Category: revising

Don’t Stand So Close to Me

SATURDAY! I’ve already been to the gym–I did not want to wake up this morning and head over there, but like a good boy I did–and now am getting ready to clean the kitchen, make my post workout protein shake, and make a grocery list. I have the galleys of a pseudonymous novel to finish going over today, and I also want to get some more revisions done on the WIP. I have big plans for today, obviously, but we’ll see how it all turns out. I’m almost caught up on American Gods (one more episode to go and I’ll be current), and we also started watching 11/22/63 on Netflix this week–it auto-started after we finished this week’s episode of The Handmaid’s Tale–and we’re enjoying it. It’s very strange to watch something based on a Stephen King novel which I haven’t read; it’s one of the few I’ve not read (including the last three volumes of The Dark Tower, Black House, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Doctor Sleep, Bronco Billy, and End of Watch) and wasn’t, honestly, feeling all that inspired to read it–I wasn’t all that inspired to watch it, either; the whole Kennedy thing doesn’t really interest me anymore–but we are really caught up in the show, which makes me tend to think the book (which is almost always better than visual adaptations) is probably fantastic; it’s just so damned long. Paul and I have been talking about taking a long weekend and going back to a tennis resort like we did a couple of years ago; if we do that, I’ll probably take 11/22/63 with me to read.

I haven’t had the time to really get further in Ill Will, which is also something I hope to get further along with this weekend. The writing is exceptionally good, and I love the entire premise of the book, too. I’ve not read Chaon’s Await Your Reply, but I do have a copy of it as well. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Chaon; Ill Will is certainly bearing those good things out. And isn’t lovely to find a new writer you enjoy?

Yes, it is. Always.

I’ve also been rereading Mary Stewart’s Airs Above the Ground this week, which is one of my favorite books of all time–Mary Stewart was simply brilliant. I love the premise behind the opening of this novel, just as I loved the premise of The Ivy Tree, and so many other of her books; I’d love to recycle those premises as an homage to her at some point; who knows? Every time, though, I reread a Mary Stewart novel I remember my friend Sara come up to me at a Bouchercon and telling me someone had said on a panel she was watching that “Mary Stewart’s heroines were just too passive for his/her tastes.” I was as appalled as Sara; Mary Stewart’s heroines were not passive; they had agency, didn’t need to be rescued,  and went sailing forth happily into adventures. Airs Above the Ground’s Vanessa March was one of those amazing heroines; and the premise–someone saw her husband on a newsreel somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, and so naturally she heads off to find out what he’s doing, all the while suspecting he is having an affair. God, how I would love to use that same style of opening…but the premise of The Ivy Tree is even better; a young woman is hired to impersonate another young woman–missing for years–in order to manipulate a dying man into making sure his will leaves his estate to the people who hired her. So fucking brilliant, really.

And now, it’s probably best for me to return to the spice mines. Them galleys ain’t going to proof themselves.

Here’s a Saturday hunk for you:

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Saving Myself

Very tired this morning, after being out late bar testing last night. Hanging on by my fingernails until this weekend, I’m afraid. Definitely more coffee is in order this morning before I can function. I’m also trying to decide if I want to take lunch or if I want to get a gyro from Mona’s. Right now I am feeling so incredibly unmotivated I don’t even think I have the energy to shower and pick out clothes to wear to the office, quite frankly. It’s not even that I didn’t sleep well–I did. I am just physically worn out, which means I really need to focus on getting back into better shape than I currently am in. Seems like I’ve been saying that since January, doesn’t it? And it’s not like I’ve been so motivated to get a lot where I need to be with my writing. ENOUGH! I must get back on schedule with the revision.

And that’s the name of THAT tune.

I’m still reading and enjoying Dan Chaon’s Ill Will, although I’m still not very far into it. I want to finish reading that this weekend; I think after I finish him I’m either going to read either something from Lisa Unger, or maybe something horror; I’m not entirely sure. I did notice yesterday that I’ve been reading a lot of men lately; which is unusual for me. I generally tend to read more women–not to disparage male writers, of course, there are a lot of them I enjoy (Bracken MacLeod, Christopher Golden, Owen Laukkanen, Chris Holm, Michael Koryta, etc etc etc; it’s just there’s so little time and so MANY books!) But Project Purge continues apace; I have another bag full of books that need to go out for donation, and I am very pleased about that. I am taking a four day weekend for 4th of July, and am hoping to be able to get over to the storage unit on that Monday to start making inroads on THAT mess (if they’re open; I shall be highly annoyed if they are not, but that Wednesday is also a bar testing night, so I won’t have to be at work until later in the afternoon so in a worst case scenario I can get over there on that Wednesday morning). I do need to get in there because I have no copies of Bourbon Street Blues, Jackson Square Jazz, and Mardi Gras Mambo available here in the house; but have cases of them in there. I also fear they are in the back; but there are also boxes of books in there that can be donated. It’s definitely going to be a more than one-day purge, I fear.

Heavy heaving sigh. But hey–you don’t become a hoarder over night, you know. And if I can get that mess cleaned out, I can clean out the storage attic over the laundry room, which would be freaking awesome.

A boy can dream.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines. Here’s your Throwback Thursday hunk, Matt Lattanzi, who was in Rich and Famous and later married Olivia Newton-John.

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The Sunshine After The Rain

It’s actually sunny this morning in New Orleans; mayhap we can get through the day without any rain; although I am not counting on it, of course. I have a late night tonight–bar testing–and as such don’t have to go into the office until later. I am going to get some things done this morning, run to the post office and get groceries, and try to get some revising done before I head to work later this afternoon. I’ve been awake for a little over an hour now and am still shaking off the lethargy; it’s very defeating to get up and have little energy or motivation. I think the energy is there, but the brain fog is the problem.

I think tonight I might try something different when it comes to sleeping.

Anyway.

The kitchen is also a  mess this morning, so I need to empty the dishwasher and refill it. This weekend I need to definitely spend a day cleaning the downstairs and try not to get distracted from doing it (the way I have been the last month or so). I am still reading Dan Chaon’s Ill Will and deeply enjoying it–the writing is so sublime–and it’s triggering (as really well written books always do) some ideas for a book I’ve wanted to write for about thirty years now; I am making notes, just having some trouble coming up with the basic premise for the book–how do I get my main character where he needs to be for the summer? (Of course, the last thing I need is another book idea nagging at me while I am trying to get this one revised and I know I have another to write immediately after–and June is slipping through my fingers. I seriously need to buckle down and get this revision done, so I can move on to the next so I can stay on schedule.) Sigh. All I do is whine, whine, whine. So tiresome.

And on that note, I should probably get moving. I am going to the grocery store today so I need to make a list (already started) as well as go through the fridge to make sure everything in there is organized and whatever needs to be tossed has been tossed. I really hate going to the grocery store, but it’s simply got to be done this morning. (I’ll have to go again on Saturday, which is enormously frustrating, but there you go. I also have two late nights next week, so I’ll wait until then to make the Costco run.)

Life as a famous author is rather thrilling, isn’t it?

Here’s today’s hunk:

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(I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long

Saturday morning. After my morning coffee,  I’m going to run some errands, and then I am going to figure out what time to drive out to Elmwood to see Wonder Woman–shooting for late afternoon/early evening; that way I can get some cleaning and revising done. I’ve not done much revising this week–which is shameful (there is some harsh and ugly truths there about the need for actual contractual deadlines, isn’t there?), and so my goal is to get back on track with all of that for this weekend. I want to get another three or four chapters revised, as well as the second draft of “Quiet Desperation” finished this weekend, so I can move on to revising another short story. I’ve also started a new draft of the eighth Scotty novel, Crescent City Charade, which I am hoping to get finished by the end of the summer (Labor Day is the goal). I absolutely HAVE to get these revisions finished by the end of June, because I want to spend the summer querying agents. I honestly believe this WIP is my best work, and could be an important book.

Whether that proves to be the case or not remains to be seen, of course, but here’s hoping.

The Lost Apartment is a mess, and has been for quite some time. I can’t remember the last time I did the floors, quite frankly, and it’s getting kind of ugly down there, honestly. I mean, our kitchen floor needs to be redone–tiles have come up–which kind of makes it hard to make it look nice anyway, but that’s no excuse for not cleaning, you know? My mother would be so ashamed.

So ashamed.

So, I am going to, as soon as I finish this cup of coffee, start straightening and cleaning up down here. It looks like it’s going to rain all weekend, so I am not going to bother with the windows (which are also long overdue for a cleaning; although I could do the inside. Hmmmm, that could be a plan, actually) and definitely work on these floors. There’s some filing to do–isn’t there always–and some other organizing I need to do, but if I buckle down and stay focused (and make a fucking list) I should be able to get through everything before it’s time to go see Wonder Woman.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the movie. Wonder Woman was always one of my favorite comic book superheroes (although when I started reading DC Comics, she’d given up her powers somehow and was running a clothing boutique and dealing with social issues and was a modern feminist; in retrospect, it was one of the stupidest reboots in DC’s long history of rebooting their characters); I loved the historic Amazon character, and the rebooted non-powered Wonder Woman/Diana Prince character was more of a detective, solving crimes and trained in martial arts. Around the time the television series starring Lynda Carter started, the DC rebooted her again and made her an Amazon princess with her powers again. And the TV show was amazing. Rewatching it now shows it up for its low-budget special effects and bad writing, but Lynda Carter embodied the part so beautifully that she became iconic–and I’ve been a lifelong fan of Ms. Carter. Paul and I stopped watching Supergirl during its first season, before Lynda Carter joined the cast as the president, so I’m sure at some point I’ll go back and binge the series. (I’ve also always been a fan of Supergirl–who also went through an incredibly stupid reboot in the 1970’s; complete with new costumes and a loss of some of her powers–sometimes she had them, sometimes she didn’t; they came and went because of some kind of Kryptonite poisoned drink she was tricked into imbibing; then was killed off during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then was brought back as something completely different after Superman was killed off in the early 1990’s. It’s really hard to keep track of all these shifts and changes in DC continuity/universes.)

Interestingly enough, now as I reflect on my fandom of both Wonder Woman and Supergirl, I realize how I’ve always been drawn to fictional depictions of strong women–from Nancy Drew to Trixie Belden to the Dana Girls to Cherry Ames to Vicki Barr to Wonder Woman to Supergirl to Lois Lane (who used to have her own comic book, detailing her adventures as an investigative reporter, which I also loved), to real life women who defied the traditional role of women in our society, like Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. I’ve certainly always enjoyed reading fiction by and about women; from Charlotte Armstrong to Phyllis Whitney to Victoria Holt to Mary Stewart to Judith Krantz and so on and so forth. Do people still read Rona Jaffe? She was another favorite of mine from the 1970’s. Taylor Caldwell, Evelyn Anthony, Jean Plaidy, Helen MacInnes, Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson–I’ve always read and enjoyed books written by women. (This is not to say I don’t enjoy books by men; I always have, but at the same time there is a certain style of testosterone driven male novel, complete with angst, that I simply cannot abide, and the crime genre is riddled with them. I recently joked that I wanted to write a noir set in the strip clubs in the Quarter and call it Girls Girls Girls…you get the idea.)

And there are so many wonderful women writers publishing today: Sara Paretsky, Laura Lippman, Sue Grafton, Megan Abbott, Alison Gaylin, Alafair Burke, Alex Marwood, Lisa Unger, Jamie Mason, Wendy Corsi Staub, J. M. Redmann, Kristi Belcamino, Carrie Smith, Sara Henry, Ellen Hart, Donna Andrews, Dana Cameron, Toni Kelner (Leigh Perry), Carolyn Haines, Catriona McPherson, Lori Rader-Day, and Rebecca Chance–just off the top of my head; my TBR pile is filled with books by women, and there are so many wonderful women writers I’ve not gotten to yet, like Lisa Lutz and Shannon Baker and Jennifer MacMahon and Karin Slaughter–the list goes on and on forever and ever, amen. And this is just crime fiction/thrillers…I’ve not even touched on horror or scifi or fantasy or so-called ‘chick-lit.’ (Which reminds me, I really want to read some more Liane Moriarty, and I’ve not read any Jennifer Weiner…sigh.)

There’s just never enough time….and speaking of which, it’s time for me to head back into the spice mines.

Here’s a Saturday hunk for you:

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Holding Out for a Hero

I finished reading The Sympathizer last night, and really enjoyed it. Calling it a crime novel is a bit of a stretch, but an argument can be made for it, and I can see either side of the argument, frankly. As I said before, it was interesting to read about the Vietnam War from the perspective of an actual Vietnamese-American, and I feel like Viet Thanh Nguyen did a really excellent job of showing how one could become a Communist back in the days when the small country was torn to shreds by war; and wind up playing a double–sometimes triple–game. I have Nguyen’s short story collection The Refugees; I am looking forward to reading some of his short fiction. And I have landed on James M. Cain’s The Cocktail Waitress as my next read. I am rather excited about it, as I love Cain.

I was in a mood yesterday; not really sure what triggered it, but am more than willing to blame it on heavy weather. It’s pretty much been raining every day and night this week; today I can see sunshine outside my windows through the condensation, and as such the humidity has been unbearable and that does affect me, even when I take a Claritin, as I did yesterday. I got home last night and we watched this week’s episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, which gets more and more viscerally disturbing from week to week. It’s very hard to watch–I can’t imagine how women watch it, frankly–and sometimes so much so that I pick up my phone and scroll through Twitter and Facebook until I can look at the television again. I’ve not read a lot of dystopian fiction, nor seen a lot of dystopian films (I’ve never read nor watched The Hunger Games, or any of the really popular young adult dystopian novels, outside of Chuck Wendig’s Under the Empyrean Sky, and I never read the other two books in that trilogy), pretty much limiting myself to Stephen King’s The Stand, and the Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome film (I’ve not watched any of the other Mad Max movies), and Harlan Ellison’s story “A Boy and His Dog”, along with the film. I’ve had, over the years, ideas for dystopian fiction novels of my own–I am often influenced by books, movies, and television programs that I enjoy; so after watching Thunderdome and reading “A Boy and His Dog” in a short period of time, my mind naturally moved to an idea for a book/story about a dystopian future where a young woman is competing in a cross country car race, across the blighted wreckage of the Great Plains (which sounds kind of Hunger Games-ish, doesn’t it?), which I called “Fox on the Run”–the drivers are called ‘foxes’ and the people trying to catch and wreck them, take them out of the race, are called “hounds”–which I’ve toyed with over the years but never did anything with. In the early 1990’s, I came up with another dystopian idea, in which fundamentalists have taken over the US government, the country had splintered into pieces, some of them at war with each other, and how the fundamentalists have started rounding up ‘indesirables’–gays, lesbians, transgender, mixed race, etc.–and putting them in ‘work camps,’ but there’s an ‘underground railroad’ of sorts to help the undesirables get out. That one was called There Comes a Tide, which was a direct result of the horror of the AIDS epidemic and the callous federal response to it. When hysterics–and this was actually happening, for those of you who don’t remember or weren’t there–were calling for quarantining gay men (and just how and when and where? Yup, concentration camps), it wasn’t hard to imagine that such a thing could actually happen. (That time was so scary, and so incredibly frustrating.) I also have yet another idea, one I’ve actually started writing, but haven’t gotten far with, and over time I’ve come to realize there’s a way to link all these stories together into a trilogy…but not sure I am the right person to write such a trilogy.

But it’s something I think about, from time to time–usually when I am trying not to work on whatever I am currently working on, which is when I usually get my best ideas for other projects, natch. Isn’t that always the way? So, of course, as I work on the revisions, all I can think about is the next Scotty book–and once I actually start writing THAT, I’ll start thinking about something else. I would love to get Crescent City Charade finished by the end of the summer, so I could go on to write Muscles this fall…but we’ll see how everything shakes out.

I’m absolutely delighted that today is Friday, of course. I am hoping to get to see Wonder Woman this weekend; if Paul doesn’t want to go I may just go by myself. On the other hand, maybe I should use that as a reward: if I get as far as I would like to in my revisions, I can go see Wonder Woman.

Hmmm.

Okay, back to the spice mines.

Here’s a Friday hunk to get your weekend started:

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All I Need

I had a lovely, relaxing day yesterday of reading and cleaning, capped up with watching three more episodes of Sherlock; tonight we will finish that off and hopefully, there will be a new Veep to watch, else we’ll have to find something else. I am greatly enjoying The Sympathizer, am almost halfway finished with it so probably will get it finished today, which will then beg the question of what to read next. I’m leaning towards James M. Cain’s The Cocktail Waitress…but there are any number of other books in the running as well. The riches contained within  my TBR pile are simply mind-boggling; and it’s continuing to grow exponentially. Heavy heaving sigh. I also want to start doing some re-organizing of the storage attic today; that, along with some work on the WIP as well as some more cleaning around the Lost Apartment will probably account for most of my day. Paul will undoubtedly watch some of the French Open, and around mid-afternoon I will cook out for our late lunch/early dinner.

Another exciting day in New Orleans.

It feels really good to be so well-rested; and tomorrow is a late night at work for more–bar testing, so I don’t even have to go in until later, pretty much freeing up my entire day to get some more cleaning and organizing and writing done before I head to the office. I rather do think that three day weekends are much better than regular ones; the extra day off is really lovely. I wish there was a way I could rearrange my schedule to work four ten hour days and take a three day weekend every weekend….but that’s just not possible, alas. It would be lovely, though, wouldn’t it?

At least this will be a short work week.

The Sympathizer is, while a bit hard to get into at first, quite compelling. The first book to win both an Edgar (Best First Novel) and the Pulitzer Prize, it’s also the first time I’ve read about Vietnam from the perspective of a Vietnamese–which is certainly rather American of me, isn’t it? Everything I’ve read about Vietnam has been from the perspective of Westerners–from Graham Greene’s The Quiet American through Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War; and certainly the Western/white gaze has been pretty aptly explored on film and television (I should rewatch China Beach again); but this view, from a character who is not only Vietnamese, but a Viet Cong undercover operative implanted in the staff of a South Vietnamese general–to the point of also evacuating and spying on the refugee community in Southern California–is quite interesting. (I also have a copy of Vu Tran’s Dragonfish, which I am looking forward to reading.) I had an idea for a noir centered around a young man of Vietnamese/American mixed heritage, set in a small town on either the Gulf Coast of Alabama or Florida–writing this would require a LOT of research, obviously–but I think it could be interesting, and certainly would be fun to write.

But I need to get this revision done by the end of June, so I can spend the rest of the summer writing the next Scotty book.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, back to the spice mines.

Here’s a Memorial Day hunk for you.

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One Less Bell to Answer

Last night was the best night of sleep I’ve had in at least a week; I slept for nearly ten hours, uninterrupted and deeply. This morning I do not feel groggy or like I need to go back to sleep at any time soon; which is an absolutely lovely feeling. I was very tired yesterday–the gym, errands in the heat, a week of feeling groggy and unrested–and also in the mail yesterday I received a bottle of pillow spray from a company called ThisWorks: a pillow spray that the posher airlines pass out to their first class cabin travelers to help them sleep. I sprayed my pillow lightly with it last night before i took to my bed, and along with my usual sleep assistants I slumbered deeply and well. Today, I feel like I can conquer the world, which is a wonderful feeling I’ve not had in a very long time.

Much to our surprise, we discovered last night that we’d forgotten about the BBC series Sherlock and there were actually two seasons (‘series,’ as they say in Britain) of the show we’d not seen; so we snuggled in our respective seats and started watching. I’d forgotten how much I love the series, due in no small part to the excellent casting. I read the Holmes stories when I was a kid–there was a Whitman edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles I’d purchased for eighty-nine cents and it was shelved with the Trixie Beldens; Holmes is so much a part of the popular culture that I of course knew who he was, and as a fan of mysteries, I felt it behooved me to read the Holmes stories. I wasn’t completely taken with them, although I enjoyed them–although it does occur to me that I may want to give them a reread–there’s an entire group of crime writers/fans who are quite literally obsessed with Holmes and Watson, and of course the terrific Laurie King has written her own tales, from the point of view of Mary Russell–and the awesome Lyndsay Faye has as well (I really need to read both King and Faye; I love King’s Kate Martinelli series, and Lyndsay is one of my favorite people on the planet).

So many books, so little time.

I was so tired yesterday that I didn’t get as much cleaning done as I would like, so I am going to try to do that today around some revising and rewriting. I am itching to get to the WIP, and to possibly finish “Quiet Desperation” and send it out into the world. My goal is to get the revision of the WIP finished by the end of June as well as to get at least three short stories finished in that same amount of time; that’s quite a lot of work, but I also know I can do it. I also want to get more reading done. Reading is crucial to being a writer; I am always amazed at aspiring writers who claim they don’t read. A love of reading, at least for me, is integral to my wanting to be a writer in the first place; I love books, and everything about them. (Which reminds me, I need to get a library card.)

Also on the agenda for this weekend (probably tomorrow) is reading the manual for my car and teaching myself how to use all of its tricks. I’ve slowly figured out some of them, but it seems silly to have a car that has functions I don’t use because I don’t know how to when all I have to do is read the damned manual and then sit in the car and go over them all. Heavy sigh. I even forgot–until I got the manual out of the glove box yesterday–that the car has a CD player (seeing the CD’s in the glovebox–both by Fleetwood Mac–reminded me).

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

Here’s a Sunday hunk for you.

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Big Yellow Taxi

Christ, it’s hot. I think this is the first day so far this year where it’s been hotter than ninety degrees and humid, and yes, in case you’re wondering, it’s miserable outside. I had Wacky Russian this morning, then ran to the post office, the grocery store, and Costco. So, I am both exhausted and drenched in sweat. I just ordered our weekend treat–a Chicago-style deep dish pizza from That’s Amore–and if I didn’t have to walk to pick it up and bring it home, I would be in the shower right now. As there’s no point to taking one now when I am just going to get sweaty all over again, I am holding off.

But I am miserable, even in the air conditioned comfort of The Lost Apartment, as am still wet and sticky. Blech. But…that pizza is going to taste amazing, and then I can take a long, hot shower…then repair to my easy chair with The Sympathizer and some fizzy water. We finished watching The Keepers last night (color me unimpressed; there was such obvious editorial manipulation–which, of course, is always necessary in a documentary, but this was so blatant that it was noticeable, and it raised some questions that it never even addressed), and now will have to find something to watch tonight. I cruised through Netflix, Hulu, and Prime before the gym this morning, and while I did find some things of interest, overall nothing that was oh, I can’t wait to watch this!

Ah, well, we can always rent movies from iTunes, I suppose.

As I was cruising around New Orleans this hot, muggy afternoon, my mind went back to the stalled Scotty book and I realized that, once again, what I was doing wrong was trying to force the original story into the Scotty book. I thought I had figured that out already, and I did to a degree, but it occurred to me that part of what I feel was missing from the series since Katrina can easily be remedied, and if I go back to Scotty’s roots, the book will be that much easier to write. I imagined an opening scene with Scotty having lunch with his sister, Rain, at her house–which we finally saw in Baton Rouge Bingo–and thought it made sense to delve into the family again. As Rain is friends with some of the ‘Grande Dames of New Orleans’, it only makes sense, plus it gives me an opportunity to get Taylor into the story as well. I also need to figure out a way to get Scotty’s parents into the story, and it’s been far too long since there’s been one of these where Frank and Colin both were present–I had developed a  very bad habit of sending Colin off on missions and sending Frank away for wrestling tours so Scotty was all alone–and I want this book to be longer than the others, as well. I want to really get deep into it, in a way I feel I haven’t since Mardi Gras Mambo. 

On the other hand, maybe I’m not the best judge of this. After all, Katrina kind of intervened, and that changed the way I look at things…so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that’s what’s going on here.

Heavy heaving sigh.

The revision of the WIP is also going well; I am very excited.

Oops! Time to go get the pizza.

Here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader.

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Last Friday Night

Well, I made it to Friday somehow, and am still sleepy/groggy/lethargic/whatever the hell has been up with me this week. But here it is, Friday, and I just have to get through today.  Tomorrow is going to be my crazy day–Wacky Russian, grocery store, mail, Costco, cleaning the house–but I want to get everything unpleasant and that involves leaving the house out of the way tomorrow, so I can just chill on Sunday and Monday–sleep late, read, do some revising/rewriting. I was going through the hard copy of the manuscript again last night–yes, I do it on hard copies, the old-fashioned way, at least first–and need to figure out where to place the new additions to the manuscript. Again, I am thoroughly enjoying this (I seriously don’t know what is wrong with me) but it is nice–I like this new mindset/approach to my work.

Last night we got caught up on Archer and The Handmaid’s Tale, and tonight we’ll probably finish off The Keepers. I keep hoping season 2 of Versailles will be available, but to no avail. After we finish with those, we’ll have to figure out something new to watch together–Paul wasn’t interested in American Gods, so I am watching that by myself. We are several weeks behind on Gotham, but we’ve sadly lost interest in it, much as we’ve lost interest in Supernatural, Arrow, and The Flash. I didn’t want to lose interest in any of those shows…and I kind of hate that I have. I’m sure at some point I’ll binge-watch and get caught up on these shows, but right now they aren’t “must-watch” for me anymore.

Sigh.

I also intend to finish reading The Sympathizer this weekend. I think part of the issue I’ve had this week is this grogginess has made me forget things I need to do; I am clearly not nearly as organized as I need to be this week. I have a to-do list, but my mind also keeps wandering, so I need to focus a bit more.

You’d think at my age I’d be able to focus better.

All right, as I am now boring myself, I am going to get back to the spice mines.

Here’s some Friday hunks, for Memorial Day weekend.

 

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Do You Know Where You’re Going To?

Thursday!

I am so incredibly tired this morning. I did bar testing last night, and am, for some reason, just completely wiped out today. I slept late, have had a lot of coffee, and yet am still spacy, muscles aching from being tired, and there are more clouds than usual in my mind. Hopefully, as the day progresses that will abate somewhat.

An old man can dream, at any rate.

I’ve been toying with an idea with the WIP revision I am doing;  it’s a risk, but this WIP is all about risk-taking and stepping outside of my comfort zone. I am hoping to get some serious work done on this revision this weekend; I’ve been so groggy this entire week I haven’t been able to do much other than think and take notes. Thank God today is Thursday; I don’t know if I could make it through this week if it were any longer. Right now I am praying that I can make it through my work day today and tomorrow so I can just collapse into my easy chair Friday night with a sigh of relief and get caught up on my rest. I don’t know why I am so sleepy/groggy/tired this week; maybe it’s the weather, who knows? (It’s been unseasonably cool, not humid, and gorgeous this week…which makes sleeping ever so much easier…and harder to wake up from.) I have high hopes for this three-day weekend, Constant Reader. High hopes indeed.

I submitted another short story this week to a new market for me; a place I’ve never tried before so it will be interesting to see if anything comes of that. The story is “Keeper of the Flame,” which is about as dark and hopeless a story as I’ve ever written–it’s really dark and disturbing, on many levels, so of course I absolutely love it–and I hope I am going to get “Quiet Desperation” finished up in second draft this weekend as well. (Yes,  am very aware that I am setting the bar really high for getting things done this weekend, when it’s entirely possible all I will do is drink lots of wine, eat pizza, get fat and read; I am not ruling that out, of course; just hopeful that a three day weekend will somehow help me hit my restart button) I also want to get some of my other short stories finished–“The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain,” “Fireflies,” “The Ditch,” and “The Terrortorium” all come to mind–but that is probably not realistic for this weekend. I do look forward to getting some of those stories finished, though, and sending them out into the world.

This week I broke down and bought a new backpack. Several years ago, I decided that I had gotten too old–had been out of college for too long–to continue carrying a backpack, and a shoulder bag would be much more adult. So, I bought a relatively nice computer/shoulder bag, and have hated the fucking thing almost since day one. I won’t go into the many reasons I hate that shoulder bag, but finally, on Monday night, after having another aggravating shoulder bag moment–not to mention how much I hated slinging the strap over my neck to relieve the drag on one shoulder and pressure from my back–I decided to hell with it, I am buying a new backpack, adjusting the straps to make it easy to get on and off, and did so.

God, I am so happy with my new backpack.

Really, it’s the little things.

And on that note, perhaps it’s time to get back to the spice mines. Here’s a Throwback Thursday hunk for you, actor Antony Hamilton:

antony hamilton: