Category: revising

Blue Bayou

Sunday morning and all is well in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday was kind of nice. I slept well again on Friday night, woke up at five, six and seven like every morning with no alarm, and then finally got up around seven thirty to get ready for the day, which was nice. I decided that it made the most sense to run my errands in the morning before the brutal heat of the afternoon; I needed to mail a letter and pick up the mail, as well as drop off Scooter’s leftover food at the Cat Practice and make groceries–and I needed cleaning supplies, so that was crucial to the day; an errand that had to be run. It was brutally hot, but I managed it all. I bought a lot of cleaning supplies, and spent most of the afternoon yesterday cleaning. I did the stairs, the floors in the bedroom, and finally emptied and cleaned out Scooter’s litter box. I was avoiding it because I was afraid doing it would make me sad, but ironically it was just a chore…but writing about it just now made me start to tear up a bit. Sigh. He was such a dear cat. (I also looked at the adoptable cats on the SPCA’s website. I really really want to get this twelve year old ginger boy that no one’s going to want because he’s old..but we’re old. Is it fair to get a baby cat that might outlive either or both of us? Well, that certainly cheered me up a bit. Christ.)

I also did the baseboards and the CD stand…which is something we’re going to have to discuss. We don’t even have a CD player anymore, and yes, it’s terrible to have paid for all that music only to lose it now all these years later but…I haven’t listened to a CD in years. My car has a CD player–maybe I can move some into the car and listen to them instead of the phone? We have all these great gay deejay dance mix CD’s–we used to buy them all the time, the little store across from the Pub used to sell them, and Tower Records–when it existed still–also sold dance remix CDs; I think I got the Debbie Harry dance mix CD single for “I Want That Man” at Tower Records. Anyway, years and years ago Paul had this wooden CD stand custom built. It’s a lovely piece of furniture, and perhaps it can be repurposed for something else–but the CDs are grimy and I cleaned them with a lick and a promise; but…do we really need to hold on to all those CDs? (The stand needs to be repainted white, too–years of nicotine have turned it precancerous–but that will have to wait until the weather calms the fuck down.

But I feel good about the apartment, really. Having the walls finally finished has awakened a nesting instinct in me that’s been dormant for quite some time. As I was finishing the stairs and looking around, I actually thought I wouldn’t mind having someone come by the house now even though it’s still not up to my standard (my work space will never stay tamed, alas), which is something I’ve not even considered in years. It felt good wiping down the walls and baseboards, picking up all that nasty dust and getting rid of it. I also bought a dust mop at the store yesterday (as one of my cleaning purchases) so I can run it over the walls more regularly to keep the dust from accumulating and turning into grime or cobwebs. It’s still very much a work in progress, of course, but I am feeling good about the homestead, and probably am about to do another brutal purge of the books.

I read some short stories yesterday as well–more of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthology stories, of course–and I am getting such an education in short stories, as well as having some powerful insights (well, to me anyway; remember, I go through life completely oblivious to everything) about my own stories, what I find myself afraid to do and how limiting my own fears about my abilities and my talents and my creativity have proven to be. One of the stories I read yesterday, “Getting Rid of George” by Robert Arthur, was about a movie star whose carefully hidden past suddenly comes back with a vengeance just as she is about to marry the love of her life and start her own production company with him, making herself quite rich in the process, and it hit me: one of the stories I am struggling with writing right now is about a wealthy gay man and his boy toy looking for a fabled ‘fountain of youth’ in a fictional Latin American country. I’ve had the idea for decades–since visiting the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan and thinking I should write a story about these ruins (and yes, well aware that I have to be incredibly careful and respectful of the Mayan culture and their descendants)…and this is the story set in a foreign locale I was going to try to write for the Malice anthology. I need to recognize self-destructive thinking when it presents myself; and whenever I think you can’t write this for whatever reason my reaction shouldn’t be to shy away from it but to dive into it headfirst and commit to it. (This is also one of those stories that I thought I had already written a draft of; but it is not to be found anywhere, nothing other than pieces of aborted openings–it may have been lost in the Great Data Disaster of 2018….but I just realized where it probably was and THAT’S WHERE IT WAS! Victory!)

And really, one of the two main characters in my story “Don’t Look Down” was a retired former boy band star. So, that was certainly outside my expertise, was it not?

I really enjoyed the Robert Arthur story; Arthur was also the creator of, and wrote, eleven of the first twelve Three Investigators mystery series, which makes him always special to me. He worked for Hitchcock on the literary side of the brand (Hitchcock became a brand like before we thought of creatives in terms of brands and branding and brand marketing), and also “helped” (i.e. “ghost edited”) most of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. Arthur was a great writer, “Getting Rid of George” certainly is evidence of his talents, and it’s a shame he isn’t better known or regarded; but the great tragedy of juvenile books is that they rarely survive the test of time–they inevitably are forgotten, as are their authors, unless they win a Newbery medal or something, like Johnny Tremain, but I suspect even that tired old war horse of American revolutionary propaganda isn’t read nearly as much today as it was when I was a kid. There are few–Lois Duncan being one–crime writers for juveniles or young adults to be named Grand Masters by Mystery Writers of America; Arthur certainly deserved to at least be considered, as the creator of the Three Investigators and as a rather successful writer of crime short stories.

I read another story in My Favorites in Suspense, “Island of Fear” by William Sambrot, which I really enjoyed and thought was quite excellent. An Englishman looking for antiques and local art in the Greek islands spots a small island with a massive wall built along its shoreline, and wants to stop there as it is remote and doesn’t, per the captain, get many outside visitors. This is a “be careful what you wish for” tale; because he convinces the captain to let him off on the island, where he spots a gorgeous sculpture through a break in the wall, so exquisite he has to have it and meet whoever the people are who live in the land inside the wall. The island natives are quiet and don’t talk much–not his usual experience with Greeks–and finally convinces a young man to row him around the island to an opening in the walls so he can go ashore, meet the owners, and buy the statue. As I said, it’s a “be careful what you wish for” story, and the ending is quite satisfying as the last few paragraphs make sense of the “mystery” of the island. It may well have been my favorite of the stories thus far in the anthology (at least of the new-to-me material; remember the book opened with “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier, which quite set the tone for the rest of the stories.

I also read a story from Stories That Scared Even Me, “Two Spinsters”, which falls into the category of “the unfortunate traveler,” which several stories in both anthologies fall into. It’s not bad, the main character being a police detective who gets lost on unknown backroads and can’t find the town he’s looking for, and is eventually forced to seek refuge at a strange house with two identical, if silent, spinsters–and there’s a lot more going on in that strange house than the weary traveler suspects at first. This story was written by E. Phillips Oppenheim, yet another writer I’ve never heard of or his work before. Oppenheim, however, was quite the big deal in his time; he wrote and published over a hundred novels and even more short stories; John Buchan (a Golden Age crime writer not as well known today as perhaps he should be) called him his primary inspiration when launching his own career in 1913.

Interestingly enough, the next story up in Stories That Scared Even Me is by Robert Arthur. There are only three stories left in My Favorites in Suspense, and the book closes with a short novel, The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, a classic from that post-war era that I’ve always wanted to read (it was common in those days to close a short story collection by including a short novel, and most crime novels in those days were rather short). I’ll probably finish reading those short stories today, but really need to get back to reading novels–maybe I’ll read a bit more into The Hunt by Kelly J. Ford, which is fantastic; taking so long to finish should not be seen as an indictment of Ford’s work. The book is fantastic and she is one of the great new voices in queer crime fiction–and I’ll be doing a crime panel with her later today for Outwrite DC.

I slept really well last night–it’s lovely having Paul home, really–and so today I hope to get some reading and writing done. I am about to adjourn to my chair to finish this Hitchcock anthology, and then I am going to work on getting some writing done while cleaning up the kitchen and my workspace. I feel very well rested this morning–I could have easily slept much later–so hopefully it will be a great day of getting things done.

Or not. Since Paul’s home now we can finish watching Gotham Knights, Hijack, and back to other shows we’re watching, and of course Paul needs to watch Season Two of Heartstopper, which means I can finally talk about it. I may check in with you again later, Constant Reader, and if not, I certainly will do so tomorrow.

Let My Love Be Your Pillow

Saturday morning and Paul comes home today! Huzzah! Huzzah! I of course literally have no idea what time he will be arriving–he never tells me these things and I never think to ask–but it’s fine. Yesterday was a good work-at-home day. Sam the handyman came by in the morning to finish touching things up and clean everything up, which was marvelous, and now the apartment sort of looks like our apartment again. It’s great, and it makes me want to clean, which is something I’d forgotten that I enjoyed so much. I’ve really let the housework slide since the pandemic started (sure, let’s blame it on that, shall we?) but a lot of it had to do with the walls in the living room. tl;dr= we had some leaks, and water damage to the walls in the living room. The leaks were repaired, but the plaster and paint somehow never got finished and we’d been living with that for a while….and when you have places where the bare wall is showing…the apartment, even clean and sparkling from ceiling to floor, would look deranged and damaged and sloppy. I think I felt a little defeated, to be honest.

I’ve felt defeated a lot over the last few years, if I’m going to be honest. But I’ve been feeling oddly better lately about things lately, even optimistic at times. I know, right? It’s kind of scary. It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I have full faith in the universe to deliver yet another blow the way it always does when I start feeling like this again–a sense of contentment and peace. I’m sleeping better, getting better rest, and I am getting things done rather than sitting in my easy chair every night scrolling through social media while Youtube videos stream endlessly on continual play. Ironically, I remember feeling this way on another hot August Friday in New Orleans, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina. I had just finished Mardi Gras Mambo at long last and turned it in, and that Friday I had met with the Admissions office at UNO to see about finishing my degree in English and pursuing a master’s, and even potentially eventually a PhD. Yes, I had ambitions. The meeting had gone incredibly well. We scheduled a meeting with the chair of the English department, and it looked fortuitous and very good; I’d have to pay for the semester required to get the English degree, but it looked like I’d get the master’s not only without having to pay, but I’d also get an on-campus part-time job. I don’t reflect back very often, but sometimes I remember that last optimistic August before Katrina and wonder how different my life would look now had Katrina never happened…or at least had the levees held. I’ve always felt the lack of educational degree and study keenly; I was far too young when I started school and majored in English to really appreciate the in-depth examination of classic literature and other forms. None of what little I learned stuck, either. I have also always been made to feel that the books I actually did read and appreciate were lowbrow; on par for someone as uneducated and unserious like me. I’ve not read much of the classic writers, for example; I’ve never read Edith Wharton or Jane Austen or much of Henry James; I may give Hemingway another try at some point but I was unimpressed with both A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea. Fitzgerald wrote beautifully about horrible people I’m not interested in; I love Faulkner but he’s a lot of work to read (but I will go to my grave loving “A Rose for Emily” and wishing I had written one thing that perfect), so I’m not going to read Faulkner for pleasure–even though I take great pleasure in the voice and the rhythm of the words and so forth, I’m still looking for characterization and story.

Hell, there are any number of classic mystery writers I’ve never read, for that matter. I had never read Ross Macdonald until I was on a panel with Christopher Rice who sang his praises highly enough for me to get a couple of his books…and have always been delighted that I did. I think I’ve read one Rex Stout novel, but I can’t remember anything about it and I think I am thinking of a television adaptation with William Conrad and Timothy Hutton? Or did I imagine that, too? One of the things I am loving about reading the short stories in these marvelous old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies is getting to read authors I’ve heard of that I’ve not read. Yesterday night I read “Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond” by Nugent Barker, from Stories That Scared Even Me; “Four O’Clock” by Rice Day, “Of Missing Persons” by Jack Finney, and Paul Eiden’s “Too Many Coincidences”, from My Favorites in Suspense. I enjoyed them all, but the Barker was my least favorite of the four. It’s written in Ye Olde Timey Style, and it goes on for far too long, and it’s big twist I saw coming. I also didn’t much care for Mr. Bond. The Day story was one of those macabre little tales of irony with the kind of ending that Daphne du Maurier mastered and I’ve always loved–and aspire to write. (The trick is the ending has to be earned.) The Finney story was also one of those, but a bit more melancholic than macabre.

I also spent some more time with Superman last night. First I watched a documentary called Look Up In The Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman, which I followed with this week’s episode of My Adventures with Superman. I was very pleased to see Jimmy Olsen talked about in the documentary, and the actor from the television series, Jack Larson, was openly gay and was in a very long term relationship that lasted until he died in 2015, as someone very kindly reminded me on Twitter the other day in response to my talking about Jimmy on here. I am really intrigued at the idea of writing a Jimmy Olsen story…although I’m not exactly sure what I would do with such a thing, and I’m equally sure publishing it would be a trademark/copyright violation of some sort. I’ll make a note and keep chewing on it, though.

I also worked on the book some last night (at last) which felt marvelous and overdue. It was so hot yesterday–even with the air conditioner on full blast and desperately trying to keep up, you could tell inside that everything outside was roasting. I am quite pleased to have gotten past the revision of Chapter Five at long last and I have to say, I am most happy with what I did. Of course, Chapter Six is from scratch, which is going to be an enormous pain in my ass, naturally; writing anything where nothing other than a thought exists at the moment is always harder than revising. Revising can be either tedious or a lot of fun; it’s when your making the book better written and deepening characters and cleaning up shit and building on the ideas you’ve already gotten down but didn’t express particularly well as you were just madly trying to get words on the page and the story advanced and all of that.

Whew. Breathe.

I also woke up to a marvelous email–I just checked–from my editor on Mississippi River Mischief letting me know when the edits would come and included…”This book is fabulous, btw.”

Whew,

And on that marvelous note, off to the spice mines with me!

My Way

Work at home Friday! Huzzah! Huzzah!

I received an invitation code the other day from a friend for Blue Sky, one of the new upstarts looking to replace the dumpster fire hellhole that is Twitter, and so yesterday I set up the account. I am also on Threads. On Blue Sky I am @scottynola, just like I am on Twitter, but on Threads I am @gregh121. I probably should have been consistent across the three platforms, but why would I start making things easier for people to find me now, twenty years into my career? But I posted on both Facebook and Twitter that I was there–and Twitter locked my account. Yes, the Muskrat is all about free speech, isn’t he?

Honestly. But Twitter becomes more and more of a shit-show with every passing day, and it’s not like it was ever a great place to be for long, anyway. I’d go on there, scroll through, have some fun and/or funny interactions with friends and acquaintances…and then inevitably it would turn horrific and I could feel the bile rising within myself as I read more and started to reply angrily…before deleting and closing the app. I wonder what future historians (if there are any future historians) will write and think about this era? What will they debate about, what will they think the truth was and how will it all wind up being reported? How harshly will we all be judged?

That’s a rather chilling thought on Morning 4, 432, 172 of an excessive heat advisory day here in New Orleans. I had thought and planned to go to the OMV today and get my real ID at long last, but I cannot find one item that I need…which Paul keeps so I won’t lose it and yet I was able to put my hands rather easily on all of the other things I need. The irony of this is not lost on me. I also am kind of glad of an excuse to not go outside today, in all honesty. It’s going to “feel like” up to 120 every day over the weekend, and I’d really rather not. It was miserable coming home from work yesterday, and I had to run a couple of errands as well. Dreadful. Just leaving my backpack in the car during those brief intervals at the stops I made was enough for my laptop to be hot to the touch when I got it inside. I think I have to make at least one grocery run this weekend, but I don’t know when I want to attempt it and go out into that. Paul’s coming home sometime on Saturday, and it would probably make the most sense to wait until he’s home, maybe? I don’t know, really. My brain is sort of on the fritz these days from the heat (yes, Greg, it’s recent and it’s the heat, whatever helps you get through it) but I had a great breakthrough last night on the WIP, and realized what absolutely is missing from the manuscript. So, hopefully after completing today’s homework duties (seriously, why haven’t I been calling it that all along instead of work-at-home? Embarrassment because it sounds like being a kid again? It’s work I do at home that’s more easily and efficiently done here than at the office, so homework), I’ll be able to dig into the book and get this important piece of the voice into the book. I also know where it’s heading in this first act, and I kind of have an idea for the middle for a change. That’s always satisfying; those a-ha moments are always so satisfying that it’s almost like having an orgasm; I want a cigarette immediately after, LOL.

But the finishing touches on the apartment are being done today, and I have to say having the walls back together on the first floor is amazing. I always forget how lovely this apartment is when, well, things are the way they are supposed to be. It’s an old house, and things go wrong and leaks occur and so on, and we generally tend to not complain about things…so they tend to not get the attention they need when we would prefer that to occur. But with the walls taken care of, with new plaster where it had damaged and then being painted over to match at last, it looks lovely in the living room and kitchen (I’d forgotten about that patch of white paint up in the corner by the ceiling; but it now matches) and now I no longer have any excuse for not cleaning and keeping the apartment up, which primarily was the defeat of “oh because of the damaged walls it will always look slovenly in here no matter what else I do” which turned into a multi-year slide. Had the walls been redone just before the shut down, I could have really used that time at home to clean the fuck out of this place. But the shutdown came with a malaise–depression, undoubtedly–and so nothing ever really got done.

I slept really well last night–woke up at five, again at six, and stayed in bed until seven–and now am enjoying my coffee and finishing this up. Sam the handyman has already come by to check in; I told him I’d be moving upstairs with my laptop and he has free rein on the downstairs. I need to start the cleaning upstairs anyway, and so if I am up there working when I take a break I can go clean something. There’s a television with Apple TV as well, so there’s literally no reason why I can’t get things done with music playing through the television. I’ve already started redoing the upstairs in bits and pieces. Tonight when I am finished with everything I think I will start watching this new reboot of The Real Housewives of New York. I’m kind of burning out on reality television, which has fascinated me for almost two solid decades now, so it would be nice to see a new, interesting take on these shows. (Hell, I even wrote a book around them.) I still have to get caught up on this season of Superman and Lois, but I am experiencing quite a bit of super-hero burnout lately, which is why I am enjoying the animated My Adventures with Superman so much–it’s optimistic and the doom and gloom and darkness so endlessly in supply for the DC Universe movies (thanks to The Dark Knight series) isn’t fun to watch.

And on that note, I am going to get a cup of coffee and head upstairs. Happy Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Or later–one never can be sure.

Rollin’ With The Flow

Thursday morning and another lovely night’s sleep. I think the exhaustion from the excessive heat is helping me sleep better, ironically; I’m not getting much more used to it, either; it bothers me just as much as it did when we went into our insanely long streak of excessive heat advisories that I swear began in May. I’ve noticed that there aren’t Creole tomatoes in the grocery store anymore, which is bitterly disappointing; I love Creole tomatoes, and I’d have been willing to swear last year I could get them through August and into early September–but maybe the heat is killing them, I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me. When I lived in Kansas I remember one brutally hot summer where the corn wilted in the fields; that wasn’t pleasant. But today is my last day in the office for the week and Paul gets home on Saturday, which is marvelous and delightful and I cannot wait to see him, of course. I won’t say that I’m lonely, but last night when I got home after running errands I was just beat, you know? I didn’t write anything, either, or read. I’m afraid I went into a wormhole on-line, sitting in my chair and just scrolling through my social media feeds until I went to bed. I guess I needed the night of nothing and not thinking, so I am not going to regret the lost time last night (a whole new Greg, as you see I am being kinder to myself about these things) and while today is probably going to be a more intense day at work (my schedule is busier than it has been lately), I am caught up on everything else and everything is going smoothly. Not being fatigued or foggy in the morning helps. I think I am now officially used to this work schedule, much as I loathe it.

But do I really loathe it, or is it just the habit of a lifetime hating waking up to an alarm? I think the latter is far more likely. I always feel like I could sleep more when the alarm goes off, but lately I’m awake before the alarm goes off, and then hit snooze twice because a. the alarm is set eighteen minutes fast and b) each time I hit it, it gives me another nine minutes. So when I turn it off after the second time, it’s actually six a.m. And I am already awake.

I have some more proofing to do and am waiting for the edits for Mississippi River Mischief to arrive so I can get that out of my hair. I’ve not been particularly motivated to write this week–and have been blaming the heat for my laziness (see? doing it again)–but hopefully this weekend I will be able to get some done. I have to look for the stuff for my driver’s license today, so I can get up and go in the morning–I really don’t want to have to wait until next week when Paul is back, because the license expires on my birthday next weekend, and that’s shaving it a little close for my liking. Something always goes wrong, you know?

College football season is nigh, and while I am always excited and hopeful for a new football season (GEAUX TIGERS!), I am seeing a lot of hype about where LSU is going to be this year and how much more improvement there will be over last year. I don’t think anyone took LSU very seriously last year (the early losses to Florida State and Tennessee being directly responsible for that), and it wound up being a surprise banner year. LSU had never beaten both Auburn and Florida in away games in the same season EVER, and of course, LSU hadn’t beaten Alabama in Baton Rouge since 2010 (which is why they stormed the field, haters–no one beats Alabama regularly so whenever you do you celebrate the hell out of it. How many times has Georgia beaten Alabama this century? Once? Maybe twice? Tennessee snapped a 17 year losing streak against them last year…), so clearly they overperformed and surprised people. No one expected to see LSU in Atlanta playing for the SEC championship–and at least LSU kept the score closer than TCU did in the national title game. So the expectations are high amongst fans and sportswriters, which means the possibilities of bitter disappointment are also high. I’m just looking forward to an enjoyable season–and this season is the last one of college football as we currently know it before realignment changes everything for next season. But it’s always fun to see how the season plays out–even if LSU underperforms.

And that first season of football will take place while I am in San Diego for Bouchercon. I think LSU plays Florida State that Sunday night, and I may get home in time to catch the end of the game. The last time I was traveling during an LSU season opener was when we were flying back from Pisa and they were playing Wisconsin. I kept checking the score while we were waiting to board, and LSU was behind. When we landed in New York I checked and LSU had come from behind and won. Let’s hope that tradition holds, shall we?

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Y’all have a great day, and I will check in with you again later.

Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow

Sunday morning and we’ve survived yet another day of a heat advisory, which was miserable when I went out to get the mail and some cleaning supplies (I also got grocery store sushi for lunch, don’t you dare judge me). But I wasn’t out in it all the much, and I managed. I slept decently Friday night, woke up a few times, like always, but went to bed and slept in until seven thirty (!) before getting up and getting started on the day. I started doing a thorough cleaning of the laundry room and the kitchen in the morning (I needed more wet Swiffer pads, which was why I had to stop before running errands, and I needed other cleaning supplies as well, too), and rearranged the top of the dresser upstairs so there was room for more books, so I took my copies of the annotated Holmes up there along with some other enormous research books that don’t fit in my bookcases and had taken up residence on top of the microwave–which I then cleaned and moved the cookbooks to (because that’s where they belong, goddamnit), which pleased me inordinately. I miss Paul, of course, but the plan to keep myself busy so as to not get lonely seems to be working out so far.

Yesterday, I cleaned.

I even moved furniture and rearranged my workspace. I also discovered that I’d bought one of those Apple speaker things I can stream Spotify through, so I can have music playing while I do things–so no risk of being detoured by television or going down Youtube wormholes. I did baseboards, Constant Reader. I really need to get some Venetian blinds for this window over my desk, much as I loathe giving in finally to the loss of the crepe myrtles. The LSU blanket I tacked up in a rather pointless display of spite and vengeance that had absolutely no effect on anything other than to further enhance the “college apartment” essence we’ve apparently been going for these last few years needs to come down. I’m a grown-up, after all, and the days of using blankets for shades should have been gone years ago.

Talk about arrested development! And as usual, the only person affected by my spite is me, as always.

But it felt good to clean everything, to pick up the rugs and beat them outside, to actually sweep the floors beneath and then wash them before putting back the rugs; moving furniture to anchor the ones more prone to moving, wiping every surface down and even getting some work done in the living room, too, which was marvelous. I also discovered that I had already written a draft of the fifth chapter–I didn’t remember getting past Chapter Four (although I thought I’d already figured it out just not written it–pleasant surprise!). Also, after putting the new drafts of chapters three of four in the three ring binder for the book (because I do this for every book), I found a note scribbled on the last page of Chapter Four–something I had noticed when I was revising it, but didn’t think was a big deal–and now I need to go back and fix it. It’s minor, not a big deal, but if I don’t catch it and fix it now…I may not and whoops! Today I am going to work on the living room some and try to get some writing done. I want to revise Chapter Five, maybe finish this next draft of a short story, and maybe finish writing the first draft of another. I also need to sit down and plot out another one.

I may clean the ceiling fans. Madness. I also need to get lightbulbs, or find the ones we already have.

I also stretched yesterday and used the the back massage roller thingee, which felt great–as did the stretching. I need to stretch more regularly; seriously. It only takes about five minutes, feels great, and always gives me a jolt of energy whenever I do it. And it’s good for me and a healthy thing to do, so why do I never think about doing it? Or why do I think about it and then just shrug it off? Perhaps someday I will understand, but it’s doubtful at this point.

I slept really well again last night, waking up relatively early this morning, which is good as I plan on having a productive day. This morning I plan to do some more cleaning, read some more, and then write all afternoon if possible. My coffee is definitely hitting the spot this morning and tasting marvelous, and here’s hoping this motivation carries through the day, shall we?

I did finish watching The History of Sitcoms last night, which I did enjoy somewhat, I could probably write an entire entry dissecting the episode about class, and the success CBS had in the 1960’s essentially stereotyping the South and Southern people with shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction, among others. But the first two shows (I watched Petticoat Junction growing up, but don’t remember anything about it; the other two I remember very clearly) were actually a lot more clever that critics of the time thought–they were dismissed as very lowbrow humor, but they said a lot about class and were also kind of stinging indictments of American capitalism, mythology, and the class strictures we faced as a nation. (It was interesting that these shows about rural Southern people never address race; Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies still believed the Civil War was still on-going–she was in denial about the loss, I guess; which is certainly problematic when seen through a more evolved and modern perspective.)

I plan on finishing the downstairs today–which means the ceiling fans, or at least trying to get them cleaned; I can only reach so far with my ladder (I should have bought a six foot instead of a five foot all those years ago) but I think I can reach the blades of the fans…or at least I can change out the lightbulbs that are blown out. Then I can spend the rest of this week keeping the downstairs under control as I start working on the upstairs.

I also read two more chilling Alfred Hitchcock Presents tales, this time from Stories That Scared Even Me, “Men Without Bones” by Gerald Kersh and “Not With a Bang” by Damon Knight. I enjoyed both stories, despite having no clue about either author (these old anthologies do not include author biographies in the back, which is a rather disappointing oversight). Kersh apparently wrote the book Night and the City and lots of short stories; Harlan Ellison considered him one of his favorite writers, and “Men Without Bones” was certainly a chilling story, about a man who boards a banana boat hoping desperately for passage back to the United States, who then tells of a chilling voyage deep into the jungle to look for proof of alien visitation years ago when mankind was still in its infancy (which was a very popular trope when I was a kid; Erich von Däniken’s work was selling hundreds of thousands of copies in multiple languages); there is a very dark twist at the end of the already dark story that was rather jolting. Damon Knight was a very popular science fiction writer of the post-war period; I’ve not heard of any of his novels (he was named a Grand Master by SFWA, which he helped found; he was also very prolific as a short story writer, and he wrote the story “To Serve Man,” which became one of the more famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone. One of the things I am enjoying most about reading these old anthologies is learning about great writers of the past who may not be as well-known today as they were in their time; it sometimes makes me wonder if forty years from now some gay mystery writer could be reading old anthologies from this time and discover me? “Not With a Bang” is a post-apocalyptic story about the last two humans left alive–a man and a woman–but the woman’s experiences and what she witnessed as the world came to an end has kind of fried her brain; she cannot really process what happened and it sent her back to a rather prim-like mental state from earlier in her life; she refuses to have sex with the only man left alive unless they are married–but they cannot be married as there’s no one left alive to perform the ceremony. It’s never very clear if the man is so anxious to fuck her because he wants to repopulate the world or if its sexual anxiety and frustration; but he’s not a very good person and he also has caught the post-nuclear plague that wiped out everything the bombs and the fallout didn’t get; one of the symptoms is essentially losing the ability to move or speak and falling into a coma-like state that can be reversed with medication he has stockpiled…but once she has agreed to marry him and we realize that he’s not just frustrated with her–he’s not a good person and he plans to abuse her and be dreadful to her…and chillingly thinks and she could have a daughter…before he goes into a bathroom and freezes into the coma…with the door shut behind him and he’s lost the ability to speak.

These old macabre tales with their eerie twists at the end are probably–I am seeing now–the biggest influences I ever had with my short story writing. I still try to end my stories with a surprising twist, and that has everything to do with reading these anthologies when I was a teenager, watching Night Gallery and reruns of The Twilight Zone (as well as the reboot in the 1980s, which aired one of my favorite episodes of television of all time; a teleplay based on Harlan Ellison’s brilliant story–one of my favorites of all time–“Paladin of the Lost Hour”); these were the same influences Stephen King counts. I also read the horror/suspense comics a lot as a kid, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Tales from the Crypt and The Witching Hour, among others; there were also little digests for Ripley’s Believe It or Not and other macabre comic tales. Apparently, you’re never too old to remember influences or learn more about yourself.

And on that note, I am going to go spend some more time with Kelly J. Ford’s marvelous The Hunt, and I will check in with you again later, Constant Reader. Have a lovely Sunday!

Way Down

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, and I am feeling relaxed and good. I had a nice day yesterday, the apartment got more work done on it, and I managed to get everything done that needed doing yesterday. I didn’t really write much last night, but I did read some marvelously macabre short stories, which was lovely, and then watched a few episodes of a CNN documentary series, The History of Sitcoms, which is interesting enough, and feeds into that nostalgia thing we are so prone to as a society. I’ve witnessed any number of nostalgia booms throughout the course of my many years on this speck of dust under the fingernails of God we call earth, and while I am not entirely immune to the appeal of nostalgia, I also recognize that we inevitably remember those past times fondly and perhaps not as accurately as we may think. The 1950’s nostalgia boom of the 1970s, for example, spawned American Graffiti and Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley and eventually Grease; reignited interest in the music of the time (anyone remember Sha Na Na?); as well as sock hops and poodle skirts and “Ch**ese fire drills”* (which is probably racist, isn’t it?) and all that stuff; like Archie comics were documentaries rather than fictions. But the 1950s weren’t this idyllic time of peace and quiet and prosperity people seem to think it was, brainwashed by decades of sitcom reruns of shows that presented the United States back to itself as a fantasy, a fiction, and created an unrealistic vision and interpretation of what perfection and success were in a land of opportunity–an unrealistic vision that has somehow come to be taken as a reality when it was never anything more than a fantasy. That’s the danger of nostalgia.

It’s not that I oppose nostalgia, or don’t understand it–we always tend to idealize our childhoods, and the time period when we were children. It isn’t that it was actually an easier, simpler time, it’s just that when you’re a child you aren’t worried about or concerned with the things adults are contending with–so you don’t remember those parts. I do remember being a child, with rioting going on and protests and police violence; I remember the murders of RFK, Dr. King, and Malcolm X. I remember the struggle over the Vietnam War. I remember Watergate, and all the scandals of the Reagan administration modern Republicans have completely forgotten about (or if they do remember them, they remember them as “evil liberals conspiring to bring down St. Ronald–who they would calla RINO today. I can’t imagine Reagan being fond of DeSantis, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio; but who knows? They remember the 1980s as their ‘golden age,’ so who knows what Reagan would be like today–although I can’t imagine him sucking up to Putin). For me, the 1980’s was about HIV/AIDS and the struggle to come to terms with myself and who I am. The 1980’s also showed me that homophobes literally wanted all queer people to die…and I do not believe the modern day iteration of them is any different than they were thirty or forty years ago. Their messaging is the same, after all–we must save our children from groomers and pedophiles while actually ignoring who the actual grooming pedophiles are–youth ministers, priests, and pastors of their religious faith.

Nostalgia can be incredibly dangerous. Here’s the question I’d like to ask everyone who longs to go back to that “simpler” time of the 1950’s/1960’s: where were all the black people in Mayberry, NORTH CAROLINA? Are we supposed to believe that a small town in the South was entirely white?

Bitch, please.

As I said earlier, I did spend some time last evening reading short stories from my Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. “A Death in the Family” by Miriam Allen deFord was quite macabre and interesting, about a lonely mortician who grew up as a foster child with no family who creates his own, only to be tripped up in his macabre game when a dead kidnapping victim is dumped on the front steps of his mortuary. Very tightly written and composed, I also like the clever way deFord set the story up to deceive the reader until there’s a big reveal. This story was in Stories That Scared Even Me, and I enjoyed it. I also read some more stories in My Favorites in Suspense: “My Unfair Lady” by Guy Cullingford; “New Murders for Old” by Carter Dickson; and “Terrified” by C. B. Gilford. Carter Dickson was a pseudonym for John Dickson Carr, a very prolific and popular crime writer of the mid-twentieth century; I’d seen books by either name on the racks when I was a kid but I’d never read any of his work. I really liked “New Murders for Old,” a clever story about murder for gain with a complicated twist that I greatly enjoyed–but wouldn’t work in the modern day because it was dependent on someone traveling being out of touch with the rest of his world back home. “Terrified” is a chilling tale of the aftermath of a car accident, where the survivors in one car can’t decide whether or not to kill the dying victim who can counter their testimony about who was at fault, and “My Unfair Lady” is a chilling tale of a sociopathic child who witnesses a murder, and whether she will clear the name of the innocent man who found the body and is the leading suspect, a bit reminiscent of The Bad Seed, which of course is a suspense classic.

I didn’t do as much cleaning and organizing as I had hoped to do, but I did launder all the bed linens and finished the dishes. The kitchen still needs some work done on it, which I think I’ll most likely do this morning once I get this finished and posted. I plan on writing and reading and cleaning for most of the day, but I do have to run an errand later this morning–my copy of Angel Luis Colon’s new juvenile horror novel, Infested, was delivered yesterday, and I also need to determine whether or not I need to stop and make groceries as well. I am low on a couple of things, but I don’t think I actually need a whole lot of anything. I have been enjoying yellow-meat watermelons lately; a relic of my childhood summers in rural Alabama that I’ve never really seen out of that context or anywhere else. Rouse’s sells them now–personal sized and seedless–but it’s been my experience that the personal-sized seedless watermelons don’t taste as good as regular watermelons and have very little flavor of any kind. The last time we went to Costco (we need to go again once Paul gets home) we’d bought two of the personal-sized seedless red ones; they come in a net bag in pairs. Those watermelons were two of the best I’d had in I don’t know how long, so this week I took the plunge and bought one of the yellow ones this week. Constant Reader, it was delicious, if not the best watermelon I’ve had in years. I finished it off last night, but had bought another the other day. So, I think one of my chores for this morning is to clean out the kitchen cupboards, and throwing shit away so I can determine what exactly I need and if I do, in fact, need to stop at the grocery store when I go get the mail.

I also binged the second season of Heartstopper, which was absolutely delightful and charming, as I expected, even as it entered the darker territory the books dealt with. It’s still incredibly sweet, and it handles the darker turns much better than I could have hoped; the books certainly did, even as the darker material made you love and root for the characters more, it’s still a bit heartbreaking because I love those kids so much (Nick, Charlie, Tara, Darcy, Elle, Tao, and Isaac) that I want to wrap them up and protect them from the world. As I watch, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to see a show like Heartstopper when I was a teenager…at what an incredible difference something like this could have made in my life, which is why shows like this are so fucking important. I just hate that they only give us eight short episodes per season–and yes, Olivia Colman is back as Nick’s mom. (One change from the books to the show I don’t like–while I understand it–was the elimination of Charlie and Tori’s younger brother. Sure, he’s not necessary, as the show proves, but I think the way he reacts to Charlie and Nick, and how much he loves them, would be kind of lovely, if not needed.)

I also thought about the book some, as well as reading all those short stories have helped give me some ideas about my own short stories in progress, and how to fix and finish some of them. I would love to get two chapters of the book written this weekend and to finish two short stories, but I don’t know. I’ll probably wind up feeling lazy and spending more time reading than I should, and of course, I have the new iteration of Real Housewives of New York to finish, as well as the third season of Superman and Lois, and My Adventures with Superman, but I am going to try to put off watching television until weeknights, when I am tired from being at work.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need another cup of coffee, and I should put the clean dishes away. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point!

**It is racist: I checked on wikipedia: “Public use of the phrase has been considered to be offensive and racist. In 2017 a candidate for office in Nova Scotia, Matt Whitman, apologized for using the term in a video and subsequently removed the video.[10] In 2020, Washington state Senator Patty Kuderer made an apology for using the term in a hearing; Linda Yang of Washington Asians for Equality stated that the term was racist and filed a complaint with the state.[11] Kuderer apologized before any formal complaint was filed.” There’s an entire history of how the term began and how it was used, but I have found if a term or a phrase that’s a part of the popular culture references a group of people or an ethnicity or a race, it’s usually not a good thing; in this case, it means something useless–and let’s face it, everyone getting out of the car and running around it while stopped at a red light is pretty stupid and useless.

Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)

Friday and it’s my work-at-home day. I have documents to check over for accuracy and completeness, and on-line trainings to work my way through. I don’t know if the handyman is coming by today–he painted and repaired the walls in the living room today, so it actually looks lovely in there, but he also left his tools and his big ladder…which I may try to use to reach the ceiling fans, if I get brave enough to risk climbing that high on a ladder. (Ladders terrify me. It may be because I fell off of one when I was a child headfirst onto concrete–I’ve heard all the jokes about head injuries already so don’t bother–and was hospitalized for several days.) The more rickety they are, the worse I feel about them. This one looks pretty professional and sturdy, so maybe it won’t be that bad. Not having level floors doesn’t help, either. (He just stopped by; he’s doing another coat and touching up the trim; I told him I’d work upstairs today, so I’ll write this and lug the laptops upstairs, and my phone and headphones so I can work upstairs.)

Last night wasn’t quite as productive as my first night alone; I was tired when I got home from work and running the errands (picked up my copy of Birder She Wrote by Donna Andrews, and I cannot write that title without commenting on how much I love it) and so didn’t get quite as much done as the night before. I did some laundry, and worked on the book some–I still have about another one hundred words to go on the chapter i was working on, before moving on to Chapter Five, which I’ll have to write off the top of my head, which is going to be a struggle, and I also have some other short stories to work on, and of course I can read. I did read a short story last night, another Alfred Hitchcock tale from My Favorites in Suspense, which was actually very timely, which is actually kind of sad. It was about two sentries in an unnamed time of war, guarding a crate which their enemy desperately wants. The sentries don’t know what is in the crate but all they know is it is dangerous. Eventually the enemy is near and they have to destroy the contents of the crate, which are strangely shaped box-like things, and there’s a piece of paper with five symbols on it. They don’t understand but they destroy the stuff anyway, and the final sentence of the story is one of the sentries remembering the symbols on the paper, BOOKS.

How very sad that we again live in a time where books (i.e. knowledge) are seen by some as the enemy.

But it’s Friday morning and the kitchen is already mostly under control. I’ve started another load of laundry, and I’ll do some other things around here once Sam has finished up for the day. I’ll do chore upstairs when I need a break from my work-at-home duties; and of course I have a television up there too, and Paul’s computer–which I could actually use as a television if I wanted to–can be utilized as well. I don’t have to leave the house today to go anywhere; I don’t really have to for the rest of the weekend if I don’t choose to (how marvelous!), and so I think once I have this all finished and posted, I’ll start lugging things upstairs that I will need–and it’s not like I can’t come down and get something I’ve forgotten. I slept very well last night–I feel better this morning than I have in I don’t know how long, rested and relaxed. I hope that bodes well for the rest of the day and my productivity, which isn’t exactly easy to do once you’ve gone out into the horrible heat of the day. It really does suck the life right out of you. I haven’t bothered to check what the temperature is going to be like today, either–I’m not entirely certain I want to know, frankly–but I can already tell it’s going to be another sweltering day where going outside makes your skin feel like it’s been cooked. Yay.

I hope to have a lovely weekend where I can just relax and get things done at a leisurely pace. I want to get some more writing done tonight–the writing lately has been lovely, and I am starting to feel like I am coming out of it again.

Oh! That reminds me. I am a guest over at Tara Laskowski’s “What Scares You Most” page on her website. If you’re not familiar with Tara, she is an amazing domestic suspense writer–her two novels currently in print are fantastic and the good news is a third will be out this December–and you should read her award-winning work. She’s also a lot of fun to be around and is, in the simplest of terms, one of the nicest and wittiest people in the business. (One of the reasons I love being a crime writer is the amazing people who are a part of that world.)

And on that note, I need to start lugging stuff upstairs so I can get out of Sam’s way and get to work. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be checking in with you again later, most likely.

It’s a Heartache

Thursday morning, and my first night spent alone here has passed. It’s so eerie and quiet around here without Paul and Scooter. It’s also weird having that big old bed to myself–Paul is rarely, if ever, not home; I’m the one who’s always traveling–and of course, the apartment always grows exponentially in size somehow when it’s just me in the house. Go figure, right? But I hope to get some things done around the house–I can, for example, spend an entire day upstairs on the weekend cleaning, using Paul’s computer to work on and I can stream stuff through the television upstairs while I clean and organize and try to get it into some semblance of order. I can also work on the downstairs every night and over the weekend, etc. I always plan to get a lot done and I inevitably end up not getting a lot done, which is part of my perpetuation of me being incompetent and lazy and so on; make so many plans there’s no way in hell you can complete them all even if you’re super motivated and driven, and thus can castigate myself once again as a lazy loser.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, I am planning on making the best of being a temporary widow. I am not going to be a slug, and I don’t have Scooter’s demands for a lap to sleep in to blame it on, either. SO THERE ARE NO EXCUSES. I doubt very seriously that Paul will come home to an apartment so sparkling clean and organized he’ll think he’s in the wrong house, but I can certainly make it all look better at any rate. I may even move furniture. I know, madness, right?

Stranger things have happened. And will again!

I was mostly productive last night; I decided to not really do a whole lot of anything much more than chores. I did several loads of laundry and several loads of dishes, picked things up, reorganized a bit and wiped things down–one would almost think I was on a very strict and tight deadline or something. I had a few pleasant down moments, because when doing laundry and loads of dishes sometimes you have to wait–and there’s not the time to start watching something or writing something, so it’s short little videos on Youtube time, and avoiding wormholes there is sometimes difficult, but it wasn’t last night. I spent some time moving and organizing computer files, and frankly, it was a nice and easy relaxing evening. I got things done, didn’t get sidetracked, and made a great start on the thorough cleaning the apartment needs. I am probably going to spend the weekend mostly working on the upstairs, because we are having work done on the downstairs; when I got home last night there was an enormous ladder and some other tools and things in the living room; and the work on repairing the walls had begun. I have no idea how long that is going to take, but obviously, there isn’t much point to doing a lot of work in the living room while that is happening. And…being forced to focus on the kitchen, laundry room, attic, and upstairs isn’t a bad thing at all. I can always take plug a flash drive into Paul’s computer and write while I am up there working, too.

The theory here is staying busy will keep me from feeling lonely or missing Paul and Scooter. (We really need to get a cat as soon as he gets back, seriously.) Hopefully tonight when I get home from work (and running errands) I can work on the book and do some more cleaning and/or organizing. I may even try to repair that wobbly drawer myself. The file cabinet itself needs a serious purge, as do some of the file boxes I have accumulated around the apartment in my tragic paper hoarding need. As I was looking around at the books last night and thinking about the next serious pruning, I kept coming across books where I would think at first oh, that can go, I’ll never read that again but as I reached for it remembered, oh yes, you wanted to read that because its hardboiled crime fiction set in Los Angeles in the same period as Chlorine is set, and there was a really horrific scene where a gay man is abused by the cops, and that could be helpful in getting into the mindset of how MY queer characters would view the LAPD in that period and so I moved on to the next book on the shelf. It was literally funny how almost every book in my apartment, on my shelves or yes, in the stacks on the floor, I could remember a distinct reason for wanting to read the book and in many cases, it involved writing something; whether a short story, a novel, or an essay about themes or characters or whatever within the book, there was some writing-related reason I wanted to read that book for the first time, or in some cases, like The Lords of Discipline or The Last Picture Show, for maybe the fiftieth time because I wanted to revisit it and see how I felt about it now, at this point in my life as a reader.

I’ve been trying to remember my influences, the cultural moments that resonated or impacted me in some way that changed the way I write because my perspectives had also changed. I recently acquired a copy of a juvenile mystery I remember reading, either from the library or from buying a copy at the Scholastic Book Fair, which I lived for when I was a kid, because I wanted to read it again–and already, just from seeing the image of the original cover and reading the description, I can still remember details from a book I read over fifty years ago; and those were the mysteries I read before I found the series mystery books for kids; once I started with the series, that was all I read…before moving onto novels for adults, which I read voraciously. I’ve talked about and written about books that I loved reading when I was a kid or a teenager, books that made an impression on me in some way and that I remember very fondly, like The Thorn Birds or Green Darkness or The Other Side of Midnight, and sometimes I wish I had the time to go back and revisit those books–but there is so little time and those books are all so long. Everything back then seemed to be incredibly long–The Winds of War, everything by James Michener, Captains and the Kings, Rich Man Poor Man, and even Dress Gray, the West Point murder mystery I always wanted to reread back to back with The Lords of Discipline. Genre fiction–mysteries, romance, scifi–were shorter books as a general rule. Even Harold Robbins wrote some door-stoppers of novels, like The Carpetbaggers and A Stone for Danny Fisher. Irving Wallace churned out incredibly lengthy books that ultimately really were thrillers at their beating heart; Irving Stone mastered the historical biography; and Irwin Shaw also wrote novels the size of leviathans.

And somehow I managed to read them all.

I am not the voracious reader I was when I was younger and had more energy and somehow more time (no cell phone or Internet, more like), and I also read a lot faster than I do now. Heavy sigh. But today is the last day in the office of the week for me, and the last time this week I have to get up this early–I did wake up several times during the night, but I feel rested this morning, if a little spacy–and that’s very nice.

And on that final note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, everyone, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Southern Nights

Home alone. Look at that, I’ve not even been home for an hour and already I am sitting at the computer, writing a blog entry to document my first night sans Paul and pet in over twenty years. I got home from the office, emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it, did some laundry (one load in the dryer now, the other in the washer) and cleared off the kitchen counters, wiped down said counters, and then plopped my butt down at my desk, and here we are. I may work on the book a bit; I may not. I haven’t decided, but I think tonight, other than chores (which are mindless), I may just chill and relax and not use my brain very much and let it rest. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home from work, either; I woke up before the alarm this morning and didn’t stay in bed–a miracle in and of itself–and had a pretty good day at the office. So, I may clean up computer files and do some organizing of my back-ups and files and things; I may just float around the apartment absently picking things up and wiping things down as I think about the fourth chapter of the WIP which is the one I am currently revising, and what precisely I want to do with the fifth chapter and where the story weaves itself next. It’s nice to simply sit and think sometimes, or to think while you do chores that don’t require much attention so your mind can wander while you do them. There’s a lot of clutter and mess in the Lost Apartment, and I’m kind of tired of it.

Everywhere I look there’s dust and clutter. This shall not stand!

This book that I’m currently writing again–because I actually started writing it sometime last year–is something I’ve had the kernel of the idea for now for quite some time. I’ve been wanting to write a straight-up gay noir novel now for I don’t know how long. I’ve had this particular idea longer than I have had the idea for Chlorine, for those of you who are anxiously awaiting that book to happen, and that’s kind of why I want to get this done. Chlorine will be a much bigger challenge than this one, and so I want to write this one as a kind of warm-up. It’s set in a city based on Tampa but isn’t Tampa, and I don’t know why that is but it feels right, like it belongs there for some reason. I haven’t been there in a very long time and the last time I was actually in Tampa (the day of the fateful Bouchercon Target run with my friend Wendy) I didn’t recognize anything and was completely lost–and I used to know that part of the city like the back of my hand. So the city I am writing about is Tampa, but as I knew it in the 1990’s, so it’s not Tampa. (There’s another noir I want to write that would be set in the same city but in 1992–and that one is going to be waaaay too much fun to write! But that’s a few years away–and both noirs are connected to each other.) The working title is Muscles, and Muscles is the name of a gym in my fictional city, that is managed by a has-been former pro wrestler in his later forties (injuries ended his career) who also happens to be gay. The gym is owned by a local criminal operation and money is laundered through it, while the main character is the public face of the gym. A very hot and sexy younger man who is fluid sexually and a bit of a sociopath (and yes, I realize I am playing into the trope of the evil bisexual, but you’ll just have to trust me) who is involved with the crime boss’ daughter and has used the main character to get ahead in the past has now done something–but the main character doesn’t know what it is–that has put his life in danger, and the main character has to decide whether he wants to try to help this stupid kid who’s in over his head but is also a user, or let the chips fall as they may while trying to stay out of it as much as he can…but of course, he can’t. It is soooo much fun to write, Constant Reader, and I’ve been very excited about working on it and the work I am doing on it. I am, of course, having constant doubts about things, but that’s what other drafts are for and I won’t be signing a contract for this until it’s in good enough shape to only need a vigorous and anal-retentive copy edit.

Today was also miserably hot again, but either I’ve gotten used to it or my entire body and soul have been numbed by it. It never gets to be over a hundred here; it was always rare before. Nineties, yes. Feels like over a hundred? Of course. But for the actual temperature to be over a hundred, and the feels like being in the hundred and teens? Mary Mother of God, no one asked for this. But I endured it today without much of a problem, and it was nice to just come straight home from work for the first time this week. My copy of the new Donna Andrews (Birder, She Wrote, which may just be one of the best titles of all time) arrived at the postal service today, so I’ll probably swing by there on the way home from work tomorrow and I’ll stop at a market so hopefully I won’t have to leave the house for the rest of the weekend, which would be oh so lovely.

I am probably being overly ambitious about what all I want to get done around here while Paul is away, but that’s always been my modus operandi, and that will also probably never change. What I can change is feeling like a loser for not getting everything on the list done. That’s self-defeating, which is also my modus operandi, and I need to do that a lot less going forward. I think part of the reason I am high achieving when it comes to productivity is because I always try to do more than any human being is capable of doing, but even getting half or part of it done is an accomplishment. I was looking at something the other day, I don’t quite remember what, but it was stats for this blog for some reason–which isn’t something I care enough about to actively seek out–but I was looking for my tags because I wanted to see if I had ever written about my book Dark Tide (I had) and at some point the list of how many posts I’ve done since moving the blog here whenever the hell that was, and was stunned to see it was in excess of two thousand? I think I moved the blog here in 2015, which was roughly eight years or so ago. So if I write one entry per day every day for eight years, that alone is 2920 entries. There have been days I’ve missed, of course, but there have also been days with more than one entry, and sometimes more than two when I am feeling especially bloggy (I just made up that word, you’re welcome), and assuming that every one is about 500 words (an underestimate, I’d bet), it comes out to…one million four hundred and sixty thousand words.

Holy fuckballs, seriously. And I never count the blog as writing for daily totals or anything.

Yikes?

And I think that’s a good place for me to cut this off. The loads in the dryer and the dishwasher are complete, so time to reload the dryer and dishwasher and fold some clothes.

Try not to let your envy consume you, Constant Reader.

The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want to Get Over You)

And here we are on yet another Pay-the-Bills Wednesday. Paul is leaving today, and won’t be back until a week from Saturday. I also don’t have Scooter for cuddles and company. Will I go mad living under conditions of absolute reality? Even larks and katydids are believed by some to dream.

Yesterday was a much better day than I’ve had in quite some time, all things considered. I slept incredibly well, so didn’t start off my day either sleepy or groggy or tired, which is always a plus. The work day was relatively low-key; we were slow in the morning but busy in the afternoon, and frankly, I prefer it that way; busy in the morning inevitably means tired in the afternoon, and if we’re so it’s agony. But over all, a good day at the office and an auspicious beginning to the month of August. (I also didn’t note that it was the anniversary of both of our moves to New Orleans; first in 1996, then again on August 1 2001 when we moved back home from That Horrible Year Away.)

I ran errands on my way home–mail, prescriptions, groceries–and then came home to a sink full of dirty dishes which needed attention, so I took care of that as well as another load of laundry, and then sat my ample buttocks into my desk chair and banged out the revision of Chapter 3 I’d been stuck on for a little less than a week (not so much stuck as tired and didn’t want to bother with it, in brutal honesty) and got it finished and under control before moving onto Chapter Four. I also worked on “Whim of the Wind” for a little while, and also did some more research into the history of the city I am fictionalizing for the WIP, which I continue to fail to discuss. Perhaps this weekend? Perhaps. I kind of want to see if I can get past Chapter 4 before I talk about the book publicly, but that’s nothing more than my own superstitions, which is pretty stupid. As a general rule I don’t believe in things like jinxes and curses and so forth, but I do believe you can actually speak things into existence sometimes. The only takeaway I got from Psych 101 in college was the concept of visualization; that picturing something in your mind can make it happen–but not like winning the powerball or anything like that, but more along the lines of why you always spill something full when you’re carrying it no matter how careful you are…because your mind cannot picture a negative–you can’t see yourself not spilling it; so when you think about not spilling it, you will because you see yourself in your mind actually spilling it. (It’s like how you cannot prove a negative–you can rarely prove you aren’t something; but it is incredibly easy to prove you are. I use this example: someone drinks a lot. They don’t think they have a problem, they don’t wake up in the morning feeling like death warmed over twice and wanting another drink. But once someone says, “You have a drinking problem”, you can’t prove that you don’t. You can say you aren’t, but that’s denial. You can stop drinking for a time period—but if you start drinking again, well, there, you see, you were in recovery and then relapsed! You cannot win, so why bother trying?) It is much harder to prove something isn’t true than it is proving something is. Guilt is the same way–how do you convince the cops, who are convinced you are, that you aren’t?

I will say this about the WIP–it’s more hardboiled and noir than what I usually write, I am having a lot of fun with it, and it’s been a long time since I wrote anything set in Florida, if I ever have? Dark Tide started as a Florida panhandle novel, but I moved it to the Alabama coast; “Cold Beer No Flies” was a panhandle story, too. But this is me fictionalizing Tampa–come to think of it, my main character in The Orion Mask lived in a fictional Tampa I am using again for this one–and I’ve not set foot in Tampa, other than flying in and out for Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, since I moved away in December 1995 to once again reboot and restart my life.

I was tired after all my errands yesterday–the thermostat in my car let me know it was 101 when I left the office yesterday; it is insane for it to be that hot, even in New Orleans. It’s exhausting dealing with this insane summer heat this year. But I did get some writing done yesterday, which was a good thing, and of course Paul finished packing. Heavy heaving sigh. Ah, well, I have Superman and Lois to catch up on, and My Adventures with Superman, and so many old classic films to watch, so I shouldn’t have any trouble keeping myself entertained so I don’t feel lonely or bored. And of course I could be writing, which is always difficult in August…I also think about how about eighteen years ago I was finishing (finally) Mardi Gras Mambo at long last in that last, fateful August before Katrina. It really was a completely different world all those years ago; maybe I ‘ll go back and read those old Livejournal entries from August of 2005, so I can remember the world before once again. I also have a lot of reading to get caught up on, as well. I have some errands to run this evening on the way home from work, and then I am going to be inside for the night. We did watch another episode of Gotham Knights last night–very intense, as the season finale moves closer–but now I have to wait for Paul to come home to finish. Heavy heaving sigh.

But perhaps I’ll use all this solitude productively. One never knows, and on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.