Category: television

Come Go with Me

I’ve always enjoyed horror as a genre, both in film and in novels. One of the greatest joys of the last decade or so has been the rise of horror television, with terrific shows like American Horror Story (despite its many flaws), The Exorcist, Castle Rock, and so many others. I suppose even The Walking Dead sort of counts as a horror program.

I do not consider myself to be anything more than a horror fan, frankly; I am not an expert, I’ve not read (or watched) everything, I’ve never done any comprehensive studying of the genre. I don’t know what are tropes or stereotypes or what-may-have-you, unless they are so obvious it’s like being hit in the head with a baseball bat. The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite novels; Stephen King is one of my favorite writers; I could watch all four Scream movies a million times without ever getting bored or not being entertained–I even enjoyed the MTV television series called Scream, which had nothing to do with the films.

I know so little about the genre that I’m not even sure of the sub-genres contained within; I could write pages about the sub-genres in crime fiction, but horror? I’d be hard-pressed to even name them.

I’ve written two vampire novellas (“The Nightwatchers” and “Blood on the Moon”) and an entire gay erotic vampire novel (Need), and a ghost story novel (Lake Thirteen) and a monster novel (Sara), and I suppose Sorceress would be considered gothic horror–I certainly followed the blueprint for Gothic novels with that one, which was kind of the point. And while there are any number of horror short stories in the files, as well as aborted novels, I’ve never really had much luck in publishing horror. Crime is the genre I know best, and you should always, as they say, write what you know; I always fear my horror attempts are ridiculously derivative of Stephen King–but then again, steal from the best.

I also don’t have a much time to read as I would like, and as such, I tend to primarily read within the crime genre, branching out into horror only occasionally–writers like Bracken MacLeod, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, Michael Rowe, and some others spring to mind–and the pile of unread horror in the TBR stacks continues to grow, it seems, by leaps and bounds every year as I never seem to get around to reading any of them.

But this year, as I’ve noted, I’ve made a conscious effort to read more diverse writers, and the end result of that has been me finding any number of terrific writers I might not have read had I not made an effort, had I allowed myself to continue with the ease of white privilege and simply reading other white writers.

I only regret not making the effort sooner.

certain dark things

Collecting garbage sharpens the senses. It allows us to notice what others do not see. Where most people would spy a pile of junk, the rag-and-bone man sees treasure: empty bottles that might be dragged to the recycling center, computer innards that can be reused, furniture in decent shape. The garbage collector is alert. After all, this is a profession.

Domingo was always looking for garbage and he was always looking at people. It was his hobby. The people were, not the garbage. He would walk around Mexico City in his long, yellow plastic jacket with its dozen pockets, head bobbed down, peeking up to stare at a random passerby.

Domingo tossed a bottle into a plastic bag, then paused to observe the patrons eating at a restaurant. He gazed at the maids as they rose with the dawn and purchased bread at the bakery. He saw the people with the shiny cars zoom by and the people without any cash jump onto the back of the bus, hanging with their nails and their grit to the metallic shell of the moving vehicle.

I’m not sure where I first heard of Silvia Moreno-Garcia; I am friends with members of the horror writing community on social media, and we have friends in common; so I am sure I heard of this book first from one of our mutual friends on Facebook (I have also purchased her next novel, Gods of Jade and Shadow). I decided, as always, to read horror in celebration of Halloween; alas, illness and being overly busy has limited my reading lately, and as such, outside of my annual reread of The Haunting of Hill House, the only horror I was able to squeeze into October was Certain Dark Things, and this is not, by any means, to be seen as any kind of judgment of Ms. Moreno-Garcia’s consummate skill as a storyteller; this has everything to do with me being tired, ill, and unable to focus as a result. Those moments when I was able to focus was when I was able to read this book; and it is, quite frankly, a pleasure and a treasure.

Certain Dark Things is set in a Mexico City that teems with ugliness, darkness, poverty and corruption. As I read the descriptions of the city, I couldn’t help but think damn I bet she could write some brilliant noir set in this version of Mexico City–like I said, my mind always reverts to crime fiction–but this Mexico City, this world Moreno-Garcia has created, is steeped in reality and actual Mexican history–of which I know some, but not nearly enough (my interest in history is colored by, sadly, the white supremacy of American educational systems; focused primarily on the United States and Europe, with some Egyptian thrown in for good measure).

Moreno-Garcia also throws everything anyone who’s ever read about vampires into question from the absolute beginning of the book: perhaps because of Stoker’s Dracula, and every film/television adaptation of some form of it ever since, I have a tendency to always think of vampires as being eastern European/Transylvanian in origin; almost every vampire novel or story I’ve read has been almost entirely white. I myself, when writing my own little vampire stories, fell victim to these same tropes (although I did have Creole witches, which upon new reflection is also kind of problematic). So Certain Dark Things also opened my mind; why would supernatural/paranormal creatures always be white? Are there no supernatural/paranormal creatures or beings from other, non-white cultures?

There are two main characters in the novel: Atl, the female vampire, descended from a long line of vampires going back to Aztec days (and not your typical, Transylvanian vampire, either), and Domingo, a poor young man of the streets who sorts through garbage looking for things to sell to support himself. In this world, there is, like in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels, an awareness that vampires and other creatures like them exist; so Domingo isn’t as terrified when he encounters Atl as he might be, were their reality still in question. Domingo is drawn to Atl, wants to help her and be with her, but it’s not in a romantic way, nor is it a product of being “glamoured” (as Harris called it in her work), either; it’s more along the lines of Atl being the first person to truly see Domingo, and appreciate him, and recognize his humanity despite being of the streets.

And that’s very powerful.

Atl herself is on the run. In this new world Moreno-Garcia has created, Mexico City is an independent city-state where vampires aren’t permitted; she has run there after the annihilation of her clan of vampires in north Mexico. She is on the run and needs to get out of Mexico completely; she has run to the city to hide and to try to find the means to get out of the country. There are many different kinds of vampires in this world; with different abilities and different powers.

There’s a third character, Ana Aguirre, a single mother who works as a police detective in the city, dealing with corruption and sexism every single day, not taken seriously by her superiors, and trying to do whatever she can to ensure a good future for her daughter. Ana is also a strong character, defined and complex; her inner struggle over her own integrity warring with what is the best thing to do for her daughter is masterfully described, and very relatable.

I’d read an entire series about Ana Aguirre in this world, frankly.

Moreno-Garcia doesn’t over-explain this world, either; but somehow, with sparsity of description and a minimal approach to the past few decades that changed the world as we now know it, she manages to create an entire world that is completely believable and easy to become immersed in. The story moves quickly, the characters growing more depth from each experience they have, and it’s all too soon over.

I would love to read more books about Atl and her world; I’d love to read more of Moreno-Garcia’s work.

This is a truly terrific work. I highly recommend it.

Carrie

Saturday morning and yet another, amazing night’s sleep. I didn’t get up until ten this morning! That’s like two days in a row, and I could have easily stayed in bed had I not realized that I will eventually have to start getting up early again and going to work next week. Tomorrow I’m going to set my alarm and get up around eight or nine, just to get back into the habit.

I’ve also reached the point where I am no longer sad not to be at Bouchercon this weekend anymore. I think I just finally got numb, stopped feeling sorry for myself, and started being happy for my friends and glad they’re having a great time over there. After all, there’s no point in being sad, really–it doesn’t make anything better, does it?–and there’s really no sense in being sad or upset over things you have no control over. Those are the things you just have to accept.

You don’t have to like them, though.

Last night we binged the rest of the available episodes of Castle Rock, and Lizzy Kaplan is just killing it as Annie Wilkes. She should at least get an Emmy nod for the performance; I won’t go out on a limb and say she should win since there are so many incredible television shows and performances out there now, between all the streaming services and so forth. This truly is an extraordinary time for television shows. I love that the writers have dragged Jerusalem’s Lot and the Marsten House into this season; there’s something strange going on in the basement of the Marsten House but we aren’t really sure what it is yet…this season is making me want to revisit Stephen King’s work, which is precisely what I don’t need to do; my TBR pile is massive enough as it is without going back and rereading some of my favorite Stephen Kings. Over the last year or so I’ve reread Pet Sematary, The Shining, and ‘salem’s Lot as it is; I’d love to reread Firestarter before reading The Institute–which I think is going to be my Thanksgiving week treat.

I think my next read–after a careful examination of my bookshelves, is going to be Richard Stark’s The Hunter. Stark of course is one of Donald Westlake’s pseudonyms, and my education in Westlake (and Lawrence Block, while we’re at it) is sadly lacking. I also never read the Ed McBain novels (but I did read Evan Hunter when I was in my twenties). As I said, my education is classic crime writers of the 20th century has been sadly neglected; and I’d also like to read Ross Macdonald’s stand alones, and I’d love to immerse myself in a reread of the John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee novels (and finish reading through his stand alones as well). I also need to finish the canons of Margaret Millar and Charlotte Armstrong and Dorothy B. Hughes.

And of course, there are all those wonderful writers of color I need to read. And queer crime writers. And…

Heavy sigh.

I did manage to finish reading  Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia yesterday, and I enjoyed it tremendously. It was a very different approach to a vampire novel, and while I don’t know that I would necessarily classify it as a horror novel–not all vampire novels are horror novels–it really is quite good. It’s more suspenseful and, much as I hate to say it, it’s almost closer to a crime/suspense novel with paranormal elements than it is a horror novel. I do highly recommend it–I’ll write an entry about it at some point this weekend, perhaps even later today–and it’s precisely the kind of novel that is needed to reinvigorate the horror genre. I’ve been saying for quite some time that it’s the so-called minority writers (writers of color, queer writers) who are currently injecting new blood into, and revitalizing the crime genre–I would say that’s also the case with horror. The problem with genre fiction is that it tends to stagnate periodically and become repetitive and somewhat stale, until something comes along, shakes it up, and turns it upside down. The rise of the hardboiled female private eye novel in the 1980’s was the kick in the pants crime needed to breathe new life into a genre that was getting a bit stale; I think it’s the marginalized writers who are doing it now.

Look at me, generalizing about horror–a genre I am hardly expert in. As I always say, I’m just a fan with horror.

But I am hardly an expert in crime fiction, either. There are positively libraries of things I don’t know about crime fiction.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day. Constant Reader.

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La Isla Bonita

Friday,  still on vacation, and it’s forty-seven degrees outside. It’s colder inside the Lost Apartment–New Orleans homes are built to be colder inside than outside, it’s a summer thing–and I am ensconced at my desk in sweats and a wool cap on my cold bald head. My fingers are a bit cold, but my coffee is hot and delicious. My doctor’s appointment went well, and last night I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in I don’t know how long–all I know is I slept for more then ten hours, didn’t wake up once, and feel very rested and relaxed this morning. I actually feel better than I have in weeks.

Weeks.

Today is the day I would be doing my panels at Bouchercon; I shall have to keep busy to distract myself. Yesterday, between the errands and the power outage, was highly annoying. By the time I had finished my errands and the power was back on in the Lost Apartment, I was pretty much over it, to be honest. I buckled down and started a cleaning project–starting with the refrigerator, and then I worked my way through the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I did another load of dishes and two more loads of laundry, and finally retired to my easy chair around five thirty yesterday evening. I got caught up on watching Saturdays in the South, and while it was on, brainstormed ideas and thoughts for essays, short stories, and works in progress already. I am already thinking about writing an essay collection–or rather, compiling all the essays I’ve already written into a collection, and then writing some new ones–and as I was watching the final two episodes of this exceptional history of SEC football (I highly recommend it; I actually would like to see similar docuseries on every conference, to be honest; I love history, even sports history) I started thinking about in terms of Louisiana itself, not just New Orleans; which I’ve been doing a lot more of lately. After all, LSU fans aren’t just from New Orleans, and the special feeling you get on a Saturday night in Death Valley, like we experienced at the Florida game, is a Louisiana experience. New Orleans might hold itself at arms’ length from the rest of the state, but New Orleans wouldn’t be New Orleans without Louisiana, and likewise, Louisiana wouldn’t be Louisiana without New Orleans.

And as I said in Royal Street Reveillon, New Orleans is really an island, surround by water on every side–you cannot come into,  or leave, the city without having to cross a bridge at some point. The beautiful island, the beautiful crescent.

But as I said, this is the best I’ve felt in weeks. I feel like today I can actually get some writing done; I organized and filed yesterday so my desk area is neat and tidy; so is the kitchen, which means there’s no mess to distract or prohibit me from getting writing done today, which is very exciting.

I also have an insane amount of emails to answer. There were 159 unread emails in there this morning when I woke up the computer. AIEEEE! But oddly enough, I don’t feel either defeated or intimidated…which is  an indication that I’m feeling better, isn’t it?

But I do think I need to put on some tights under my sweatpants.

We also watched the first episode of Hulu’s second season of Castle Rock last night and Lizzy Kaplan is just killing it as a younger version of Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes in Misery. She has the voice, the mannerisms, everything nailed to perfection. I also like that they’ve made Jerusalem’s Lot and Castle Rock basically neighboring villages; ‘salem’s Lot remains one of my (if not the) favorite vampire novels, and one of my favorites of King’s canon. I’m also curious to see if this means the paranormal aspect of this season is going to be vampires. It’s also interesting that the Merrills from “The Body” are also in this; again, it’ll be interesting to see where this goes. I watched the entire first season, and while it was entertaining, it was also slightly flawed. I also don’t really remember much of the first season, outside of the terrific acting. That’s probably problematic; if you can’t remember what the show was about…how good could it have been, really?

There are three more episodes available to stream, so we should be caught up after this weekend; we’re also now a bit behind on Catherine the Great, and I also want to start watching Watchmen, in addition to the second season of Titans on DC Universe.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me–after I get those tights on.

Have a happy Friday, Constant Reader!

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Don’t Disturb This Groove

And today is Thursday. Today’s highlight will be going to see my doctor and seeing what progress there’s been with this wretched illness, and perhaps a new prescription for something. Huzzah.

Yesterday was the worst I’ve felt since the day after the LSU-Florida game; I am still not certain there’s not a direct corollary between the great time at the game and the coming down with something immediately thereafter. I got very little done after all yesterday; shortly after making chicken noodle soup–which made me feel better for a little while–I became feverish and headache-y again so I retired to my easy chair. I tried to read but couldn’t really concentrate, so gave up on that and just streamed old episodes of Jeopardy for the rest of the day. I feel better this morning–I didn’t sleep that well last night but feel really rested this morning; yesterday I felt tired–and am going to try to get caught up on emails and so forth after I finish this, before heading off to see my doctor at eleven.

I was awakened several times throughout the night by thunder and the sound of the pouring rain–I do hope the streets didn’t flood; that would be a most unpleasant surprise if my car got water in it–and even now it’s still gray and yucky looking outside. I don’t mind going out into the yuck–I need to stop and got the mail, go to the bank, and make some groceries today as well–but it’s also going to be lovely to come back home and get under my blankets and finish reading my book. It’s weird that it’s Halloween today; it doesn’t feel like Halloween–but then again I’ve been primarily focused on just getting through the days ever since I started feeling poorly.

Bouchercon officially starts today, and I hate that I am not there with my friends. But being miserable about it isn’t going to make it better. It’s delightful seeing everyone posting on social media, and some friends texted me a photo of themselves all together, which was really sweet. I do have the most lovely friends. I’m a very lucky Gregalicious.

And not going this year will make next year in Sacramento even better.

Well, this is the point I reached this morning just after nine a.m. when the power went off. Ironically, as it turns out, despite last night’s massive storm our lines were fine, but a tree branch had come down on another set of lines, and they had to turn them all off in order to get the tree branches removed. They also decided to go ahead and have a tree service come out and cut down dangerous branches up and down Prytania Street–why this isn’t done on a more regular, preventative way is certainly beyond me, but what do I know? I’m not a billion dollar power company. I went to the doctor, picked up a prescription, and did my errands…and came home to power. Not sure when it came back on, to be honest–for all I know it could have literally come on just before I got home–but I am home and happy to have power. It’s also really damp, windy, and chilly outside.

And now I am wondering what to do with the rest of the day. I have a load of clothes refluffing in the dryer, another in the washer waiting its turn for the dryer, and a full dishwasher that needs to be unloaded. I think I’m going to go ahead and put everything away, and then go read.

Have a lovely Halloween, everyone.

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Bad

I should be getting ready to go to the airport.

Instead, I am glumly sitting at my desk in the Lost Apartment, feeling horribly sorry for myself and staring out the windows. It’s gray out there this morning, and this is the worst I’ve felt in quite some time. It’s bad enough to miss out on something you were looking forward to for most of the year–even worse is to miss it because you’re sick. I hate being sick, hate it hate it hate it. Im going back in to see the doctor tomorrow, so hopefully this will all be over soon. I don’t know why it’s rebounded again so terribly, but last night I definitely was feeling like crap and that’s what I woke up to this morning. Heavy heaving sigh. I suspect today–which I’d hoped would be somewhat productive–is going to be spent in my easy chair under blankets, eating chicken noodle soup and reading. Yay.

But I should be able to finish reading Certain Dark Things, so that’s definitely something to be pleased about. Little victories are important when you feel like you’re at death’s door, and maybe when I’m finished with it, I may just go ahead and treat myself to reading a Stephen King; there are any number of Kings in my bookshelves that I’ve not read. I’ve also got some terrific ARCs I should read as well. I really do have a plethora of riches in my TBR pile, and there’s also all kinds of things to watch on my streaming services. So, I should probably be sort of productive, right? Rather than moping around feeling like shit and feeling sorry for myself, right? I bet after I have some chicken noodle soup I’m going to feel a lot better. I wonder what it is about chicken soup that makes you feel better always? Is it an actual thing, or have we been socialized and trained to believe in its healing powers, so it’s a psychosomatic response?

And I may not be going to Dallas, but I still am on vacation, right? So this should be about getting caught up, rested, and treating this as a vacation–despite the fact that everyone on my social media timelines (well, a high percentage of them anyway) will be at Bouchercon without me, and I will have an enormous sense of ‘fear of missing out’ come to fruition. I’ve gotten a lot better about dealing with my lifelong FOMO, but it still pops up. I love going to events like Bouchercon because it helps me reconnect with my writing, and helps remind me that I actually am one. I’ve talked on here before endlessly about the Imposter Syndrome I experience almost every day when it comes to being a writer; going to Bouchercon and talking with other writers, sitting on panels talking about writing and books–all that stuff reaffirms me and reminds me that yes, Greg, you actually are a writer, and you’re actually pretty good at it. That kind of reassurance is quite lovely, and it’s necessary sometimes. It helps keep me going. Bouchercon and the combined Tennessee Williams Festival/Saints & Sinners are usually spaced apart enough to give me the needed jolt of creative energy I need every six months; it’s going to be terrible missing Bouchercon this year just for this very reason.

But in other exciting news, this author roundtable I participated in has gone live right here. Crime Reads is one of my favorite websites, and it was quite lovely being asked, as an Anthony Award nominee, to participate in a roundtable discussion about crime fiction. Sigh. I really hate not being in Dallas this weekend.

Isn’t this picture interesting?

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I’m not really sure where I found it, but all my pictures of hot men that I share generally pop up on the Internet somewhere. I save the ones I like, or that pique my curiosity, and then I share them here so my blog crossposts onto social media with an image.

This picture particularly intrigues me not just because the model is attractive with a nice, leanly muscled body; while I am not an expert on the subject of male bikinis, the one he’s wearing looks too modern to have been around as long as it would have had to have been if the picture is as old as it looks–to me, it looks like it was taken in the 1940’s or 50’s. I don’t know why it does, but it does. When I first saw it, I thought, ah, this is some sailor or Marine from during the Second World War in the South Pacific…but as I look at it more, I could be wrong. It’s the tone of the black and white colors that make it look like it is decades old, but that could have been achieved in other ways, including modern day digital filters. I also don’t think, upon further reflection, that this bikini is actually his–or if it is, this is the first time he’s worn it out in the sun, based on the tan lines exposed. I’m also not sure what he has in his mouth, although it is most likely a cigar of some sort.

I guess my perception of the picture is because it looks like other beefcake black and white photography from the time period where I placed the picture originally; there are a lot of beefcake images from the WW2 era and just after where gorgeous young men in the military either posed nude or next-to-nude, most likely for money. As this is also the time period that Chlorine is going to be set, these images speak to me more than just as the ordinary isn’t this a great picture of a hot guy reaction the more recent ones I use on this blog generally get. I wonder about this guy…was he gay or bisexual? The cigar he might or might not be chomping on is yet another symbol of masculinity from that era; so he’s a strong, healthy sexy body, and while the bikini might cast some aspersions on his perceived masculinity in that era, the cigar counteracts that. So, who is this guy? What is his story?

A google image search turns up nothing.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. I still feel pretty shitty, so I think I’m going to go lay down and make some soup in a bit. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

Change of Heart

It’s now Tuesday, and bad news to be had all around, alas.

I won’t be attending Bouchercon this year. If you will recall, I’ve not been operating at 100% since I went to the LSU-Florida game. Turns out I am ill–nothing serious, nothing life threatening, nothing more than a damned inconvenience–and as such, am not allowed to travel. Yay. One of the few things I look forward to every year, missed due to illness.

I am NOT happy about this turn of events. But it is what it is, and now I have to figure out who all and what all I have to do to let people know so my moderating slots are covered. Paul, however, pointed out a potential silver lining, re: the Anthony Awards: “You never win when you’re actually there, so maybe this will increase your odds of winning?” Which is true–if you overlook the fact that I’ve also lost when I’ve not been in attendance at an awards presentation.

Ah, well. At least I’ll have the time off from work to try to keep shoveling down antibiotics and taking care of myself–I’m going to keep my vacation days; just not going anywhere. Heavy heaving sigh.

I slept well again last night, which is two nights in a row when I had to get up early where I pretty much slept all night long–I did wake up once or twice; the only time I distinctly remember being right before the alarm went off–and again, like yesterday morning, I feel very rested, despite the darkness outside my windows. Paul went to a show last night, so wasn’t home before I went to bed; I spent the evening after getting home from the office watching an ESPN college football history special about Notre Dame last night before retiring. I probably should have cleaned the kitchen or something, but I was tired, and hey–I have tomorrow off, so it can probably wait at least another day, right? If I continue waking up early–which I hope will become a thing again; I used to get up every morning like clockwork at seven am, thanks to Skittle–I can start using my mornings to be a lot more productive than I have been lately. Mornings before work used to always be my most productive time; I always worked all morning on my days off and into the early afternoon, usually calling it a day around three. Social media has disrupted that, of course; I need to learn to keep my browser closed while I am writing and maybe–maybe–keep up with social media when I need a break by looking at my phone. Glancing around even now, I am thinking that there’s definitely some filing that needs to be done, and maybe, around doctor’s appointments and the visit to the specialist this week, I can maybe even clean out my cabinets and do the windows and filing and who knows what else I can get done? Maybe even move some boxes to storage, and clean out the attic. There is neither an LSU game nor a Saints game this weekend, so outside of watching the Georgia-Florida game, there’s no need for me to even bother watching football games this weekend….which means more writing time and more cleaning time. I don’t think I’m going to finish Bury Me in Shadows before the end of the month; I did get another chapter finished last night, though, and maybe can get through another tonight. Tomorrow I’ll dive in headfirst and see how much I can get finished.

And maybe I’ll be able to finish reading Certain Dark Things.

I do have a lot of writing to get done, so maybe this unexpected ailment is for the best, the universe’s way of telling me hey dude you really need to get your shit together rather than going to Dallas and having fun and drinking too much for five days. This is the first Bouchercon I will miss since I started attending again in Albany back whenever that was; it was Albany, Raleigh, Long Beach, New Orleans, Toronto and St. Petersburg, so I guess that would make it 2013. YIKES, that feels like a gazillion years ago.

I started reading Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street this week as my non-fiction read of the moment; the book is a history of the street–which, oddly, had never really been done before–against an overall backdrop of the city’s history, and am really enjoying it thus far. I mean, I’m still in the part where the city is being founded and built by the French in the early eighteenth century–and of course, from the very beginning the city was fraught with criminality; John Law’s Louisiana Company operated from a sense of fraud and eventually collapsed, but the city continued to grow and thrive along the river after the initial founding.

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

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Sign o’ the Times

Monday morning rolls around yet again, and a new week dawns. I slept pretty decently again last night, which is unusual. The alarm went off this morning and I hit snooze, despite being awake, because the bed was so comfortable. Sigh.

The Saints won again yesterday, and with the season LSU is also having, it’s been a pretty good football season for Louisiana football fans thus far. LSU undefeated, the Saints with a single loss? The big test for LSU is the Alabama game a week from Saturday–not sure when the Saints will be tested; but the day after the LSU-Alabama game the Saints are playing the hated Atlanta Falcons. So, yeah, that’s kind of a big weekend for both teams, and both have a bye this weekend–so no football in the Lost Apartment this weekend, alas.

We watched the new Meryl Streep movie on Netflix last night, The Laundromat, and weren’t terribly impressed with it. The story rather lacked cohesion, and there were times when I was frankly bored with it. I guess the idea was to expose and talk about the ways companies and the wealthy avoid paying taxes by setting up off-shore trusts and holding companies. but the examples given with how that affects people wasn’t particularly affecting? It was disappointing. Streep was good, but just not given enough to really work with.

I read some more into Certain Dark Things yesterday, which I am also really enjoying now that I’m getting deeper into the story. It’s very well written, and I like the structure of the narrative, as well as the entire mythology of vampires in the new world that Silvia Moreno-Garcia is creating here. It’s pretty good, and I do highly recommend it. I am hoping to get finished reading it sometime this week. I want to read one more horror novel before the end of the month and Halloween; although I’m not certain Moreno-Garcia’s novel really fits into the horror genre. The book isn’t scary, but it is about paranormal creatures, and an entire world and society of them. Similarly to Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels, she imagines a world where vampires are “out of the coffin,” and people know they exist. The fallout from this has resulted in Mexico City establishing itself not only as an independent city-state, but also as a vampire-free zone. I also like the characters she’s exploring–Atl, the modern-day female vampire, descendant of a line of vampires going back to the Aztecs, and Ana Aguirre, a female police detective in the city investigating a murder obviously committed by a vampire. So in some ways Certain Dark Things can also be considered a crime novel, which is very cool.

I love when the two genres overlap, to be quite honest.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Monday, everyone.

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Will You Still Love Me?

Sunday morning. LSU managed to remain undefeated yesterday, squeaking out a 23-20 nerve-wracking win over Auburn and looking like LSU of old. It was a very tense, stressful afternoon here in the Lost Apartment, believe you me. But they did pull out the win to move to 8-0; with Alabama on the horizon in two weeks in Tuscaloosa. They will most likely be ranked 1 and 2 at the time of the game; the winner takes the lead in the division, becomes the favorite to win the SEC, and make the playoffs. There’s some talk, already, that even if LSU loses to Alabama they might still make the playoffs; Oklahoma’s shocking loss to Kansas State opening that door still wider. There are a number of good one loss teams in the SEC already–Georgia and Florida are about to play next week in a battle of once-beatens to determine who will win the East division, and a shot to play the winner of LSU-Alabama in Atlanta in December.

Likewise, it also wouldn’t be the first time Alabama lost to LSU and got to play for the national title.

I was emotionally spent after the game, so I spent the rest of the evening finishing reading Robert Tallant’s Ready to Hang: Seven Famous New Orleans Murders. Tallant isn’t the best writer, and he’s also, as they say, a product of his time; but I found his retelling of famous New Orleans murders quite entertaining. The last three chapters (“Let the Poor Girl Sleep!”, “The Axman Had Wings”, and “Fit as a Fiddle and Ready to Hang”) were quite interesting, and I can see easily how to translate those real life true crimes into fiction, particularly the last one–about a handsome young man who wanted to be a singer and went around killing older men with money. The book was written and published in 1952 originally, and so the story of Kenneth Neu, as written by Tallant, skirted around what was patentedly obvious to me at any rate–he flirted with older men to see if they might be interested in his looks, and then killed and robbed them. (When he was tried eventually, he was only tried for the murder he committed in New Orleans; a previous crime in New Jersey definitely involved homosexual activity, and they didn’t want to try him for that one in case the jury sympathized with him killing an older gay man…so obviously, the prosecutors in Orleans Parish successfully kept any possibility of homosexuality out of his trial.) Neu is an interesting character to me; originally from Savannah, served in the military, and extremely charming and good-looking. Even throughout his trial he was cheerful, trying to charm people, even singing and dancing for the audience in the courtroom during breaks in the trial. He’s almost like something out of Patricia Highsmith; there’s definitely some Ripley in Neu. And obviously, he would make for a fascinating character in an old time New Orleans noir.

I’m also working on a short story–have been for some months now–called “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman,” which will go into my collection Monsters of New Orleans should I ever finish it; I’d also like to send it out for submission. It’s a Venus Casanova story, and while I got off to a relatively good start on it, it kind of stalled on me–primarily because I didn’t know the particulars of the true Axeman murders. I’d read some of it in Empire of Sin, but Tallant covered it a bit more thoroughly. I do need to come up with a timeline of the original Axeman murders, which should be relatively easy to do now, and see how I can work with that for my Venus short story.

I do intend to write today, Constant Reader, after two days of meaning to but never getting around to it. But the time has come, and I really must stop procrastinating. I don’t know what time the Saints game is today, but regardless, I have to sit here and at the very least finish off Chapter Twelve, whose rewrite has been in stasis now for over a week. I only have thirteen more chapters to go before the damned thing is finished–and while I know I’ll be holed up in a hotel room in Dallas for five days this coming week, well, I also know it’s Bouchercon and I won’t get any writing finished. I won’t even read much, except for the airport coming and going and the plane ride itself. I do want to finish Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things this week as well; hopefully in time to get another horror novel read by Halloween. I’ve really fallen down on my reading lately–I also have some terrific ARC’s on the pile, including Elizabeth Little’s Pretty as a Picture and Alex Marwood’s The Poison Garden–and I really need to get back to dedicated reading again, rather then falling into Youtube rabbit holes every night. Reading also inspires writing, so there’s that, too.

I think the next non-fiction book I’m going to read is Richard Campenella’s Bourbon Street–as I continue my deep dive into New Orleans history.

And on that note, I think I’m going to get another cup of coffee and sit with Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things for awhile before i head back into the spice mines.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

 

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Little Lies

Thursday, or as I prefer to call it, Friday Eve.

Yesterday was a lovely mail day. I received my contributor’s copy of Detecting the South In Fiction, Film & Television, edited by Theresa Starkey and Deborah E. Barker. It’s from LSU Press, and I think this might be (I could be wrong, my memory is a sieve) my first appearance in an academic-type tome. I can’t wait to start reading the other essaysm, but especially the ones by Ace Atkins and Megan Abbott, two of my favorite writers as well as two of my favorite people on the planet. My essay is titled “Down These Mean Streets (Whose Names No One Can Pronounce)”, and I’ll also have to reread it–I don’t remember a damned thing about it (see: sieve-like memory). Theresa, one of the co-editors, is also the person who invited me up to Ole Miss to speak at the Radical South event either last year or the year before; when I was completely charmed by Oxford.

I still might set a book there. The campus and town are gorgeous–although I would, obviously, have to fictionalize both.

I slept fairly well last night. I had dinner with a friend, and after a pre-dinner glass of prosecco followed by another glass of Chardonnay with dinner–apparently that was enough to send me off into the arms of Morpheus to my best night of sleep of the week thus far. Dinner was lovely–we went to Saba, a Middle-Eastern place on Magazine Street in Uptown, and the hummus was magnificent, as was the lamb kebob. Conversation was lovely–gossip as always, and catching up, and lots of laughter. It was quite lovely, and then I came home to watch this week’s American Horror Story: 1984, to see how far off the rails it was going this week. The answer: pretty far. It no longer makes the slightest bit of sense, and I’m not even sure what it now has to do with anything that happened earlier in the season. I’ll keep watching, primarily out of curiosity more than anything else–to see where it winds up going finally.

And wonder why I ever worry about my plots not making sense.

I’ve not written anything fictional this week, which is, frankly, disgraceful. But between this annoying low-level whatever it is that is still wrong with me–my throat is still sore, my sinuses are completely in revolt, my nose is rubbed raw again, and I’ve been achy most of the week–and being so tired and distracted the majority of the week, yeah, it’s no wonder I fell behind yet again on my goals. But I did get some of my other writing finished, including a short interview with Crime Reads (again about being an Anthony short story finalist, for which I am getting a lot of attention and more traction than I did as an anthology finalist two years ago–not complaining, just an observation…writing versus editing are pretty different), and I got my Sisters column finished. Also, as I said to my friend at dinner last night, I’ve been getting some positive reinforcement about my writing lately–lovely reviews and compliments, emails about the most recent book, compliments on my nominated short story–and that’s been really lovely. I actually sat down and skimmed through Royal Street Reveillon the other night as well–Paul got home late from the office that night, and while I waited I started reading it over again. As I always do when I reread published work I questioned decisions I made with both language/sentence choices, as well as plot decisions, but overall, I was pretty pleased with it when I finally set it aside. Someone did direct message me while they were reading it a few weeks ago, asking me how many car accidents has Scotty been in?, to which I replied, why do you think he hates driving so much? Scotty of course not only gets into a lot of car accidents, he also gets kidnapped or taken prisoner pretty frequently as well, to the point that it’s almost an in-joke between me and the reader.

But hopefully I’ll be able to get back to writing this morning, and tonight after work; so I can get back on track and get things back under control–some sort of it, at any rate. And hopefully, around the LSU and Saints games this weekend I can get almost completely caught up.

One can hope, at any rate.

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

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I Heard a Rumor

And now it’s Tuesday.

Yay for Tuesday! I managed to get some things done yesterday–my Sisters column for one, and an interview with Crime Reads for being an Anthony short story finalist, which was pretty cool. I was going to do some work on Bury Me in Shadows, but I couldn’t find the chapter file I worked on over the weekend and decided, rather than obsessively hunting for it, to just push it off and forget about it for now. So, instead I worked on the proposal, which was interesting and something different. (I found the file this morning; I don’t know how it wound up saved to the directory it was saved.)

We watched Catherine the Great last night on HBO, starring Helen Mirren, and it’s quite good. She’s phenomenal, as always, and they managed to script it in a way that made it interesting–often a problem with historical adaptations/biographies of royalty–and really brought the era, and the problems she faced as an illegitimate usurping empress quite well. I’m looking forward to the next episode, as well as starting Watchmen.

And I’m feeling much better about things. Getting stuff done yesterday was a good way to start the week–despite feeling less than at my best–and I love the feeling of crossing things off my to-do list, you know? I got some other things done as well–things I can’t talk about publicly, alas, sorry to be a tease–but again, getting things done feels good, and I have felt kind of, I don’t know, discombobulated since the last epic volunteer project, which is what put me behind to begin with.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And today is the last of my “get up early” days this week. I know we’re taking Scooter in for a veterinary visit this Saturday, probably around ten, but if I’m not up by then on my own without the use of an alarm, well, then I am seriously in some kind of trouble. I slept really well last night–I’ve slept well the last few nights, actually, which has been kind of lovely–and while I don’t like to be “untimely ripp’d” from my bed in the mornings, once I shake off the sleep and fully become awake, it’s a whole different other story, you know? I suspect that not only have I not gotten over what made me so ill the weekend before last, but it’s coming back. This is, of course, terrible timing as I am scheduled to leave for Bouchercon next week. Not good, not good at all. I took a Claritin because my sinuses feel messed up, and then some DayQuil because I have post-nasal drip as well.

We’ll see how that goes, shan’t we?

Barb Goffman, one of my fellow nominees for the Anthony for Best Short Story next week, posted a rather lovely blog here, where we all talk about our stories, and she provides links to read them all. This was an incredibly generous thing for her to do, and since I’ve not read all the stories, this gives me an excellent opportunity to do so.

I’m still reading Certain Dark Things and Ready to Hang–although the story of the Lamana kidnapping has now progressed to the trial of the kidnappers, which isn’t that interesting.  But I should finish both by the weekend, so I can be prepared for the LSU-Auburn game. I’m not sure who the Saints are playing–I do love the Saints, but most of the time I don’t even know who they’re playing until Game Day.

And now it’s back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

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