to her high school experience and everything that led up to the subject of the documentary. I thought it was rather well done.

I’ve never understood this mentality that writers shouldn’t want to make money from their work; that somehow wanting to be financially successful somehow lessens what we do, somehow makes our work somehow less important; that we shouldn’t, somehow, want to make a living writing. I guess we’re all supposed to hold down full time jobs and treat it as a hobby, carving out some spare time here and there to pursue making art simply for the joy of doing so. I spoke the other day about how my primary sense of self, my primary identity, is author, and I wouldn’t quite know what to do with myself if I wasn’t able to write, if I wasn’t able to publish, if I wasn’t able to keep my writing career going. I do know how awful last year was when I wasn’t really writing, when I wasn’t able to commit to anything, when I stayed away from the computer and the open word documents and kept the word files closed; it fucked with my mind, it fucked with my self-confidence (always shaky, at best) and it was horribly unpleasant. This year I am writing again, and back to berating myself for not spending every spare moment working on something; I’ve written a ridiculous amount this year and yet at the same time, I’m not all that much closer to finishing the Scotty novel or the draft of the WIP as I should be. I find myself being easily distracted by writing short stories, with ideas for new ones popping into my head all the time–thank God for my journal, and thank God for remembering that was a key component of my writing for years, jotting down notes and ideas and thoughts before they slipped away inside my mind–and even now, this morning, I should be working on either Chapter Twelve of Royal Street Reveillon or the WIP, and am doing neither; have already thought about simply cleaning and reading more short stories, avoiding the work that needs to be done, despite knowing that actually doing it will make me happy and feel satisfied.

I am frequently my own worst enemy.

So, bearing that in mind, and bearing in mind Jessica Knoll’s op-ed, I am going to embrace my ambition. I am going to do whatever it is I need to do to become more successful, to reach for every brass ring that I can.

The only thing stopping me is, after all, me.

And bearing that in mind, I shall now bring this to a close.

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Who’s Zoomin’ Who

And Chapter Twelve of Royal Street Reveillon is coming along nicely. The draft isn’t terrific–there are holes in the plot that will need to be plugged, and scenes missing, etc.–but it’s moving along. I am actually thinking this could wind up being twenty-five chapters long, making it one of the longest Scottys ever.

Then again, it’s been a while since there’s been a Scotty, hasn’t it?

Paul’s birthday is this weekend, too–it’s actually tomorrow–so that will probably interfere with my plans to get a lot of work done this weekend, but that’s fine. I would prefer to get back on schedule with both the book and the short story collection–and I have another short story to write, as well, for an anthology I’ve been asked to submit to–and of course, as always on Friday morning, the house is an utter disaster area. How does this happen every week? I try to keep up with it, I really do, and yet here I sit this morning in a disaster area, with files and paper and mail piled up everywhere I can see, the sink full of dirty dishes, and a load of laundry needing to be folded. Heavy heaving sigh.

But today is my short day at work, so i can get some of this done before I head in to the office, and hopefully I’ll be able to get some of the cleaning done tonight after work so I can focus on the writing/editing I need to do this weekend.

One can dream, I suppose.

I read two short stories for the Short Story Project as well.

First up is “Sleeping Dog” by Ross Macdonald, from The Archer Files:

The day after her dog disappeared, Fay Hooper called me early. Her normal voice was like waltzing violins, but this morning the violins were out of tune. She sounded as though she’d been crying.

“Otto’s gone.” Otto was her one-year-old German Shepherd. “He jumped the fence yesterday afternoon and ran away. Or else he was kidnapped–dognapped, I suppose is the right word to use.”

“What makes you think that?”

I am very sad to report that with “Sleeping Dog” I finished The Archer Files; the only things left in the book are short story fragments, which I may read, just for the hell of it and to see how those fragments might have been incorporated into other stories or novels of MacDonald’s; God knows I’ve done this any number of times myself. (The most recent example of this is my story “The Silky Veils of Ardor,” which is the story I recently revised from editorial notes and sent in earlier this week. It started as a story called “Death and the Handmaidens,” which no one would publish. I liked the story structure–in which a woman comes to a gathering of people she usually doesn’t see; in the original story it was a writer’s conference hotel bar. However, I took that character and that setting and turned it into a 25 year high school reunion weekend, rather than a writer’s conference, and even used the hotel bar setting. It worked, I have to say, much better in the newer version. I am, however, going to use the title “Death and the Handmaidens”, and the basic premise behind the original story to revise it yet again. I am far too stubborn to ever let something go, as we all know.) “Sleeping Dog” breaks the cardinal rule of crime fiction: never kill a dog or a cat. But the missing dog is the thread that leads to the solving of an old murder, and the disappearance of the dog also sets into motion events that lead to yet another murder in the present day. Terrific story, dead dog aside, and I am rather sad to say goodbye to The Archer Files.

Next up was “Wall Street Rodeo” by Angela Zeman, from the MWA anthology Manhattan Mayhem, edited by Mary Higgins Clark.

“Mr. Emil Bauer, I’d hope to see here. Especially today.”

I had rubbed against a hunchback this noon. Accidentally, of course. I’d never be so crass as to touch the poor fellow on purpose. Besides, everyone knows the luck comes from an accidental touch. Thus, you understand my excitement. Then I positively tripped over little James here, who dropped his five-dollar bill right in my path! Don’t tell ME that’s not luck! So, I hustled him and his cash right here. To Emil’s spot. “Please meet my friend, newly minted, you might say, heh, in this neightborhood.” I flourished my hand toward the child. “Mr. James Conner.”

Emil glanced fuzzily at the boy. “How old is it?”

This is a fine story, about a long ago crime and a hidden cache of stolen money, and it takes a roundabout way to get to the point, but it’s kind of clever in how it dodges and feints and fools the reader. It’s not one of the stronger stories in Manhattan Mayhem, but in fairness, some of these stories are so fantastic it would be hard to compete with them.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Jungle Love

Well, I finally got those story edits done yesterday, and it wasn’t that hard to do. I don’t know why I was resisting looking them over, reading the notes, and looking at the story; and frankly, the story is stronger for them. I now await whether or not there will be further notes–if I did a good enough job correcting things for the editor–and I feel as though a millstone has been lifted from around my neck. I honestly don’t understand myself sometimes. This wasn’t a big deal, and yet I avoided it for at least three weeks, not only letting it hang over my head like the sword of Damocles but it was always there, in the back of my mind as I worked on other things, nagging at me from the darkened recesses of my brain, worrying me the way I’d worry a loose tooth with my tongue.

And getting it done? Such an enormous relief.

And of course, once I conquered that beast, I went back to that pesky chapter and yep, sure enough, I was able to start whipping it into shape and what’s more, it was relatively easy. I guess I’d had so much trouble getting the damned thing done in the first place–and yes, for the record, it wasn’t the mess I thought it was–that I thought fixing it would be nearly as painful as writing it was. Nope, it wasn’t. Sigh. And now I know I can get back on track and on schedule. HUZZAH!

Seriously. This is why writers drink.

So I, for one, am really looking forward to this weekend and getting a lot of things done. Hurray!

I also read two more Ross MacDonald stories, from The Archer Files.

First was “The Angry Man”

I thought at first sheer terror was his trouble. He shut the door of my office behind him and stood against it, panting like a dog. He was a gaunt man in blue jeans, almost black with sweat and dirt. Short rust-colored hair grew like stubble on his hatless scalp. His face was still young, but it had been furrowed by pain and clawed by anger.

“They’re after me. I need help.” The words came from deep in his laboring chest. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“A sort of one. Sit down and take a little time to get your breath. You shouldn’t have run up those stairs.”

Next was “Midnight Blue” :

It had rained in the canyon during the night. The world had the colored freshness of a butterfly just emerged from the chrysalis stage and trembling in the sun. Actual  butterflies danced in flight across free spaces of air or played a game of tag without any rules among the tree branches. At this height there were giant pines among the eucalyptus trees.

I parked my car where I usually parked it, in the shadow of the stone building just inside the gates of the old estate. Just inside the posts, that is–the gates had long since fallen from their rusted hinges. The owner of the country house had died in Europe, and the place had stood empty since the war. It was one reason I came here on the occasional Sunday when I wanted to get away from the Hollywood rat race. Nobody lived within two miles.

Until now, anyway. The window of the gatehouse overlooking the drive had broken the last time that I’d noticed it. Now it was patched up with a piece of cardboard. Through a hole punched in the center of the cardboard, bright emptiness watched me–human eye’s bright emptiness.

“Hello,” I said.

The stories are pretty good; I’m glad I took a break from reading the MacDonald stories because the style and voice were starting to grate on me. Don’t get me wrong; I think MacDonald–despite the occasional casual racism and misogyny–is one of crime’s best stylists, and I love Archer’s voice. But reading story after story consecutively was starting to grate a bit, particularly since some were clearly better than others. Both of these are gems; both of them wind up twisting and turning far away from their simple, casual beginnings.

I also have to say that reading the MacDonald stories, as well as Sue Grafton’s Kinsey and Me collection, along with Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan short stories in Hardly Knew Her have not only inspired me but kind of taught me how to write a private eye short story. We’ll see how my Chanse stories turn out, I suppose…but at least now I am willing to try writing them, whereas last year I never would have dared try.

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