Category: short stories

Love is Blue

Monday morning. I didn’t want to get up this morning, and in fact, hit snooze repeatedly for over an hour before finally dragging my sorry, lazy ass out of bed shortly after eight. But I do feel rested, which is a dramatic improvement over how I felt last Monday when I started out the week already tired. Which is fortunate, because this weekend is TWFest/Saints and Sinners. Paul will be abandoning me on Wednesday to check into the hotel, and I don’t have to go till late on Thursday. I took Friday off as well, and am coming in late on Monday as well. So, I trust I can survive the weekend in one piece and without being completely exhausted by the time I return to work on Monday. We shall see, I suppose.

The weekend wasn’t as productive as I would have liked–then again, when is it ever–but it did accomplish its primary purpose: getting rested for the new work week. I read some more of The Underground Railroad, which is slow going. Partly because the subject matter is so intense, partly because it’s written so simply yet beautifully I want to savor the experience, and I am constantly having to put the book aside to think. The best books always make me think. It really is quite extraordinary, but not a quick or easy read.

So, I made my weekly to-do list this morning, and am proud to say that I only had to transfer half of last week’s list to this week’s; which is always a good thing. I really need to get back into the habit of making the weekly to-do list. I don’t know when or why I stopped in the first place, because there is ever-so-much satisfaction in crossing things off the list; even when you don’t finish everything on it, you know? It felt really good this morning crossing off the things I got done last week, and even in adding the uncompleted tasks to this week’s list was, rather than ‘oh, you lazy bastard’, more of a ‘oh, this will be easy to get done.’ We’ll see how it goes, of course, but at least making the list this morning wasn’t daunting and didn’t make me feel even more tired, the way it did last week.

Last Monday, as I worked on my story “Happyland” for a submission deadline the very next day, I suddenly realized the reason–despite several rewrites already–the story kept getting rejected every time I submitted it anywhere was because the way the story was structured it simply didn’t work–and I hadn’t even gotten to the scary part yet. I realized that the entire story needed to be overhauled; I had developed a bad case of the ‘lazy edits.’ This happens to me from time to time; an attempt to make small tweaks to a story that doesn’t work rather than starting over again from scratch while retaining the best bits. “Happyland”, as originally envisioned and written, simply doesn’t work. It’s nothing new, it’s nothing original, it’s nothing fresh, it has nothing clever to say for itself. It’s based on something that happened to me as a kid–one summer when my immediate family, along with aunts, uncles and cousins on my father’s side–were staying for a week at a beach house in Panama City Beach, Florida, only about three blocks from the water. There used to be an amusement park, the Miracle Strip, that we used to go to every time we stayed at the beach, and one time I got stuck with my youngest cousin who wanted to ride the haunted house ride and was also too small to ride the rollercoaster–so every time we rode the coaster someone had to stay off and mind him. I was annoyed and angry, it was hot and humid, and the haunted house ride–which was, even to my eleven year old mind, lame–this time it was actually intense and scary. There was something different about the interior that time; and I’ve had nightmares about it ever since. That was why I wrote the story in the first place; to dislodge it from my subconscious as well as to follow Stephen King’s admonition to ‘write about what scares you.’ But the story as I wrote it doesn’t work, and on Tuesday I started, slowly but surely, to rebuild the story from the very first line. It may not work this time, either–but I want to get it done this time.

That way it’s ready the next time a call I want to submit to comes around.

The new Scotty isn’t going as well as it should be either; again because I was trying to make it easy on myself rather than recognizing that the framework can stay but the story is new and different. Ugh, such an idiot, really. But every once in a while lightning strikes and I wake up.

Heavy heaving sigh. And I got started on my taxes!

And now back to the spice mines.

Grazing in the Grass

Good morning, Friday! How are you doing? I slept late again; it’s lovely to be able to sleep again but I would so love a happy medium; somewhere between insomnia and oversleeping would be somewhat lovely.

But I’ll take oversleeping over insomnia any day of the week, thank you very much.

The cold snap of the past few days has come to a merciful end, thank you Jesus, and our temperatures are supposed to go back up into the 70’s today, which will make for a lovely weekend. I didn’t take the car into the car wash the way I’d intended because I overslept this morning, but it will be a lovely chore for the weekend, most likely Sunday while everyone’s at church.

I made some progress on the book yesterday, which was a lovely feeling. Not as much as I would have liked, but I’ll take 1200 words. My writing machine is a bit rusty, so I am still working out the rust and kinks and having to warm up and stretch the muscles. The thought also crossed my mind last night that maybe I should put it aside and write something else first…but that’s probably just crazy talk.

But getting good sleep has made me feel energized again, and I am looking forward to all the things I need to get done this weekend. I even started pulling together my expenses for my taxes yesterday (RIGHT?), and may even be able to get all of that finished by Monday (rather than sitting down and making myself do it all at once, I am going to go slowly and do some here, some there, etc. until it is all finished and I am emailing my accountant). I also want to get my story “The Terrortorium” finished this weekend, and I want to start editing a secret project I can’t talk about publicly yet.

Never a dull moment around the Lost Apartment.

Here’s a hunk to slip you into the weekend:

Too Busy Thinking About My Baby

Another glorious night of sleep, and I feel terrific this morning. I’ve already done one load of laundry, am well through a second, had breakfast, and am about to put the dishes away. I have a shorter than usual day at the office today; I logged some extra time earlier in the week so I can go in later–which is truly lovely; I have my morning free both today AND tomorrow (tomorrow morning I will be getting the car washed on my way to work). I decided to wait until next Friday to get my new outfit for the Tennessee Williams Festival opening party (I’d debated going this weekend, but I really don’t want to face any mall on the weekend). My breakthrough on Crescent City Charade definitely is working; I am very pleased with the flow now, and I am also hoping to get the rewrite of the short story finished up this weekend. All in all, a win all around.

I also got some book mail this week: Lisa Unger’s In the Blood  and Jonathan Beckman’s How to Ruin a Queen. Constant Reader will remember how much I enjoyed the first Lisa Unger novel I read last year, and I am definitely looking forward to reading more. The Beckman book is history (although that would make a great title for a noir about someone obsessed with revenge on a drag queen); it’s about the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a huge scandal from the 1780’s that helped set the stage for the French Revolution. I’ve always been vaguely aware of the story, but not in any great detail. Someone from an old noble house of France, the Cardinal de Rohan, claimed to be an agent of  Marie Antoinette’s in order to buy a fabulous necklace for her–once the necklace was purchased the Queen claimed to know nothing about it, and a trial ended up happening. Marie Antoinette was so hated by this time that popular opinion was solely on the side of the Cardinal de Rohan; he was eventually found not guilty and there was a massive celebration at this public humiliation of the Queen. Every step of the way the royal family mishandled the situation, but I’ve never read enough about the Affair of the Diamond Necklace to know exactly how it played out and it’s never made a lot of sense to me. So, I am really looking forward to diving into this one (I also recently acquired a book about an enormous scandal at the Court of Louis XIV, The Affair of the Poisons, which I am also looking forward to reading). As you can tell, Constant Reader, right now I am going through a French history period.

I also want to get this essay about being a gay crime writer finished this weekend, and I also need to do the deep clean of the Lost Apartment.

I also can’t believe it’s almost April. Then again, time flies at the beginning of the year always, as it’s one thing after another in New Orleans. We’ve been having a slight cold snap this week–temps in the 50’s and 60’s–which after the gloriously beautiful spring days we had for Carnival seems completely unnecessary, wrong, and flat-out vile.

As this is also the last weekend before the Festival kicks into gear next week, I doubt Paul will be around much; as it is, I’ve barely seen him the last few weeks. He gets home after I got to bed and sometimes leaves after I do, so he’s still sleeping when I leave the house. He’s already out the door this morning; I got to see him awake for all of ten minutes. Sigh. But soon enough things will be normal around here again. Heavy heaving sigh.

Or what passes for normal, at any rate.

All right, I suppose I should return to the spice mines.

Here’s today’s hunk.

 

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Suspicious Minds

I had insomnia both Sunday and Monday night, and the sleep assistance I usually rely on did not work. So both days I was tired, sleepy, crabby and miserable, unable to focus on anything. I was trying to finish a short story for a submission call with a deadline of yesterday; Monday as I worked I realized the story, as it stood, simply didn’t work and needed a complete overhaul. Ordinarily, two days to overhaul a story where the basic framework was already in place wouldn’t be a problem for me (whether it would have been accepted, of course, is a whole other ball of wax), but tired and unable to think clearly? No, that made it completely impossible. I’ve also been kind of stuck on the Scotty book–but last night, as I kept dozing off in my easy chair, it came to me how to get past the place where I am stuck with the Scotty book; as I suspected, I simply hadn’t gotten back into his voice. So, I am hoping to make some progress on it this week as well as rewriting the story–that way the story will be ready the next time something it might be appropriate for rolls around.

Win-win.

There really is something horrible about the inability to sleep. I can’t afford to have sleepless nights, as I am always juggling so many things that I really can’t have a day where I get nothing done. And while I didn’t sleep through the whole night–I woke up around five, and then slept on and off until it was time to get up for Wacky Russian–those six or so hours of deep, restful sleep have certainly made an enormous difference today.

I may even start pulling my taxes together. #madness

I’ve also been too tired to read, so I am also hoping I can get back to The Underground Railroad this week and get it finished. I think I am going to read Ben Winters’ Underground Airlines next; I thought it would be interesting to read the two books back to back for a compare/contrast kind of thing.

My goal is to write/revise a short story every week while working on the Scotty book. We’ll see how that goes, but hey, best intentions and all that. I am also going to start revising a secret project as well; getting back to it is long overdue, and I am kind of excited.

Again, it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for someone.

So, here’s a hunk for you to get you through Hump Day.

 

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Hot Fun in the Summertime

I am not feeling particularly motivated today. Yesterday I cleaned the Lost Apartment thoroughly for the first time since before Carnival, and frankly, between that and the laundry, I got a bit overwhelmed. This morning I woke up feeling tired and not well-rested and slightly out of it; again, motivation is NOT there. And I need to make groceries. And it’s cold and gray outside. (Okay, okay, it isn’t snowing.)

But I do need to rewrite a story today that I am submitting tomorrow for a submissions call (of course, deadline is tomorrow) and I want to get Chapter One of the new Scotty finished today at some point. And I need to start getting to work on my taxes.

Shoot me now.

But at least the apartment is clean. I’ll have to clean again next weekend, of course, but now that the first clean is done the second, more thorough clean will be that much easier. At least, I certainly hope so. It’s just so hard to keep up, you know? I also understand that I have unrealistic cleanliness standards (thanks, Mom), and there is only so neat and tidy the always-under-construction apartment can ever look, but I really wish I could someday get past the stress of ‘my house is always so slovenly looking.’

God, I do not want to make a grocery run.

But it’s not getting done by me just sitting here. I’ll be back in a bit.

Okay, that wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. Sunday mornings and early afternoons are the best times to hit the grocery store in New Orleans; I even had Doris Day parking in front of the house when I got back. I’m in the process of preparing food for the week (made a salad; sauteed some brussel sprouts; and now I am going to do the prep for tonight’s dinner), and also reorganizing and redoing the interior of the refrigerator. I really hate my fridge; one of my goals for the year is to buy a new one with the freezer on the bottom.

Wow, I am just incredibly exciting, aren’t I?

I’ve also been toying with the rewrite of the story I mentioned earlier. It’s for a horror call, so I kind of have to amp up the scary, which isn’t easy for me. This is why I am not good at horror; I’m not good at scares, and I am not inventive enough to come up with the proper backstory that creates great horror. But, taking Stephen King’s advice–‘write about what scares you’–I am going to give this story the old college try. It’s based on something that actually happened to me when I was young–maybe around eleven or twelve–and obviously, it was more about how I scared myself at an amusement park when I had to go on the haunted house ride with a younger cousin, to the point that when we finally finished and came back out into the light I had goosebumps and my teeth were chattering and I was shaking a little bit.

But it was all in my mind. In the story, not so much.

We’ll see how it goes.

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

Here’s a Sunday hunk for you, Constant Reader.

Do What U Want

Day Three of Parade season. Looks to be another beauty out there today, with a high of 75 degrees (shorts and a T-shirt, woo-hoo!) and sunny with the usual cerulean New Orleans blue sky. Fabulous. Today, of course, is a shorter parade day; there are only four today, and they are pretty much back to back to back, starting at eleven: Femme Fatale, Carrollton, King Arthur, and Alla, so it will all be over by five. At that time I shall retire back to the Lost Apartment, get ready for tomorrow and a bizarre, slightly abbreviated work week, and watch The Walking Dead.

I am in a really strange place these days. As Constant Reader knows, my mind (creativity, whatever you want to call it) can go all over the place and sometimes can get out of control. This requires me to focus when I am writing; because i am constantly getting other ideas that sound better to me than what I am actually writing. So now that I have nothing on deadline, nothing under contract (edits to come, of course, on a couple of manuscripts) and am free to do whatever I want, write whatever I want…I can’t figure out what to work on. I started a short story last week, have another short story I want to write, and there are a couple that need heavy revision–as well as a couple of uncontracted novel manuscripts that also are in need of revision before sending them out into the world–but it’s also parade season, which makes getting anything done more than difficult. Yesterday I spent some time doing some on-line research about a true crime I heard about that occurred some seven years ago–and, in that Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, I am only about two degrees away from–and I am trying to wrap my mind around how to fictionalize it. It’s a great great story, and the way I want to write it is how the crime affects, and brutalizes, someone who was innocent of the crime but profited from it, nonetheless…but while managing to get a substantial payday from it, also had his life ruined. It’ll probably just end up in the files and nothing will ever come of it.

I did manage to get a cozy worked on last week; maybe a series, maybe not, maybe nothing will come of it, who knows? I also started putting together ideas and thoughts and characters and scenes for a noir I’ve been wanting to write for some time. But as far as actual writing, nothing much.

As for the week, well, Monday is a normal one; Tuesday I am going in late and working late because I have to take a friend to the doctor early that morning; I am going in late on Wednesday because *I* have to go to the doctor in the morning and then walk home because of parades; I took Thursday off in order to run to Costco and the grocery store to lay in supplies; Condom Duty Friday night and Monday; and then it’s Fat Tuesday and we’ve lived to tell the tale of Carnival 2017.

We watched a wonderful documentary on our local PBS station (WYES) last night after the parades, called The Sons of Tennessee Williams, which was about gay life in the French Quarter and how the gay Mardi Gras krewes got started. It was really well done; and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know anything about the gay history of New Orleans. I am most likely going to stream it again if it’s available anywhere; if not, I’ll go ahead and buy the DVD. Watching it last night, my legs and lower back aching from being on the parade route all day, I was getting ideas for stories…but was too tired and relaxed to make notes about anything other than the title. I also spent some time between parades cleaning and organizing, and came across another fun book I’ve not really looked at in a while: Voodoo in New Orleans by Robert Tallant.

AH, the luxury of time! I am also thinking I need to run by Garden District Books (maybe Thursday) and take a look around at their New Orleans section. I may need to add some Lyle Saxon to my New Orleans library, among other things. I love that people think of me as a New Orleans expert, but the truth is I know very little about my beloved adopted home.

And now, I am going to retire to my easy chair and read some more Lori Rader-Day.

Here’s a Carnival hunk (or two) for you:

Just Dance

I’ve always been amused that Valentine’s Day and venereal disease share the same initials. Granted, it’s really SAINT Valentine’s Day, but still–look up the story of St. Valentine for yourself.

Now THERE’S some romance, right? Not exactly a Nicholas Sparks novel there, is it?

We’re still watching–and enjoying–Santa Clarita Diet, which becomes more and more clever with each episode, as is Riverdale–it was really fun seeing Betty go to the dark side last week, and I hope it’s foreshadowing of future story for her. I’m also still reading Lori Rader-Day’s Little Pretty Things; I just hate that I’m so tired when I get home from work every night that I can only read a little bit.

As for the writing, this morning I completed edits on a short story I’ve sold and turned them back in to the editor. I am very pleased to be a part of this book, but I don’t have permission to discuss it publicly yet; but I will say my story is called “Lightning Bugs in a Jar” and it’s one I am very proud of. Constant Reader knows how hard short stories are for me to write, so every time I sell one it’s a victory.

As far as the writing goes, I started outlining two books this week; just to see where they go and if they are, indeed, something I want to write. One would be the first in a potential cozy mystery series (under a pseudonym, of course) and the other is a stand alone called I Know Who You Are. I am more interested in the stand alone at the moment, to be honest–but once I get these two outlines finished I am going to go on to outline two more I have ideas for–and yes, one of them is the Colin stand-alone I’ve been talking about forever.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Chiquitita

Ah, the South.

Constant Reader knows I am a child of the South; my childhood is filled with memories of summers spent at my grandmother’s in the country in Alabama: picking wild blackberries in the woods, orangish-brown creeks and rivers, fields of cotton and corn, towering pines trees and hollows filled with kudzu. I remember the heavy thick humidity of lazy afternoons, the four o’clock bushes blossoming every day at four, the round rocks in the gravel roads, the way darkness pressed against the screens at night with moths and other insects fluttering their wings trying to get to the light, lightning bugs floating in the air glowing yellowish-green as the sun went down, the sound of rain beating out a rhythm on a tin roof. Next week I am off to visit my parents, and will be driving through the south; through Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia and Tennessee. I used to get creative on those long drives, particularly through Alabama, where exit signs and Birmingham itself trigger a lot of memories, things I’ve forgotten, and make me itch to sit down and start writing. I’ve written a lot about Alabama, but have only published two of my Alabama stories (“Son of a Preacher Man” and “Small Town Boy”), as well as one book, Dark Tide. But even though my main character in the novel was from upstate Alabama, it was set down on the Alabama Gulf Coast–which is really not much different than the Mississippi or Florida panhandle coasts.

I really do think the next book will be an Alabama one.

If you’re not familiar with Ace Atkins, you need to go buy his books NOW. He wrote a wonderful New Orleans-based series, featuring music history professor Nick Travers, some terrific stand-alones, and now is writing the Robert Parker Spenser novels in addition to a great series set in upstate Mississippi featuring former Ranger Quinn Colson. I am several volumes behind on that series–I am taking one with me next week–and they are truly fantastic; the first two were back-to-back finalists for the Best Novel Edgar award. Yesterday, I read his contribution to Mississippi Noir, “Combustible.”

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.

“Hell you shouldn’t,” Shelby said. “You fucking owe me.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you want to meet Lyndsay Redwine?”

“Ever since I saw her in a bikini at the city pool.”

“Then shut the fuck up and drive.”

Shelby was fourteen. And she talked like that.

This delightfully dark little story, which plays with point of view (not easy to do in a short story), is incredibly well done. Atkins has an eye for the rural South; he makes it easy to imagine and visualize the area, the characters, and the situations they find themselves in. A lot of this is done through voice, again not easy to do, and the story, as the best ones often do, inspired me to want to write something.

I do recommend it, and so far Mississippi Noir is knocking my socks off.

And now back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk to start your weekend off:

S. O. S.

I was incredibly tired all day yesterday; so much so that I’m surprised my eyes weren’t crossed most of the day. This is to alert you, Constant Reader, that I did not read another short story yesterday, and so have nothing to offer you this morning. But to give myself a little bit of credit, I’ve done much better this Short Story Month than I have in previous years, so that’s something. And in reading these stories, I’ve also learned a lot about the craft and art of writing short stories, and I’ve also had to think about that as well–so this is the first time Short Story Month has actually had the desired effect on me. So I am counting this as a win, no matter what others might think. So there.

I depart on Monday for a trip to the frigid North to visit my family, and then on the way back, as I previously mentioned, I am doing the Murder in the Magic City weekend event in Birmingham and Wetumpka before returning home to New Orleans a week from this Sunday. I don’t have anything pressing to work on while I am gone–still, taking the MacBook Air just in case something comes up (despite hating to work on it), but hoping nothing will. I hope to do some reading–I’m taking four books with me; including an Ace Atkins and a Michael Koryta and a Laura Lippman–and I also have a lot of comic books on my iPad to catch up on as well.

I also think I am starting to come out of the post-book(s) malaise a bit; I woke up this morning with a great idea about the essay I need to write, and am very hopeful that I can bang that out today and tomorrow so I can not worry about it this weekend. Huzzah!

I am also going to try to read Ace Atkins’ story in Mississippi Noir for tomorrow.

And on that note, I am going to get my day going. I am going to run some errands before going into the office–another late night of bar testing looms–and then after tomorrow, my vacation starts, so yay!

Here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader.

Money Money Money

I made my first car payment today, and despite everything I’ve done with the car since going to the dealership–registering it, getting a brake tag, insuring it, driving it, learning how to use the functions, teaching myself how the bluetooth works, etc.–now it seems like it’s really mine; even writing the check for the down payment didn’t make it seem real, you know? But authorizing the electronic transfer of the first payment from my bank to the finance company–the first payment that’s coming from my paycheck–has made it all too real.

I worked on my short story “Quiet Desperation” and my essay yesterday, without much success; writing anything this week has turned into a horrible chore. I don’t know if that’s because of the usual post-book malaise I usually go through–and I wrote so much last year I never really was able to allow the malaise to play out; or rather, I did and then was forced to do a lot to meet deadlines. I don’t know; I don’t know why I can’t just sit down every day and spend two hours of dedicated time to writing. Yet it never seems to work out that way for me; and I just can’t seem to make myself do it. I can usually, on a good day, write anywhere from three to five thousand words in two hours or so; so if I did it every day imagine what I could get done in a year. But…yet…I don’t know why I can’t ever make myself do these things that would, ultimately, make my life so much easier.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Ah, well.

So, I read another short story yesterday, yet another one from The Best American Mystery Stories 2014, edited by Laura Lippman. There are some terrific authors in that collection, as well as some whose work I have not read before. I was going to read the James Lee Burke story, but then decided to read one by someone whose work I’ve not read before. I chose Ed Kurtz’ “A Good Marriage,” because I have a copy of his novel The Rib From Which I Remake The World in my TBR pile, and thought I should get started reading his work, since I probably won’t get around to the novel for a while.

Wow. What a chilling, yet great, story.

We were at the Allens’ anniversary party, which I hated, and Hannah hated it too. It was not as though we didn’t like the Allens–Joe Allen, anyway, a big, fat, affable bear of a man–it was just all so tacky. I was of the opinion that notifying other people of one’s forthcoming birthday was vulgar enough (don’t forget my gift!), but an anniversary always seemed like a private thing, a husband/wife thing, nothing to do with me or my debit card. Joe could buy his wife lunar real estate for all I cared, just leave me out of it. As far as I knew, Hannah felt the same way.

But Joe insisted, and his wife made sure to send us their wish list by e-mail, so with twin engine grumbling we went and presented them with the Waterford vase they wanted. She cooed hungrily over the damn thing and he nodded with appreciation. There were a lot of people there. The gifts were piling up in the corner by the fireplace. Finally, after the inimitable Mrs. Allen opened their (her) last gift, the assemblage was freed to drink, drink, and be drunk. A trio of hulky guys whose guts were threatening the structural integrity of their shirts swarmed the keg. Hannah and I opted for the crappy boxed wine.

God, I’ve been to that party.

“A Good Marriage” is a terrific story. Kurtz paces it nicely, building up steam as we soon learn that ‘good’ is really dependent on, to quote Obi-wan, “your point of view.” The story isn’t about the party at all; but the party is what kicks off the story, and there’s an incident there–mild, nothing, innocuous–which triggers what happens in the rest. And that nothing incident triggers such a strong reaction that the reader begins to understan, subtly, that things are not as they appear in this tale of marriage; and that in fact this ‘good marriage’ is anything but…and in fact, it’s quite horrifying. He also flips the script; what’s wrong in this marriage isn’t what usually is wrong in this type of marriage. Chilling, and very well-done.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for you.