Category: Southern Gothic

10 Out of 10

Paul went out Sunday evening to have dinner with a friend Sunday night, leaving me home to my own devices, and after he departed I pulled up Youtube and did a search I’ve not done in a very long time: for Friday the 13th, the television series. Imagine my delight when I found a playlist of almost every episode from it’s three year run in the late 1980’s in syndication! (It had been briefly up on Amazon Prime a few years ago, so I tagged it for Watch Later…so of course it was “unavailable in your area” when I went back to watch it.) I watched the pilot episode, “The Inheritance,” Sunday night. The video quality wasn’t great; it looked like someone had recorded it with a VCR off the broadcast and then digitized it for upload years later, and of course, the entire show had been done on a shoestring budget for syndication in the first place, so it didn’t hold up as well as I would have liked, but the show was terrific at the time. The premise of the show is that Lewis Vendredi had made a deal with the devil: immortality in exchange for selling cursed objects out of his antique shop. Lewis goes back on the deal and so the devil summons him to hell, and his niece Micky and nephew Ryan inherit the shop. Not knowing things are cursed, they have a big sale to clean out most of the inventory before Jack Marshack shows up, fills them in on the curse, and now they have to get all the cursed objects back before people start dying.

Great concept, isn’t it? In the first episode the object is a doll that can come to life and speak to its owner, and will kill people that harm the child. The little girl’s mother had died and her father has married a horrible second wife (the proverbial evil stepmother), and of course the doll ends up dispatching the evil stepmother before Ryan and Micky can get it back from her. The next three seasons explore the attempts to get the objects back. I know of two enormously successful writers who also loved the show, so there are some of us fans still out there–and this is a show I would love to reboot and modernize; same concept, but with different stories. I also have a book about the show somewhere I always meant to read; perhaps I should dig it out and read it for my Halloween Horror Month celebration–and I should watch the show whenever I am home alone again if I am too tired to read or write anything. Now that sounds like a good plan.

Everything is proceeding apace for my arm surgery. It is scheduled now for the week of Thanksgiving; my MRI is scheduled; and I am going through all of the pre-surgery hoops that need to be cleared. I am getting fitted for the new dentures this Friday, and I have my new glasses and my hearing aids. Not bad for someone who hates dealing with this sort of thing, wouldn’t you say?

We had a heavy rain last night–apparently in the early afternoon through the early evening–so of course, Cox Internet (piece of shit that it is) was spotty for the rest of the evening. Shocking, I know. Cox? Failing to live up to their end of the pay-for-service bargain? Who would have ever thought such a thing possible? It really galls me how bad their service had gotten over the last year. They were completely reliable for years. I never had a single complaint about Cox; when I returned to the apartment after Hurricane Katrina the cable was still working. Now? After a strong storm, it’s garbage. Garbage.

I went back to work on the sequel to Death Drop yesterday, but didn’t get much done on it, alas. Perhaps the jolt of diving back into writing so hard on Sunday strained the muscles, depleting the creative reserves or something because they were out of shape from not being used in so long. So, the evening wasn’t productive–primarily because of the spotty in-and-out internet frustration. I mostly watched another episode of Friday the 13th-the Series (“Hellowe’en”, if you want to know specifics) which kept freezing as the Internet went in and out, and then started watching a documentary I thought I’d seen before, Keep Sweet, that documentary about fundamentalist Mormons (it really is staggering how misogynist even the more modern versions of that religion are); I had seen it before, but when I pulled up Netflix…the Internet was spotty and Netflix recommended it to me like I hadn’t seen it before.

But I was sleepy-tired, and went to bed just around nine as i was nodding off again. I slept well last night–feel rested and good this morning–but am finding it more than a little hard to believe that September is about to be over and it will be October this weekend. So, I need to get Shawn’s book finished before this weekend, and I think I will put off my Halloween Horror Month reading until after finishing Lou Berney’s new one, which actually looks shortish, and Lou’s books always read fast. I should have read last night when the Internet started getting spotty, but my brain was already tired by then. I swung by the post office to get the mail yesterday–my shoes and zipper LSU hoody arrived, as well as a copy of The Adventures of Ellery Queen. I don’t think I’ve read any of the Queen short stories, but have read most of the novels, but can now correct that oversight. I think maybe if it isn’t raining when I get home from work tonight I may take a walk around the neighborhood; the exercise certainly can’t hurt me none, and I want to start looking for Halloween decorations. I also need to swing uptown and check out the skeleton house’s decorations this year. Halloween is such a marvelous season in New Orleans, and I love how we were ll talking about how much cooler it’s been–high eighties–after the brutality of this summer.

Ugh, so stupid, I should have started rereading Jackson Square Jazz last night. Lesson learned; before I leave the house this morning I’m putting a copy in my easy chair so I’ll remember tonight.

Another one of those tiresome women-penned essays about “gay” romance surfaced yesterday, but I’m not going to talk about that now; but it was the usual bullshit about straight women inventing gay romance and how gay men can’t/don’t write it–in general (per the essay), straight women don’t like gay fiction written by gay men because it usually will tackle social issues and/or how difficult it is to be gay in modern America but straight women don’t want to read about that. The essay itself mentions this…but the writer doesn’t see it as a problem? It’s more of the same bullshit it always is; gay men can’t write romance the way the straight ladies like it because it’s too real when they write it (this despite the fact that they also don’t want realistic gay sex scenes, either). There will definitely be more on this later.

And on that note, I am staggering back to the spice mines. Y’all have a great day, okay?

Padam Padam

And here we are at a manic Monday yet again, and shortly I will be heading into the office for yet another exciting week of the day job. Hurray and huzzah? I slept really well on Saturday night, getting up just after seven yesterday despite not going to bed until almost midnight; I found myself reading some things Saturday during the games that I shouldn’t have started–one of them being Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas; I have the ebook–and I was also reading legends and stories about Louisiana’s past as well as Alabama’s; I have an ebook called Warrior Mountains Folklore: An Oral History by Rickey Butch Walker (which is an Alabama name if I’ve ever heard one); which isn’t necessarily about the Alabama county I’m from, but the ones directly north, including notorious Winston County, which contains the Bankhead National Forest. It also tells stories of the indigenous people of the area, and reminded me that Tuscaloosa actually is the Creek words for “black warrior,” meaning the Black Warrior River is actually the Tuscaloosa (tusca loosa); this will all go into the construction of my fictional Alabama county, which is ongoing. (And yes, the irony that one of the greatest–if not the greatest–college football programs is in a town named Black Warrior in the native tongue is hilarious.)

(It has occurred to me that I don’t necessarily have to connect all of my Alabama stories just as I don’t need to connect all my Kansas stories–which I realized while writing #shedeservedit–which was kind of freeing. I need to think in terms of multiverses rather than one single interconnected universe with my writing, don’t I? It certainly makes things easier than trying to keep the continuity and so forth going.)

Anyway, I am sure my Alabama just-for-fun research will undoubtedly pay dividends in future writing, no doubt. I also have been having ideas for more stories set there; I may give Jake’s boyfriend Beau his own story at some point; I keep going back to the legend of the Blackwood witch from antebellum/early statehood days, because the witch story is one I’ve always wanted to tell. Beau, being an archaeology major with a minor in Alabama History, is just the perfect person to tell the story of the witch I’ve always wanted to tell. But is it weird to have another vengeful spirit in the woods behind the Blackwood place, and the Civil War ruins? Or could it be tied to the lost family cemetery, still out there in the woods somewhere? As you can tell, I’ve been thinking about it lately.

I managed about a little more than twenty-five hundred words on the new Valerie yesterday, which felt great to do, really. I wanted to write some more on the Jem sequel, too, but after finishing the Valerie chapter I just felt mentally fatigued. I’m not used to writing this much in a short period of time anymore (just over an hour or so) and it’s going to take me a while to get back up to the proper writing speed I cannot maintain year-round. But it felt great to be creating again, and I do love the plot of this book. I also spent some quality time with Shawn Cosby’s marvelous All the Sinners Bleed, which is going in a direction I did not see coming and one that I am really enjoying. Shawn is such a master story-teller! I can’t wait to finish this so I can write about it–and I hope I finish it in time to read Lou Berney’s new one before I switch to October Halloween Horror Month. I think I may try out a Grady Hendrix novel for one of my horror reads and of course, I am terribly behind on Stephen King, and there are also some other lovely horror novels and collections in my piles of books to be read that could make for a fun reading month: Stephen Graham Jones, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, Sarah Pearse, and Katrina Monroe, among so many others–I need to get back into the habit of reading for at least an hour every day. The only way to get through all the books i want to read is to make a daily time allowance for reading and stick to it.

After the abysmally disappointing Saints game, I went back to my easy chair and rather than delving back into Shawn’s book, I decided to start reading Jackson Square Jazz, the finished and published edition, to get a better handle on the story again. It’s been a long time, and I knew it had to do with a young figure skater, the Napoleon death mask, and the Cabildo fire, but not really much beyond that–although I think it’s actually the book where Scotty is in his first canonical car accident. Again, I am distant enough from it now not to immediate go into editing mode as I read it–ironic, since I need to re-edit it–and just read it. I really need to stop being so hard on myself. I know I’ve already made great strides in that direction, and I like my new positive attitude toward writing and publishing. I think analyzing why I am so hard on myself, recognizing the mentality I defaulted to when reading my work meant needing to flip a switch in my brain and going into a different mode other than editorial and doing it consciously makes a lot of difference. I was pleased rereading my short story collection, and was pretty pleased with rereading Jackson Square Jazz, particularly since it’s an early book in my canon and it’s been over twenty years since I wrote it.

(It’s kind of awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time to realize just how long I’ve been doing this. Bill Clinton was president when I signed my first book contract.)

Well, that made me feel rather elderly.

I slept super-well last night, too. I was very tired and falling asleep in my chair, so I went to bed around nine and only woke up once, around two, and then woke up again half an hour before the alarm (as usual). Hopefully, I will not be too tired to function later today.

And on those two rather sad trombone notes, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back before you know it.

Green Light

One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we don’t really have a Louisiana crime writer who explores and illuminates the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and environmentalism of the state the way John D. Macdonald infused many of his Florida novels with so frequently. Condominium, published in the 1980’s, is a stinging indictment of crooked developers and corrupt politicians putting up massive condominium buildings along the coastline of Florida, despite the damage they do to the environment, all in the name of a quick buck. I have been thinking about this because I spent a lot of time in the panhandle in the 1970s, back before Panama City Beach developed into what it is now. I’ve not been back there since 1980, at the latest; but just looking at Google Earth images it’s horrifying how different and over-developed that whole area has become. (I was looking at the images because I was thinking about setting a book along the Redneck Riviera/Baja Alabama/Emerald Coast/Miracle Strip, whichever name you use for the region.) Louisiana, nicknamed “Sportsmen’s Paradise” because of the abundant fish and game and the stunning natural beauty of the state, has pretty much spent the last hundred or so years (at least) destroying and despoiling the natural resources of the state of Louisiana, killing off wildlife species while introducing new invasive ones–and don’t even get me started on Cancer Alley, that stretch of the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge lined with petrochemical plants parked next to poor, mostly Black communities that have, surprisingly enough, large instances of cancers in the residents. Now the level of the river is so low that it can’t keep the Gulf water pushed down, and the salty water is making its way up the river and intruding into our drinking water supply here in southeastern Louisiana. I’m sure the loss of so much of the wetlands to ensure oil company profits hasn’t affected this in any way, shape or form. There’s a really good environmental thriller to be written about Louisiana (if not more), and I think maybe part of the problem in writing about the destruction of Louisiana in the name of unfettered greed is that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to tackle it, nor do I have the time to spend on the research necessary.

It’s really disappointing to me that James Michener never wrote one of his two thousand page plus books about Louisiana. Louisiana history, no offense, is a lot more interesting than Texas’.

And Sportsmen’s Paradise is a great title for a book about Louisiana’s environmental disasters.

I suppose I should just go ahead and do it, regardless of how difficult and long and tedious the process may be. I also think part of the reason I’ve resisted this aspect of writing about Louisiana is because no matter how dark my books may get, I always want justice to be done in some way and to end the book with some sort of hope; there literally is no hope for the future of Louisiana because our politicians are all too greedy and corrupt and only focused on the now rather than the future, no matter how much they beat the “but the children!” drum publicly to fool those incapable of deeper thought. There have been so many environmental disasters in Louisiana over the nearly three decades I’ve lived here I can’t remember them all; and yes, I definitely count boil water advisories in that, too. There was the sinkhole at Bayou Corne (anyone remember that?) and of course Deepwater Horizon, whose true impact and the damage it wrought on the Gulf and the coastline will not be fully known for generations.

The one consistent thing throughout Louisiana’s history has been the entrenched systemic political corruption. I have written about that.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Jackson Square Jazz, as I get into this revision, and remembering why I wrote it and what I was trying to say within the book; there was a thread in it that ties directly into the new one, and there are also some thematic commonalities with S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am really enjoying reading. Shawn is such an extraordinary writer, with a gift not only for language but character, dialogue, setting and story; the complete deal, as it were, and definitely is going to be considered one of the definitive crime writers of this new generation of exceptional talent that has risen over the last few years. I am going to spend some more time with Shawn’s book this morning, too; I am really enjoying it and wanting to see where it goes and how it all ends. I also have the new Lou Berney on deck, and Lou’s books are always high-quality, clever, and engaging.

College football was interesting yesterday. My Tigers prevailed in a three-point nail-biter against Arkansas in Tiger Stadium 34-31, running the clock out and kicking the winning field goal on the last play of the game. Paul and I were stunned, as was the crowd in the stadium..,and then I laughed. “LSU fans aren’t used to smart clock management in tight games,” I observed, and Paul started laughing with me because the crowd in the stadium didn’t know how to react to the end of the game either. It almost seemed ant-climactic rather than exciting…how many games have we lost this century because of poor clock management skills displayed by the coaching staff? So it was lovely, for once, to see the Tigers play smart at the end of a game for a change. Alabama finally looked like Alabama for the first time this season–but only in the second half as they iced Mississippi. LSU now has to play Mississippi in Oxford next weekend; it’ll be interesting to see how LSU stacks up against our old Magnolia Bowl foe. Colorado finally lost, which brought out all the racist college football fans on social media. The Texas A&M-Auburn game was just sloppy, ugly and unimpressive, while Mississippi State fell to South Carolina. But the big game of the day lived up to its billing–Ohio State v. Notre Dame in South Bend, with the Buckeyes scoring the winning touchdown on the literal last play of the game, 17-14. I literally only saw the closing minutes of the game, switching over once the LSU game concluded. The Saints play at noon today at Green Bay, so the grocery run I need to make will happen around that time–no fool me; everyone knows the best time to make groceries is during a Saints game here.

Yesterday was pretty relaxing, over all; a lovely day for the weekend and a restful and nice one, despite the stress of the LSU game. I’ll probably have the Saints game on in the background because it’s too anxiety-making to watch the games. (I have yet to learn how to control the anxiety during a game; it was certainly there last night and while I tried very hard not to get negative during the game, I could feel the adrenaline spiking and my heart rate going up, but I managed to keep my mind from spiraling and going super-dark as well not getting overly emotional It is, after all, just a football game and LSU football success isn’t necessary for my mental well-being.)

My goals for today are to read Shawn’s book for a few hours, get cleaned up and make a grocery run; while finishing the first chapters of the new Valerie and Jem books (tentatively titled, thus far, The House of the Seven Grables and You Gone, Girl) and also wanting to do some short story work as well, which is always fun. This Friday I am getting fitted for my new teeth (hurray!) and I have also reached the point where I can eat and enjoy noodles, so yesterday I made box mac’n’cheese (not Kraft, but one that came from the refrigerated section and simply needed microwaving and stirring; it wasn’t bad, either). Tonight I am going to make ravioli for dinner; we’ll see how that goes, although I am sure I won’t be able to eat any garlic bread. (I am able to eat Cheese Puffs, though.) I really want a burger, more than anything else. We are also making a trip to the SPCA to adopt a cat this coming Friday, which is perhaps the most exciting thing of all! I’ve really missed having a cat; they are such darling animals, and of course we want to get another ginger boy.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back–if not later, than tomorrow.

Adios Amigo

I’ve been toying with an idea for an essay for a while. It began as a blog post, but as I worked on it I realized it might be too long for a blog entry, were I to cover the entire scope of the issue even in abstract form. I moved it from here into a Word document yesterday, which may or may not mean something bigger in store for it than simply a blog entry. I don’t know. It will probably wind up here at some point as one of those long rambling things I do from time to time when I feel passionately about something. Consider that your warning. I’ve been thinking about masculinity a lot lately–it’s been an albatross hung around my neck since I was a child (“Boys don’t play with dolls! Boys don’t read Nancy Drew!”) and after reading so many bad takes about how “men are in crisis”–which basically boil down to an inability to adapt to cultural and societal change that is so intense that they resist such adaptation violently–I started thinking about masculinity and what it means to be a man; if it means anything, really. It’s probably too important an issue for me to take on in a personal essay, but personal essays are supposed to be revealing, and no one expects me to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything ever written about American masculinity, and to discuss it; thinking I can’t write something for whatever reason is self-sabotage of the worst kind, and something I am guilty of, over and over, throughout my life and career.

And yes, self-sabotage is 100% a by-product of my anxiety.

I also have Justin Baldoni’s book about masculinity, Man Enough, which is also an exploration of masculinity. Baldoni played the incredibly hot and sexy father of Jane the Virgin’s baby, and so as a gorgeous male actor/sex symbol, he has some gravitas to speak on the subject. I’m looking forward to cycling around to his book, once I finish my reread of a Charlemagne biography I really enjoy. I also spent some more time with Shawn’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am liking and savoring as I go–and can’t wait to spend some more time with it today. When I finish, Lou Berney’s Dark Ride has preempted everyone and been moved to the top of the TBR pile. It’s so lovely having so many great options of what to read next. I also think once October rolls around I am going to read only horror that month, in honor of the season–so I need to finish Shawn and Lou’s books before the month turns.

It also occurs to me that many of my books–unbeknownst to me–have explored the topic of masculinity in great detail already.

I slept really well last night, and only got up once. Ironically once I did wake up, I thought wow you really slept late and then saw it was quarter past seven on my alarm. I guess how it feels matters more than how long it actually was, and what truly matters is that I woke up feeling rested and relaxed and ready for my coffee this morning. I am debating right now whether I want to take the books to the library sale and the beads to the donor bins as well s make a slight grocery run–but am leaning towards not making the trip outside the house. I don’t really need anything from the store until Monday at the earliest, and the boxes of books and beads are out of the way and not bothering anyone, let alone my need for order and open space in the living room. I also want to work on some writing today before the games, so maybe leaving the house today isn’t in the cards–or am I just being lazy? It’s definitely possible that laziness and procrastination and my tendency to self-sabotage is what is really going on here. It’s possible. I do tend to put things off I consider unpleasant (and by unpleasant, I mean have to put some effort into it)…

LSU plays Arkansas tonight in Death Valley, and tonight we’ll find out two things: basically, how good either time is. It’s hard to say this early in the season how much quality your wins and losses have; the Florida State-Clemson game today will impact how good the LSU loss to the Seminoles was, and of course we aren’t sure how good Mississippi State is, so we don’t know if that was a quality win yet or not. Arkansas lost to BYU last weekend, so there’s also no telling how good they may or may not be, either. The whole conference seems to be down this year, but a tight win for Georgia can be shaken off as meaningless this early, and Alabama may bounce back; a Nick Saban coached Alabama team has never lost more than three games in a season since 2010 and only twice overall; sure, they looked unimpressive against USF and lost badly to Texas in Tuscaloosa, but does that mean Alabama isn’t going to rebound and is destined for a bad season? No, I don’t think so. Love them or hate them, Alabama consistently wins, and an early season loss means nothing to their program. Sure, LSU could run the table, win the West and potentially even the conference title game and make it to the play-offs; but they have to run the table on a schedule filled with landmines, including both Alabama and a rebuilding Auburn as well as the always hated Florida Gators. There are some great games today, which is why I want to spend some time reading Shawn’s book this morning before the games start, and I plan on rereading and revising Jackson Square Jazz during the games today.

And of course, there’s always filing and organizing to be done. I have seriously messed up my filing system so thoroughly and completely that it’s going to require a major overhaul to begin with, but I also have to think about putting together a new and workable system that will be easier to maintain than this haphazard way I’ve been doing things–and of course the computer files are an utter disaster as well. Heavy sigh.

I’ve been doing a lot more research (or rather, falling into research black holes on the web) about New Orleans during the decade of the 1910’s. I am definitely going to write a Sherlock pastiche for the Bouchercon anthology–which of course means I will most likely be rejected. Perhaps a Sherlockian-type character, and if they turn it down I can simply turn him into Sherlock and toss the story into my short story collection? I need to finish the revisions of “Whim of the Wind” and finish a draft of “Parlor Tricks,” which will probably go into that collection as well. What particularly interests me now is “Manila Village,” a settlement of Filipinos on Barataria Bay, settled by native Filipinos who were forced to serve in the Spanish navy and escaped to Louisiana. There’s still a strong Filipino-American community here (which I actually didn’t know before falling into this wormhole of research), and I do feel that Holmes, living in New Orleans in that decade, would probably embrace them and their culture. (I also need to research the Isleños; descendants of the Canary Islanders who settled here.) New Orleans was also dramatically different geographically back then; the New Basin Canal was still there, for one thing, and I am not entirely sure when the Carondelet Canal (also called the Old Basin Canal) was filled in, but it came right up next to Congo Square; the streets in the Quarter were either dirt or cobblestone, and the lower part of the neighborhood had been almost entirely taken over by Italian immigrants.

I’ve also got strong starts of first chapters for another Jem book (sequel to Death Drop) and another Valerie (sequel to A Streetcar Named Murder); so there’s plenty of writing to be done this weekend as well. I’m not feeling overwhelmed by any or all of this writing that must be worked on and done; this morning I literally feel like all I need to do is roll up my sleeves and dive into the word documents head first, which is a great way to feel.

And on that note, it’s spice mine time this morning. Have a great Saturday and I’ll probably check in with you again later.

I Don’t Want to Cry

But my God, fasting is the worst. The doctor visit went extremely well, and I am actually kind of excited about going forward with a primary care physician who, um, cares. Everything went well, we are getting ready to move ahead with my next surgery, we’re coming up with a plan to deal with the anxiety (bye bye, Xanax; but you didn’t really work for that anyway, only the symptoms), and I got my flu shot. I think I’ll probably swing by CVS to get a COVID booster and the RVS shot tomorrow. I have to go drop books off at the library sale anyway, I want to wash the car, and now that the excessive heat is over, maybe now I can properly air my tires and get the pressure in them to balance again. But I weighed only 200 pounds per their scale (with my wallet, belt, shoes and keys on me), which must be a result of the fasting? I can’t imagine how i dropped five pounds since yesterday.

I was also thinking that this soft food diet/tooth thing is really the perfect time for me to reset my eating habits and go forward with a more healthy eating plan. I need more vegetables in my life, and fresh foods. I don’t need the junk anymore except as a treat–I’ve rather broken the habit while not being able to snack these last couple of weeks, and let me tell you, last night I wanted a snack of something crunchy and salty so badly there’s no telling what I would have done to be able to have something like that. I’ve also come to realize that I actually like ramen. I generally have tried avoiding the foods that I consider “poverty indicators”–the stuff I could afford in college or during my leaner financial days–and those are things like ramen, box Mac’n’ Cheese, and tuna. But only being able to eat soft food and reverting to ramen reminded me that I do, in fact, actually like it–I always love any kind of noodles, really–and what is easier to take for lunch than that? I’ve been taking leftovers, and usually only cooking a big meal on the weekends to have something to take for lunch…,but ramen is easier, tasty, and filling (which is why it’s such a great poverty food). And you can always dress it up; one of my roommates in college had a Japanese mom and what she could do with a package of ramen, spices, and some vegetables was something I’ve tried duplicating any number of times without success. And once my arm is healed, I need to get back into working out again. Now that the weather is getting cooler I am probably going to start taking walks in the mornings on the weekends; the city is getting ready for Halloween and I have so many friends who are into Halloween that I love sharing pictures showing how overboard New Orleans goes for it.

I’ve never really done any Halloween writing about New Orleans, now that I think about it. Jackson Square Jazz was supposed to be the Halloween book, but I wound up setting it earlier in the month and only mentioned Halloween costumes in the epilogue. A Streetcar Named Murder was also set in October just before Halloween–hence the masked ball Valerie and Lorna attend–but I’ve never done Halloween itself. My story “The Snow Globe” actually began life as a Halloween story; I wrote it for a Halloween anthology and it wasn’t accepted. The original opening line was Satan had a great six-pack, and was inspired by me standing on the balcony at the Pub/Parade on Halloween and looking across the street just as someone come out of Oz dressed as sexy Satan–red body paint, red bikini, face done up, and red glitter everywhere–and I actually had that thought: “Satan has a great six-pack” and stored it away as an opening line. When I was looking through the files for a Christmas holiday story for the anthology benefiting my chapter of Sisters in Crime, I realized Santa is an anagram for Satan (which is interesting in and of itself) and I can switch the story from Halloween to Christmas, which makes more sense anyway for its outcome. Ironically, the story actually worked better as a Christmas story!

I definitely need to do a Scotty Halloween book. Halloween Season Hijinks? That actually could work….hmmm.

And on that note I am going to make myself some lunch (hello, Lipton’s double noodle soup and Ritz crackers!) and dive into the spice mines to get my work at home duties completed for the day. May the rest of your Friday be as awesome as you are, Constant Reader! I may be back later–one never knows–but if not, definitely on the morrow.

Hell is for Children

Years ago, there were things you’d never write about in books for teens and pre-teens. Now, though, many more topics are fair game. BUT are there some things you’d never write about? Because of your own feelings, or because you don’t think your audience is ready for it?

On the panel I said I’d never write about cannibalism, but of course ever since then I can’t stop thinking about cannibalism–and that’s entirely on me. I can’t even imagine writing about that.

I’m not going to say there’s anything I won’t write about because I don’t want to limit myself. If I can think of some way to write about something that isn’t pandering or exploitative or offensive, I will. I was recently reading some of my short stories because I am pulling together another collection and one of the stories–I was like, oh yeah, you can’t publish this without a major revision.

I don’t think I would ever write from the perspective of a person of color or a trans-identified individual because while I know I have a very vivid imagination and am capable of empathy, I am also a sixty-two year white cisgender male. I think I could probably do it, with help from a sensitivity reader and my editor, sure; but we need more trans writers and writers of color, not another old white man writing from their perspective. I will include those characters in my work, but not as point of view characters, because we need to make room for those with the lived experience to write those stories. I may not live long enough to see it, but hopefully in about thirty years we’ll have reached the point where exclusion of non-white non-straight non-cisgender writers will no longer be an issue, and what a wonderful world tht will be.

No offense, but none of you is in your target demographic any longer. What challenges does that present and how do you overcome them? How do you ensure that the language your characters speak is reflective of how teens and pre-teens speak today?

How very dare you! I am still a sprightly young man of…um, sixty-two. Point taken. I try to avoid slang and current language because it becomes dated very quickly; akin to how, when I was a child, I saw books and movies and television shows that tried to appeal to the youth market by trying to use current slang and it never turned out well. I mean, once The Brady Bunch kids are saying “groovy” excitedly every other sentence…it kind of killed the word and I never heard it in real life ever again. The time between when a book is written and when it’s released is long enough for current kids’ language to change. My sister’s grandkids are always saying things I don’t understand…but the next year they are speaking a different language, so I don’t try. It’s hard enough keeping up with technology, which also gets dated very rapidly.

What percentage of your readers do you think are adults? Do you consider these crossover readers when writing?

I honestly don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if mine were primarily adults. I don’t set out to write books for kids, really; I write novels where the characters are teenagers. They get marketed as young adult books, which is something I have no control over. I’d like to think both adults and younger readers can enjoy my books that are so classified. If I think about the audience I am writing for when I am writing, it makes the writing more stressful and harder. I trust my editor to make sure I don’t write anything offensive or way off-base or too adult for a young adult audience–which is where my books would be shelved in the library. No one’s complained about mine yet.

Greg, your book tackles multiple contemporary societal problems. How do you balance writing about such tough topics with ensuring that your work is compelling and hits the right mystery/suspense notes?

The objective, for me, when writing about societal problems and issues is to put a human face on them, by making it personal. Societal problems are easily dismissed or ignored when they are simply abstract principles. If my characters are fully rounded, are relatable and seem real to the reader, then the reader will see, through the characters, what it is like to experience and go through these issues; and to develop a sense of empathy, so we aren’t so quick to judge and blame and not try to understand. #shedeservedit was very important to me, because with the Steubenville/St. Marysville rape cases, it made me look back over the course of my own life and remember situations I witnessed or heard about in a completely different light. For example, one of the cheerleaders at a nearby town had an experience similar to what the girls in Steubenville and St. Marysville went through…but in the 1970s, the blame solely went on the girl. When I heard the story she was a willing participant–the story was told to me in hushed whispers by another girl–and all the elements of the modern stories were there: pretty and popular cheerleader; a party with alcohol and football players; the town football team was successful and beloved in the town; and a bitter ex-boyfriend. As the story was told to me, she got drunk and “pulled a train” (a disgusting phrase, really) with five of the football players, including her ex. I was shocked at the time– to think she’d done this willingly, at a party where it was bound to get around (as it obviously did). But now, looking back–how willing was she, really? But that was how things were back then. I’d like to think things are changing, that we are valuing young girls and women as human beings more now…but are we?

Technology changes very rapidly, and teens—and younger children—are often at the forefront of these changes. How do you handle that in your writing?

Like slang, I try to use as little of it as possible. I do realize everyone is addicted to their phones now, and spend most of their lives texting and facetiming and everything else, but while I will use some basic technology–texting, emails, DM’s–I try not to get into the entire app/social media weeds too much because it may change before the book is published and I don’t want to publish a book that’s already dated. I think that if the reader really cares about your characters and the story…they won’t care so much about the slang and tech.

How has your writing evolved since you first got published? If a reader is new to your work, which book would you recommend starting with?

I’d like to think I am a better writer than I was back then. I know I’m a different writer than I was when I started; more life experience, with the concomitant increased empathy, understanding, and sympathy that comes with it. I try to push myself with every new work; it’s the challenge of doing something new and different I really enjoy.

If we’re talking my y/a, I’d started with the first, Sleeping Angel, and go from there. If we’re talking my career in general, I’d say Bourbon Street Blues or Murder in the Rue Dauphine. It’s always good to start at the beginning. If the length of both series is daunting, try either A Streetcar Named Murder or Death Drop (drops October 31!) and then move into the stand alones.

There are a small number of popular writers who spark controversy in their “real” lives. How do you reconcile a great writer with a bad person? Do you read that writer’s work?

Ah, the old “artist vs their work” question. There are writers with enormous talent whose books I’ve loved that social media has exposed as incredibly horrific people with “values” (I have a hard time using that word in reference to such abhorrent beliefs) and I have stopped reading them. I will never have time to read all the books I want to read, and if I’m able to prune my stack by removing racists and homophobes and misogynists and transphobes? Thank you for making my choices easier. I’ve always believed one should be widely read–I used to read nonfiction books about politics and social issues by conservatives because I thought it was important to listen to and evaluate their positions. After we were lied to as a government and a nation to drive popular support for a war we didn’t need to be fighting in order to drive more profits for military suppliers and oil corporations, I no longer needed those perspectives. I don’t need to read excuses and rationalizations for bigotry and prejudice and other indefensible positions for any human being to hold.

The vast majority of my one-star reviews on-line are from conservatives deeply offended by the “politics” of my books. Yes, because a book about gay men by a gay male author is where you should go to get your bigoted world-view validated. If you want that, read Andrew Sullivan. His nonfiction diatribes about social and political issues is some of the best fantasy being published currently.

Who are some of your biggest writing influences?

God, there are so many. I think my y/a is very strongly influenced by Lois Duncan, Christopher Pike, R. L. Stine, Caroline Cooney, and a long forgotten y/a crime writer named Jay Bennett. He won two Edgars for Juvenile, and was nominated a third time. His work is extraordinary; I’ve not read many other writers with that same extremely tight, terse, and taut style. Jay’s books put teenagers in terrible situations where they had to decide what is right and wrong and what to do. They read very quickly, too. I describe him as the y/a James Cain.

As for adults, everyone I read is an influence; even the books or writing styles I don’t care for, because they make me think how would I have done that differently? But definitely John D. Macdonald, James M. Cain, Charlotte Armstrong, Daphne du Maurier, Phyllis A. Whitney, and the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies, which I am revisiting. The old Three Investigators and Encyclopedia Brown series for kids, too.

Latest trends in Middle Grade and YA fiction?

Diversity, which is fantastic, and hot social issues!

The Anthony nominees panel for Best Children’s/ Young Adult panel at Bouchercon, with moderator Alan Orloff, Fleur Bradley, your humble author, and Lee Matthew Goldberg.

Don’t Throw It All Away

Well, we made it to Hump Day again, which is a lovely thing.

I think I may also be losing my mind? I could have sworn one night in the last two weeks I sat down with my journal and hand-wrote the next five or six hundred words of my story “Parlor Tricks.” Last night after running errands and getting home, I promptly sat down, opened the Word document for the story, pulled out my journal and started flipping through the pages.

Constant Reader, those two or three pages I could have sworn I wrote in my journal? Were not there. I turned page after page, growing more and more confused. How could I have not written it down? I specifically remembered words and phrases I’d used in the scene, describing how my main character’s psychic ability to read someone else’s thoughts sometimes created a psychic bridge between the two, which has just happened. The bad part of it is she read his thoughts and knows he’s planning on killing his wife later that night. I even got into the weeds with the psychic stuff, but no–I must have thought of it all, planned to write it down, and then…just never did. I’ve also somehow lost my belt and my Crescent Care hoodie, too.

Or Paul is gaslighting me. I’d prefer to believe that, of course (who wouldn’t?), but much as I want to believe that, I’d only be gaslighting myself. Heavy heaving sigh.

I was very tired as I ran my errands after work last night–needing more soft food, although I can eat stuff now that isn’t quite as soft; macaroni and ramen and soups and things. But the primary need was for things I could make for lunch at work; microwavable things. I also didn’t eat dinner last night, so this morning I am a bit on the hungry side. Yogurt and oatmeal and protein, oh my! But the end is nigh; next Friday I got get the molds for my new teeth made, and I am hoping that will only take about a week or so for the final to be ready for me to wear and use. (I’m also hoping there will be temporary ones I can use in the meantime, but I rather doubt it. But the thought of being able to swing back Five Guys on the way home next week is almost overwhelming.) I also weighed myself yesterday with shoes and keys and belt and wallet on and came in at 205, which is fine and something I can live with. I’d love to get below 200 again, but I’d rather that happen through diet coupled with exercise once I can go back to the gym.

But I did manage to get Jackson Square Jazz printed, three-hole punched, and put inside a three ring binder, meaning the editing just got real. I had gone back and forth over it, you know; should I re-edit/revise the book, or just do the basic copy edit? I didn’t have time to do any work with the Chanse book or Bourbon Street Blues before the ebooks went up, and at the time I didn’t know how I felt about redoing the books for republication; it was more along the lines of the old writer’s adage you can keep fixing it forever but sometimes you just have to say “fuck it it’s done” and it didn’t seem right. I wanted the print editions to be available as they were originally published…which seems now like a silly hill to die on. Why wouldn’t/shouldn’t I revise them? Jackson Square Jazz I think is the longest of the Scotty books, and probably has one of the most convoluted plots of the entire series; there was a lot fucking going on in that book. As I was putting the new printed-out pages into the binder, I came across the scene where Scotty is drugged and loopy in the penthouse on top of Jax Brewery when Colin scales the building to rescue him…and I started reading. I got rather caught up in the story–that scene is rather amusing and was a lot of fun to write–before stopping myself and getting back to what I was doing. I did think that was a good sign.

This week I’ve been letting the anxiety control me rather than the other way around. My supervisor is on vacation this week, which amps up the anxiety for me as I have no one to go to for decisions and/or questions; I kind of have to decide for myself and I really don’t like that. I think that was why I had trouble sleeping on Monday night, frankly. And I noticed it Monday night when I got home from work as well as last night. Granted, I was also tired last night, but I got very little done once I got home. Sure, I printed out the manuscripts (frontside and backside), and made groceries and picked up the new Lou Berney novel Dark Ride, which was very quickly moved up to the top of the TBR pile, but once the book was in the binder and the groceries all put away…I just literally did nothing else. I should have worked on “Parlor Tricks” while I still remember the continuation I didn’t write down but is only in my head; I should have read more of Shawn’s book; I should have done the dishes or folded the clothes that are still sitting in the dryer this morning. More to do this evening, I suppose. I am also seeing my new primary care physician this Friday morning, which will be nice, and then of course LSU’s game is Saturday night in Death Valley, which gives me the day free to run errands and clean and write and get things done around here because I don’t much care about the other games, although I’ll probably have them on as I clean and do things. Then again, I just looked at the games this weekend, and Florida State-Clemson, Auburn-Texas A&M, and Alabama-Mississippi are also on Saturday…so I’ll be paying more attention than I was thinking that I would.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Statues Without Hearts

Tuesday and we have survived another bleak and grim Monday. Huzzah! The Saints won last night–though it could have gone either way for most of the game, before they finally scored two touchdowns late in the game to put the Panthers away. Huzzah! They are also off to their first 2-0 start since 2013, which has been a hot minute, really. I also didn’t expect the game to end before I had to go to bed, so that was also a nice bonus.

I didn’t sleep great last night but I feel rested this morning. I imagine at some point this afternoon I will finally run out of steam and hit the wall, but my new glasses arrived yesterday and I can see better than I had before. I did some dishes when I got home from work, was terribly confused that my hooded Crescent Care sweatshirt (that I wear at work because they keep the building at about the temperature of a meat locker) and my only black belt have seemingly disappeared into the ether (note to self: order belts on-line today). I don’t understand how both could have disappeared from inside the apartment, but that seems to be what has happened. I don’t have any errands to run on the way home tonight, praise be, so I can come straight home and chill after work. Last night I sat down and started reading my latest short story collection, This Town and Other Stories, and I have to say, I’m pretty good at this short story thing. They have always been a sore spot for me, something I feel like I have trouble doing, primarily because of that asshole college professor who told me I’d never be a published author (shows how much he knew, right?) but seriously, some of these stories are quite good, and the voices! The language choices!

I recently realized that part of the reason I am so dismissive of my own work is because I can never turn off the “must make this better” editorial mentality with my own work, even when it’s in print. I usually only read my own work in order to critique or improve it, so subconsciously my mind becomes critical when I am reading my own work and consciously look for things that are wrong that need to be improved…despite the fact that when it’s in print it’s too late. I’m working on that, at least trying to get better with it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to turn off my inner critic, but I know I’m going to stop listening to that bitch and letting him under my skin.

I transcribed what I had written of the next book I am going to write in my journal, and it only turned out to be about five hundred or so words…but that’s five hundred or so words I didn’t have before. I’m going to try to get three chapters done before stopping, since the contract hasn’t been signed yet or an offer made. I know I have some more freeform writing on my story “Parlor Tricks” in there too; I am going to get that transcribed at some point this week. I like that I’m over the don’t wanna mentality when it comes to writing; all it ever takes is for me to do some and the dam bursts. So, I am writing “Parlor Tricks” for the collection; “Whim of the Wind” for something else, and “The Blues Before Dawn” for another anthology. I think with the two new stories and the loss of one unpublished one that I’ve decided to pull because I’m not comfortable with it and it may be borderline offensive, it’ll come out to around eighty thousand words, which is even closer to being finished that I had hoped. I just need to finish a few more, in addition to the ones I need to finish for submission. I think “Death and the Handmaidens”, “Parlor Tricks,” and maybe “Please Die Soon.” We’ll see, I suppose.

It feels good to be producing work again, you know? It always makes me happy.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and you never know; I may be back later.

Torn Between Two Lovers

Tuesday morning and back to work tomorrow. I had thought about canceling my sick time and going back into the office today; but I got so easily tired yesterday that I changed my mind. I’m pretty sure a lot of it has to do with the starvation–liquid and/or soft food just isn’t satisfying, and I am hungry all the time (one would think a diet that includes ice cream would be awesome, but I am so sick of it all I think I may never eat it again once this is all over). Well, not all the time, but I do feel hungry here and there before it, as usual, goes away. I think the low calorie intake is also affecting my energy levels. I’m a bit sore this morning (was hoping to not get loopy from taking pain pills today, but I’m going to have to) and I’m still a few days away from chewing noodles or anything soft like that, so it’s more baby food, oatmeal, and protein shakes for me today. Woo-hoo.

One thing I absolutely need to do before going back to work tomorrow is clean out my inbox, at least for today. There’s a couple of little things I need to definitely get done, or get started, today while I have the leisure of not being at the office. It’s going to feel weird waking up at six tomorrow morning, but…no other choice. It would be great to stay out until my mouth is healed completely and no longer aches, but I don’t have that kind of sick time left from everything that went on earlier in the year and so forth–and I have a surgery to be scheduled yet. I guess I’ll worry about that when it comes to it, and when I know when the surgery is going to be. I also need to get a grip on my finances again and make sure all my due dates are on the calendar. I also have spent money with the debit card that’s not recorded so I don’t know my bank balance for sure, either. All things that can be easily remedied, of course, but tend to be a bit tedious and so I dislike doing them.

We are currently watching Painkiller, which is yet another mini-series built around the evil corrupt Sacklers and the opioid epidemic they started in order to make billions by convincing doctors that their version of heroin wasn’t addicting. The Sacklers were undoubtedly be studied by future historians as an example of the worst kind of horror capitalism and its ethos of greed is capable of creating; the paralysis of the FDA and the corruption inherent by bribing (er donating) money to politicians to advance the gutting of what little power the FDA had to monitor and control this sort of thing, and so on (looking at you, paragon of corruption and enemy of the people Marsha Blackburn!). The suffering and destruction and death and havoc wreaked on families and communities while these monsters and their agents of addiction and death made money is incalculable…and they don’t care. Even after all the lawsuits, after losing the company, all the deaths, the Sacklers are still sitting on a mountain of money. They are pariahs, rightfully shunned, but dollars-to-donuts they’re back manufacturing medicine in twenty years when most Americans have forgotten their heinous crimes.

I seem to have let yesterday slip through my fingers in a painkiller fog–super strong ibuprofen also messes with your head the way Vicodin and oxycodone do–but it’s more of a losing track of time sort of thing. I did get the sink cleaned out and did a load of laundry (waiting to be folded) and there’s all sorts of filing and organizing to get done this morning. I want to read more of Shawn’s book today, and I’d like to get prepared for going to work tomorrow with a clear conscience. The great heat wave has finally broken. It’s still humid but not as bad, and it’s not getting as hot as it had been during the course of the summer–it actually feels pleasant when I go outside.

My tests for COVID are still coming back negative so I am going to assume I missed the Bouchercon spread. I hope everyone who did catch it at (or around) the convention are on the road to recovery and all had very mild cases. I’m seeing my new primary care doctor a week from Friday, so I am hoping to get the new booster and a flu shot when I see her. I am also hoping to get some feedback from her on the big toe on my right foot situation; you probably don’t remember but it’s been sore since Mom went into hospice and was swollen so badly I had to wear house shoes to her funeral? He gave me anti-inflammatory cream and that was it. Well, it’s eight months later, it still hurts when I bend it, and it still swells up periodically–not as bad as originally, but I can’t help but think it might be something more than what he rather pointedly dismissed? He was wrong about my arm, after all. And now the other big toe is starting to do the same thing.

But I’m sure it’s nothing.

Uh huh.

Forgive me if I don’t believe anything that hack said to me about anything.

But that’s a story for another time.

I do feel more like myself than I have since the surgery on Friday, so that’s something…but then I also just took my pain meds, so I don’t know for sure how long that feeling will last. But I have to do something about this mess around here, and maybe I can even do some writing today. I have already started working on the plan for the sequel to Death Drop, and I also need to plan out the sequel to A Streetcar Named Murder. I already know what the story is behind that one; I just don’t have a title yet but I do know what the first chapter is going to be. Maybe I should just go ahead and write that, get it under way and see how it goes? I also want to start working on the edit of Jackson Square Jazz, and maybe even revise it some. I resisted the temptation to revise and re-edit the Chanse books for their ebooks, and did the same for Bourbon Street Blues, but Jackson Square Jazz is actually the book that sets the backstory for Mississippi River Mischief, so I need to be certain everything lines up the way it’s supposed to–and I can also change some things predicated on what has happened in the series since, because I know what is coming (which I didn’t know when I wrote the book originally). This might also be a good time to finally put together the Scotty Bible (I’m only nine books in now) which should make writing the next one even easier. It’s a lot of work, but with my memory getting shittier and shittier with every passing day, it’s something that really needs to be done. If I write another Chanse (it’s possible; I never say never), I would definitely have to do the same because I really don’t remember much about any of those books.

And I have some short stories that need to be finished for anthologies.

So on that note, I am calling this entry for the day and heading into the spice mines. I may be back later; there are still unfinished blog posts in my drafts (I’ve managed to get some of them out there over this past weekend, even though I don’t count blog posts as writing, it really is and I really should), and of course, laundry to fold and dishes to put away and a refrigerator to clean out. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!

If We’re Not Back in Love By Monday

I’ve been sleeping deeply and well lately for an insomniac; I suspect it has more to do with the pain being exhausting than anything else. Any surgery is traumatic to the system and requires rest for recovery, and oral surgery is no different than any other. I’ve taken today off as well as tomorrow; I was thinking yesterday I could probably just go in today and do some paperwork or something, but (and this is not laziness) I started thinking it’s probably best to give myself enough recovery time before I head back in–and I also know the clinic is jam-packed with appointments for today and tomorrow, and I just don’t think I have the energy to deal with that today. I think one more good night’s sleep with probably do the trick.

The Saints won a nail-biter yesterday and I didn’t watch the US Open final; I just can’t with Novak Djokovic anymore. I used to like him until he became an anti-vax/COVID denier, and I can’t with that, I’m sorry. I respect his athleticism, commitment to his sport and being the best, but as a person? I can’t help but feel he’s a selfish, arrogant, borderline sociopathic asshole. Of course he’s entitled to his opinion, but he’s not entitled to me being a fan and watching him play, either. For the record, that’s how it works. I don’t deny him the right to be an anti-vaxxer/COVID denier, but I also don’t have to be a fan or watch him play. We got caught up on Only Murders in the Building and Ahsoka last night, too. I also finished several in-progress blog entries, including the one called “Shame” about homophobia in crime fiction and how things have gotten better over the years–but we can’t forget how bad it used to be, either, which was the point of the post, really; telling the crime community that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going any fucking where.

Get fucking used to us.

Today I am going to try to do some chores around here. I’m feeling like a slug–anxiety talking again; I always feel like I should be doing something and down-time is time wasted–so I think I should do some things today. I suppose it depends on my energy stores, and how long it holds out. I want to read some more of Shawn’s book this morning–I think my resistance to that brutal opening was more of the post-surgery exhaustion–and I also need to empty the dishwasher and do another load that is soaking in the sink. I also want to make something to take for lunch this week–I’m thinking Swedish meatballs in the slow cooker, but am not sure if my minimal chewing abilities can handle the meatballs, even if I cut them up smaller before putting them in my mouth; I don’t think I can swallow them unchewed in some fashion–and I do need to go buy more ice cream and yogurt. I think some of the soups and ramen on hand could be useful. I can’t wait till I can eat a burger again, to be honest.

I also need to answer all the emails that have been languishing in my inbox for quite some time. I owe Dad an email–I’ve not had the strength after Bouchercon and the surgery to face writing him–and my sister’s birthday is this week. I also need to mail something, so I think I’ll drive uptown to make groceries and see what else is possible for soft foods for the week (mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, that sort of thing). I need to get the things on my to-so list knocked out, too. I feel more rested and more myself this morning, but maybe that’s because the pain pills haven’t quite kicked in yet. I also need to start revising/editing Jackson Square Jazz; I’m very excited about that finally being available again, and since Scotty turns twenty-one next year, I kind of want to celebrate the series throughout the year and I don’t know, maybe give away first editions? Something, anyway.

It’s also hard to believe Chanse will be twenty-two in January. I’ve been doing this for over a third of my life now. I owe it all to my stubbornness and obliviousness. Someone smarter and more aware would have probably given up a long time ago, but here I am, still here, older and possibly wiser and certainly not much smarter than I was all these years ago when I was a wide-eyed innocent walking into the world of the published word. I always remember that first August Paul and I lived here back in 1996. We went to a fundraised for the LGBT Center, and there was a tarot card reader there. (I’ve always been fascinated by tarot; I blame the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, which also connected New Orleans and the tarot in my mind. I write about a “private eye” who’s slightly psychic and reads tarot cards and lives in New Orleans. Coincidence? Probably not. Sadly, it’s always been one of my favorite Bond movies and always has held a special place in my brain for introducing me to Bond, New Orleans, and the tarot…unfortunately, the film does NOT hold up forty or fifty years later.) Anyway, the question I thought about as I held the cards in my hand was will I ever be a published writer? The answer the cards gave her was “Yes, but it will not be anything like you think it will be.” A generic answer, yes, that could apply to any number of questions…things are generally never what you thought or imagined they would be. Being a published author is definitely not anything like I ever dreamed or fantasized about when I wasn’t one. I know I thought being published would change my life for the better (I was not wrong about that) but…yes, it’s nothing like what I thought it would be like. Publishing can be a very cold and lonely place, but all you can really control is the work itself. You can’t control whether or not you get published, you can’t control whether or not the book sells, you can’t control the way readers and reviewers will react to it, you can’t control whether you get award recognition. All you actually can control is the writing itself, and do the best you can. I always hope my work is getting better–which should make reediting and revising the original Jackson Square Jazz interesting…

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close, make another cup of coffee, and start working on the chores around the kitchen, while streaming music through my iHome speakers. I’ll probably check back in later–I have all those unfinished blog entries I need to eventually finish and post–and I also want to get some fiction writing done today as well. Have a great Monday, Constant Reader–do you think today’s photo will get my adult content flags on social media?