And just like that Wednesday has rolled around again, and today is the day I meet with the orthopedic surgeon to determine just what needs to be done to repair my torn left biceps muscle. I am a little nervous, to be honest, and more than a little trepidatious about it. I’ve not had any kind of surgery since having my tonsils out as a child and a potentially cancerous lesion removed in 2007, so I’ve kind of been lucky on that score (I don’t consider tooth extraction–even the wisdom teeth–as surgery; just how my mind works so don’t @ me, okay?). Dr. Google has told me that I’ll need physical therapy, a soft cast, and a sling (not the fun kind) for a while, maybe as much as six months to a year, which is definitely not pleasant or anything I want to happen to me at any time, but if needs be, it needs be, I guess.
At least after today I won’t have to wonder any more.
But my rebooting the week seemed to have done the trick. Yesterday was a good day; I slept really well and was in a very good mood when I came to work. A friend texted me to remind me that it was also my first birthday since Mom died, and so subconsciously I was probably grieving, which was why the energy felt so off Monday (the news of Tiger’s passing didn’t help much in that regard) and it really should have hit me when I got Dad’s note in the mail. It’s funny, I keep trying to tell Dad that it’ll gradually get easier but it really never does, does it? Hell, just typing since Mom died makes my eyes fill. I need to remember to keep being kinder to myself, and not so hard always on myself. After work I ran errands again–much as I hate driving all the way uptown every day, at least when I do there’s a place to park when I get home, and Paul’s expecting something, and I needed to make a little groceries on the way, too–and followed my Monday strategy of showering after emptying the dishwasher and putting my groceries away. I did finish the new draft of “Whim of the Wind” last night–and I have a place to try getting it published now–so I am going to let that sit for a couple of days before digging back into it. I’m glad that I let go of the sentimental attachment to the story since I wrote it back in college; it makes so much more sense to revise it into something different but keeping the same feel and vibe. I don’t think I stuck the landing on the second draft, but I have something to work with now, and that’s terribly important.
I tried working on another story after I finished that revision but alas the fountain had run dry by then. I did pull up both stories I want to get to work on, and maybe after my appointment this afternoon–and errands after that–I’ll be able to sit here and finish both stories tonight. I slept great last night–even better than i had the night before–and actually didn’t wake up until four (then five, then the alarm) which was probably the longest stretch of “straight through” sleep I’ve had in I don’t know how long. It was again miserably hot yesterday, but these last few days haven’t felt quite as hellish as the ones before. Paul was late getting home last night (board meeting) and after I finished writing for the evening, was kind of lost. I did do a load of laundry and another load of dishes, even going so far as to clean and straighten up the kitchen (I also showered when I got home; the twice daily showers seem to be doing the trick–getting things done and sleeping well) before repairing to my easy chair to watch some Youtube. Yesterday evening I revisited some scenes from old soaps, mostly General Hospital and All My Children–I still haven’t accepted that it’s no longer on the air–and I was also thinking about all the actors from soaps we lost to HIV/AIDS back in the day; and how many really gorgeous young men had appeared on the soaps when I used to watch and then just disappeared…which, of course, makes me wonder. (I love that the actor who played Derek Mallory, the police chief on Edge of Night back in the late 70s and early 80s, started in gay porn movies.) Someone really should write about that; and how actors had to remain closeted to have careers until the modern day era where there are only four soaps left, but they often have gay characters and storylines now. (was it Christian McLaughlin who wrote Glamourpuss, about a closeted gay soap star who gets outed, so the show makes his character gay and turns him into the villain?), I remember when Donna Pescow played the lesbian nurse on All My Children back in the day–she wasn’t around long, of course, the occasional queer character rarely lasted for long–but i would love to read a book about the history of queer actors and queer storylines on the daytime soaps–I remember the gay teen storyline on One Life to Live back in the day (Ryan Philippe’s first big break as an actor was playing that gay kid) and remember thinking wow what a difference this storyline would have made to teenaged me back in the day.
Representation matters, people. It really does. And if you’ve never not seen yourself reflected back to you in popular culture, you literally have no idea what it feels like or how moving it is when you finally do.
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.
Yesterday was unpleasant, if I’m going to be completely honest; almost like Mercury was in retrograde already (it isn’t yet, but yesterday felt like an audition, seriously). Things just went wrong all fucking day.
I should have headed back into the house yesterday morning when I ran into our landlady on the street outside as I was leaving and she let me know that the last of the herd, our last surviving outdoor cat, Tiger, died over the weekend. From that moment on the day’s energy had perceptively shifted and negativity and chaos were loosed upon the world–or at least at the office or in my general vicinity. As I drove to work, I was contemplating the news I’d seen about the red fire alert Louisiana is currently in; in other words, we’re in a drought and it’s been hotter than Channing Tatum covered in baby oil, so if anything catches fire…while California was experiencing tropical weather. By the time I got to the office it already felt like the day was going to be wretched, and it really was. That’s all I will say about that, but it was one of those days where if there’s a flaw in the system, it was going to become obvious to us all. By the time I got the mail on the way home from work I was tired and over it…and of course had my annual birthday note with a check…but just from Dad. So by the time I got home from work I was done with it all. I walked into the house, moved the laundry from the washer to the dryer, shed my clothes and tossed them in the washer, and went upstairs to take a shower and wash the stench of just in general bad energy day off me. The shower worked wonders…and felt a million times better (which wasn’t difficult, frankly) and then my OCD kicked in and I started trying to like and say thank you to everyone who’s wished me a happy birthday, but let’s be honest, Facebook has sucked for users for quite some time. Now I have to keep asking it to “load more” all the time, and once it gets to a certain point–usually when I have the “add more” down to less than two hundred, it crashes and I have to reload and start from the beginning and it only took that to happen twice for me to say fuck it you posted an in general thanks to everyone so post another one and be done with it and that is precisely what I did.
I also unloaded the dishwasher and did another load. The excitement, as you can tell, never stops or lets up around here.
But I want to make a fresh start to this week. I know Mercury is going into retrograde around the 25th. This is the one star/astrology thing I pay attention to because things always do seem to go somewhat haywire when Mercury is in retrograde. Then again, that could also be simply coincidence; things do go haywire all the time, or at least they do in my life experience. But I want to reboot the week, control-alt-restart, and shake it off. I think there’s always been a weird energy always associated around my birthday for most of my life, which is also why I tend to not make a big deal out of it. But that’s past and I want this to be a good week. I have a lot to do and it’s going to be hectic, as always, but I have to stay focused and not get sidetracked, which is frighteningly easier to have happen the older I get. I don’t want this to be a negative week, of drudgery and slogging through, praying for the relief of the weekend to finally arrive. I know I’ve been putting off diving into Chapter Six of the book because I’m not exactly sure what to write there, but that’s just laziness coupled with cowardice–fear of doing work I won’t be able to use as well as fear of getting off track with the plot. But I need to follow the advice I always give other writers–if it really comes down to it, fucking write your way out of it. Once you start, something will happen and you’ll end up going somewhere–and any progress, even if it ends up not being usable, is always one thousand times better than remaining stationary, because you can possibly slide back, too.
I slept great last night and feel more rested and relaxed–and alert–then I did yesterday. A good night’s sleep always helps and always makes me feel better in the morning. I really should shower every day when I get home from work and wash the day away, start a new evening fresh and exciting. Hopefully when I get home tonight I’ll be in the mood to get some writing done–it’s been far, far too long since I did any writing, seriously, and I really need to get back to it, heat advisory and August doldrums be damned. Who knows? It’s always a crapshoot, frankly. I can’t believe at this time next week I’ll be packing for Bouchercon. I have an eye appointment at 10:20 the same day I fly out–my flight is at like 1:30, so there’s plenty of time, and I can order more new glasses from Zenni while I am in San Diego. Tomorrow is the orthopedic surgeon appointment (hurray!) and of course, all my medical shit starts happening the week I return from the coast.
We did get some rain yesterday, and I was wondering if that may have effected the fire alert, but I don’t remember where I saw the original alert, either. I think it was an email? But in checking the weather looking for that, I saw that the three storms currently in or near either the Gulf or the Caribbean Sea pose no threat to Louisiana, at least not so far. It looks like a tropical storm will be hitting the south Texas coast/Rio Grande valley sometime relatively soon, and there are two more potential systems in the Atlantic, too. Yay.
But I am hoping that it will be a good day today and I can make some progress on things. I’ll need to stop on the way home to get the mail and some groceries (not much) and then come home to write and maybe do some cleaning and organizing around the kitchen.
Monday and the official start of my sixty-third year.
I decided to take the day off yesterday. Yeah, I decided that on Saturday, too, and you know what? I’m a big boy and I get to make those kinds of decisions for myself because I am a functioning (okay, barely) adult. I made meatballs for dinner, and had picked up slices of cheesecake as a birthday treat for us both (brownie cheesecake, at that). I read some short stories and did the dishes, but for the most part I spent the day gloriously and not feeling guilty about not doing anything. I mean, if you can’t do nothing on your birthday, what kind of life are you living in the first place? We started watching a show called Turn of the Tide, set on the Azores Islands, which is a crime show in which during a storm drug dealers on a boat lose their cargo and a hard-luck (but super hot) local young man (Portuguese actor Jose Condessa–google image search and thank me later) manages to find the bulk of it, planning on selling it so he and his friends can get off the islands. It will undoubtedly go south–there wouldn’t be a show otherwise–and I also couldn’t help thinking, “this is a noir show, where desperate people are going to commit crimes in an attempt to make their lives better–and isn’t that a good definition of noir in the first place?”
I slept really well, not quite fully awake just yet this morning. I didn’t really want to get up when the alarm went off this morning, but here I am, swilling coffee and wondering about my friends in Southern California. I did get a birthday text late last night from a friend who lives in Palm Springs (hello, Marco!) so I had to assume they had power and were safe from the storm. Tonight after work I have to run some errands on the way home–mail mostly, don’t really need to make groceries tonight, but I do need to start making another grocery list for the next time, and we’re going to go to Costco this weekend, too, I think. Maybe even to see if we can get the refrigerator–perish the thought and stop the madness. We also still don’t have a cat, and if we don’t get one this weekend we won’t be getting one for a while. When I get back from Bouchercon, I am having oral surgery and this Wednesday I am meeting with the orthopedic surgeon to try to get the process for my bicep repair surgery started. I also need to call Costco to see if I can get a hearing aids appointment scheduled, too; it would be too much to hope for to be able to get it scheduled during our trip there this weekend, wouldn’t it?
I’m not really sure what’s on my agenda for the week, to be honest, other than going into the office and having that doctor’s appointment on Wednesday. I had some thoughts about short stories I am working on yesterday, which was super awesome–I love when knotty problems untie themselves in my mind during creative riffing. I usually just open a journal and start scribbling whatever pops into my mind–and yesterday, the answer to another unfinished short story popped into my head while I was scribbling while letting old Michelle Kwan skating videos play continuously on Youtube. So, that’s two unfinished short stories I’ve figured out over the last week; now to try to get them written, and also try to get back to work on Muscles, the noir-in-progress. Next week I’ll be off to Bouchercon (!!!) provided Southern California has survived this weather disaster, or can at least be repaired by next week, at any rate.
But I feel good and rested this morning, and like I can make it through this week and get things done. When I get home, I need to finish the dishes (putting away the dishwasher load and refilling it) and the load of laundry I’m starting on my way out of the house, and maybe I can get a little writing and reading done before the evening is shot and I repair to my chair to watch more Turn of the Tide.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again later.
Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well.
Yesterday started well, but I got very tired in the afternoon after running errands. By the time I had the groceries put away and emptied the dishwasher, I was tired. I repaired to my chair for a bit with a protein shake (I read another Alfred Hitchcock Presents story, “Edward the Conquerer,” which was really a lovely story that turned horrifically dark at the end; I think its author, Roald Dahl, has been found to be problematic in the modern era, and after reading this story, all I can say is good.) and then tried to do some other chores and things around the house while letting ideas cook in my head. I hate this exhaustion that comes and goes ever since COVID last summer; while I am grateful it doesn’t happen all the time, I hate when it does because it’s very derailing. My mind can’t really focus while I am feeling that exhausted, too. I think the heat triggered it yesterday–and more regularly lately, too; I usually am fine when I get off work but just being out and about in the heat? It’s no wonder I’m exhausted when I get home.
Of course I am concerned about all my Southern California friends, who are in the path of a massive Pacific hurricane, which is just insane. I am hoping the colder Pacific water will have a deleterious effect on the size and power of it. And even if it does come ashore as merely a tropical storm…southern California isn’t built to handle a storm like that. There’s going to be so much flooding, and mud slides, and damage to highways and roads and low-lying areas. And what happens when winds that strong come through the desert? Does it pick up sand? Yikes indeed. And instead of laughing at Californians who’ve never experienced tropical weather before and don’t know how to handle it or what to do the way the rest of the country laughs at the South when we have a blizzard, I will send them positive energy and hope everything turns out well for them and they remain safe and unharmed. At least it’s down to a category one now before it hits this afternoon. STAY SAFE CALIFORNIA FRIENDS, PLEASE.
And yes, today is my birthday. Sixty-two, to be exact, which is in and itself a kind of miracle. I slept okay for the most part, and woke up shortly after seven, as per usual. I’ll probably try to get some stuff done this morning–writing wise, writing waits for no man–but will probably take the rest of the day off to read and chill out and relax, overall. I certainly never thought I would make it this long and this far, to be honest. It isn’t bad. I don’t have the energy I once had, I tire out a lot easier than I used to, and my memory is a thing of the past, but it could easily be much worse. I get aches and sores and pains more so than I used to, but that’s part of the price you pay for living longer. We’re in another heat advisory, and I think Mercury is about to go retrograde again (yay). Paul went out with some friends last evening and wasn’t home by the time i went to bed, and I watched Youtube videos while aimlessly trying to find something to watch. I also rewatched an old black-and-white suspense movie on Youtube that I watched and enjoyed as a kid, The Spiral Staircase with Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, and Ethel Barrymore. It was based on the novel Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White, which I’ve not read but have on my Kindle app, but it wasn’t as good as I remembered…it was actually not very good at all. (Sidebar: I am amazed at how many old movies were based on books…which often turn out to be better than the movies based on them–which is nothing new.)
I read some more stories last night as well: “By the Scruff of the Soul” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, which was in Stories That Go Bump in the Night and “The Cocoon” by John B. L. Goodman, from Stories for Late at Night. I did enjoy both stories–the Davis in particular–and of course, reading the three stories I read yesterday gave me the answer on how to finish another story of mine that is incomplete and I didn’t know how to finish. I’m actually finding the answers to a lot of my short story problems by reading these marvelous old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. It’s never too late to learn, after all, and I am itching to get to work on these stories again. I also need to get back to work on the WIP. Sigh. Why is there always so much writing that needs doing? I need to be writing. I did finish my blog about writing Mississippi River Mischief; I do need to finish writing the blog post about the other release I have coming out this fall that I’ve not told you about yet. I also need to do some cooking this morning–I want to try to make meatballs again, so I can take them for lunch this week–and some cleaning and organizing, too. I was terribly lazy yesterday, worn down a bit, as I mentioned already–I did literally nothing for most of the day after completing my errands–but that’s fine; obviously I needed the rest. I also need to unload the dishwasher and make salad (not a euphemism). I think I may even go so far as to treat myself to a cappuccino this morning; I’ve not used those accoutremént in quite some time, and that energy boost would be rather welcomed this morning. I always worry about my sleep, though, and since tomorrow is the start of another work week…heavy heaving sigh. Maybe I can set it up tonight so I can just turn it on tomorrow?
Ah, well, and so it goes.
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines for a while. Have a great Sunday, y’all, and I’ll check in with you later.
And somehow, almost twenty-one years have passed since Scotty Bradley burst forth into the world with Bourbon Street Blues, one of what I hoped was the most unconventional and original amateur sleuths in the history of crime fiction. This is neither the time nor the place to again tell the story of how I created him, or how what was supposed to be a one-off stand alone book became a series spread out over twenty years (!!!); I’ve told those stories endlessly over the last twenty years both here and on panels. But Scotty remains very precious to me all these years later, and I still care about getting him and his life right on the page. I don’t torture him or make his life as miserable as I do Chanse’s (poor, poor Chanse), but he has his own problems and issues that he has to face–but his endless optimism and willingness to face things head on and deal with them, rolling with the punches and always getting back up, has never once wavered in all the years I’ve been writing him. I love him, his family–even the stuffy Bradley side; I love that the unconventional family their son married into pushes every single one of their buttons–and I love his New Orleans.
The other night I was scrolling through Youtube and, just for the hell of it, searched for a song that I’ve been trying to find a digital copy of for my Spotify or Apple Music accounts; Erin Hamilton (Carol Burnett’s daughter) remade Cheap Trick’s “The Flame” as a dance song (she also did the same with that old 1970s classic, “Dream Weaver” and I prefer her versions to the originals), and I love the extended remix. I found the video on Youtube and as I listened to it, it brought back a lot of memories of going out to the gay bars, hitting the dance floor and staying out there all night, getting caught up in the music and just having a great time. I think this song predated the turn of the century, so it’s a late 90’s recording…anyway, it really made me think, put me back into a Scotty place in my mind, and as I listened, sang along, and bopped my head, the next Scotty book started forming in my head….and I realized that’s been part of the disconnection I felt writing the last few Scotty books; sure, I could and can still write him, and sure, I could get back into his head space, but it was much harder for me to do than it used to be. I thought it might be because I don’t go to the Quarter at all anymore, or that I don’t spend any time in gay bars anymore; that I don’t know what it’s like to be a gay man in his forties (almost fifties) today–my own memories are of a completely different world than the one we live in now. But now I know what I was doing wrong–I was listening to the wrong kind of music while writing him. If I want to ease back into Scotty’s mind and world, I need to listen to dance music I used to hear in the gay bars.
And can I say that it’s a real shame that it’s so hard to track down old gay bar dance remixes?
Knowing this means I’ll probably keep going with Scotty for a while longer, at any rate. I love him, I love the character, and I know I’ve been avoiding dealing with some things in that series that will eventually have to be addressed…but it’s absolutely lovely to know that I can slip back easily into his mind-space just by listening to great old gay dance remixes.
“I think we should turn it into a home gym,” I said into the gloom. “I mean, wouldn’t it be great to just have to go downstairs to work out? And we can put in a sauna and a steam room. What do you think, guys?”
It was the Monday night after Mother’s Day, and the termites were swarming.
That was why we were sitting around the living room in the dark. The only illumination in the entire building came from two blasphemy candles, flickering in the center of the coffee table. Modeled after Catholic prayer candles, one had a picture of Drew Brees in his Saints jersey with a halo and heavenly light shining on his head with the words Pray to Breesus around the base. The other was St. Chris Owens of Bourbon Street.
So, yeah—blasphemy candles. They’re very popular here.
Yet even the scant pale light from the teardrop shaped flames was enough to draw an occasional scout termite from the gloom. We wouldn’t see it until it landed on the glass lip of one of the candles, before dive-bombing into the flame. There would be a brief sizzling sound, and then the yellow flame flickered and turning briefly reddish as the termite immolated. Once it was consumed, the flame would be steady and yellow again.
The swarming rarely lasted more than an hour, but that hour seemed to last an eternity.
Termites have always been the bane of New Orleans’s existence. The domestic kind were bad enough. Houses and buildings were tented to get rid of infestations, the bright yellow and red stripes announcing to the world that a termite Armageddon was happening inside. The city’s original termite problem had grown exponentially worse since the particularly vicious Formosan variety had hitched a ride on a freighter to the fertile feeding grounds of our old, mostly wooden city shortly after World War II. The dampness of our climate must have made them feel like they’d arrived at termite Disney World. The little fuckers love wet wood, so the entire city was an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’d killed live oaks that had survived hurricanes, destroyed historic homes, and I’d heard that they could even chew through brick and mortar.
Maybe that was an urban legend, but it wasn’t one I was interested in proving.
Formosan termites swarmed.
The first rule of surviving Formosan termite season was speed. Every source of light had to be turned off the moment you spotted the first scout. They’re drawn to the light, like moths, but unlike moths, they’re drawn to the light in the hundreds of thousands, turning your home into a scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s ultimate cheesefest The Ten Commandments. The big streetlamps along Decatur Street outside drew the swarms, horrifying clouds of little monsters flying around, frantically trying to mate while shedding wings like revoltingly nasty snowflakes.
It is incredibly hard for me to believe that I have written seventeen or so books and countless short stories set in New Orleans and never have once addressed the swarms of Formosan termites we live through every spring. They return after Mother’s Day and haunt us in the evenings, usually between eight and nine pm, until Memorial Day, give or take. They aren’t a nightly occurrence, thank the heavens, but they are usually at their worst on Mondays and Tuesdays. No one had warned Paul and I about them, so the first time we were swarmed we didn’t know what to do. Remembering that horror from the old apartment on Camp Street (we had a massive security light attached to the house right outside our living room, so any light at all inside would draw clouds and clouds of them inside), how was it possible I had never written about the Formosan termite swarms? And with Scotty having bought the building on Decatur Street from Millie and Velma–who I sent into retirement along the Gulf Coast of Florida–and learning about the responsibilities and drawbacks to being a New Orleans home-owner, as well as trying to figure out how to redesign the interior for more functionality as a single-family dwelling? Of course, the question of what to do with the empty retail space on the first floor would be an issue; I wouldn’t want a living space right on the sidewalk of Decatur Street at any time of day or night or month or year. I also wouldn’t want to deal with renters, either, and thus neither would Scotty. But the space can’t just be left vacant, either. So, I thought it would be a great way to open the book with them sitting out the swarms in the dark, with a couple of candles lit, talking about the renovation plans?
After I finished writing Royal Street Reveillon, I was pretty damned pleased with myself. I thought it was perhaps the best Scotty book of the entire series, and reflected my growth as a writer along with Scotty’s growth and development as a character. When I finished it, I had the thought I always have whenever I finish writing a series book: maybe that should be the last one. But I immediately dismissed that thought from my head; I had left something in the personal story of Scotty and the boys hanging with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I knew there had to be one more book at least to tie off that loose end. I was also thinking about a local-ish political scandal of the last decade–the usual, a conservative Christian pro-family politician outed for having an inappropriate relationship with a teenager (who was over seventeen, the age of consent for boys in Louisiana), and a political powerhouse dynasty that had ruled a near-ish parish for generations was dead in the water. I had been thinking a lot also about taking Scotty and the boys outside of New Orleans and the safety of Orleans Parish for an adventure; as my knowledge of Louisiana grew exponentially along with my study of the state’s history, I really wanted to set a book in a part of Louisiana I could fictionalize and have some fun with. I had already created a couple of fictional parishes and towns in previous work; The Orion Mask particularly was set in fictional Redemption Parish–but Redemption wouldn’t work for this one, so I needed another one.
While I was thinking this through, I remembered that two Nancy Drew mysteries were connected to New Orleans–she was only here for a couple of chapters of The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, but most of The Haunted Showboat was set here, or just outside of the metropolitan area (a quick reread showed that “Carolyn Keene’s” Louisiana and New Orleans bore no resemblance whatsoever to the reality…but I knew I had a Nancy Drew Easter egg in Bury Me in Shadows (Blackwood Hall), and I wanted to put one in a Scotty book–so why not a showboat? The ruling dynasty of the invented parish–St. Jeanne d’Arc, for the record–was given the same name as the relatives of Bess and George’s that they and Nancy were visiting in The Haunted Showboat, Haver. I even named the house in Mississippi River Mischief the same name as the Havers’ home in The Haunted Showboat, Sunnymeade.
And yes, the Havers’ showboat/gambling casino was also named the River Princess.
I originally planned on the case coming to Scotty through his sort-of-nephew, Frank’s blood nephew Taylor; someone he met in group therapy (which he is doing to help get through what happened to him in the previous book), or possibly even a boyfriend, someone he’s seeing. I could never get it to work right…and finally, I realized it couldn’t come from Taylor. Taylor is going to continue growing as a person and as a character, but this was too soon after his own trauma for him to be trying to help other people. And then I remembered David, Scotty’s best friend, the music teacher. David’s not been in a book since Mardi Gras Mambo, but I’ve never forgotten about him. And it made sense–David has moved on from his old school and now teaches at NOCCA (our local Fame high school), and the kid is one of his students–and David finds out by confiscating the kid’s phone in class. I wanted to create a character based on this absolute sweetheart of a young man I met; I don’t remember how we met, but friends of a mutual friend were in New Orleans, and wanted me to meet them for drinks…and they had a daughter who went to school here. The kid was a friend of hers, absolutely adorable and sweet, and a ballet major at Tulane. After the daughter and her friend left, the parents immediately turned to me and asked me, “is he gay? <The daughter> think so, and so do we.” What I should have said was, “Well, he’ll let people know if and when he’s ready”; what I actually said was “absolutely.” (I did later find out the kid did eventually come out; wherever he is, I hope he is happy and living his best life. He was so sweet and charming and likable…) When I started writing the character, I made him unlikable, arrogant and sure of himself and his own beauty, and the effect it had on other people. That was wrong, and I went back and made him more of a naïve kid, with a strong sense of right and wrong; and the story worked a lot better. It wasn’t like Scotty to be so judgmental about this kid; if anything, especially after what happened to Taylor, he’s be super-protective.
And this tale–the corrupt old politician and the beautiful teenager working at the food court at Lakeside Mall–gave me a chance to dig into something from Scotty’s past that’s never been truly explored: that his first lover was his high school wrestling coach when he was about fifteen/sixteen. This came up in Jackson Square Jazz–which of course has been unavailable for thirteen years–and I always meant to circle back around to it, just never did…but over the years there have been throwaway lines in books about how Scotty has always preferred older men (Frank is fifteen years older; we’re not really sure how old Colin is), and so to bring it up again in this instance? Yes, perfect.
I loved my story about the corrupt politician, the wrecked showboat in St. Jeanne d’Arc Parish, and the teenager, but something was missing.
I realized two things: something very important was missing, and the crimes of the Haver family were just too big and too many to fit into this book, so I chose to focus on only one…and then the Murdaugh case broke. The Murdaughs were a real life Haver family, and their crimes were almost exactly the same! So, I ripped one of their crimes from the headlines and made that the primary focus of the story, and it was the right choice: the book started falling into place and the story began flowing. I was very nervous about the book–slicing out all the other crimes while building up only one was tricky, since they were all woven through the entire manuscript and the new one had to be as well. I also wasn’t sure if the subject matter was handled appropriately; the old/young daddy/boy thing is the gay community is often mistaken for something much worse than it is, and talking about gay teenagers’ sexuality is also kind of a third rail. But I trust my editor, and she loved it.
Saturday morning and my birthday eve. Yes, it’s tomorrow; Gregalicious hits the big 6-2 tomorrow. It’s been a hell of a year since my birthday last rolled around, and to say that I am in a much better place today than I was a year ago on this date would be putting it mildly. I didn’t know, for example, that I’d lose both my mother and my cat before my next birthday. It does seem weird to not have a cat on my birthday; this is my first cat-free birthday since we first got Skittle all those years ago when we lived in the carriage house. At this time last year I was trying to get my shit back together after having long COVID, but other than that I really don’t remember much of what was going on last August, to be honest. I suppose I could go read last year’s entries around these dates, but maybe it’s best not to remember. Who knows?
I did manage to get over to the West Bank Office of Motor Vehicles, and after what seemed like forever, I did finally get my Louisiana Real ID/driver’s license, and the new picture is even worse than the old. (Why do they tell you to lower your chin and look down? Everyone knows that will result in a much worse picture.) But I also made groceries, grabbed Five Guys for lunch, and then came home to finish my work-at-home chores. I managed to get the bed linens laundered and did some picking up around here. I also read some more of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories, which was fun. I dipped back into Stories to Be Read Late at Night, originally published in 1962. I read “Evening Primrose” by John Collier, which was interesting and creepy, about ghosts living in a department store, and “The Sound Machine” by Roald Dahl, which was creepy and strange and everything I would have expected from a Dahl story. I’d not read anything by him before, but I know he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as the short story one of the more famous Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes was based on–the one where the wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, which she then cooks and serves to the investigating officers. The story was, as I expected, creepy, macabre, and one of those stories where you aren’t sure if what you’re reading is happening…or if it’s all a product of the narrator’s fevered, slowing disintegrating mind. It was interesting–but both of these stories reminded me yet again of how limited my imagination and creativity is when it comes to writing short stories; why not expand my mind and try things that are different and outside of my comfort zone, and what better place to try experimental writing and experimental creating than in a short story rather than a novel? The key here is to remember that anything is possible and to not either fear trying out new things or limit myself by saying oh you can’t write that.
Because I can write anything.
I do have to go out into the heat today–mail and a few things to pick up at the store–but I’d rather not go out into the heat. Yesterday didn’t seem that terrible–it was in the high nineties but the humidity was lessened, it seemed; although it was hot as fuck, don’t get me wrong, I handled it better yesterday than I have the rest of the summer–which leads me to believe it wasn’t as humid and the heat index not as high. That, or I am getting used to it, and that’s appalling. No one should get used to this.
I also wrote a lengthy entry about the genesis of Mississippi River Mischief, as well as one about the other book I have coming out this fall that I’ve not really talked about; I also worked on my short story revision a bit more last night before collapsing into my easy chair. We watched more Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, which is amazingly funny–she really can do anything–and then retired for the evening. I slept really well again last night, which was wonderful as always; I love when I sleep well, and so hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot done today. I also want to spend some time reading this morning as well–either short stories or getting back into Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt, which is fantastic; I just haven’t had the bandwidth mentally lately to focus on reading a novel.
It feels very cool in the apartment this morning, which is, as always, a lovely thing. I’ll probably post the entry about the new Scotty book at some point this weekend; at some point this weekend I’ll also finish the entry about the other book I’ve been so mysterious about now for quite some time. I also have a Bible entry I want to finish writing, but I also need to go back and read some appropriate Bible passages to make sure I am remembering correctly; and of course, there’s nothing I want to do less than read some Bible passages.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the morning. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably check back in with you again later.
Work at home Friday, after I run some errands and take care of some things this morning. I have to go to the OMV to get a real ID (driver’s license expires Sunday), and since I am going over there, I am going to swing by the West Bank Petco to look at kitties (the SPCA has some they’ve farmed out to Petcos). That’s an exciting morning, isn’t it? I am taking Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt with me, so I won’t be bored and since I have to sit around and wait, I might as well read. It’s been bothering me lately that my attention span just hasn’t been there for novels since the heat wave broke me several weeks ago–which is when I switched over to short stories in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies–and I’d like to get this book read before I leave for Bouchercon, primarily so I can hopelessly fanboy over her all weekend (I’ll also be fanboying over Margot Douaihy all weekend, too, among many others as I always do at Bouchercon). I’ve already picked out my books to take with me on the trip (the latest S. A. Cosby, Alison Gaylin, and Laura Lippman will be going to San Diego with me, with Donna Andrews batting clean up), and also already know I will probably get no writing done while I am there. I don’t really have anything due–there will be page proofs for Mississippi River Mischief to go over at some point–but everything else is up in the air for now.
I did manage to get the edits taken care of on Mississippi River Mischief and turned it in last night, so other than the afore-mentioned page proofing, it’s effectively finished. Since the other book–I’ll post about it this weekend, no worries–is also finished and now out of my hair, I have nothing pressing at the moment. Woo-hoo! I also picked up the mail and stopped at Fresh Market to lay in supplies for a weekend of not getting into the car at all. I wrote for a while, and came to a realization about this short story I could never get to work that I’ve been revising, so I am going to go into author mode and talk about writing, so bear with me.
This particular story, “Whim of the Wind.” was the story I wrote when I took creative writing again after switching universities after my first horrendous creative writing experience (if I haven’t said it enough, the professor told me I’d never be a published writer). This story was beloved by my class and my professor, who told me I should submit it to literary magazines. I did a few times, it was always rejected, and there was a slight flaw in the story–but no one who read it could ever give me any insight into how to fix the story. It was also my first Alabama story, my first visit to my fictional Corinth county, and so it’s always kind of been precious to me. I never could figure out how to revise it or what to do with it…but as I’ve been revising it (it’s now twice as long as it was, and I’ve not finished), it’s been changing some. I think what everyone was responding to was the voice–I’ve used it again since, and people always respond to that aspect–and really, as long as the voice is intact and preserved, that’s all that really matters. I also realized last night something else–I was having to change the climactic scene in the story, and as such had to come up with a different Civil War legend to build it around–and I realized this story, along with two other, had been written using the same trope, that I have since learned was apocryphal–the evil Yankee deserter. I wrote this story using it, I wrote “Ruins” using it, and I wrote another, “Lilacs in the Rain,” also using it (that story has morphed into a novella renamed “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”); so yes, I wrote three short stories based on the same, apocryphal, Civil War urban (rural?) legend. Bury Me in Shadows evolved out of “Ruins,” and I blew up the trope in that book; that was the “Yankee deserter” story I was meant to write. So, the other two need different legends, and I found a good one for “Whim of the Wind”–but again, a delicate subject I’ll need to be very careful with–and now maybe I can make “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain” actually work, now that I know what I need to do with it. I am also having a lot of fun looking into Alabama history and finding these great legends and stories and folk tales that I should be able to find something to use.
I slept really well last night, and feel pretty good this morning. Don’t feel so great about having to go to the West Bank, but that’s okay; it’s a routine change I can live with, and I can actually do my weekend grocery shopping over there as well–and I can get Five Guys to bring home for lunch. I think after that I will have laid in enough supplies to not have to leave the house for the rest of the weekend–I may go get the mail tomorrow–and I want to clean, organize, read, and write all weekend. Paul got home late last night (another grant) so we didn’t get a chance to watch anything last night–he walked in while I was watching a Youtube documentary about the usurpation of the English throne by the House of Lancaster that set the dangerous precedent (for kings) that incompetent ones could be overthrown and replaced…and eventually led to the Wars of the Roses. I also was watching some videos–someone did a series of the greatest plays in LSU football history, which was very fun to watch and relive (I really should do an in-depth post about my love of LSU football; not that everyone who’s paying attention doesn’t already know about it, of course, but I love football and it’s fun for me to write/talk about it. I also find the fandom interesting, too.)..and they were grouped by stretches of time, eras, if you will (2007 season got its own video)–and also guided by the scarcity of available digitized video from the far distant past. (I was also thinking “don’t the networks that originally aired the games have tape? Can’t it be digitally remastered? I know the SEC Network has done this with some classic games from the past; it’s a project the NCAA should back fully, as it’s the history of the sport.) It’s very fun to revisit past games and my memories–LSU is never boring to watch, ever–and I am very excited about the upcoming season, both for LSU and the Saints. I worry that everyone is over-hyping LSU (something I always worry about) but given the over-performance from last year, it’s kind of understandable, really. LSU came out of nowhere to win ten games, beat Alabama, and beat both Florida and Auburn on the road in the same season for the first time in program history. So, yeah, understandable. I was thinking before last season that it was going to have to be a wash–new coach, rebuilding after two down years, etc.–and that this year would be the one where the Tigers would make a run. I am excited for our new quarterback for the Saints, too–he, like me, also went to Fresno State, so I have even more reason to root for him and like him–and they seem to be doing well in the preseason. GEAUX SAINTS!
I did work on the revision of “Whim of the Wind” yesterday–it’s amazing to me that I’ve taken a story that barely over two thousand words and added another almost three thousand to it, and it still isn’t done–but I am feeling good about the story, now that I’ve recognized my attachment to it that actually was hindering me from revising it. It’ll always exist in that original version, after all, and nothing I do to it in current or future versions are ruining that precious first version that meant so much to me as an aspiring writer. Sentimentality–the very thing I am always trying to guard against when it comes to almost everything in my life–got the best of me with this story. The other story I turned it at the same time, which I’ve also never been able to correct, perhaps now I can fix it, too. I had thought about expanding the other one (which is actually incredibly problematic on many levels by modern standards) into a novel, and perhaps I still will; I’ve started slowly world-building around the panhandle of Florida the same way I have with Corinth County in Alabama, but there’s no crime or mystery or supernatural thing going on in that story; so it would be a coming-of-age romance….but I may know a way (that just came to me) and there were some other ideas about it, too. You never know, right? Why not riff for a while and see what comes up?
I’m kind of getting excited about writing again, can you tell?
And on that note, I should start getting ready for the OMV and get that hellish experience over with once and for all. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader and you never know–I may be back later.
Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I have a lot to get done over the weekend–errands and chores and things, oh my! I’ve arranged for medical appointments and examinations, have gathered everything I need for the OMV, and I even spent a little time writing yesterday. Who am I, and what have I done with Gregalicious?
I slept better on Tuesday night than the previous nights, and it felt great. I didn’t feel tired or worn out or dragged out–and of course, while it was still fucking hot here, it was normal August hot, not Satan’s taint hot. I can handle normal August hot. Sure, I’ll complain, but if this summer thus far has proven anything to me, it’s that I’ll be grateful for a regular Louisiana summer from now on. Yesterday was a good day at work as well; I feel like I helped some people and was able to be a good listener for some others who needed to get some things worked through. I love my job because I get to feel like I’ve made a difference in someone’s life, and there’s always at least one client per day who makes me feel that way. It’s a good feeling. I know I am helping everyone I see, but the ones where you have to go a bit deeper than is usually necessary are really special for me. That’s what I really needed from a job all along, and if I didn’t find that out until I was in my forties, at least I finally did find out. I’ve been at my day job longer than any job I’ve had previously, and by the time I retire at sixty-seven (roast in hell for all eternity, Ronald Reagan) I will have worked there longer than I worked at all my other jobs combined. (I’m not counting writing or editing in this, by the way; those are contract jobs, not a regular paycheck with benefits, which also includes fitness instruction. No benefits nor regular paycheck there, either.)
I also loved being a personal trainer because I enjoyed helping people feel better–so much of fitness training is mental, and reshaping mindsets and attitudes and mentalities, you have no idea. I used to actually write a syndicated queer-specific fitness column, which took a holistic approach to fitness and well-being, and so sometimes I would get into the mental health/self-image stuff. I always wanted to write a holistic health and fitness book targeted to a queer audience, but the performance aspect of promoting a health and fitness book wasn’t anything I was interested in; it would mean staying in shape constantly, watching everything that I put into my mouth and limiting myself, cutting out alcohol., and above all else, quitting smoking. Once I got myself back into shape, in 1994 and then again in 2001 (after that Horrible Year That We Never Discuss), I gradually became less obsessed about the regimen I needed to maintain to continue to work toward underwear model-type body and decided I was okay with a slight roll around the middle, and not having a six pack, or veins bulging out from under the skin everywhere. Fitness instruction, and fitness writing, weren’t my passion though; I wanted to be a fiction writer and I didn’t want to use my discipline and self-control and will to push myself into trying to compete for dollars and eyes and influence in the fitness world–I wanted to use that to write the best fiction I could and get it published so people could read it.
I was also thinking that I might want to think about doing something to mark Scotty’s turning twenty-one next year (I honestly cannot believe I’ve been writing this series this long. It was supposed to a stand alone!) I am thinking I should probably write another Scotty book, so the tenth will come out during his twenty-first year of existence, but I am not quite sure what I want to do with the boys next. I have some titles and possibilities–French Quarter Flambeaux about a Mardi Gras murderer; Quarter Quarantine Quadrille which of course takes place during the quarantine; and Bywater Bohemia Bougie, which would be a long look at real estate, gentrification, and how New Orleans has lost some of its soul since Katrina. I probably should write a Scotty every year. But I don’t want him or the series to get stale; that’s what happened with Chanse and I’d originally planned to only do seven, and I was on book seven so I said, fine, we’ll end it here. I do think there are more Chanse novellas to be written at some point; I think the shorter form will force me out of the “paint by numbers” way I was feeling with that series by the end. (For the record, I think the last two books of the series are just as strong, if not stronger, than the books that came before them. The quality wasn’t slipping, but the challenge of writing them wasn’t there anymore.)
The last thing I want to feel when I’m writing something is bored. Sick of it is one thing and is perfectly acceptable to feel; by the time you’re doing the page proofs you should be so fucking sick of your book and those characters that you don’t ever want to think about them again….and the time between turning in those final corrections and the release/promotion is just long enough of a time to pass so you don’t want to slit your wrists when the subject of the book comes up. I have yet to feel boredom with writing Scotty; the fact that the stories can be insanely ridiculous and completely over-the-top helps a lot in that regard. And yet…I’ve noticed things, looking back at the older books in the series, while I was writing Mississippi River Mischief, that I need to pay more attention to in the future. A reader asked me, sometime after the release of Royal Street Reveillon, “how many car accidents has Scotty been in?” And when I started thinking about it….was like yeeesh, quite a few–to the point where I probably wouldn’t get into the same car with him. I noticed that there are books where Frank and Colin’s presence is so minimal that they aren’t even supporting characters but rather cameos; and I don’t use Scotty’s family nearly as much in the later books as I did in the earlier ones. So, when I write the next Scottys, going into them I am going to be more conscious of these things, and I am going to try to work them out organically through the manuscript. Scotty’s getting older, as are the others (my editor was very enthusiastic about how much she loved that Scotty ages in real time), and I’ve started addressing that. I do think the next case is going to have to heavily involve Scotty’s family; I’m thinking it’s about time his sister Rain took center stage in one of his cases. I love Scotty’s entire family, to be honest, and I am really glad I brought his best friend David–missing from the last four or so books–back into this one.
As you can probably tell, I was a bit concerned about my editor’s response to this one. Someone who has anxiety to the degree I do probably shouldn’t be a fiction writer, but it’s too late now, over forty novels in. But….it’s never too late to enter a new chapter of my career, either.
I slept great again last night–the slight cooling off this week has been marvelous; the air conditioning finally caught up, and I was laughing last night because I was taking some stuff out to the recycling and realized…it was chilly enough in the apartment for me to wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants (which means the temperature inside is correct), and when I was walking the stuff out I didn’t break a sweat and thought it was actually pleasant outside…and it was 94. Today I have to get through, run some errands on the way home (post office mostly–I can’t decide about the grocery store but I don’t think we need anything; I have developed the habit of making groceries whenever I get the mail since I’m already uptown) and then settle in for the night. Paul was late last night working on a grant, so when he got home we watched the first episode of Only Murders in the Building, which was a very pleasant surprise (we weren’t wild about season two, but season three got off to a great start, and of course, Meryl Streep!), and finished the evening off with an episode of Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, which is just hysterically funny. It’s nice to feel rested before the last day of getting up early and going into the office.
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.
Your biweekly Pays the Bills Wednesday had somehow rolled around again, and yes, I have bills to pay before I put my sleepy head to rest tonight. I slept very well last night–didn’t even hear the alarm at first this morning–and certainly didn’t want to get up; the rain, however brief it was last night, apparently dropped the temperature and so it’s actually cold in the apartment this morning; I suspect the coldness overnight inside was part of the reason I slept so deeply and well, only getting up once. (It’s a chilly 79 degrees outside right now; I may need a jacket after this summer’s blistering heat.)
In very exciting news, I got my edits for Mississippi River Mischief yesterday, and my editor loved my book. Cue enormous sigh of relief. I was worried (I worry about everything) that it wasn’t good and that it didn’t do what I wanted it to do, but I can now breathe a sigh of relief. I am starting to feel–partly from all these Alfred Hitchcock Presents short stories–a lot more confident, more brave, and perhaps even more daring about my work and what I try to accomplish with what I am writing. John (Copenhaver, you can check out his books here, thank me later) asked so many smart and insightful questions of us on the Queer Crime Panel (which you can watch right here!) on Sunday afternoon–as well as listening to the brilliant answers given by my oh-so-talented co-panelists (Renee James, Robyn Gigl, Margot Douaihy, and Kelly J. Ford) made me start looking at my work, what I do with it, what I am trying to do with it, and what I can do with it. I’m starting to feel inspired again, which is absolutely lovely, and even if my creative ADHD is really flying off the charts lately, it’s been kind of nice. I’m always afraid I’m going to stop having ideas or being able to write. *shudders at mere thought*
But I ran my errands and got home relatively easily and efficiently, and I beat the short thunderstorm home. It didn’t last near long enough, but maybe it cooled things down a little for a bit, which is all any of us can even dare to dream of at this point in the summer. I got two more Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies at the post office: Stories to Be Told With the Lights On and The Master’s Choice. What I am really loving about these stories is they kind of exist in that shadow world between crime and speculative fiction. I should probably turn this into a project, as I tend to do to everything at some point. I am learning from every story I read, and I am also working on my critical skills while I do. What didn’t I like about this story? How could it have been made better? All of these things are subjective, of course, and then I also kind of try to analyze why I didn’t like the things I didn’t like; I think the concept behind every story is a good one–and authors don’t always succeed in pulling off what they are attempting with, and for, the reader.
I kind of was dragging a bit yesterday, and kind of have been all week thus far. I think part of it is the readjustment to Paul being home and my supervisor being back after her unexpected and unforeseen absence, which mirrored his almost exactly. But I am also digging myself out from under the malaise or whatever has been gripping me recently, and I really need to get back to the writing. I wrote a little yesterday, but not nearly enough–fatigue and inability to string a sentence together forced me to give up about one hundred words in. But it was a hundred more words than the day before, and it whetted my appetite a bit. I also did some more mindless research into the historical period I am thinking about setting a book in, which was interesting. It’s not really world-building since the world existed at the time, but rather world-reconstructing. This weekend I am going to try to get more writing done, and hopefully we’ll also be getting a cat (fingers crossed). I think the heat wave is going to be continuing, with a bit of a break; the temperature isn’t supposed to go above 93 today, which means no 120+…and how sad it is that it’s being called by local meteorologists (I think they’re in on the joke, however) a “cold front”?
Bouchercon is nigh, and my birthday is this weekend. I am trying to fit in a lot before San Diego because I am having oral surgery the Friday after I get back (at last) and at some point I’m going to probably have to have surgery to repair my left biceps (sorry if I’ve mentioned this before) so I don’t know how I will be or how long the recovery will be or what I’ll be able to do or deal with during said recovery. This is part and parcel, one supposes, of the decline and decay of my body as I get older, and it’s not like I ever took super good care of it before. Hell, when I was a personal trainer teaching aerobics I smoked cigarettes and spent my weekends drinking in the gay bars. (Facebook memories recently reminded me of how and who I was when I first broke into print with my first novels and short stories…my naïveté was really something. I was always who I was, only now I was a published author and I dressed like, well, like I always did. I rarely wore pants! I was always either in sweats, workout shorts, or shorts; T-shirts and sweatshirts and tank tops. That will be a topic for another time, though.) I’ll be sixty-two this weekend. Sixty-two! Lord, that will be an interesting blog post to write.
I also realized last night that this year the Scotty series turns twenty! I wish I had thought about that ahead of time; I could have done something to celebrate and mark this landmark in the series. Maybe I’ll do a Scotty-centric entry; I should be doing that anyway since Mississippi River Mischief is coming out this November….it was a bit of a jolt to realize it’s been twenty years–over twenty years, actually, since Bourbon Street Blues was a spring release–April 1 or May 1, I am not sure which. Twenty years of Scotty. My God, I can hardly believe it.
The joys of birthdays once you’re past a certain age, I suppose.
And on that note, I am. heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely, lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Or later; one never knows.
Ah, Monday morning and back into the office with me. I slept a little late yesterday, got up feeling very refreshed and rested, then spent the morning doing research, some touch-up chores, and some reading. I also did some writing before my 5 pm EST panel, moderated by the marvelous John Copenhaver and including four of my favorite queer writers: Robyn Gigl, Renee James, Kelly J. Ford, and Margot Douaihy. They were all brilliant, and I was my usual incoherent rambling mess who then proceeds to forget what the actual question was. I should probably prepare for these things, but why start now? After all, no matter how much I prepare, my co-panelists will always be incisive and insightful and intelligent and I will be….Gregalicious.
I did finish reading the remaining short stories in Alfred Hitchcock Presents My Favorites in Suspense, and enjoyed all three–and again, like the others, reminded me the only thing limiting my short stories in what I write about and try to accomplish is my own insecurities as a writer and laziness about doing research. The final three stories (“Treasure Trove” by F. Tennyson Jesse, “The Body of the Crime” by Wilbur Daniel Steele, and “A Nice Touch” by Mann Rubin) were all marvelous, all containing that delightfully nasty twist at the end that is so reminiscent of so much of Hitchcock’s television shows and anthologies. Reading these stories–these old anthologies–has really been quite an education in short story writing–and I’ve also learned a lot about my own limitations when it comes to my creativity and what is possible. I need to, as I said the other day, write precisely the things I don’t think I can, or have the knowledge or skillset to tackle. If it’s a research issue, write the fucking story first if the research is fucking intimidating and make the research part of the editing/revision process. It’s really not as hard as I make it out to be for myself all the fucking time, seriously.
If there’s a way to make it harder I can assure you I will find it.
I also read the first story in Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read With the Door Locked, “Hijack” by Robert L. Fish. Mr. Fish was a prolific short story writer, and his estate endowed Mystery Writers of America to present an award in his honor every year to an outstanding short story by a first time published author every year (Rob Osler won this last year, the first of a lot of award recognition for him; his debut novel Devil’s Chew Toy has turned up on almost every awards short-list for the year). “Hijack” is a story that doesn’t hold up well; airline and airport security measures have amped up in the decades since the World Trade Center was bombed for the first time back in 1993 or 1994; ur could have been 1995. All I know is 1) I was in Manhattan when it happened and 2) I was working at the airport when the new security protocols were put into place. There probably aren’t many of us around who remember the hijacking plague of the late 1960s and early 1970s; it seemed like almost every day a flight to Miami was being hijacked to Cuba. It was so commonplace it became part of popular culture; comedians and movies and television shows constantly making hijacking jokes. But it’s a very good story with, as always, the requisite twist that comes at the end (hilariously, the ransom demand is for $250,000–a lot of money when the story was written but practically nothing in terms of today’s money and wealth) which I wasn’t quite expecting; it’s not a spoiler because the story is at least forty years old so–turns out the crew hijacked the plane themselves and killed a passenger to frame for it. It actually could have worked back then, too–and it made me want to read more of Mr. Fish.
I intended to try to write or edit before the panel yesterday, but as always with something like this, I was too antsy and nervous to focus, so I spent most of the day doing some more research–old New Orleans, Mayan gods, homosexuality in old Hollywood–and cleaning and picking things up. I also ordered some more of these Arctic Air hydration coolers; they really work well, and if you freeze the filter, well, they blow extremely cold air. I have three from several years ago before we got the new a/c system (summer of 2020, it must have been, as we got the new system after Mardi Gras in 2021), but lost the power cord for one of them. I’ve had them going since Paul left and they’ve really helped in the kitchen. I also bought a really powerful if small fan for the living room while making groceries Saturday afternoon, and it is super powerful, too–I also ordered another of those, too. I know I sound like a wimp, but you try cooling down your house when the heat index is 120+ every day for weeks on end–and of course, the kitchen add-on is always so much hotter than the rest of the apartment.
I slept okay last night, feel a bit groggy this morning, but hopefully the coffee with work its magic on me and I’ll be wide awake by the time I get to the office this morning. I think we have a busy schedule, my supervisor is back from having COVID (haven’t see her in over a week), and of course, after work today I ordered some things from Sam’s Club to be delivered. Next week I have my meeting with the orthopedic surgeon to see when we can schedule my biceps surgery–assuming I need it, which I am pretty certain I do–and then after the recovery for that I can start exercising again. I have to remember I am older and more frail than I used to be, so getting back into shape in my sixties is going to take far longer and be more painful and slow than it was in my thirties when I did it the first time. I didn’t write anything all weekend (or for most of the week last week, really) so I need to get back on that horse this week as well. Bouchercon is looming on the horizon as well.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines and getting another cup of coffee. Have a great Monday and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
Queer and Loathing in America 