Category: Saints

Luka

Ah, a lovely lazy Sunday morning, with a lot on my plate to get done.

LSU won again yesterday, taking Mississippi State down in their own stadium 36-13. With about five minutes left in the first half LSU was ahead only 9-7; State had just scored and the cowbells were ringing. As time ran out in the half, LSU was ahead 22-7. Within another five minutes of the second half, we were ahead 36-7, and the game was essentially over. Four touchdowns in less than ten minutes.  Next up is Auburn in Death Valley; Auburn rebounded from their loss to Florida with a blowout of Arkansas, and they’ll be thirsty to beat LSU. Another loss and their championship hopes are over; Auburn has also lost two straight to LSU in the closing minutes.

It will be a tough one.

The Saints are playing later this afternoon, the Bears in Chicago at Soldier Field. I have a lot to get done this morning if I want to watch the game, frankly; I may wind up just working while it’s on in the living room. I managed to get nothing done yesterday; I overslept (it was needed, methinks) and so got a late start to the day. I did manage to make groceries and fill the car with gas, so that’s something, right? Today I have to finish my Sisters column, and I have to also work on Bury Me in Shadows as well as a proposal for another project.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But the weather yesterday was gorgeous, simply gorgeous. I do love when it gets to be mid to late October and we have what we consider fall down here–which means it never gets much hotter than eighty degrees and the humidity is gone. It’s so gorgeous, and the sky is so blue…ah, heavenly.

So I decided to treat myself to a sleeping pill, and after last night’s amazingly deep and restful night’s sleep, I understand completely how addictive these things can be. Yes, my sleep has been rather off and on since I stopped taking them every night, and I actually can feel an emotional difference in myself as well this morning; who wouldn’t want to feel this good every morning on waking up? But addiction is a very real thing, and a very real thing I’m afraid of, so I won’t be taking another one until I feel like I need a special treat.

The demolition of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site, postponed from yesterday to today, is going to happen at some point later this morning. I am feeling less like turning it into a “ripped from the headlines” novel today as I was over the last couple of days; while there would be some interesting points to be made about New Orleans corruption and greedy, shady contractors, for it to be a Scotty novel it would have to be somehow reigned in and made into a personal story of some sort.  I can, of course, see the site from the elevated interstate as I drive to and from work every day; the elevated interstate gives one an interesting view of the city from those heights (it runs along Claiborne Avenue, and its construction destroyed irrevocably the business district for people of color and the neighborhoods that ran along Claiborne Avenue for decades–and yes, racism played a part in where the highway runs).

I started reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things and am already quite enthralled with it. For one thing, she’s creating an entirely new mythology of vampires–at least one that is new to me–and I love that the book is set in Mexico, currently in Mexico City. I also like the way she is carefully doling out plot points and back history for her main character, Atl–who is very interesting, and is involved in something dangerous that we aren’t quite sure what it might be at this point. I also like that the very first chapter, which introduces Atl to the reader, is told from the perspective of a street kid named Domingo. Moreno-Garcia created Domingo completely and in three dimensions, like he’s a main character, rarely than merely the lens through which we meet Atl. (He still might be an important character to the story; I hope so because I liked him, but it also wouldn’t surprise me terribly if he disappears from the story completely. If that is indeed the case, kudos to Moreno-Garcia for making even throwaway characters complete and real. I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the book.

Reading this also made me realize how badly I failed at vampire fiction with my few meager attempts. I didn’t really do anything new with them; I just wrote vampire stories to write vampire stories, without any thought about how to make them realistic, compelling, and original. I did have a big over-arching plan, though–it would have tied them all together and created something big and original in the second novel, Desire, which sadly never happened. But I’m not a horror/supernatural writer, and when I do venture into those realms, what I do best is ghost stories. I am currently writing another novel that is a ghost story; I already did one (Lake Thirteen), and will probably do another one at some point.

And now I should probably clean the kitchen. I am going to run an errand either before or during the Saints game–the city is always a ghost town during Saints games; it’s literally the best time to do errands, and everywhere you go they’re playing the game anyway–but I also need to get some cleaning and writing done long before I leave the house to do so.

I’m also still reading about the Lemana kidnapping in Ready to Hang, which is quite interesting, mainly because the child was held for so long. The history of the Italian immigrants to New Orleans is interesting–and often quite tragic, frankly–and I find it interesting that the Irish immigrants, who were most likely looked on with as much askance as the Italians, who came later, don’t have some horrible stories that appear in histories of crimes in New Orleans. I do know they were primarily confined to the stretch between Magazine Street and the river–which is why it’s still called the Irish Channel–but they don’t seem to be the victims of mob violence or as much intolerance as the Italians were around the turn of the twentieth century.

If they were, it’s not included in these books about historical crimes/tragedies in old New Orleans.

There’s been an idea forming in the back of my head about all this bloodshed and horror in the history of New Orleans; something along the lines of the land being cursed or some kind of cloud over it, like Stephen King’s Derry, which could also explain the prevalence of religion in the region–Catholicism and even voodoo–used primarily to protect the souls of the locals from the dark forces that seem to control New Orleans.

It’s an interesting thought, at any rate.

And now back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

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You Got It All

Saturday morning and I literally just rolled out of bed. I cannot remember the last time I slept this late, but rather than worrying about it, I’m just going to go ahead and embrace it. I have to run make groceries today before the LSU game, but it’s at two thirty so there’s still plenty of time for me to get caffeinated, woken up, and maybe even do some cleaning around the house before the Tigers take on Mississippi State.

Last night Paul and I continued watching a show on Hulu from some true crime channel. The series is called The 1990’s: The Deadliest Decade, or something like that; last night we watched two more episodes (we’d watched the first episode, about a murder in Houston, Thursday night). Last night’s episodes were about the torture/murder of a twelve year old girl in Indiana–very grisly–and the second episode was the Club Kid Murder, which I already knew the story of–Michael Alig, the Limelight Club in New York, and the murder of drug dealer Angel; there was a book I’d read called Disco Bloodbath, written by an accessory after the fact who got immunity for testifying, and it was later made into a film, Party Monster, which starred Macauley Culkin. I’ve resisted the allure of true crime for the most part–don’t get me wrong, I do love it, it’s just that since I started writing crime fiction I’ve worried that reading a true crime novel would inspire me to fictionalize the story (“ripped from the headlines!”), and for some reason that felt like cheating in some way to me. But over the years I’ve found that a lot of crime writers draw inspiration from actual true crimes…and yet I’ve continued to avoid it. (I used to love A&E’s show City Confidential, which was amazing)

And being inspired by reading Ethan Brown’s book Murder in the Bayou (as well as by the Showtime docuseries based on the book) kind of proves my point, doesn’t it?

Then again, Garden District Gothic was my own take on the Jon-Benet Ramsey case, wasn’t it, only twenty or so years later?

And of course, this whole situation with the Hard Rock Hotel collapse last weekend has my brain working feverishly to spin a plot around it. I already have introduced a shady developer into my alternate New Orleans universe, in Royal Street Reveillon, none other than Sam Dreher. Maybe the collapsing hotel can be the basis for French Quarter Flambeaux, one of the many Scotty titles I came up with recently.

What I really need to be doing is working on Bury Me in Shadows, but I suspect my fevered brain is going to continue to jump around today. I always keep my journal and a pen handy when I’m watching an LSU game, so hopefully after I get the cleaning done and the groceries made and start the grill–we always “tailgate” at home for LSU games; burgers and hot dogs–I’ll be able to work some more on Bury Me in Shadows during and after the game. I don’t know what other games there are today–I’m beginning to care less and less about watching games all day on Saturdays these days–and so it’s entirely possible this will work, you know?

But as always, the Lost Apartment is a mess. There’s a load of dishes in the dishwasher to be unloaded, and a sink full of dirty dishes from last night’s ravioli to clean. There’s laundry in the dryer to be folded, and I really should wash the couch blankets today as part of the general clean-up of the living room. The Saints game tomorrow isn’t until 3:25, which also gives me the entire morning to clean and write and organize. I have an article for Sisters to finish writing, and various other things on my to-do list that definitely need to get done before I head back to work on Monday.

And my throat is still sore.

I also have a lot of computer files to clean up and organize.

It never really ends, does it?

I also want to spend some time curled up with Certain Dark Things today.

And on that note, tis back to ye old spice mines with me. Have a lovely Saturday, all.

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In Too Deep

Well, Constant Reader, we made it to Friday somehow, didn’t we? Huzzah, I guess?

The heat finally broke yesterday; it was very cool in the morning and evening. The afternoon didn’t feel nearly as bad as it has been, even though it did get up to about 87 degrees. There wasn’t any humidity, and the humidity is, after all, what is really horrible about the weather here. There’s also a tropical storm of some sort out in the Gulf–I should probably check on that, since it’s projected to pass by close to here–which undoubtedly is affecting the weather here somewhat as well.

I don’t have big plans for the weekend; I never do, really. Just the usual: make groceries, pick up the mail, clean, watch the LSU and Saints football games, cook out, and do some writing. Today is a short day at the office, and I’ve already started working on the cleaning this morning. I’ll undoubtedly do some more tonight when I get home from the office, and I’d also like to get back to work on Bury Me in Shadows, which has pretty much lain fallow this entire week. I have done some thinking about it, of course, and there are changes to implement into the manuscript before moving on to those later chapters, but I am way off track to get it finished by the end of the month, as I had originally hoped and planned, unless I get back to work and start kicking some serious ass as I work on it.

And maybe–just maybe–with some dedication, I can get my emails all caught up. Stranger things have happened…and may happen again. Just you wait and see.

I slept really well last night–only woke up twice that I can remember–and feel very rested this morning. My throat is still sore, but the earache seems to be gone for good (huzzah!), and maybe tonight I’ll dose it with tea and honey before going to bed. I still haven’t started reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things beyond that enthralling first page, but probably tonight when I get home from work I’ll make some time for it–Scooter always wants some cuddle time whenever I come home, so I find that’s the best thing to do–curl up in my easy chair with a book so he can sleep in my lap and purr. It’s weird how far behind I’ve fallen in my reading–I’d hoped to read more horror this month than I have–and I’ve also got to start preparing for my Bouchercon panels; I’m moderating two, and that requires prep work, particularly since I have so many ridiculously talented people on them. One features Cheryl Head, Alex Segura, Steph Cha, S. A. Cosby, Michael Nava, and my co-moderator, Carsen Taite; the other features Lou Berney, Wendy Corsi Staub, Alison Gaylin, Elizabeth Little, and Steph Cha (again–and if you haven’t read her brilliant new novel, Your House Will Pay, shame on you and get to it). Ridiculously talented and wicked smart panels…so I am really going to need to be prepared, else I will come across looking like a moron.

I am also on the Anthony Award Best Short Story panel, where I will be sharing the stage again with S. A. Cosby in addition to Art Taylor, Holly West, and the always delightful Barb Goffman. Barb and Holly have stories in Florida Happens (Holly and my nominated stories are from Florida Happens); Shawn and I are both in the upcoming Dark Yonder anthology; and Art is one of the most awarded and respected short story writers in our genre–his nominated story also won the Edgar this past spring. (Holly also edited Murder-a-Go-Go’s, which includes my story “This Town.”) I don’t hold out many hopes for an upset win and a second Anthony for my shelves; but it truly is a surprise and a delight to be nominated in the company of these other writers whom I admire and respect so deeply.

It’s nice to periodically take stock, you know? I get so caught up in the grind of editing and writing and promoting and reading and everything else I have to get done–not to mention the dispiriting slings and arrows that come along in your every day life as a writer (not the least of which is fucking Imposter Syndrome) that I never really ever take the time to sit back and reflect and enjoy what I’ve done so far, what I’ve accomplished. I think part of that is because I am always dissatisfied with where I am in my career as a writer and wanting to get more done, accomplish more, and get more work out there. It’s a grind, as I mentioned earlier, and I always forget to enjoy moments, or to even take a moment here and there to bask in the joys of accomplishment because I’m always so focused on what’s next oh my God I have so much to do and so little time when will I ever get this all finished? That, of course, is self-defeating. I’ve been trying to be better about blowing my own horn and taking some pride in myself, as well as working on my self-confidence.  I’ve written a lot–novels, novellas, short stories, essays–and I’ve won some awards, been nominated for even more. It’s a thrill to be nominated for a mainstream short story award–the second time I’ve been nominated for a mainstream short story award–and it’s really quite a thrill. It’s a thrill to be in the company of the other nominees this time; last time the other nominees included Lawrence Block and Joyce Carol Oates. (I know, right?)

So look at the positives, and ignore the negatives.

And on that note, I have some time before I have to get ready for work this morning, so I think I’ll do a bit of writing.

Have a lovely Friday!

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I Knew You Were Waiting for Me

I am sick, and I hate being sick. I suppose after spending many hours in crowds, exposed to the germs of over a hundred thousand people, while also wearing myself screaming and cheering and jumping up and down, it’s to be expected, but it’s still incredibly irritating. You never think about getting germs when you’re at a football game, but if you think about it–what better way for a plague to spread than Patient Zero attending a packed college football game? One of the most chilling chapters of Stephen King’s The Stand was a chapter about how the superflu spread out from the east Texas town of Arnette–I will always remember about how one woman stopped at a bar for a sloe gin fizz and left a dollar tip “that was crawling with death.”

I don’t think I have some horribly mutated super-flu, but my eyes hurt and so do all of my joints…and my throat is even worse than it was yesterday. I’ve gone from Kathleen Turner to Brenda Vaccaro in just over twenty-four hours, and it’s weird. My ears and sinuses were also bad yesterday, but Claritin-D has seemed to clear that right up, thank you, baby Jesus–the sinus pain is the worst.

I think I’m probably going to make myself some chicken noodle soup for lunch today, and I’m also terribly dehydrated–so I clearly need fluids.

I did some thinking about my work yesterday as I sat in my easy chair, curled up under blankets and watching the Saints game before watching the replay of the LSU game on the SEC Network (we used to do this all the time; watch the LSU game on television on Saturday, and then a local network would rebroadcast it on Sunday, when we’d watch it again so we could enjoy it without all the tension and emotion of the live-watch; knowing how the game ended made it a lot easier to watch!) and I made some notes from time to time in my journal. I was paging through Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which I hadn’t put away after my annual re-read, and it occurred to me that there’s a terrific line that runs throughout the book, repeated over and over again, which would actually make an interesting title for a story: “Mrs. Dudley Clears at Ten.” I literally have no idea what the story would be, or who it would be about, or anything other than that title, which pleases me so much. I always start with titles, as Constant Reader should already be aware; it’s difficult for me to write anything unless I’ve given it a title already.–even if it’s one that I don’t care for or doesn’t really work. I also riffed on titles for Scotty books yesterday; as long as I can come up with a title I’ll probably be able to keep writing Scotty for as long as I want to, or as long as someone wants to publish them, and as long as people want to read them. Part of the fun of reading all this New Orleans history is that it’s giving me ideas for short stories and for novels, which is really a lot of fun. (Just as I will  never have time to read all the books I want to, I will never have the time to write every book or short story I have an idea for. Sad reality–and one that I try to deny all the time.)

So, while yesterday sucked eggs because I was feeling poorly, at least the creative side of my brain was able to function and come up with some ideas and thoughts. I also thought some more about Bury Me in Shadows, and whether I want to go ahead and try to get it finished by the end of the month. (Saturday afternoon I realized it’s not as close to being finished as I had hoped it might be….I’m going to go sit in my easy chair with the manuscript this afternoon, after I eat my soup, and see if I can figure out what needs to be added…there’s a scene that occurred to me sometime over this weekend that I think needs to be added into the first chapter…I was trying to be oblique in the writing, but I think there are some things that need to be clarified so the reader isn’t thinking, oh, it was necessary for the story for this to happen even though it really doesn’t make a lot of sense as they continue through the story–which is a horrible thought to have as an author; that you’ve contrived something because it needs to happen otherwise there’s no story.

Just thinking about it makes my stomach clench.

And I just got a wave of dizziness, so I am going to go lie back down for a while.

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Open Your Heart

Well, the Saints managed to win again yesterday. I had the game on while I went through the Bury Me in Shadows manuscript, making notes; I have to concur with the assessment I made of the manuscript initially Saturday–it’s not going to require a lot of work before I turn it in. It might even be ready to go as early as next weekend, if I stay focused, pay no attention to shiny objects, and stay on course. During the Saints game, I went over the manuscript more carefully; making notes on what to add and what to take away, and the whole thing is actually more cohesive than I originally thought. It’s not going to be easy–it never is–but getting this manuscript ready for my publisher isn’t going to be as rough a slog as it could have been.

I was very proud of myself this weekend as I got a lot done. I cleaned and organized and got so much done that was on my list of things to do–and I even got a great night’s sleep and so felt pretty rested…until the alarm went off at six this morning. I’d actually woken up at 5:52, and just stayed in bed until the alarm went off, hitting snooze twice because the bed felt nice and comfortable and warm. I’d rather not venture out into the world today–I’d much rather stay here in the comfort of my own home, and definitely would have preferred to stay in the warmth of my comfortable bed, but I have to get up and go to work and prepare myself for my two long days.

Heavy heaving sigh.

We watched more episodes of Bigmouth last night, and I can’t decide if the show is actually really uproariously funny, or if the shock of the things the show covers–all the joys of junior high school puberty, with all that entails–is what makes it funny; the whole oh my God are they really talking about that? thing that I also always wondered about South Park.

I finished my reread of The Haunting of Hill House also yesterday–it’s a very short book–and am still in awe of the genius of Shirley Jackson. The way she created a mood, and tension, with beautifully crafted sentences and paragraphs is simply amazing. I couldn’t help but think how much stronger her book is than the nearest thing to it that I can think of–Richard Matheson’s Hell House, which was excellent and used the same basic structure–a notorious haunted house, and some ghost hunters arrive to see if they can figure out what is going on there–in a completely different way. The books’ titles are even similar. But I love both books, enjoy them both tremendously, but one always makes me think of the other. Again, I’m not really sure Jackson should be classified as a horror writer–her work kind of defies classification–but she was definitely one of the best American writers of the twentieth century.

I was trying to remember how I first came across the Jackson novel; I knew of her through her short story “The Lottery,” which I read in high school. I’d seen the 1963 film version, The Haunting, which was one of the most terrifying movies I’d ever seen at that point in my life–I’ll never forget Julie Harris as Nell–but at that time I didn’t know it was a novel. I think I first became aware of the novel because Stephen King used that famous opening paragraph as an epigram for ‘salem’s Lot; and shortly thereafter came across a copy in a used book store–so naturally I had to buy it, and read it in one afternoon, completely enthralled…and I’ve never been without a copy of the book since. I started rereading it every year about ten years or so ago–the other book I reread every year is Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca–and I think both books have influenced me as a writer, even if that isn’t apparent in my actual work. (I’ve never finished reading the entire canon of either Jackson or du Maurier; they are both dead and therefore the established canon is all there is…and I never want to be finished with either author. I know, it’s crazy, but it’s also just the way I am.)

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

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The Lady in Red

Tuesday morning.

I started reading Deliverance yesterday between clients, and while it’s not the sort of thing I typically read, an argument can be made that it is, in fact, a very dark crime novel; even noir, if you will. I’ll undoubtedly write more about that once I finish reading it, but it’s interesting thus far, and Dickey also proves the maxim I’ve held for quite some time–that poets make amazing fiction writers because they understand the music in language. I am not a poet–I don’t have the ear for it, and have never grasped the basic concepts of it, and my mind just doesn’t think that way.

We’re almost finished with The Politician. There’s only one episode left in this first season, which we will watch tonight, and then we’ll go back to Succession or watching one of the network shows we watch that have since returned. I was very tired last night when I got home from work–I hit a wall at one point yesterday afternoon–and wasn’t really able to get too much done before hitting the bed. I did revise the short story again yesterday. It’s due today, so before I head into the office today I’ll go over it one more time before sending it in to the editors. I don’t know if it’s any good–as I have repeatedly said, I am not the best judge of my own work–so I won’t be terribly disappointed if they decide against using it. I have another story I need to get revised–well, make that two stories I need to revise–and of course, now that it’s October, I need to start revising a manuscript for a novel. The question is, which one? Heavy heaving sigh. Tomorrow is a half-day for me, so I’ll probably hit the grocery store on the way home from the office and then will retire to my easy chair to reread Bury Me in Shadows. 

Although the Kansas book is also kind of calling to me. Hmmmm.

LSU plays Utah State with a very early start time on Saturday; the next weekend is Florida at night in Death Valley. The Saints continue to chug along, even without Drew Brees, so this could wind up being a terrific football season for Louisiana football fans.

I can also tell that the seasons are beginning to change somewhat. It gets light much later than it used to when I wake up on my early mornings, and it’s now dark when I come home from work. This makes my two lengthy days seem much worse than they did when I was going to work and coming home in the sunlight. There’s something soul-destroying about going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, like you’ve missed the entire day. And while on Mondays and Tuesdays I have indeed missed the entire day while being inside at work, it seems so much worse when it’s been dark for hours by the time I get off work. I know it’s a mental thing, and part of the reason I dislike the winter season so much–I dislike the shorter sunlight hours. It’s also starting to be cooler–there was hardly any humidity yesterday, and it was so cold in the office I was actually looking forward to going outside to move my car yesterday afternoon. It was certainly warmer outside, but the humidity was gone, and so going outside wasn’t like getting slapped in the face with a wet woolen blanket the way it has been since April or May.

I am also hopeful today I am going to get my inbox finally cleaned out so I can be finished with my emails once and for all.

An old man can dream, can’t he? Let me have this one.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

Monday morning. I don’t feel tired this morning; we’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we? The Saints won a squeaker last night, 12-10, but they did end up winning the game despite scoring no touchdowns–when was the last time that happened?–and I went to bed shortly thereafter. We continued watching The Politician, and predictably, it’s plot has became more scattered the deeper into the season we get, like so many other shows from Ryan Murphy. We’ re still watching because it’s entertaining enough, and the acting is top-notch, and we only have a few more episodes to go before it’s finished.

I also am almost finished reading James Gill’s Lords of Misrule, which will probably be finished tomorrow. I haven’t decided what my next fiction read will be just yet–I started pulling James Dickey’s Deliverance down from the shelves last night, but couldn’t make myself start reading it. I was quite young when I saw the movie–we saw it at the drive-in, and I don’t remember what the earlier feature was, but I do remember I fell asleep while it was playing and only woke up near the end, not knowing what had happened. Deliverance was one of those movies whose plot became a part of the zeitgeist; people today may not completely know where the reference comes from, but any time someone mentions being somewhere so rural “you can almost hear the banjoes”–it’s a reference to Deliverance. It also may be James Dickey the poet’s only work of fiction; I don’t know how true that is or isn’t, but it certainly used to be true.

I also finished watching episode three of Murder in the Bayou yesterday, which has also given me some ideas (along with the thinking about Deliverance) for my own book, Bury Me in Shadows, which is what I actually think I’m going to work on for the month of October. The Kansas book is still messing with my head. I can’t figure out what to do with the plot and there are so many different ways I could revise that story that I think it might be best to leave that mess alone for now. I still want to get it finished and out of my hair, but if I can’t decide precisely how to move forward with it, well, that makes it a little more difficult to get it finished.

I need to revise my short story today, and then give it some polish tomorrow before turning it in. It’s kind of a mess right now, but I am confident once I reread it today and make some notes, it’ll all fall into place for me. The pieces are all there, but they aren’t in the right place as of yet, and that’ll have to result in some moving of shit around to make the story more cohesive. I also need to work on that other story; I think I need to change its ending in order to make it more powerful.

And now it’s off to the shower to get ready for my day. It’s a long one, alas; but I am confident I can make it through to the other side.

Like there’s a choice or something. 😉

Happy Monday, Constant Reader!

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Head to Toe

I don’t necessarily hate Mondays so much as I’m not fond of them, really.

I generally dislike waking up early on principle; I firmly believe you should be able to sleep until you organically wake up in the morning. Anything else makes you feel like you didn’t get enough sleep–I woke up, in fact, before the alarm this morning–and it’s a mental thing. You’ll feel like you didn’t get enough sleep all day if your sleep was interrupted by an alarm. As such, I’ve taken to going bed earlier on the nights when I have to wake up early in the morning, and sometimes it works, you know?

I had computer issues again yesterday morning, which ended up taking a few hours to sort–at some point this computer is going to have to go back to the Apple Store, since on-line support is essentially useless–and as such I retired to my easy chair to read Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows, which is remarkably good. I got sucked right into the story, and before I knew it I was halfway through the book and had to stop myself so I could get back to the computer and do some work once the issues had sorted themselves out. The book is extraordinary, and set in a second-tier boarding school, which has some issues with teenage sexuality and sexual abuse; the deliberate rating of girls’ skills with blow jobs, and humiliating them publicly. There’s a new teacher this semester who is discovering all of this slowly; she’s kind of a badass but also cool, with some dark secret in her own past. The book is wicked and clever and sly; and I really can’t wait until I finish reading it.

The Saints game was interesting yesterday as well–I kept thinking all the way through that they were going to blow the game and the lead, and seriously, the Seahawks simply ran out of time for their comeback. But it was also nice to see the Saints pull together and win a game without Drew Brees playing quarterback; as they said during the game, it’s the first time that’s happened since 2005, before he joined the team.

This week, the last full week of September, I need to focus on two things: finishing a short story that’s due on the 1st of October (a week from tomorrow) and preparing to work on another two month project. LSU has a bye week this weekend, and the AIDS Walk is also on Saturday; I need to get how that’s going to work into my schedule figured out and sorted this week. The weather has finally changed and turned a bit cooler here–granted, that means temperatures in the low eighties instead of the high nineties, but I will take it. I’m not fond of cold weather, nor am I fond of it getting dark earlier. But at least our winters here are relatively mild for the most part, and even better, short.

Sigh. The one drawback to football season is it inevitably leads to winter.

It’s also a little hard to believe that in just over a week we’ll be entering the final quarter of 2019, and before we know it, it’ll be 2020. That’s just insane. It’s scary to think that it’s been almost twenty years since the turn of the century; even scarier to think I’ll be fifty-nine and only one year off turning sixty. Sixty. Considering the fact I never thought I’d make it to thirty, let alone forty, that’s something,  I suppose.

Ah well, I guess I spoke too soon about the desktop; it’s frozen right now and nothing seems to be working as far as unfreezing it. Macs aren’t supposed to do that sort of thing; that’s partly why it’s so frustrating.

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

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Peaceful

Hello, Wednesday!

I slept strangely last night, in that I felt like I was awake all night but my body was resting–you know, that awful feeling of awareness where you know if you just open your eyes you’ll be awake? That. So I feel rested this morning, but at the same time I don’t completely trust that I’m rested, and suspect I’ll be very tired this evening. Today is my new short day of the week, which is lovely–I’ll be leaving the office around three-thirty this afternoon, stopping at Rouse’s for a few staples, and then I’ll be home.

One of my massive volunteer projects–the one I was so proud of finishing a few weekends ago–has reared its ugly head again, so I spent a good portion of last evening working on it before I went to bed. Another solid push and this phase will be finished; with one shorter phase still to come. Ideally, this will all be done and finished by the end of the weekend, which would be absolutely lovely. But then again, you can’t always count on things finishing when they should or on time, can you? But it was also one of those things hanging horribly over my head and causing me stress, including the stress of inertia; the feeling that there’s so much to do there’s no way I will ever get it done. I sent “Moist Money” off the other day; we’ll see how it plays. It’s a very dark story, but I kind of like it, and I really love the hardboiled gay voice of the main character.

I’ve always thought the Chanse series was my outlet for darkness; my hard-boiled series, whereas the Scotty books were more along the lines of a cozy series, even though Scotty became a licensed private eye. Even though he’s a professional, he’s still really an amateur. But there are people who have told me they love the humor in the Chanse series…which I’ve always thought was rather humorless, so there you go. (It’s like how I thought my story “Annunciation Shotgun” was pure noir and dark; people found parts of it funny even though the story was noir…which was weird for me. But at least they weren’t laughing at the story, but with it, so I didn’t mind so much. I have such a dark sense of humor anyway, I guess it was inevitable that my dark stories would also be humorous in some ways, too.)

Obviously, as I’ve been working on this project I’ve not gotten back to Chapter Twenty-four of Bury Me in Shadows (oh, so close!), but I am hopeful that if I finish the project today, I can get back to the book tomorrow night, and maybe get it completely finished Friday afternoon. I only have to work Friday night, passing out condoms in the Quarter, so I am probably going to run my errands and everything Friday during the day, so I can just stick close to the Lost Apartment over the weekend. There’s college football this weekend (HUZZAH!) and an LSU game Saturday night (GEAUX TIGERS!), and of course the Saints play on Sunday. I also want to start reading Rob Hart’s The Warehouse this weekend, and then I have Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows queued up next, before I get back to the Diversity Project.

We watched another episode of Thirteen Reasons Why last night, and Episode 8 is a particularly good one. The cast is so appealing, and they have such great chemistry together, that I am glad to overlook some things in the plot that don’t make a lot of sense. I also noticed–and maybe I am just not remembering anything from the previous seasons–but there used to be two queer kids at this school; a guy and the Asian girl who is student body president. They’ve been basically erased from the story–the guy is not even mentioned, and the girl was only in a couple of episodes in her role as student body president, but she was downgraded from supporting cast to cameos with little to no explanation. I wonder why? Anyway, last night’s episode is the one where Tyler finally tells Clay the truth about what happened to him, and why he snapped and wanted to die. The kid playing Tyler is phenomenal, probably one of the best actors in the cast, and he was heartbreaking., positively heartbreaking. I’m also not comfortable with the redemptive arc being given to the rapist, even though he’s dead. I understand what they are doing–what he did was inhuman and monstrous, but he was a person, and I think by trying to show him having regrets about what he did, and doing good things for other people, trying to atone…we never saw that in the first two seasons. But yes, it is important for people to understand that monsters are also human…as an editor told me once, years ago, when I was getting started, even Hitler loved his dogs.

Probably some of the best advice about character I’ve ever gotten from an editor.

All right, back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

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Funky Worm

Well, it’s Sunday morning and the windows are covered with condensation again, which means it’s hot and humid outside (with a chance of rain). I finished reading Laura Lippman’s brilliant Lady in the Lake yesterday, but after running my errands in the heavy heat and damp, I was pretty wiped out by the time I’d put everything away and found it incredibly difficult to focus on much of anything. I did some more cleaning, brainstormed a lot more in my journal (I’ve been having some great ideas for “Never Kiss a Stranger”) and then watched the first official game of the college football season–Miami vs. Florida on ESPN last night. I’m not much of a fan of either, to be honest, but it’s an in-state rivalry game and they don’t play each other very often. It was a great game, actually; I didn’t think Miami had much of a chance, but ended up only losing 24-20, and they had a chance to win the game in the closing seconds but couldn’t convert. LSU’s first game is next weekend–a non-conference snoozer; I don’t even remember who they are playing–and soon enough the Saints will be playing their regular season games too. I love college football, and the Saints–I only watch the Saints play in the NFL and pay little to no attention about other teams unless the Saints are playing them. (This goes all the way back to when I was a kid; I’ve never cared much for the NFL but have always loved college football…if I didn’t live in New Orleans I probably wouldn’t care about the Saints, either; but you can’t live here and not love the Saints. It’s practically a city ordinance, and I will say I’ve never seen or experienced anything like the way this city loves its football team.)

Today I have a lot to do. I am going to revise my short story that’s due next weekend, and work on a big project that needs to also be finished by next weekend, and I am probably going to mess around with “Never Kiss a Stranger” a little bit today. I am also going to reread the last few chapters of Bury Me in Shadows so I can finally get those last three chapters written, hopefully by getting a start on that today, and finishing by September 1 so I can do one last pass on the rape culture novel before sending it to my publisher. I also think I’m going to work a bit on my story for the MWA anthology. It’s already finished, and I’ve revised it already a couple of times, but I think I am going to revise it one more time, give it another going over, to make sure everything is fine and ready to go. I doubt it’ll get taken, but I like submitting stories to these anthologies, and one of these days I am going to actually make it into one of those anthologies if it kills me.

And it just might!

Oddly enough, these last week or so I’ve had a sense of general malaise–the notion that I have so much to do that I’ll never get it all done, which then creates inertia/paralysis: there’s no way I’m going to get this all finished so what’s the use in trying? This is incredibly self-defeating, and I know I have a tendency to often defeat myself, so these are alarms and triggers I know to watch out for, fight against, and not get too deeply imbedded in my brain. I don’t always succeed; sometimes the inertia/paralysis wins and I get nothing done, which only exacerbates the problem. But I somehow manage to always get everything done, which is very exciting.

This coming weekend is Southern Decadence, and this is going to be my first Southern Decadence when I am not working in the office on Frenchmen Street–I don’t even have to drive through the Quarter to get to work anymore, so I won’t be caught off-guard by seeing hordes of gay men walking around in the Quarter on my way to work. I am going to do condom duty on Friday night only, giving me a lovely three day holiday weekend to enjoy, watch LSU and get to work on the rape culture novel for its final draft before submission. I’ll be glad to have that book finished, and then I have another project to work on for both October and November, and then in December I can return to Bury Me in Shadows. If my plans hold up, I should be able to then finish revising another unfinished manuscript in January before starting to write the new Chanse, while doing the final research and prep work to get started on Chlorine. These plans are, of course, always subject to change; you never know when another project is going to drop into your lap and that could possibly change everything yet again.

I really need to make a to-do list, and do some other business-type stuff today. I’ve also started packing another box of books to go into the attic; I should probably finish that today as well. I think I’m going to read Rob Hart’s The Warehouse next, followed by Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows, and then I’ll come back to the Diversity Project, probably with Michael Nava’s Lay Your Sleeping Head.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

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