Category: revising

You’ve Been So Wonderful To Me

Wednesday morning and hope today is better and there is more energy to be had for me today. Yesterday was a drag, in a lot of ways; I was mentally awake but also physically and intellectually drained, if that makes any sense. It probably doesn’t. The one-two punch of turning in a book one week and a short story less than a week later bracketed around a out of town trip combined to kick my ass. I didn’t want to get up again this morning–I don’t think I will ever hear an alarm and cheerfully sit up, stretch and get up, fully awake and ready to go, once in my life. Which is fine, of course; some of us simply aren’t meant to be wrenched from sleep every morning before we are ready to get up. But I don’t feel as drained this morning as I did yesterday–which is a good sign as the sun rises over the West Bank (don’t ask. tl;dr: “West Bank” means west bank of the river, which doesn’t flow perfectly north and south). I was exhausted when I got off work last night; so exhausted that I couldn’t do much of anything other than watch Youtube documentaries about the Hapsburgs while Scooter purred in my lap. I am hoping (hopeful) that I will not be so tired today, and will be able to get some things done tonight when I get home.

I am very tired of being too tired to read, too.

I do have another story (!) to finish by the end of the month, but I think perhaps the best thing to do this week is let my creative batteries recharge so next week I can dive back into my writing. And yes, I am well aware that this could simply be my deeply engrained subconscious desire to be lazy justifying and excusing not doing any writing this week–but like I said, I am very tired and drained; and I don’t think this is subconscious so much as it is conscious. Parade season looms, and while I know we’ve been planning on skipping what will, for the most part, be a super-spreader event (crowds of people catching things thrown from strangers? No one masked? ) I cannot help but feel that it will be hard to NOT heed the siren song of the marching bands and walk to the corner “just to see.” I really did miss Parade Season last year; I love Carnival every year even as it exasperates and aggravates me at the same time. And I want to write more about Carnival…there’s another Scotty Carnival book in my head somewhere, and there’s the potential new series, too. And short stories! So many potential short stories…I think my creative batteries may be getting some charge stored up in them again, after all.

Huzzah!

It’s nice to start feeling like myself again–whenever the exhaustive malaise sets in, I always worry that this time it might be permanent which, of course, is an absolutely terrifying thought. I wonder if I will ever stop worrying about the ability or desire or need to write going away; I suppose once it finally does, if it ever does, that will be when I can be fairly certain that the end is drawing near. Well, there’s a cheery thought for a Wednesday morning, wasn’t it?

So, I have some clean-up stuff to do with another project this week–I should be finished with that part already, but what can I say? I’ve gotten far behind on everything while I was in “finish the book” mode; as I inevitably do, and of course playing catch-up is not my favorite thing to do–my emails alone are a Sisyphean task–but I am hoping if I can get everything on track this week and over this weekend, next week I can get back to possibly writing and getting organized for what I want to get done for the rest of this year. It’s kind of a surprise that it’s so late in the month already (Valentine’s Day is Monday!) and March is already looming, so I’ve really got to get my act together and start getting things in order. A Greg at rest can no longer stay at rest, no matter how much I want that to happen…and on that note, perhaps it is time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Hump Day, Constant Reader! Talk to you again tomorrow.

A Place in the Sun

Tuesday morning and I could have easily stayed in bed another three or four hours. I slept very well again last night–the alarm was quite vicious and cruel this morning–and I am blearily drinking coffee and hoping to wake up completely before getting in the shower. I have a lot of work to do this week–and so many emails that have piled up in the meantime that I am not certain I will ever get it under control–and so must sally forth into the week, regardless of how much I would rather just get back in bed and slip under the blankets and go back to sleep, really. My batteries need recharging in a serious way.

I wanted to stay up last night to watch the men’s Olympic figure skating–but by the time ten pm rolled around the skaters I wanted to watch and see–the top ones–still hadn’t gotten on the ice and I rather sadly went to bed. I was glad to see Nathan Chen broke the world record for points in the short program–and disappointed that two defending Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu had made a colossal mistake in his to wind up in eighth, with probably no shot at the podium. I wanted Nathan to win–still do–but I was looking forward to their showdown as two of the greatest male skaters of all time. AT least I can stay up later on Thursday to watch their free skates.

Man, I am still a shadow of my usual self this morning. I feel, I don’t know, removed from my day, somehow, if that makes sense? Like I’m experiencing my day from a distance? Hopefully the caffeine will kick into gear relatively soon because, as always, I am behind on everything.

I turned in the short story I had due yesterday this morning; it’s not, I fear, as good as it could be or could have been; I am not, despite the marvelous high I got over the course of the weekend about my writing and career, feeling terribly confident about the work I’ve recently turned in. Then again I am not the best judge of my own work, and while I am sort of hoping I am wrong, I don’t think I am this time, either. I like the title, and I like the concept behind the story; I am not sure it fires on every cylinder and I am also not sure that it necessarily works. But I don’t know that rereading it or looking it over today will do me any good; I am still a little fried from finishing the book and then traveling this past weekend. I also have to work in the office on Monday–so four days in the office next week (AIEEEEE) which means four days of six am waking up to an alarm, heavy heaving sigh.

I’ve also got to take the car into the dealership this weekend–I have a tire leaking air (again) and it’s due for an oil change, which means I’ll need to get up early either Friday or Saturday. But…I do have another story due at the end of this month, and another due at the end of the next–and at some point all these rewrites and revisions are going to hit my inbox. Heavy heaving sigh–but at least there’s no football to distract me all day Saturday and Sunday anymore–although I may tune into the Super Bowl to keep an eye on Joey B and Ja’Marr Chase (GEAUX TIGERS!).

And on that note, I am bringing this to an end and heading back into the spice mines. Here’s hoping for some more coherency tomorrow.

All I Know About You

Well, home again and back to reality. Sigh.

I had a lovely time this past weekend. I drove up to Birmingham Friday afternoon for Murder in the Magic City, a lovely event at the Homewood Library (this was my third visit in five years, I think) organized by Margaret Fenton, and the drove down to Wetumpka for Murder on the Menu, a fundraising event for the Wetumpka Public Library organized by Tammy Lynn. I always have a great time whenever I go, and there’s inevitably friends invited that I already know, and then I get to come home having made some new friends (and more books to be added to the TBR pile). For some reason, these two particular audiences respond very nicely to me–which is lovely, and in my post “just turned the book in” malaise, was exactly what I needed. Everyone is just so kind, and they buy and read my books and like them and they like to tell me how much they enjoy my books and when I am on stage; it’s just really, really, lovely.

Who doesn’t love being told they’re wonderful?

But as always I had trouble sleeping in the hotel–I did get some sleep, but not much–and so my own bed, after the slightly less than five hour drive (it would have been even less had there not be highway construction on I-10 at the Mississippi/Louisiana border that brought traffic to a screeching halt and when it started moving again, it was at a snail’s pace). I listened to Lisa Lutz’ The Passenger on the road coming and going (finished it right around that traffic slowdown, so while I was stopped I cued up Lisa Unger’s longer short story “All My Darkest Impulses,” which I didn’t finish by the time I got home), and it was amazing. I had read and loved her book The Swallows (which was fan-fucking-tastic; her latest is sitting on my end table next to my easy chair), so I thought “Everyone loved The Passenger, I should listen to it on this drive” and boy, am I glad I did. (There will be more on that later.) I also read a book called The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics by Bruce J. Schulman, which I greatly enjoyed (but didn’t always agree with) and there will be more on that later as well.

As always, I loved listening to other writers talking about writing and ideas and their own work; it’s always inspiring, and of course I was madly scribbling notes as ideas popped into my head while I listened (I also was getting ideas on the drive, like I always do)–titles and characters and thoughts about the story I have to finish writing today, “The Rosary of Broken Promises”–it’s due today; I’d hope to do some work on it over the weekend but I was so tired from not sleeping–not to mention how draining being “on” is for me (public appearances cause me a great deal of anxiety and there’s always nervousness and stress and worry)–that whenever I made it back to my room I just lay down on the bed and opened my book. When I got home last night, my easy chair felt so amazing–I watched some of the Olympic team figure skating event (the US got silver! USA! USA! USA!)–and unpacked and did the laundry and went to bed; oh how marvelous did my bed feel! I slept deeply and well and comfortably, and didn’t really want to get up this morning, to be honest. (Even now I am resisting the siren song of my bed and blankets; today may be a “sit in the chair and make condom packs” kind of work-at-home day while my batteries continue to recharge–or I may burn another vacation day; I haven’t really decided yet. I hate that trips require a recovery day for me now.) It’s always hard readjusting back to reality when I come home from a writing event, but it’s even harder from these two events because the audiences are so warm and kind and lovely to me that I kind of want to stay in that bubble for a little while longer, you know?

And now I have a gazillion emails to deal with, a house to get in order, day job duties to get done, and a story to write. Back to the daily grind, back to reality, back to my usual every day existence.

So, I need to head into the spice mines here. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader!

Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone

I finished the book and emailed it off to my editor yesterday. ENORMOUS SIGH OF RELIEF. It still needs some work–there’s a few things that need to be changed, methinks, and of course there’s probably lots of my usual sloppy errors (changing character names but not catching them all; repetitive writing; clunky sentences, etc.) but it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it was two days ago–my moods swing back and forth; one day I think it’s really good, two hours later I think it’s the worst piece of shit I’ve ever written–and I think letting it sit for a few weeks while my editor comes up with her thoughts and advice is going to be very good for it. Now I just have to get this pesky short story written and I can breathe a little bit.

For a very little bit, of course. It never ends around here, you know.

I am in that weird lull period of uncertainty; creatively and emotionally drained a bit from the big push to get the manuscript finished–along with the bipolarity of is it good or not writerly insecurity–and with my batteries drained so much, I didn’t have the energy to actually focus on reading anything, so I went onto Youtube and fell into a wormhole about the bubonic plague for a bit before I got rather fed up with myself and made myself do things. I emptied the dishwasher and did another load of dishes, did a load of laundry, and then sat down at my computer and started organizing the horror that is my back-up hard drive. I made some very good progress, but it was barely a scratch on the surface. I will never understand why I am so careless and/or lazy about computer files and their storage, really; would it kill me to take some time and carefully name files, check for duplicates, and file them away properly so they are easy to find again? The file search function on Macs has a lot to do with this; oh I can just do a file search later to find it–but the problem is really my memory; I will completely forget about something once it’s lost in the horror of the back-up hard drive. Last night, for example, I found a lovely word file with a single sentence in it that was so beautifully written and evocative I was certain I couldn’t have thought it up myself and written it…so I tried to do a google search to see where I’d originally found it–and if I couldn’t find anything, well, maybe I can use it. I didn’t find anything, but I am still not convinced; it sounds like something one of the great Southern writers–Faulkner, Welty, O’Connor–would have written.

More research is clearly needed, but DAMN I hope I thought that sentence up.

I’ve also been asked to write a story–or submit a story–to a market I’d never heard of before; it was an unsolicited email (I get those from time to time) and the offer of payment is actually pretty substantial (it’s not a guaranteed publication, but they’d like to see something from me and it’s not like I don’t have a gazillion stories and fragments of stories and ideas for stories lying around, right?), so I think I might actually take some time and dig through the files (now that I think of it, this was how the clean-up of the back-up hard drive began last night; me looking through the files and realizing that finding anything without doing the afore-mentioned search–if you aren’t looking for anything SPECIFIC–is well-nigh impossible, hence the start of the cleanse…) and see if I can find something. I have an idea for a weird story–I’ve had the idea for quite some time–and while I was thinking about this last night while I was going through the files, moving and rearranging and sometimes deleting, a great sentence came to me that could easily be the opening of this weird story I want to write. I opened a Word document and wrote it down, but unlike the gorgeous sentence I was talking about earlier, THIS time I gave the file the name of the story and added “sentence” to the title and saved it to the proper file for the story.

I do learn, eventually.

Tonight I want to do some more clean-up. I also have to pack, since I am driving up to Alabama tomorrow for the weekend–I may take the back-up hard drive with me so I can continue working on the clean-up, or I might not; it’s been a while since I have had a weekend of just listening to writers talk about craft and writing and books they love and authors who inspire them; why not simply bask in that environment and find inspiration from others who are passionate about writing? I am going to listen to Lisa Lutz’ The Passenger in the car (if you’ve not read her The Swallows, get on it and thank me later), and I am going to take something to read with me, too–not quite sure what; maybe Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey–to help me fall asleep every night (not that the book will put me to sleep, just that reading before sleeping helps me to relax). The weather is going to be frightful on the drive–thunderstorms the entire way–but the lovely thing about the drive is there is rarely traffic on I-59 between New Orleans and Birmingham other than when the highway passes through a city, and the majority of the cities I will be passing through (if not all of them) are all significantly smaller than New Orleans or Birmingham and the highway pretty much seems abandoned once you reach the Mississippi state line. (See: Jake driving to his grandmother’s in Bury Me in Shadows)

God, I have so much organizing to do! Maybe next weekend, when I am at home without a book deadline looming.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Thursday, Constant Reader.

Going Down for the Third Time

Wednesday and your biweekly Pay-the-Bills Day for one Gregalicious.

It doesn’t feel like Wednesday to me, though; I’m still all messed up with my days of the week with the change in my work schedule. (I had to keep reminding myself last night that it was, indeed, Tuesday and not Monday.) I have to pay the bills today, finish revising the last chapter of the book, do some final tweaks on it, and turn it in. (Naturally, last night I was already breaking it down and figuring out how to fix it and make it better–slow down, Sparky, see what your editor says first….although it never hurts to prepare yourself and do your own critique.)

We finished Archive 81 last night, and it was interesting. The season ended on a cliffhanger, from which they can hang season 2, but I really enjoyed the show from beginning to end. I appreciated particularly the filming esthetic–you never realize how used you are to background soundtracks until you watch something that doesn’t have one, and it’s so odd it makes the show seem off-kilter, which was the exact right touch for this show. I think we’re going to move on to the second season of one of our Spanish language shows from Mexico next; the second season of Dark Desire drops today, and it stars our favorite Spanish-language hunk, Alejandro Speitzer (trust me, gorgeous)–although it’s been so long since we watched the first season (and have watched so many other shows in the meantime) that I don’t really remember a whole lot about the show, except it’s a well done crime show with all kinds of wild twists and turns along the way. I also remember the first season ended with a big surprise twist at the end, which was incredibly fun because it changed everything that had come before–always effective if you can pull it off, and far too ambitious for me to ever try.

Well, never say never.

It’s miserable in New Orleans today–wet and gray and drizzly, and yet warm at the same time (rainy weather always changes the temperature; if it’s already warm the rain makes it cold; if it’s cold the rain warms things up. It doesn’t make sense to me but I am also not a meteorologist). I’m going to make groceries–not much, really, just a few things–on the way home from the office tonight, and I was kind of lazy last night so tonight I have to do some clean-up around the apartment. My sense of days and time is completely fouled up; my default keeps telling me this is Tuesday and not Wednesday, which means I have to leave for Alabama in two days not three–which I think is why I messed up last night and didn’t clean the kitchen like I should have. I may go ahead and pack tonight as well to get it over with; one less thing to worry about tomorrow night after work, or Friday morning before I leave town (the drive to Birmingham is actually the same drive Jake makes in Bury Me in Shadows, which will make for some interesting thinking in the car). I’ve also downloaded Lisa Lutz’ The Passenger to listen to in the car; I may also make some phone calls while I am on the road. Stranger things have happened, and probably will again.

But I am very pleased that I am gradually making progress on the to-do list and everything that needs to get done. The list seems to endlessly refresh, alas, but I suppose that will always be the case until I am in an oxygen tent in the ICU waiting for the Angel of Death. (Note to self: update the to-do list.) But I still am having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that not only is today Wednesday but that doesn’t mean I do not have to come into the office tomorrow. Change is hard!

And on that note, methinks it’s time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

In and Out of Love

Monday morning and it’s a weird new work thing for me; I now work at home on Mondays and go into the office on Thursdays instead; it’s going to take me a little while to get used to this. I woke up at six this morning, and just kind of drifted in and out of sleep until around eight, when i finally rose. I feel very rested this morning, but have a daunting day ahead of me. I have my work at home duties, of course, and then when I am finished with those I have some things to get done for me personally. I have one more chapter to write in the book, and then some final revising, before it’s finished. (I am at the point where I keep thinking but does this make sense? How do I make this part make sense? Does changing this make this confusing? which means I am in the final stretch of finishing it.) I have some writing to do for a friend’s website, and I have some MWA things to get done. But if I keep my head down I should be able to get everything done–and then once the book is out of my hair, things should open up for me.

Pressure. I should have named this blog entry “Under Pressure.” Maybe that’s what i can call my memoir.

I did get work on the book done over the weekend and it is very close to being finished–so close it’s almost kind of scary, really. It’s been a lovely challenge–it’s completely out of my wheelhouse, but as always, anything that forces me to write in a different way or pushes me out of my comfort zone is precisely the sort of thing I should be writing. I do worry about getting stale; I know I’ve mentioned finding patterns in my work, whether it is character arcs or story structure or themes I return to again and again. When I took the contract break in 2015–and then made the decision to never sign a contract without a complete first draft at least on hand (a rule for myself that I broke with this one I am finishing; which is also reminding me of why I went this way in the first place, as the stress and pressure of finishing on an <extended> deadline has really had me on the verge of a nervous breakdown for the last month or so) in order to try to better manage my stress AND my writing habits–I decided to keep writing and doing things that push and challenge me. Royal Street Reveillon was an attempt to get back to Scotty and how I originally wrote him; the last few books had much more simplistic A to B to C plots, and I wanted to get back to those insanely complicated, twisty plots I dreamed up for him in the first three books in the series. The end result was that RSR was one of my favorite Scottys in a very long time to write; it felt like a return to form that had been lost or forgotten in those amorphous, nebulous years that followed Hurricane Katrina; and I felt like I was challenging myself with the writing again. RSR was the make-or-break Scotty title–how it went and how it turned out would determine whether the series would continue.

Reader, it will continue, probably later this year. I do want to get a Scotty done this year, but I also want to get a strong first draft of Chlorine done first. If all goes according to plan, Chlorine will be finished no later than the end of April and I can start working on Mississippi River Mischief over the summer. Fingers crossed, Constant Reader. I also plan on getting the novellas finished as well as get another short story collection pulled together this summer. The essay collection will have to be punted until next year, undoubtedly; I don’t see how I would have the time to start pulling it together this year, especially when I don’t know what all I have on hand that is ready to go and what I need to write new and what I need to finish writing that is already started. Heavy heaving sigh.

It kind of feels like I’ve been in the weeds with this book since the beginning. I remember getting the contract offer right around Hurricane Ida–I remember desperately communicating with the publisher via email with my spotty cell service those horrible hot days without power–so all told, from contract offer to finished book to turn in was about five months, give or take. Pretty quick, really, especially for a book that only had fifty pages written on spec and had an entirely different setting for the key to the series. But there will be plenty of time to bore you to tears with A Streetcar Named Murder, Constant Reader; I probably should still be shilling #shedeservedit but it’s hard to focus on that while stuck finishing another book.

And on that note, I am going to have some more coffee and head into the spices mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader.

I Guess I’ll Always Love You

Sunday, Sunday.

Yesterday morning my all-in-one printer/scanner/copier bit the dust. It was fine, really; it was cheap and a stopgap when my last nice one died; and it was hard to find the ink for it. So, I went to Office Depot before starting my errands and bought a new one–fancier, to be sure–and it took me a while to get it set up and functioning properly–and then I had issues with my computer for a bit; which was particularly annoying because I was also working on my book–and Microsoft Word kept crashing; at one point my computer restarted all on its own because the crash was so bad. But it eventually worked itself out somehow, and I was able to get the work done that I needed to get done. Tomorrow will be trickier; I have one chapter to revise and another one to write from scratch and then edit/revise…and I think there’s going to have to be at least one more chapter after that as well. I should still be able to get it turned in on time, but it’s going to be a slog and a lot of work.

I also got a contract for a story for an anthology–the Anne Rice tribute thing, and my story is called “The Rosary of Broken Promises,” which was actually a better title for the story I was actually originally using it for, to be honest; but I think I came up with a good replacement title for the story I stole the title from, which is now called “When Wrens Make Prey”–which is part of the Shakespearean quote that includes the title Alistair MacLean made famous, Where Eagles Dare (it’s from Richard III, by the way, he typed pedantically, and no, I can’t quote Shakespeare from memory; I even had to look this up to see where I got it from just now). I also spent some time moving files around from the cloud to my back-up hard drive, so I have back-ups–it’s astounding how many duplicate files there are when I look for a file. I was looking for another file yesterday, my figure skating noir story, and it wasn’t on the back-up anywhere. (It is now, in case you were wondering.) I may have a home for that story, which was started a long time ago, and I also know what it wrong with it–and maybe, just maybe, how to fix it.

We’ve started watching Archive 81, which is really creepy, well done, and interesting. I’m not really sure where the story is going–we’re only three episodes in–but so far it’s really not looking all that great for our hero. Our hero is hired to go live on a creepy estate and restore video recordings that have been damaged in a fire, which he is an expert at doing, and as he watches the videos after he repairs them–they follow a young documentarian who moved into an apartment building with the idea of making an oral history film of the building; but the truth is, she is looking for the mother who abandoned her as a child and whose last known residence was this building–from where she disappeared entirely. It’s a terrific premise, and the way it is filmed is quite excellent; very high production values, and the mystery is also somehow tied to the main character’s father in some way; the missing woman who made the tapes was also a patient of his father.

I did manage to get a lot done yesterday, but today’s work is going to be ever so much harder than yesterday’s, frankly. I have one more chapter to revise, and as I mentioned before, I have to write at least two new ones to end the book before turning it in. I don’t know that I’ll be able to get both written today; I have some other chores and tasks to do today and tomorrow as well, and at some point I need to run to the grocery store. Heavy heaving sigh. It never ends around here, does it? But there’s nothing to do but buckle down and get to it, I suppose. It’s certainly not going to do itself–the bastards never do it themselves–and realistically, I do think I can get it all done over the course of the next few days. I slept deeply and well again last night–the bed was so warm and cozy and comfortable this morning that I didn’t want to get out from under the blankets. (Plus, I knew I had a lot to get done today on my plate, and therefore…yeah, didn’t really want to get up and start working.) But now I am up and swilling coffee, and I actually feel awake and energetic, so hopefully as long as I don’t lose any steam along the way I should be able to dive into everything and get some stuff done.

And on that note, tis time to head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Sunday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and I hope you aren’t too cold or too buried in snow to enjoy your day. Talk to you tomorrow!

Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart

Saturday!

I slept very well last night. I got my day job work done during the day, I got two more chapters revised and edited last night, and Paul and I watched the latest episode of Servant last night (which is very bizarre and we are no longer sure we are following it, but it’s well produced and well acted, so it’s always interesting to watch), and then I watched a short National Geographic documentary about the Renaissance Popes (an episode from their series Pope), which was interesting–but it didn’t cover much more ground than Barbara Tuchman covered in her section on them in March of Folly.

Today dawns bright and sunny with a gorgeous, cloudless pigeon’s egg sky out there. I have some emails I have to do this morning, and I have to run some errands (prescriptions, mail) this morning (I am saving groceries for tomorrow). I also have to buy a new all-in-one printer as my latest one lost wifi capabilities yesterday for some reason, ergo rendering it utterly useless for my needs (just as well, I had just run out of ink and needed to buy more; money saved by the death of the printer) so when I go run my errands, the last thing I will do is swing by Office Depot on St. Charles to purchase a new one. I think they have a decent one at a reasonable price in stock; if they don’t, I’ll have to check either Best Buy or Target, neither of which is an option I particularly want to indulge myself in at the moment. Although a trip to the West Bank would also mean I could get lunch at Sonic, so…decisions, decisions. (Paul and I were, in fact, just last night talking about how we don’t really eat fast food at all anymore–he stopped at McDonalds on his way home from getting his hair cut in the Quarter yesterday) I’ve gained back some of the weight I lost last year, alas; not sure how that happened, precisely, but have no doubt that there’s a connection to me not going to the gym in months, for sure. Once this book is done….or at least under more control, at any rate…maybe on Monday afternoon when I am finished with my work-at-home duties. I am hoping to get three chapters of the book done today, which means I have to write/revise and polish the final two chapters over the next few days as well as go through and polish and tweak (hence the need for a printer) before finally turning it in and diving into the Bouchercon anthology work, which needs to be concluded by the end of February. I also have a short story due in early February–and next weekend I am going to Alabama for the Murder in the Magic City/Murder on the Menu weekend in Birmingham and Wetumpka. (Note to self: get an audiobook for the drive.)

So much to do, so little time, so little opportunity for procrastination, laziness and pushing things off until tomorrow, right?

Heavy heaving sigh.

But there’s also cleaning to do around here, filing as always, and some book organization is also needed. I am not feeling particularly overwhelmed in any sense this morning, which is always a really good thing, and I feel confident that I can get everything finished that I need to get finished as well as get a jump on future things that need to get finished. I am really looking forward to spending some time every week getting rid of paper files, too–you have no idea how much I am looking forward to that; realistically, there’s no reason for me to keep paper files on anything unless it’s something I am currently working on; otherwise it can remain electronic; and realistically, I can donate a back-up hard drive to an archive mush easier than I can sort and organized paper files…and if they don’t want that, well, then that’s the end of that, you know.

And I still will have gotten rid of all the fucking paper files.

So, win-win?

And on that note tis time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

You Can’t Hurry Love

No, you’ll just have to wait.

Friday morning and working at home. My new in-office schedule, if you haven’t been paying attention, has been shifted to Tuesdays thru Thursdays, so now I work at home on the bookends of the weekend, Fridays and Mondays. I have data to enter and condoms to pack, ZOOM work meetings (no offense, day job, but ZOOM is the bane of my existence and has been since March 2020)–technically it’s Microsoft Teams, which is kind of the same thing, and then later, chapters to write and clothes to launder and filing to do. It’s non-stop glamour around here at the Lost Apartment, right?

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday–just routine maintenance to get my prescriptions refilled–and then came home to work on the book. I am very pleased with how it’s shaping up so far (of course, as always, I go back and forth constantly between this isn’t terrible and this is going to ruin my career, which is essentially what I do with every manuscript, so everything is normal. Realizing that I am going through my usual emotional journey with this one eased my mind significantly). We watched the first episode of the new season of Resident Alien last night, which was rather fun, and then the new Peacemaker, which I am glad we stuck with. The first episode was okay, but we weren’t sold completely on the show; I love John Cena, so obviously we were going to keep going but I didn’t have high hopes; the show seems to be hitting its stride and this week’s episode was probably one of the best. I went to bed early and then slept deeply and beautifully; so whatever it was that was bothering me earlier in the week and keeping me from sleeping apparently eased off yesterday, which is always a plus.

I also got a copy of Lisa Lutz’ The Apprentice this week; I can’t wait to dig into it. One of the primary reasons I am looking forward to finishing this manuscript is because, as always when I am going into the final stretch, I am too nervous to read another writer’s work, particularly Lutz’, because I will inevitably feel like why do I bother when there are authors like this putting work out into the world? How can I possibly compete with these incredibly smart and literate writers? Then I have to stop feeling sorry for myself and sulking to get back into the right mindset for writing my new book; which is a process and I can’t spare the time for that right now, so the books continue to pile up (this is exactly what happened when I took a break for “just an hour” to indulge myself in Alafair Burke’s Find Me and then couldn’t put the book down until next thing I knew the book was done, and I’d (I can’t say wasted; reading Alafair is never a waste of time) lost an entire day of work. I know the new Lutz will have the same effect on me; so I need to not give into temptation and even crack the book open. (I may allow myself a Laura Lippman short story later on today, as a reward after the writing is done and before I crack open the wine.)

I also have a lot of other work to do over the course of the weekend; I have emails to answer as well as some writing to do for my friend’s website, which should be a lovely distraction from all of the other things I am (always) doing. I can’t wait for you all to see the cover for A Streetcar Named Murder; it’s absolutely gorgeous (I may have to get it made into a poster). It looks like I will be doing a “cover reveal” with a book blogger, which is a new thing for me. But this is actually a mainstream book (which is an offensive term on its face; but more on that later); my main character is a straight woman who lives in the Irish Channel, is widowed, and her twin sons have just gone away to college (LSU, of course) and suddenly finds herself (and the twins) as the beneficiary of a bequest from a relative of her husband’s that she didn’t know existed; and this is the heart of a mystery she (Valerie) finds herself in the middle of trying to figure out…and of course, it eventually leads to murder. I am doing something different here–I don’t think I’ve ever done something that could be called a cozy before; although in some ways the Scotty series is precisely that (but that can be a topic for another time)–and so am not sure if I am following the established rules for the sub-genre; but I also have to tell the story that I want to tell within that framework. It was a challenge to me as a writer; and one of the things I had been feeling as a writer over the last few years was that I was getting stale; that my work was in a state of stasis and I wasn’t growing within my work. In 2015 I felt that way, too, and so I took some time away from the writing and the grindstone I’d been pushing my nose against steadily for the preceding five or six years. This was when I wrote the first draft of #shedeservedit; this was when I decided to start taking more risks with the Scotty series, and when I decided to not continue the Chanse series. I am kind of looking at 2022 through that same lens; I decided to write this novel (possible first in a series) as a challenge to push myself to do something different, take a chance, and force myself to stretch my abilities and skills.

I think Chlorine is another step forward for me as a writer; writing a historical novel set in the recent past (although I suppose the 1950’s isn’t that recent past, really–which really makes me feel horrifically old) is going to push my talents and ability as a writer, and will require a lot more focus and research (which, while I love really history and reading it, the problem is that I can never really focus my interests in solely reading and researching what I actually need to look into for what I am working on–that ADHD problem) as well as writing in a different style than what I usually do; that rat-a-tat-tat pacing and use of language that keeps the story moving and says something about the times, the culture, and the characters themselves and how systemic homophobia can affect the lives of those with same-sex attractions; in addition to the toxic culture of sexual harassment and assault that was so prevalent in old Hollywood; the 1950’s were a transitional period for Hollywood as the old studio system began to crumble in the face of a new, changed society and the challenge of television.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

Put Yourself in My Place

Thursday morning and I am groggy. I was afraid that would be the case this morning–I probably should have gone to bed an hour earlier (nine instead of ten…I feel so old) but Paul was late getting home anyway so I was waiting for him, and he got home just before ten. I think I slept fairly well, despite waking up again at four-ish and then drifting in and out of a half-sleep for the next two hours, finally getting into a deep sleep right around the time the alarm went off, naturally. (I had a very good sleep score last night, according to my Fitbit, so I’ll just accept that and be done with it.)

I got another chapter of the book done last night–so am still behind and trying to get caught up. Two chapters a day was an ambitious thought for work nights, but if I can get at least one done today the weekend will have to make up for it. I was hoping to not have to kill myself at the computer writing this weekend, but alas and alack, here we are. The book is being reshaped nicely, and my emails are getting answered–slowly but surely–but they are getting answered. I still haven’t had the time to make a to-do list (desperately needed) but am going to see if I can make that a priority this morning. I also am leaving work early today so I can keep a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I will get home a bit earlier than usual–which will help with the writing of two chapters, of course–and I am hopeful Paul will get home at a decent hour so we can spend a little time together before bed. Tomorrow I work at home, and next week I start having Mondays as a new at-home day (this was the only week with four days in the office), which will be kind of nice if odd. Adjusting to change gets harder and harder the older I get.

But the sun is coming up and it doesn’t look terribly cloudy out there this morning. Yesterday was a lovely, if chilly, day; today will also be chilly. It’s so weird; having a heating system that works properly hasn’t been easy to adjust to. It’s weird not having to wear slippers because the floor’s so cold, or having to wear layers, or having to get under a blanket in my easy chair to watch television comfortably. (I have wondered if the sleep issues of this week have to do with it not being freezing upstairs at night now. But it’s better that the cold doesn’t make me resent getting up every morning, so there’s that.)

But the coffee is kicking in, although I still feel a bit off this week; I am not sure what that’s all about, quite frankly. It’s very weird that the Australian Open is almost over and we’ve not watched a single match; maybe that’s why this week has seemed off? Paul hasn’t even mentioned it once, and usually every night we have matches playing on the television while I watch and play with my iPad–commercials are always lovely times to doom-scroll on Twitter or check in on Facebook or Instagram. There’s still a stack of things on my kitchen counter that needs to be sorted and filed away; I am actually thinking now in terms of simply throwing almost all my paper files away to clear room for stuff I actually need to keep. Maybe this will be a good project for after the book is finished, one Saturday? Empty the filing cabinets and the file boxes? There obviously are things I would need to keep–contracts, for one–but partial story print outs or early drafts are unnecessary to keep because I rarely go back and look at them; I usually look for the file on my computer anyway when I think about finishing something I’ve already started–mostly because my filing system is such a fucking mess. I can also scan copies of articles I’ve written, important things I want to keep but don’t necessarily need a hard copy of, and so forth.

I actually like the sound of this, and then maybe I can find an archive willing to take on my manuscripts and so forth. The older I get the less I care about future scholarship on queer writing and preserving my history–the books will live on forever in ebook editions anyway, and when I retire or die within a few years I’ll be forgotten, and I am actually fine with that. I don’t even know that anyone would ever be interested in actually studying me or not; I know that I am one of the few queer writers who wrote about New Orleans gay life before and after Katrina, but again–the books will always be available electronically, and God knows this blog will probably be accessible for all eternity as well. Soooo…,making a decision about that goes onto the year’s goals list.

But I can definitely start cleaning out the file boxes and the file cabinets. I can keep research in the file cabinet, as well as contracts and tax returns and important business stuff. There may not be enough to fill a single drawer, but that’s not an issue. The more I talk this through the more I like the idea.

Hmmm.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader!