Holiday Monday, and I slept deeply and well again last night. I’d set the alarm, thinking it was probably better to start getting up early again, since it’s back to the office with me tomorrow but Sparky was being super cuddly and sweet in the bed this morning, and it was cold, and so I stayed in bed for another hour or so. I finished reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat, which I greatly enjoyed (more on that later). I made jambalaya, and did some dishes and started a load of laundry. I also reread some of my own unfinished work, trying to decide what to focus on next. I have to say I am regularly pleased with my work now when I go back and reread it; what can I say? I don’t know if that means I am getting rid of the self-deprecation and “not good enough” mentality I’ve struggled with my entire life, but it’s a welcome change to read some of my work and think this is pretty good.
I also worked on the house some more and it’s starting to look like it did before the acquisition of High Energy Kitten and my surgery–cluttered but at least neat. It’s almost there, you know, and maybe putting some finishing touches on it today before I go to my first STRENGTH PT appointment this afternoon. (I’ll be making groceries after that, I might add.) I’ve also decided that my next read with be R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface; I do enjoy a writer-behaving-badly story. I’ve written my own, too–“Quiet Desperation”, which was included in my collection Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, as well as a Kindle single–but I don’t think I ever want to write an entire novel about a writer behaving badly. I may write an entire novel with a writer as the main character–I keep circling back to my true crime writer, who’s now appeared in several of the Scotty books, as well as The Orion Mask–but I don’t think I’m quite there yet.
It is interesting to revisit unfinished projects and decide which of them to focus on and finish. I know that my next short story collection will be finished if I finish a novella and throw it in; but I’d kind of wanted to do a novella collection. One of the novellas–the longest one–will be rather easily turned into a novel, which I think is what I may do with it; there are three or four more that I can finish and turn in as a solitary book. “Festival of the Redeemer” is completed in first draft form, and rereading it yesterday made me realize that it’s next draft can be longer, of course, but I don’t think there’s enough story there to turn it into a novel; same with “Fireflies” and “Never Kiss a Stranger,” so maybe those three can be the novella collection (Festival of the Redeemer and Two More Tales–which I am choosing to call it so I can have a Venetian cover, a la du Maurier). “A Holler Full of Kudzu” might be the one I finish to complete the short story collection. There are also a lot of short stories I’d like to rework and/or finish for some calls that I’ve seen, which could always be fun. But the exciting thing here is I am feeling excited about writing again for the first time in I don’t know how long.
It’s also weird to think that the Scotty series is turning twenty-one this year; on May 1st, to be exact. I definitely should write another Scotty this year, and it does look like Hurricane Party Hustle is the one to do–it’ll also give me the opportunity to write about what it’s like to ride out a big storm and live without power, all the while having Katrina flashbacks. I also have the story for that already fleshed out, and yesterday I even figured out how the book opens, and how the mystery comes to Scotty’s attention in the first place, which is more than I usually have when I start, LOL. That one will be followed by the cursed Mardi Gras of 2019, French Quarter Flambeaux, which will be another fun story to write, and then Quarter Quarantine Quadrille, which will cover the shutdown and COVID madness. So, there are at least three more Scotty books for me to write, which will take the series to twelve books, and then I’ll think about it some more. Scotty’s family–parents and grandparents–are getting older, and will soon have to start dying off, which I really don’t want to deal with.
But it’s nice to feel excited about everything again, isn’t it? And normal, after so many years of abnormality?
And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely holiday, everyone, and I’ll probably be back later.
Up ridiculously early for PT this morning, but it’s fine, I suppose. I am awake, not foggy headed, nor does my body feel tired, so that’s a win of sorts. I’m glad I survived my first full week of work this year, only to have another three day weekend on deck. I’m falling behind; Sparky was feeling especially needy last night and was in need of cuddles. I started a load of laundry before I sat down to let him get comfortable and reassure him he wasn’t abandoned–a nightly occurrence lately–and then I started getting caught up on Real Housewives and this week’s Percy Jackson and before I knew it, it was time for bed and I didn’t finish the laundry, empty the dishwasher, or do much of anything last night, which felt terribly wrong on every level. But it was okay, I suppose. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself for not getting more done in the evenings–trying to be not so hard on myself in general in this new year.
Nick Saban retired yesterday, as probably the most successful college football coach of all time. It’s going to be weird going into the next season without him at the helm at Alabama. I hated that he came back to college football by going there–it was such a massive betrayal of LSU, where he was from 2000-2004, rebuilding the program and bringing it back to glory, along with a national title–which made Alabama a big hurdle to get past every year. It was frustrating to lose to them almost every year, but I also got over my anger at him and he won back my respect. He seems like a good guy for the most part, and his players loved him and performed for him in a way few coaches ever accomplish. He won seven national titles (including his first, at LSU in 2003), and there were only a few seasons (2007, 2010, 2013, 2019) that Alabama was out of the national picture at the end of the regular season, which is pretty impressive. They won two national titles without winning the conference! I wonder who will take his place? Alabama is a brand, and their fans don’t tolerate not winning, so there’s a lot of pressure that comes with the gig; kind of like when Bear Bryant retired back in 1982. Between the Bear and Saban the Tide only won the national title once. I appreciate Saban’s legacy, and can’t help but wonder if Alabama will remain at the top of the SEC, or whether it’s time for a run by another school–LSU, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma–to have a strong run like Florida’s from 2005-2012.
My guess is he didn’t want to deal with the new play-off system and really didn’t like some of the other changes happening in the sport, and realized he didn’t have to.
It’s also cold here this morning, and next week it’s apparently going to be even colder. Huzzah, he typed sarcastically. But it’s much better in the apartment now than it used to be; it’s amazing how life-changing the new system (which isn’t all that new anymore) has made in the winter months around here. It’s also been great being able to wear my Fitbit again now that the brace is gone, and now I can track just how well I’ve been sleeping every night; I used to be lucky to get a sleep score over 75 more than once a week; now my lowest sleep score since strapping it back to my wrist was 78, and the others were all over 80, which used to be a very rare happenstance. It’s so nice to sleep deeply and well on a regular basis; it’s amazing what a difference it makes in quality of life, but I’ve got to stop being so focused on Sparky time when I get home from work and need to do some things first, because if I give in to him I’m down for the night.
I also hope to be productive this weekend. I have a lot of shit to get done, and lots of housework to do. But I am starting to feel creative again, which is terrific, and my mind feels clearer than it has in years; maybe that means I’ll do better work? But then again, the work I’ve been producing over the last six years has been my best, I think, and I would like to keep getting better. I really need to get that copy edit of Jackson Square Jazz done so I can get it back in print, and I want to get this short story collection finished, and…and…and…there’s so much that I have on hand that is unfinished! But I think I’ve finally figured out the problem with one short story, figured out how to do another that I’ve been stuck on, and so yeah, these are all good things, right?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Perhaps will be back later, or else it won’t be until tomorrow. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader!
Yesterday was a wild one here in New Orleans. We were expecting inclement weather–high winds, possible tornadoes, and heavy rain with a strong chance of flooding. I was already planning on leaving work early–PT was scheduled for 3 pm yesterday–so I was able to leave the office without worry as things started shutting down all over the city. It was raining when I got home and hunkered down inside, and it pretty steadily rained all night. I went to bed after watching three episodes of Fool Me Once on Netflix, which we are really enjoying, while checking the score of the national championship game periodically. I was awakened by loud thunder and pouring rain at some point in the middle of the night, but I was able to easily fall back asleep–it really is so comforting to be buried in blankets and warm and dry while it pours outside, isn’t it? Rain always makes me sleepy. But I wound up sleeping very well and waking up with the alarm this morning (Sparky always climbs up into the bed with me when he thinks it’s time for me to get up and feed him, so I know it’s going to be time to get up soon). We still are having high winds today, but no rain, which is great, and Michigan beat Washington last night for their first national title in 27 years.
Good for you, Michigan.
My PT wound up being rescheduled because of the weather, too, so I have to get up at 5 on Thursday, which isn’t great but I can live with it. I do have a department meeting on Friday morning as well, and I’ll probably go into the office for it. I can do it from home, but I think it would be best for me to head over there and be out of the house in the morning, which will get me going on work-at-home duties and errands and so forth before the three day weekend.
And huzzah for a three day weekend, might I add?
I also started working out the five stories I have on hand that may fit for an anthology call (or two or three) that are upcoming, and one–which is just an idea–actually started coming together in my head yesterday while I watched more episodes of War of the Worlds, which took an interesting and slightly insane turn during the later episodes of the second season while I sat doodling in my journal while relaxing in my chair while rain pattered down outside. It also occurred to me how to fix and finish another one that could easily work as well. I need to put my writer’s cap back on and really start getting things finished and cooking on my computer again, methinks. But I also did some more chores when I got home yesterday, which included dishes and laundry, and this morning I woke up to a relatively clean kitchen (we won’t discuss the floors just yet), which was super great. I also wasn’t sleepy, groggy, or tired, which was also awesome. I may actually make it through the day AND the errands I have to run after work today (mail, groceries). I am definitely going to spend some more time with the new Tara Laskowski tonight when I finally get home from everything, and do some touching up so I stay on top of the chores so I am not coming into the weekend needing to clean the house.
I think it’s about time I started feeling like myself again for the first time in a long time, and it does actually kind of feel good. Last year was a cloud, and I just felt like I was drifting through the year for the most part. 2023 started off terribly, beginning with my injury in January and losing Mom in February; it’s little wonder that I sleep=walked through the year, which I’d been doing pretty consistently for a number of years. The pandemic wore me out, with the changes to the world and the changes to my day job, and things had been kind of my control for quite a few years before that. I kind of feel (probably mistakenly) like I have so control over my life again and am looking at things a lot more clearly than I had in years–which probably has something to do with having the right medications. Up until about 2017 or so, I could deal with the anxiety and concomitant insomnia with just Xanax, but the anxiety was out of control from that point on and was when I should have changed my medications to deal with the real problem rather than the symptoms.
I cannot emphasize enough how important the right medications are for your health and mental well-being.
I really do feel like a new person, or the best Gregalicious I can be, which isn’t quite the same thing. I’ve always tried to be the best version of me that I can–because no one, including me, wants to ever see the worst version of me, take my word for that, okay?–which is all I think anyone can do. I do feel more engaged with my work, and my writing, more so than I have in a while, which kind of felt almost like I was writing on autopilot, which does happen sometimes. It’s also kind of ironic that I did my best work during a time period where I really was hating writing and not giving it my full attention, treating it as an odious chore that had to be done rather than trying to do the best work I could. Maybe not trying did the trick? I don’t know. But what I do know is I need to get back on the horse and start creating again, and perhaps don’t goof off as much going forward.
After all, there’s nothing I can’t do if I want to and set my mind to it.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–one never knows with a Gregalicious, does one?
Work at home Friday, and I have PT in a little while. Tomorrow I finally see my surgeon again, and here’s hoping that the brace will be a thing of history tomorrow, so I can throw it in the trash and be done with it once and for all.
One can dream, at any rate.
Yesterday I started feeling low energy in the late afternoon before I came home, and was a bit on the tired side once I did get into the apartment. I did do a load of laundry before settling in for Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip: Legacy, which Paul came home during and we watched this week’s Reacher as well as Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. I went to bed shortly after that, which was nice and once again I slept well. I didn’t really want to get up this morning, which means it must have gotten really cold last night. It’s about fifty outside now. I am going to run a couple of errands after my PT this morning before returning home for work-at-home duties and other chores. Next weekend we do get a three day weekend again, which will be nice, and I am hoping to get some things done this weekend. I have my surgeon tomorrow morning, and will probably make a grocery run immediately thereafter. I’ve also picked out Tara Laskowski’s latest, The Weekend Retreat, as my next read, so I am looking forward to getting started on that later today. I loved her first two novels, and I am sure I will enjoy this new one.
And here’s hoping the weekend will be a productive one, you know? The kitchen is finally starting to look less like a disaster area and more like a comfortable work space again, for the first time in months. I plan on doing the floors at last (and finding out how Sparky feels about vacuum cleaners; he does not like the hand vac at all), which will make a difference, and I also need to start looking at ways to make my eating habits more healthy. (While the goal is to eat healthier, anything that’s already in the cabinets or the fridge is being grandfathered in rather than wasted, which seems logical and fair to me.) I’ve lost around twenty pounds, give or take, and my stomach is noticeably flatter than it was several months ago. Why give up on that progress? My goal weight for 2024 is 200; I am already down to 205. I also need to be more physically active before I return to the gym once all the healing and PT is over with, which will make returning to the gym that much easier.
I also saw a call for submissions yesterday that looked like something I may have something on hand that would be perfect for; I’ll of course do more looking into it and then I need to decide which story would work best and revise and reedit and rewrite accordingly. I know there’s one other that’s coming up, and maybe working on a short story tonight before the gymnastics airs will help kickstart me into getting truly back into the swing of writing again. I do enjoy writing short stories, and one thing I think I may do this weekend is also looking to see how much work the next short story collection needs before I can turn it in. Oh, there are so many things in the files that aren’t finished…maybe I should focus on getting everything finished that’s in progress before starting anything new? I don’t know. I’m no better at figuring any of this out than I was back when I was getting started over twenty years ago…
And on that note, I am going to get ready for PT. I may be back later, one never knows.
I slept well last night but my blankets were all tangled up this morning, indicating the sleep was more restless than it has been for weeks. I also wasn’t in the mood to write my blog when I first woke up, so I decided to read, drink my coffee, and maybe have some breakfast before getting cleaned up. I usually write this over my morning coffee, and since I don’t reread or re-edit once it’s written, that could explain the run-on sentences, word repetitions, and occasional poor grammar no one ever points out to me. This blog began nineteen years ago (!!!) on Livejournal (the anniversary was 12/26), migrated over here in about 2016 or so, and still somehow keeps chugging along. It always surprises me that people read it, to be honest. It was always meant mainly for me, and was originally intended as a daily exercise to get me writing again. I guess it worked. When I started I had published four novels, a few anthologies, and some short stories. Nineteen years later, I’ve way surpassed that total, despite some fallow years in which I produced nothing.
I did some more picking up around here yesterday while watching football games. It was fun watching Mississippi beat Penn State, and don’t even get me started on the Florida State-Georgia game. I get the disappointment at not making the play-offs, but you also knew you were scheduled to play Georgia, another team disappointed in not making the play-offs, but instead of showing everyone that the committee was wrong and showing up to beat Georgia…and Georgia also had star players injured and over a dozen opting out and even more entering the transfer portal. This would have been a play-off game had either Auburn or Georgia beaten Alabama this year, but that’s how things go. Auburn went 13-0 in 2004 and wasn’t invited to the BCS title game. You don’t always get what you want in life or sport, and the question is how you handle that. If this was going to be the case, don’t accept the damned bowl bid. Your fans spent a lot of money to go to that game, and it was incredibly disrespectful to the team, the fanbase, and the university to show up and get embarrassed like that. After Coach O was fired in 2021, LSU went to its bowl game with 39 scholarship players and got trounced by Kansas State….but how does it appear in the record books? KSU 42, LSU 21. Twenty years from now when people look back at the history of college football and bowl games, it will read Georgia 63, Florida State 3. It’s a program and culture problem, and all the FSU fans apologizing for this disgraceful beating–do you quit when you don’t get a raise or promotion you worked hard for and feel like you deserved? The word for that is quitter…and for the record, Georgia played it’s back-ups, walk-ons and so forth in the second half and still beat your ass 21-0.
And if LSU went 12-0 and didn’t get picked for the play-offs…and pulled the same shit? Sure, I’d be angry about the play-offs but I’d also call out the Tigers for embarrassing the state and the university that way.
I’m really enjoying Danielle Arsenault’s Glory Be, and am savoring every word. What a fresh and unique voice! I have to say I am so glad I realized I needed to be better about my reading choices and should read more diverse writers. It’s been a great education for me as a reader, a writer, a person and a citizen. I’m still learning how to be better about race and gender and gender identity and sexuality; and I strongly encourage other readers to do the same. Crime fiction is so much stronger and healthier when it represents everyone, I think, and while I don’t consider reading diverse writers to be the total education I need on any social issues facing the country–I need to read more non-fiction and theory.
I rewatched The Birds yesterday after the football games, and it was pretty much as I remembered it. I’d only seen it twice before; originally as a child edited for television, when it frightened me so badly that I had nightmares (I was prone to them growing up) and for years could never see crows on a jungle gym or a wire without feeling uneasy and then again as a rental in college after I’d read the short story again and wanted to see how faithful the film was to the story. I didn’t care as much for it the second time around–the acting is really terrible and so is the script–but the suspenseful parts still held up and were scary. This third time around confirmed my second viewing; and I noticed some other flaws in the picture. Rod Taylor’s mother isn’t much older than he is, and why is there about a thirty year age gap between him and his sister? I think the short story is better than the film, but I can also see why people like it. I do consider it one of Hitchcock’s lesser films.
Since tomorrow is a day for thinking ahead and coming up with some goals for the new year, I suppose today should be a recap of sorts of this past year. It was, as I mentioned in a previous entry, a rather up-and-down rollercoaster of highs and lows with very little level ground in the middle. The recognition of mainstream award nominations for my work–even queer work–was a delightful surprise this past year. But even more important than that is I think my work is getting better. I had felt, some years ago, that my writing was becoming stale and that I wasn’t growing as a writer anymore; I’d become stagnant and that was one of my biggest fears. I wound up deciding to take some time away from writing books on deadline and write things just for me, things that I wanted to write but also wanted to take the time to do correctly. It was during this time that I worked on both #shedeservedit and Bury Me in Shadows in early drafts, and also started the novellas and working more intently on my short stories. I accepted the challenge of writing stories to themed anthologies, and produced some terrific ones of which I am really proud. When I dove back into series work with Royal Street Reveillon, I wanted to write something non-formulaic for the Scotty series. I also wanted to shake things up with Scotty a bit, as the series was getting a bit too comfortable and safe for me. Royal Street Reveillon certainly was neither comfortable nor safe, and neither was Mississippi River Mischief.
Bury Me in Shadows was not easy for me to write. When I went back to the book after setting it aside for awhile, I realized several things: I couldn’t ignore race and racism, I had to address the Lost Cause narrative, and I also had realized while doing more reading and research that the stories my paternal grandmother used to tell me about the Civil War and Alabama and the family were apocryphal stories you can turn up about almost everywhere in the rural South. The book wasn’t working, in fact, because I was trying to elide those issues because I was afraid of doing it wrong…so it pushed me to do better. And actually addressing those issues made the book easier to write. The same thing was true of #shedeservedit; I’d been working on this book in one form or another since I actually lived in Kansas. But again, I realized when I went back to it that what I was doing didn’t work because I wasn’t going there with toxic masculinity and rape culture because it wasn’t personal enough for my main character, and so I bit the bullet and made it more personal for him. It dredged up a lot of memories, some of them painful, but it also made the book better and stronger. I had been wanting to write a cozy for the longest time, and decided to try it for something different and new–and that became A Streetcar Named Murder. I was also very pleased with it, even though the deadline and the turnaround on it was a bit insane…but I still managed to take my time and turned it into something I was proud of when I got the final author copies.
My two releases of this year–Death Drop and Mississippi River Mischief–are also books of which I feel proud. I also published three terrific short stories this year: “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell; “The Ditch” in School of Hard Knox; and “The Rosary of Broken Promises” in Dancing in the Shadows.
I think I’m settling finally into an acceptance that I am pretty good at what I do. I may not have the master’s or PhD in creative writing or literature of any kind; but I’ve never really wanted to be an academic writer. I never wanted to be Faulkner, but Faulkner did inspire me to interconnect novels and stories in my own fictional world (also Stephen King). I would like to do some non-fiction studies of genre and writers I enjoy, but in an accessible rather than academic way. Academics used to make me feel stupid and uneducated, and I also used to envy those writers who had that kind of background because I felt it made their work stronger than mine, or gave them insights into writing and building a novel that I’d never had, which made me and my work somehow lesser. But that wasn’t on them; that was on me. I was the one who felt inferior and lesser, not talented or good enough. That chip was on my shoulder and I was the one who put it there. My peers actually consider me a peer, and newer writers look at my longevity and my CV and are impressed by the prodigious output, if nothing else. I used to think all the award nominations were kind of hollow because I so rarely won; which was incredibly ungracious because some writers are never nominated for anything…but it doesn’t mean their work isn’t good. Now, I just find myself grateful to make a short-list of five out of all the possibilities for that slot, you know? I’m lucky, and I’m blessed.
I’ve reflected a lot on my life and my career this past year–Mom’s death had something to do with that–and I’ve identified, in many cases, why I am the way am by remembering the event that triggered the response in my brain of “okay, never want to experience that again” which led to so many self-toxic and self-defeating behaviors. But the bottom line of it all is I’ve finally accepted myself for who I am, have determined to stop self-deprecating, and take some pride in myself and my career and my life. I know the most amazing people and have the most incredible friends. I have a day job where I make a difference in people’s lives. I have an awesome life-partner, an enviable writing career, and I get to live in New Orleans.
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and if you don’t–well, happy Monday off!
Yesterday was not a good day. I woke up feeling like crap, and it never really got much better until later in the day, when I realized it had started raining during the night. It rained all day, actually, and I was so tired and dragged out and felt so terrible that I didn’t put it together until late in the afternoon–oh, this is SINUS related, because of the rain–and took a Claritin-D, which made me feel somewhat better. I also slept super good and slept in, too. I did manage to get some things done yesterday too–I finished reading Buried in a Good Book (more on that later) and started reading another one. We also finished watching both Looking the series, and then watched the wrap-up film (more on that later as well). I am going to pick out my next read, spend some time with it this morning, and at some point today we are probably going to watch Saltburn. I also have to put the turkey breast in the slow cooker (pulled turkey is quite delicious) and put dishes away, but I also have tomorrow off, so am not overly concerned about getting things organized and cleaned up. I worked on the books some more and pruned some more out, and started learning how to use the microwave–which does make a difference.
Christmas is usually when I started looking back on the year, and 2023 was a bit of a rollercoaster for me (they usually are). My personal life really sucked balls this past year, but it was a very good year for me professionally. The year started with me behind on two deadlines, but I managed to getboth books finally finished and turned in, once I was able to turn MWA over to my successor, which was part of the delay on the books. In late January I injured my arm, and got misdiagnosed by my primary care physician. As we rolled into Mardi Gras, Mom had a massive stroke and I drove up to Kentucky to see her one last time in hospice. She didn’t really know me, she was pretty much unresponsive unless she was in pain, and it was rough. I drove home that Sunday, and she died on Valentine’s Day, so I had to drive up to Alabama that last weekend of Mardi Gras for the funeral. Not going to lie, it was tough losing my mother, and it’s been tough all year. I have sublimated most of my grief into worry about Dad, frankly. I went up and met him in Alabama for their anniversary, and we convoyed up to Kentucky, where I stayed for a week. I met Dad at my aunt and uncle’s place in Panama City Beach in October for their birthdays. When my primary care finally recognized what was wrong with my arm (torn biceps), I got referred to a orthopedic surgeon–but I needed a specialist. I had all my teeth removed finally in September, right after Labor Day, but didn’t get my new teeth until the week before the arm surgery, so was on a soft diet for two months which sucked….and then had to go back on it after the surgery because I couldn’t really cut up food. I also got hearing aids, which was great and has helped dramatically.
I also finally realized what the core mental issue was, thanks to a conversation with Dad–when I found out she suffered from generalized anxiety disorder and the light bulb went on over my head: that is exactly what is wrong with me, and all these years what I thought was “normal” because I didn’t know any different and I just always thought I was like Mom…yeah, I am like Mom, and all these years all I’ve been doing is treating symptoms and not the root cause. In consultation with my new primary care doctor, I weaned off the old medication and started treating the anxiety and the insomnia (anxiety related) properly, and it has made such an amazing difference in my life. I think more clearly, and I can analyze myself better. I’ve also started thinking about how most of my life I’ve tried to avoid confrontation (like Mom) and whenever something has happened that hurt me…well, I’ve tried to avoid those kind of situations again. My trust issues come from the anxiety and being hurt before, and I also realized that my socialization as a child was delayed and/or stunted because of being unable to control my brain. I had undiagnosed ADD as a child, and I feel pretty sure that’s carried over to my adulthood, as well. I couldn’t focus or concentrate because I didn’t know how to shut my brain off or keep it until control. The only time I could find peace, really, was reading or writing.
Professionally, I started off the year by getting nominated for a Lefty for Best Humorous for A Streetcar Named Murder, which was a very pleasant surprise. I debated going, but the timing was bad and with all the traveling I was having to do for family stuff, I had to conserve and preserve paid time off. This was followed up by an Agatha nomination for Best Children’s/Young Adult for #shedeservedit, and this time I did go. I lost to Enola Holmes, but I also became friends with Elizabeth Bunce (we’d been nominated together for an Anthony the year before) and Frances Schoonmaker, who was an absolute delight. I was nominated for three Anthonys at Bouchercon this year–Children’s/YA again; anthology for Land of 10000 Thrills, and Best Humorous for Streetcar again. None of those nominations ended with a win, but for me the nominations alone were the real win. I never ever thought I would be shortlisted for mainstream mystery awards, and what a delightful surprise.
I did publish two novels this year–a new series debuting with Death Drop, and the ninth Scotty, Mississippi River Mischief. I also got an (undeserved) editorial credit for School of Hard Knox, along with Donna Andrews and Art Taylor, for publisher Crippen and Landru–which meant working with my dear friend Jeffrey Marks. I have a story in the book, too–“The Ditch”–which was something I’d been working on forever. I also published two more short stories, “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell, and “The Rosary of Broken Promises” for Dancing in the Shadows. I’m pleased with both stories, but I also need to get more. I have any number of incomplete projects that are nagging at me that I would like to finish in the new year. SO MANY PROJECTS.
But I feel good today, and very rested. I’d intended to take today as a do-nothing day, but I will probably do stuff because I am not really wired to not do anything all day.
And on that note, I will wish you happy holidays for the moment and head into the…well, not the spice mines, but perhaps a spice resort?
I finally slept last night, and it felt amazing. I could have easily stayed in bed for another two or three hours, but that 9-to-5 is calling to me (well, 7:30-4:30, but you know what I mean). I was worried that I was getting sick–surgery recovery, medication changes, not being able to sleep, dehydration, occasionally feeling slightly feverish, and some occasional nausea (while eating, so I wasn’t eating as much, either. My COVID tests were always negative (still are, this morning), so I have to put it down to simply being exhausted from not being able to sleep, because this morning I feel good, if a bit sleepy. Everything was dragging ass last night when I got off work; but I made myself run the needed errands on the way home, and thus today I am really delighted to know that I can come straight home from the office and get caught up on some other things. I also did some chores, despite feeling like I was at death’s door by the time I got home. (And I am so glad I bought that wagon; it makes life so much easier and I will continue to use it even after the brace is gone and my arm is healed.)
Insomnia is the worst. I don’t know how people who have it chronically manage, seriously. One night is bad enough, but a couple of nights in a row is enough to completely derail me, so I cannot imagine having it every fucking night. I mean, it wouldn’t really take much to drive me over the edge anyway–I always have such a delicate grip on my sanity as it is, without having further contributing factors. I was too tired to read last night, so I figured doing chores was the right way to go with everything last night. I did think about the new book I am writing, so even though I didn’t add to my word counts yesterday, I did think about where the book needs to go, and thinking about what I am writing and puzzling out the plot and where the book needs to go next counts. We also finished Big Vape last night, which was really interesting and made me think about a lot of things, and started A Murder at the End of the World while we wait for Prime to drop season two of Reacher, which is finally launching this Friday (huzzah! I love Alan Ritchson, and have since he first appeared as Aquaman on Smallville), and of course the bowl games are also starting this weekend–but there really aren’t many this early that I care about watching; most of the bowls end up serving as background noise while I do other things–clean, prune the books, write in my journal, read, edit pages–but seriously, now that I’ve slept well for one night, I feel like I can conquer the world again, and I’ve not felt that way in a very long time. It’s a nice feeling, really.
This year has been, as I said, a rollercoaster that doesn’t seem to be coming back to the station any time soon, and this wild up-and-down ride this year has made me reflect on who I am, why I am who I am, and reset my brain and attitudes about a lot of things because once I realized oh this is why you’re like this and that and so forth I could dissect, and rethink those attitudes–a lot of which was childhood training about how to approach life, which I inevitably took to extremes. Be humble and don’t brag became self-deprecating to the point that I would think or say things about myself or my career that would be horribly offensive if said by someone else…because in my chemically-unbalanced brain, criticism won’t bother you as much if you preempt it, which is the same weirdly off mentality that led to the complete lack of self-esteem about my body and my looks and my intelligence and well, pretty much everything….which means that I was always looking for affirmation from others, and when it didn’t come, it simply confirmed the negative things I was thinking and/or saying about myself.
There’s nothing wrong in being proud of yourself; as my friend Laura says, “Sing out, Louise!” because the obverse of the way I think about negative commentary (“need to fend this off by beating them to the punch”) also works the other way–“If I don’t believe in myself, why would anyone else?”
And I am proud of myself, and the writing career I’ve somehow managed to blunder and stumble my way into. As the tarot card reader told me when we first moved to New Orleans twenty-seven years ago, I did become an author but it’s nothing like I ever dreamed of, imagined, or considered possible. I’ve written so many books, short stories, essays, book reviews, blog posts, and edited so many anthologies that I am not even sure how many there are now–and it’s even more than most people know, because there are pseudonyms I’ve never publicly claimed and books that were ghostwritten or work for hire under a veritable plethora of other names. I think my last six (!) books (Royal Street Reveillon, Bury Me in Shadows, #shedeservedit, A Streetcar Named Murder, Death Drop, and Mississippi River Mischief) are some of my best work, and the last few short stories to come out (“The Rosary of Broken Promises”, “This Thing of Darkness”, “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy”, “Solace in a Dying Hour”, and “The Ditch”) are also some of my best stories. I am very pleased with how I’ve grown and developed in my writing, and I want to continue to grow and develop and keep getting better. My biggest fear is that my best work is behind me and I’ll keep going, getting worse with every new project until finally no one is buying anything I write anymore. I’d still write, anyway–I’ll be writing on my laptop on my death bed, and they will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers–and probably self-publish or something.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines on this cold morning in New Orleans. Have a marvelous Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in later.
Tuesday morning, up early and dark is pressing up against my windows. I slept better last night than I have since Friday night, but woke up out of a deep sleep to go to the bathroom around two in the morning and wasn’t able to get back to it–my body was relaxed completely and resting, but my mind was still working. I feel rested this morning but I don’t know how long that’s going to last…I imagine I am going to run out of steam at some point this afternoon, but I also have to get the mail and make groceries, too. I had also wanted to cook some things for dinner tonight–or to at least have something to take for lunch this week (today is a Lean Cuisine). I feel better, though, this morning than I have in a few days upon waking, so I am taking that as a good sign. It’s been nice having all this out of the office, but it’s kind of weird going back. Outside of unemployment periods, I don’t think I’ve ever not worked for this long since probably high school?
I hope I can remember how to do my job.
It’s also cold this morning–forty-nine degrees, according to my phone–which makes going outside less agreeable and certainly undesirable. I can put the brace on over a jacket, take it off to remove the jacket and put it back on, which makes total sense and I don’t understand why this is something I am initially hesitant to do? The PT went well yesterday and I have the full range of motion back for the elbow; and my fingers are getting more dextrous and ny hand grip stronger. (I kind of felt guilty when he said, ‘yes, keep doing your home exercises because they are working’–because I haven’t been doing them…I told you, I am a terrible patient.) I was exhausted from the PT and from not having slept for two nights, so I wound up not doing much of anything yesterday other than reading deeper into Calypso, Corpses and Cooking by Raquel V. Reyes, which I am enjoying–I really like her character, Miriam–and a likable main character is crucial in a cozy mystery. Nurse. Sparky spent most of the afternoon curled up asleep in my lap, which was comforting and calming and adorable, and then when Paul got home we started watching the Big Vape documentary on Netflix (I think?), which is interesting and got me started thinking about smoking. I smoked from ages 16 to 50, a whopping 34 years, before finally quitting, and frankly, I don’t miss it. I do remember how much i used to actually enjoy smoking, but I’ll never smoke another cigarette in my life. The cultural view on smoking certainly has changed over the course of my life–when I was a kid, you could smoke anywhere and pretty much most people seemed to smoke. My parents did, my grandparents did (not my maternal grandmother; Mom was the only smoker in her family, but pretty much everyone on my dad’s side did), and they used to smoke with the windows up with us in the car. No one thought much about it, of course; despite the surgeon general’s warning about carcinogens getting more and more explicit and fervent as the years passed. I tried smoking in junior high but didn’t inhale, and didn’t much care for it; I tried again the night I graduated from high school and essentially smoked for the next thirty-four years. I still smoked cigarettes when I started writing–which is why Chanse was a smoker and all of his friends were (I did get some pushback from readers about the smoking; a friend who was also a smoker joked that his favorite thing about Murder in the Rue Dauphine was that all the good guys smoked and all the bad people didn’t) but I never really addressed him quitting in the books; I just stopped writing him as a smoker after I quit–and the reason I quit was because Skittle died from cancer. That guilt–that I helped contribute to Skittle’s death–was all it took, even though the cancer he had wasn’t caused from second-hand smoke…just the thought that it could have been a contributing factor was too much for me and I refused to do that to another cat–because by then we were definitely confirmed cat people and it just doesn’t feel like home without a cat in it.
There will be more on Big Vape when we finish watching.
I also am going to be getting back to writing. I signed a contract for a sequel to Death Drop and need to get that finished and out of the way. I wasn’t able to get as much done during this lengthy time off because, well, I had surgery and the recovery–while not as painful as i feared–did drain a lot of my energy, and the enforced rest also made it a little harder to get motivated. I did manage to read more than usual, but the ceiling disaster and repair, the recovery, the physical therapy, and the just now changed medications to deal with my brain chemistry issues was a lot to deal with. I’m also not beating myself up over not getting more done because for fuck’s sake, even as mad as I get at myself for not getting things done…I’m giving myself a break on this. It’s not been an easy year, from beginning to end; but like I always say–if you’re going to have bad things happen, isn’t it best for them to happen all at the same time? That probably sounds insane, but in all honesty–when Paul was attacked and lost his eye? That was the best time for the Christian scum to come for me because I was so focused on getting Paul through what he was dealing with that I couldn’t give them very much attention, one way or the other. (At any other time, I would have been freaking the hell out.) And the weird thing is, professionally this was a great year. I was nominated for an Agatha and a Lefty for the first time, I was nominated for three Anthonys, and I have two books out, and I did some short stories that I am pretty damned proud of–it’s just weird that the highs always come with the lows…or maybe the highs make up for the lows? That’s probably the best way to look at it.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point.
I really need to start taking walks around my neighborhood in the early evening to look at, photograph, and document the Christmas decorations. New Orleans loves holidays, loves costuming, and loves holiday-themed decor; everyone just goes to town for every holiday, and it’s one of the things I love about New Orleans. New Orleans always feels somehow more Christmas season-y than any place I’ve ever lived before, even though we very rarely have a white Christmas here (we did back in 2004); the only place that seems more Christmassy to me is New York–and that has everything to do with Miracle on 34th Street and Macys. When I worked for the airline I used to go to New York for a day every December and buy my mom an ornament from Macys–their Christmas floor was so amazing, always–but now I don’t work for an airline and Mom is gone, so that’s just another one of those nice but bittersweet memories now.
I’ve really been falling down on the job since the surgery about doing blatant self-promotion for Mississippi River Mischief; having major surgery within a few weeks of having two new books drop was perhaps not the smartest decision I have ever made. I always feel weird and uncomfortable doing self-promotion, anyway; I always think people don’t want to hear about this constantly and as you can tell, I’m not really good at it. I know I should be out looking for reviews that are positive and sharing them; but looking for positive reviews inevitably leads you to finding negative reviews, and at this point in time especially I have no interest in reading about how I’ve failed at my job. My books aren’t for everyone–but that doesn’t mean they suck, either. (If I don’t like a book I’m reading, I don’t finish it and I don’t talk about it; I simply say it wasn’t for me when/if asked.)
This enforced rest from the surgery has been an interesting time. I’ve read a lot–mostly short stories, some novels–and streamed a lot of things to watch, but I’ve also been going down a lot of wormholes in my own brain; trying to remember things with a memory that was already starting to fade a bit with age, but it accelerated dramatically after my COVID experience in the summer of 2022…I had already come to realize, recognize, and accept that my memories were faulty all along anyway; we always remember things differently than other people remember the same things because of who we are and how our minds work and how our experiences–and all those little things that make up our personalities and our perspectives–shape us into who we are. I like to paraphrase Joan Didion and say we tell ourselves lies in order to live–we don’t see ourselves as bad or as the villain in any given situation; we reshape events and remember them in ways that exonerate ourselves and push the fault onto others. Over the last years–pre-pandemic, I know that is the case if I can’t remember precisely when–I know I’ve been trying to look at occurrences in my own personal history and trying to be more objective about them all.
In some ways, that was where the story of Mississippi River Mischief came from; I wanted to deal with something from Scotty’s past that I’d brought up in one of the first books in the series (the long out of print Jackson Square Jazz, which hopefully will be available again in time for its twentieth birthday next year) and I’d always wanted to go back and reexamine that incident from Scotty’s past, with an older and much wiser Scotty reflecting on it and how it shaped and developed who he is–only to have it not be how he remembered it in the first place. It crossed my mind briefly while writing Royal Street Reveillon that “oh, the aftermath of this is a good place to deal with this thing from his past1,” and given how and why the underlying case in the new book comes to the Scotty and the guys, and what happened in the last book, this was the book where I had to go there and bring it all back. Yes, Jackson Square Jazz had been out of print since 2010, so the only way anyone could get it was from second-hand sources or libraries, so a couple of pages about Scotty’s past in an unavailable book–well, I did think for a while I wouldn’t have to dredge that up in this most recent book, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had to–it was cowardly not to deal with it and pretend I never wrote about it in the first place (especially since I’ve always intended for the book to be rereleased), and it fit in with not only the new story but what happened in the previous book.
And the fact that it was an extremely loaded subject made it all the more important that I address Scotty’s past–being seduced by his wrestling coach in high school–so that he could see it for what it actually was rather than what he remembered it as.
And the fallout will continue into the next one. (Yes, there are going to be at least three more, and I promise not to go four years between Scotty books again.)
Sorry, I’m trying not to give spoilers on a book that is almost six years old! ↩︎
It’s a gray Friday morning here in the Lost Apartment and I might need to turn on a light–that’s how gray it is this morning. I was also a lag-a-bed and didn’t get up until after eight; not sure what that was about but the bed was incredibly comfortable. I also forgot to turn the heat off last night before I went to bed…and that kind of was a smart thing to do as I am not shivering this morning as I sit here. The brace still makes typing awkward, but I’m getting more used to it, or something.
Yesterday was my first real day of physical therapy; the first was clearly simply an assessment, and yesterday the actual therapy started. It was almost an hour, and it was all mostly dexterity movement with my hand and fingers, as well as working on squeezing and flexing, and some little forearm curls with a two pound weight. I ran errands after, including making groceries and getting the mail. I was exhausted. I wrote some emails and then did my book reports on two of the three books I read recently (I still have one more to do, on the Donna Andrews Christmas murder mystery), and when I was done with that…I was done. I was so fatigued I couldn’t even read very far into my next read (Raquel V. Reyes’ Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, an absolutely delightful cozy series set in a small town within Miami–check the series out if you’ve not yet), and wound up watching an episode of Moonlighting and my standard go-to; documentaries about history on Youtube, and episodes of Real Housewives (I am currently watching Salt Lake City and Beverly Hills), and then Paul came home later and we started watching The Curse, an odd show with Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder; per Showtime the series explores “how an alleged curse disturbs the relationship of a newly married couple as they try to conceive a child while co-starring on their problematic new HGTV show, Flipanthropy.” I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be funny when we started watching–I did laugh a few times, but it’s also one of those “cringe comedy” shows where you’re kind of embarrassed and mortified for the characters’ behavior so you don’t feel comfortable laughing? But now that I know it’s supposed to be funny (laughing with instead of at)…I really shouldn’t go into shows blind anymore because I am too literal-minded. I’m hoping to get a lot done today around the house; I feel very rested this morning and I guess we’ll have to see how long that lasts, and how long before my energy flags. This week I’ve felt more myself than I have since the surgery–clear-headed and so forth–so I am hoping that’s a sign that I am slowly getting back to normal.
I’m also hoping to watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny this weekend. Hoping it ranks with the first and third movies in the series and not the second and fourth.
The construction work around the apartment seems to be finished; they reinforced the patio deck overhang (which is over our front steps) with steel and removed that horrible long wooden plank that was supporting it for like the last twelve years, which was ugly and annoying and in the way–and not particularly effective, either. The kitchen ceiling is repaired, and now all we need is to have the plasterboard painted and the ceiling fan rehung, which I’m hoping can be done after I go back to work Tuesday. I like our construction guys–super-friendly and nice, and very good at their jobs; they are also going to reinforce our living room floor, which is getting soft in places; also incredibly thoughtful and considerate of me being home while they were working on the place–apologizing for noise, checking to make sure I was okay (they asked about the arm brace and I had to explain, after which they became incredibly solicitous, which I never–no offense–expect from straight men), keeping me updated on progress and so forth. They even told me everything they’re going to be doing around the house for the next few months, which is great; I’d kind of gotten used to never being told anything by workers and having to work around them over the years.
The kitchen is also a mess and needs to be straightened up some; I need to empty the dishwasher, do another load, and get started on the bed linens (it’s FRIDAY! Laundry day!). Tomorrow I’ll run some errands; I am not going to make groceries again until Monday, since I have PT that morning and have to go uptown anyway. Tuesday I get to go back to the office, which will be interesting. I’d of course hoped I’d be able to get a lot more accomplished and done during my time out of the office, but…that proved to be overly optimistic. I am recovering quickly–everyone is amazed, at PT and the doctors–but even my recovery wasn’t as quick and easy as I had hoped. I tire easily–gee, it’s not like my body is recovering from a MASSIVE TRAUMA or anything–so I’ll be curious to see how things go when I return to work.
I also have Christmas cards to do, too, which should be interesting. I actually have the cards already and the stamps; I ordered some gorgeous Louisiana Christmas cards from a local photographer, and a box of funny ones on-line; I also ordered Mississippi River stamps, which will be super fun to use. I always put doing the cards off, then lose track of time until it’s too late, and then just think well it’s the thought that counts. This year, however, I am ahead of the game–everything was ordered and has been here since well before Thanksgiving, so if I don’t do it this year I literally have no excuse. Maybe this weekend; it’s something I can do while sitting in my easy chair.
And Sparky is really making himself at home. I am so happy we got his energetic hyperactive little fuzzy butt. He’s getting so big, and he’s so smart and determined. He now open the bathroom door (so we can’t shut him up in there anymore) and he literally climbs drawers now to get to the kitchen counters or on top of the dressers–he actually looks like he’s scaling a rock cliff as he climbs the drawers, and it’s hard to get aggravated at him for doing it because it’s so smart of him to have figured that out. He’s very determined, and he’s also starting to answer (or at least react) when we say his name. I also call him Boop sometimes; it’s hard to get out of the habit of calling the cat “Boot” (nickname for Scooter we used more than his real name) but I managed to start saying “boop” instead, and he likes that and answers to it. He still prefers boxes and bottle caps to any toys we’ve gotten him, but I would like to get one of those toys that entertains them for hours…but then I think but what if he doesn’t care about it and ignores it?
Always an issue with a cat.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, and I’ll check back in later.
Queer and Loathing in America 