Category: short stories

Is There Something I Should Know?

It rained last night; it was kind of a shock as there was no thunder and/or lightning, and the sun was actually shining. I only knew it was raining when I took out the trash; and it was pouring. Quietly. It was eerie; there wasn’t any wind so the rain was coming straight down, slowly–the way it does in the jungle. And then I remember, as I seem to forget at times, oh, yes, we live in the tropics. It’s easy to forget that when you live in a city that should be a tropical swamp.

I am working both days this weekend; both Saturday for testing and Sunday for the NO/AIDS Walk. I get to take next Monday off, and then go in late on Tuesday, which will be lovely. But ugh, staring down seven consecutive days of work is horrific. But, you know, it happens. And it’s not like it’s every week, you know?

The new Scotty is taking shape, which is lovely. It’s so vastly different than it’s source material, even if it using the same framework, and I am actually enjoying myself as the plot broadens, expands and takes shape. I am hopeful to have a first draft finished around mid-October, if all goes well and the creek don’t rise; November 1 if I get distracted, as I am wont to do.

Lisa Unger’s In the Blood continues to enthrall me; if you haven’t read her work, Constant Reader, you really need to. She defies classification as well; there are crimes in her novels, but there’s also a touch of the paranormal–but you’re never really sure if the paranormal stuff is real or not; she dances a fine line, but the writing is so incredibly strong she never falls off the beam. In that way, she is kind of Shirley Jackson-ish–thematically and plotting and character-wise; she doesn’t write in Jackson’s style, which would be incredibly difficult to master. She’s just bloody fantastic.

September is drawing to a close, and I am already lining up my reading for Halloween Horror: the annual reread of The Haunting of Hill House,  a reread of It, and I have some horror anthologies and other horror novels in my TBR stack that I’ll be pulling out and diving into.

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

Here’s a hunk to get you through your Monday!

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Stray Cat Strut

Friday!!!!

I have almost made it through this short week–I am working tomorrow before we head up to Baton Rouge for the LSU-UT Chattanooga game–and am pretty happy about it. It seemed off this week; I’m not sure what that’s about. We’ve had a chilly week here–for September, it’s been in the 70’s without humidity, which is November weather, really. I’ve slept fairly well, despite waking up a couple of times per night, and each morning have not wanted to get up. I may get up tomorrow morning so I can get the groceries and run errands prior to going to the office–get that out of the way so I can sleep late Sunday, since we’ll probably not get back from Baton Rouge until around midnight.

This week my short story “Keeper of the Flame” came out in Mystery Weekly magazine, and I am inordinately proud of this. Short stories are so hard for me to write, so each sale of one makes me feel like I’ve truly accomplished something.  I struggle so much with short stories…I have so many right now that aren’t finished, but I am trying to get the edits input and the first draft of the new Scotty written and … and…and…

I also got pretty deep into Margaret Millar’s sublime Do Evil in Return, and can’t wait to finish reading it so I can post about it. It’s so extraordinary!

Anyway, if you want to read “Keeper of the Flame”, you do have to pay for it, alas. This is the link to the preview of the story, to give you an idea of whether you want to read it or not:

http://mysteryweekly.com/issues/keeper.asp

You can buy the magazine in either print or e-form here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1549639919/

And you can also buy or subscribe here:

http://www.mysteryweekly.com/subscribe.asp

Do support markets that pay–even in a small amount–for short crime fiction!

Here’s a hunk to get your weekend rolling, former Tarzan actor Gordon Scott:

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You Are

It’s raining this morning here in New Orleans, and very dark outside my windows. We’re in a flash flood warning through Thursday, but from everything I’ve seen on-line this morning the eye of Harvey is going to pass far to the west of New Orleans; but a lot of Louisiana is going to be impacted. Not to the extent Houston and Texas were, of course. Just thinking about what’s happened to Houston (still happening, actually) here is terrifying. I saw on Weather.com that three times the water pumped out of New Orleans after the Katrina levee-failure has dropped on Houston…although it’s a much bigger area. Houston is going to need us all, everyone. It’s the fourth largest city in the United States; a major port and contributor to the economy, and a major cog in the oil/gas industry. Most everyone I know and love and care about in Houston has surfaced somewhere on social media, so I know they’re all okay, but the images are absolutely horrific.

It’s odd that today is the anniversary of Katrina and it’s raining, with a hurricane heading for the western part of the state. I’ve thought a lot about the post-Katrina flood these past few days as Houston has been ravaged, and my heart breaks for all the lives that are going through what so many here experienced. So many New Orleanians evacuated to Houston and stayed there, and now are going through the same experience all over again. It makes my heart hurt. I don’t doubt that Houston will rebuild; I lived in Houston for two years and have spent a lot of time there. Houstonians and Texans are, no matter what else you may think about them, are a hardy, tough lot who can’t be kept down.

HOU DAT.

The LSU-BYU game, which was scheduled to be played originally in Houston this Saturday, has been moved to the Superdome; I think we may try to get tickets. It’s going to be interesting trying to drive to work today, and even more interesting trying to get home later this evening after a day of incessant rain. Heavy sigh.

Oh, the wonderful Paul D. Marks did a blog piece about us Macavity Award finalists; you can find it here:

http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2017/08/2017-macavity-award-short-story.html

I started inputting the edits on the WIP yesterday–I stand corrected; that is more tedious than doing a line edit–and have decided my next read will be The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith, a writer I love and admire and haven’t read enough work by; I’ve read some of her short stories (wonderful) but I think the only novels I’ve read (and loved) are The Talented Mr. Ripley (which I need to reread) and Strangers on a Train.

And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines with me. Here’s a Tuesday hunk for you, Constant Reader:

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Back on the Chain Gang

Saturday morning, with Fleetwood Mac blaring through the stereo, a load of laundry going in the washer, another in the dishwasher, and I’m about to do the floors. This week was so insane–both personally and at work–that I’m glad that it’s the weekend; last week just needed to end. I woke up with a lot of energy this morning; hopefully it will see me through the cleaning and the errand I need to do today. Last night I was glued to the Weather Channel until I couldn’t watch anymore; I alternated between that and reading Star Island by Carl Hiaasen before retiring to bed relatively early. Paul’s going to spend the day doing errands and running around with a friend; I hope to get the line edit finished as well as Chapter Four (I hate transitional chapters); tomorrow I intend to edit some short stories and possibly get started on Chapter Five. Crescent City Charade isn’t coming along as quickly as I might have hoped; I think I’ll brainstorm the next few chapters this evening, as that should help.

Next weekend is Southern Decadence. Wow, this summer has just flown by, hasn’t it? The humidity should break in the weeks after Labor Day and then it’s the fall. Football season also starts (for LSU) this Saturday; the Tigers are supposed to play BYU in Houston; not sure how that’s going to work given Harvey and what it’s doing to southeastern Texas. Best as I can tell, Houston is getting hammered this morning, but at least it’s down to a Category 1–which, while not ideal, with it’s heavy rains and so forth–is better than the Category 4 that came ashore last night. Hurricane season sucks, y’all. As a friend said last night, hurricane season makes you into a bad person, as you’re always hoping and praying it will go somewhere else, which means wishing it on other people.

So fucking true, and so fucking sad.

I read the first two digital issues of Starman this week; it’s not quite as good as I remembered, but on the other hand, I originally started reading it about seven or eight issues in. The first issues of a new superhero comic are always, like a television show, a bit wobbly as they try to find their legs and get on firm footing–notable exceptions being Ozark and Game of Thrones, but usually I’ll try to give a TV show a couple of episodes to find its way and gel. This iteration of Starman is about Will Payton, a recent college graduate, raised by a single mother with a younger sister. The mom sacrificed a lot to help put Will through college; he got a degree in Advertising and landed a great job with a major firm in Phoenix. But he hated the job, hated what he was doing, and much to his mother’s dismay and anger, he quit and tried to find something else. He went on a camping/hiking trip, and while on it, something happened that he doesn’t quite understand. He wakes up after thirty-two days in the morgue; he’s confused the authorities who found his dead body in the woods, and basically scares the crap out of them when he sits up and starts talking. He also has powers he doesn’t understand, and so he comes back home, confides in his sister…and has to face the wrath of his mother who demands that he find a job…all the while he’s trying to figure out what’s happened to him. He can fly, generate heat, withstand bullets…and can change his appearance by just thinking about it. His sister convinces him that he’s a superhero, and he needs to start fighting crime and helping people.

What Will doesn’t know is the proverbial mad scientist was conducting experiments in a lab, trying to create super-powered beings. But when he was ready to tap into power from a satellite, it was pushed off course by space debris—and rather than beaming back into his lab and into the bodies of his human volunteers–the energy was beamed into Will, where he was sleeping in the woods. The first two issues set this up, and set the stage for a coming conflict with the mad scientist and his creations.

That’s a lot to cram into two issues, so there’s that.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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She Works Hard for the Money

Tuesday.

I had yesterday off, which was most lovely, and I spent the day relaxing, making lists, writing, editing, reading, and cleaning. I made shrimp creole for dinner, which was fabulous, and then we watched the series finale for Orphan Black. I am going to miss the sestras; it was quite a thrill ride for five seasons, and Tatiana Maslany’s talent is truly amazing.

I didn’t get as much writing done as I would have liked, but sometimes just being able to reflect and think is just as effective as actually writing. Plus, I kind of needed a rest. I am going to get some more writing done today, and I am going to finish the second half of the WIP line edit, and then tomorrow (a twelve hour day) I am going to hopefully get started on the first half of the manuscript’s line edit. I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to get this done; and then I am going to have to story edit one more time just to make sure. I want to be able to start sending it to agents after Labor Day. I want to get the first draft of this Scotty finished by mid-September as well, then let it sit for a month or so while I write this noir I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I think the working on something different between drafts is working for me. It doesn’t make sense in any sort of writing universe to write this way, but it’s working for me and as I always tell beginning writers–find whatever system works for you, even if it doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense to anyone else.

I am also way behind–and off the rails–for short stories. I need to get back to “For All Tomorrow’s Lies” soon; it’s due for an edit/revision, and I never did finish that draft of “Quiet Desperation.” Heavy heaving sigh. I think there’s another one I was working on–oh, yes, “This Thing of Darkness,” and some others, too, that never quite got finished. This creative ADD needs to stop.

I need to make a list, is what I need to do.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I’m really enjoying Journey Into Fear. The action has now moved from Istanbul to on board a ship, sailing to Genoa with Our Hero, whose life is in danger. I love these kinds of stories; and miss them. The change from trains and ships as means of transportation has kind of eliminated them as settings for crime novels and thrillers; there will be no more books like this or Murder on the Orient Express, which is really unfortunate. The whole air of being away from everyone else in the world, isolated on a journey with only your fellow passengers, any one of which might be the murderer/spy/assassin,  that whole claustrophobic feeling–an author has to really push themselves and their creativity to come up with a way to isolate the characters and seal them off from the rest of the world these days. Rebecca Chance did this beautifully in her novel Mile High, set on a luxury airliner on a flight from London to Los Angeles; Nick Cutter’s The Deep set his novel on a sealab at the bottom of the Marianas Trench (and that sense of claustrophobia was so beautifully portrayed in that novel that just remembering it makes me shudder). It is still possible, of course, to do something along the lines of And Then There Were None, where the characters are stranded on an island and cut off from the rest of the world; the single season suspense show Harper’s Island did this nicely…I’ve always wanted to do one of those types of novels, and Scotty would be the perfect character for such a book, I think, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make it work. I guess I’ll just let it sit in the back of my head until I get one of those a-ha moments that I am always afraid I’ll stop having.

And now, back to the spice mines. Here’s today’s hunk for you:

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Come on Eileen

Saturday! I managed to finish Chapter One last night and started Chapter Two; huzzah! They are crap, of course, but I’ll worry about that later. I finally got a good night’s sleep today; I have Wacky Russian this morning, have to go to the office to work for a bit, and am going to make a Costco run on the way home. (Just a minor one.) It’s so nice to feel rested; I am hoping that tonight I’ll be so worn out I won’t have any choice but to sleep deeply and well.

I can dream, at any rate.

My weekend this weekend is actually, therefore, Sunday and Monday; it’s going to be strange to have Monday off–next weekend is my birthday, so I am taking a three day weekend to celebrate–so I am, of course, hoping to get some more Scotty written, some more of the line edit finished, and maybe revise a short story or two. Ambitious plans, to be sure, but I am nothing if not overly ambitious. We’re also trying to find a new show to watch; Orphan Black ends this weekend, Game of Thrones only has a few more episodes to run, and  I suspect Animal Kingdom is also approaching its season finale. We never did finish the final season of Bates Motel, though, and there have to be some other shows out there that we just haven’t discovered yet, or forgot we watched.

I want to finish reading Journey Into Fear this weekend so I can get started on my annual reread of The Haunting of Hill House. I think I might read something more noirish after that; not sure what, but there are plenty of things for me to read around the house, believe you me. Maybe I’ll do something I’ve really grown to love over the last year or so–a short story challenge, where I read a short story every day and then blog about it. I do love short stories, and I really would like to write more of them. I’d love to do a collection of my crime and horror short stories…perhaps by the end of the year I would have enough of them on hand to actually put a collection together. (I may already have enough; I’m not sure, but I’d love to have some new, unpublished material.) Maybe I’ll wait and do short-story September, which would be way fun.

And on that note, I think I shall head off to the spice mines. Here’s a Saturday hunk for you viewing pleasure, Constant Reader:

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Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Tuesday morning, and my windows are covered in condensation. Nothing new there, of course, but at least I can see blue sky and sunshine through the beads of water. Perhaps today will be our first day this summer without rain? Stranger things have, of course, happened.

I got quite a bit done on the line edit yesterday; at some point I am going to have to input all of this work into the e-document, and I will be very curious to see how much I wind up cutting. As I go through the manuscript, line by line, I am amazed at how often I repeat myself, or how often an entire paragraph is simply a series of sentences saying the same thing only in different words. A very strong push this week, and I might actually have the entire line edit finished by the end of the weekend. It’s not very likely to happen, but there’s always a possibility. My friend Lisa will be in town later this week, and I am going to try to see her for at least a drink and perhaps dinner. I don’t see her enough as it is.

I also got some work done on the Scotty book yesterday as well. The story is starting to take shape in my mind, and I need to get a strong first chapter together before I can get going on the rest. I am trying to take what I can from the several different versions of a first chapter I’ve already started; I think I can make the whole thing come together–at any rate, that’s my goal for today. I hope to get at least two more chapters finished this week, if not more. I also want to revise a short story. It will, I suppose, depend on how much energy and how much time I have.

I am still processing Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones, “The Spoils of War,” and I also can’t stop thinking about Owen Matthews’ The Fixes. There’s an essay I’d like to write, about straight people writing gay characters that reading this book put into my mind, but it’s not really taking form and I am not really sure if it will–the curse of a creative imagination; too many ideas. But The Fixes is so incredibly well written and well done you’d never know that Owen Matthews himself isn’t gay; but really, if you have any experience whatsoever with alienation, you should be able to write believable gay characters; alienation is the key, now that I think about more deeply, and I wish I had thought of that before I taught my character building workshop at SinC Into Good Writing last September here in New Orleans.

Alienation, in fact, is a constant theme in Harlan Ellison’s oh-so-brilliant work.

Paul and I are thinking about going to see Dunkirk this weekend; whether we actually do or not remains to be seen. I have to work on Saturday, and as such my weekend shall be Sunday and Monday; having a Monday off will actually be rather lovely.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines before I head into the office.

Here’s a Tuesday hunk for you, Constant Reader:

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Total Eclipse of the Heart

I love to read.

I am so enormously grateful to my sister for teaching me how to read before I started school. I’ve always enjoyed reading (maybe not textbooks; I’ve never enjoyed being forced to read, which is also why I have so much antipathy for classics I was forced to read for classes); reading, for me, has always been pleasurable. I like reading books and being surprised by the author; the creative part of my mind is always trying to figure out the plot, predict twists to come, etc. I love language, and how writers can piece words together into sentences and paragraphs that paint pictures in my head, create characters that are like people I know and care about and root for (or against, for that matter), that create stories and tales that explain incomprehensible behavior and make me understand it, even sympathize with them.

As I always say when I teach character workshops, “villains don’t think they’re villains.”

It’s been killing me not being able to carve out time for Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods Of Gotham, but Paul is going to a play this evening so I will be able to curl up in my easy chair with it tonight and go to town. I am loving this gloriously written story; and I intend to finish reading it this weekend if it kills me. I am also hoping to get to go see Dunkirk this weekend at some point; it’s playing at the Prytania Theater, which is incredibly easy for us to get to, or we could head out to the parish to see it in Harahan. I’ve not decided which is the better option. My back and hips are still sore this morning, sadly, and I’ve begrudgingly cancelled Wacky Russian for tomorrow morning. But I think letting everything rest is probably the best thing for me, even though I hate missing a workout.

Wasn’t this the year I’d intended to lose weight and get in better shape? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it was. Heavy heaving sigh.

I started working on my short story “The Brady Kid” the other night; it’s not going well, less than a thousand words, all of which were like pulling teeth, so I’ve decided to put that aside. I also line edited some more of the WIP, which is taking forever, but I think I am doing an incredibly good job with it thus far. I intend to work on it some more this weekend, as well; also intend to get some work on the new Scotty done this weekend. We shall see, shan’t we?

I also need to get our plane tickets for Bouchercon in Toronto.

Sigh. It never ends.

Okay, here’s a Friday hunk to slide you into the weekend.

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Fading Fast

Good morning, Saturday! I have Wacky Russian this morning, and we are meeting friends for dinner later on, so I’ll probably spend the day reading, cleaning and doing laundry before that. I’m probably going to try to finish the revision of “For All Tomorrow’s Lies”, and maybe make some progress on the line edit as well. I am putting off making a grocery run until tomorrow; not sure if that’s wise or if I should just get it over with today, so I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow at all…decisions, decisions.

It seems a bit gray out there this morning; Paul is leaving shortly to go play tennis, which might (and most likely will be) rained out at some point. I don’t think it rained yesterday, which might be the first day since May it hasn’t rained here. I just hope it doesn’t rain on me on the way to the gym; that always sucks.

I could also spend some time organizing computer files, which always seems to get out of hand very quickly. I hate that. It comes from being lazy and stashing things quickly, always thinking I’ll straighten this up later. So, in the meantime, it drives me crazy and it builds up and builds up until it takes hours for me to reorganize everything.

Then again, it also helps me procrastinate and not write, so there’s that explained.

And as I glance around the kitchen this morning, it’s such  a mess. Heavy heaving sigh. Stacks of paper, stacks of books, the floor needs cleaning…ad my knives need sharpening, too. It never ends.

As I said yesterday, one of the things I find myself most interested in exploring in my writing now is damage, how people became damaged and how they cope with it, while contrasting their damage with mundanities of life. We all have our own damage; carry the signs of it with us internally all the time. My story “Housecleaning” was inspired by the smell of bleach, which reminded me one day of my mother–and that became the opening line: The scent of bleach always reminded him of his mother. Part of the genius of shows like Weeds and Ozark was the impact of their parents’ criminal behavior on their children; how do kids have a normal life when their parents are criminals and have thus lost their moral compass, as well as the morality of being a parent? “Housecleaning” was about such a kid, who grew up under the thumb of a con artist mother, who as he got older was required to assist in the cons. And when you’re assisting your mother in conning marks as a child, what kind of adult do you become?

I am also very far behind on my schedule for the summer. I’d hoped to have the noir novel’s first draft finished by the first of September, so I could spend the fall writing the next Scotty book while the noir rested. I’ve not even started the noir yet, still am not sure what the true plot is–it’s amorphous and keeps shifting in my head–but if I can get this line edit finished, and start sending that manuscript out to agents, I can buckle down and get the noir written, and still maybe get the Scotty finished by the end of the year.  Depending on how the scheduling works, I may end up having to put the noir aside until the Scotty is finished. And I am fairly certain of what I want to write after the Scotty and the noir are done. I just need to get them done.

Heavy heaving sigh.

All right, I am going to clean the kitchen before the gym.

Here’s a Saturday stud for you, Constant Reader.

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This Town

It’s Friday morning in New Orleans, and I slept fitfully; but when I did sleep, it was terrific. I only have to work a half-day today, which is lovely, and tonight I am hoping to not only get a chance to read some more of Rebecca Chance’s lovely Killer Affair, but to get further in the line edit as well. This weekend my plan is to work on the line edit and clean, alternating between the two, which hopefully will do the trick. I’ve not gotten as far along this week on anything that I’d hoped; the weekly to-do list is a complete and utter disaster. The good news this week was that our renewed passports arrived (hurray!), I got some great books–everything from the new Michael Connelly to Eric Ambler to Chester Himes–to add to the TBR pile, and the latest short story is really taking a good shape, one with which I am really and truly pleased.

My short stories are much darker than my novels. The WIP, currently being line edited, has little to no humor in it; at least none that I’m aware of–but then again I am not the best judge of that. I love to tell the story of my New Orleans Noir story, “Annunciation Shotgun,” which I thought  was this dark, unsettling tale, and continued thinking so until at a reading for the anthology, Chris Wiltz, one of the other contributors (her story, “Night Taxi,” is quite chilling) said to me, “Oh, I loved your story! It’s so funny!”

I was a little taken aback, as I’d thought it was a dark story…and then when it was my turn to read to the gathered audience, there were times when I got laughs.

Okay, I remember thinking, I guess I can be funny even when I’m not trying to be.

This story I’m working on now is also grim and dark; but I think the primary reason I’m drawn to the genre I work in primarily is my interest in damaged people. The Great Gatsby  was about damaged people, and the damage people can leave in their wake; it didn’t try, however, to explain or get into how the people got damaged and why,  and that was its greatest disappointment to me. This current story was inspired by watching a documentary while Paul was at his mother’s; I always have to find things to watch when he’s gone that we wouldn’t want to watch together (in other words, things I want to watch that he doesn’t. He tired of the TV series Scream; so I finished watching it while he was gone. Likewise, you can never go wrong with documentaries). I watched one on either Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon–I don’t remember which–about a young man and his brothers, who’d escaped a religious cult. As I watched these damaged young men trying to make sense of their childhood and fit into a world and society they were woefully underprepared for, while the main point-of-view character was also trying to reestablish a relationship with his mother, still in the cult and distant to him–I couldn’t help but wonder about the young women refugees from the cult he interviewed, and the stories they shared about their sexual abuse and, basically, being brainwashed into thinking that was normal. (The boys were also apparently sexually abused as well as physically abused, but their sexual abuse was skipped over; mentioned but not gotten into in depth.) I had my notebook in my lap, and I scribbled down notes…and eventually started writing the story I thought up while watching the documentary. The story is dark–I am revising it now, making it even darker than the first draft–which also limits its saleability quotient, but hey, I am definitely going to put it out there.

Christ, I have so many works in progress. Nothing like creative ADD without a deadline to anchor you down.

I’ve also not decided what book to write next once this WIP is finished. I am thinking about getting back to Scotty with Crescent City Charade, but there’s another noir I’d love to tackle, and my “A Holler Full of Kudzu” could easily be explored as a novel.  Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me! Here’s a Friday hunk for you, to get your weekend started properly.

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