Category: working out

Sweet City Woman

Thursday and I survived Pay-the-Bills Day relatively unscathed. It’s lovely to be able to pay the bills and not have any stressors or worries about being able to pay them, you know? I ran some errands after work yesterday–picking up the mail and a prescription–and it was a lovely mail day. I got my copy of Chris Holm’s new better-than-Michael-Crichton Child Zero, which I read in ARC form and loved, as well as the first book in Sherry Harris’ Seaglass Inn series, From Beer to Eternity (which is, let’s face it, a great title). We watched the new episode of Candy last night (they really have nailed the set and costume designs for this show, seriously–this is probably the best depiction of suburban hell circa late 70’s/early 80’s that I’ve seen–I said to Paul last night, “everything about this show is the life I didn’t want when I grew up”) and then started watching The Baby on HBO MAX, which is weirdly disturbing and kind of great? The episodes are short and it’s very macabre, and we are really enjoying it a lot. We watched the first three episodes, and I am not really sure what precisely the show is about…but the central premise: a single woman who doesn’t want children–and resents her friends who have had them–winds up in possession of a baby that is, at best, incredibly bad luck and causes injury and/or death to people around it, and at worst, is some kind of little demon that deliberately causes injury and/or death to the people it selects.

What a great concept!

I slept well again last night–I am starting to get used to this sleeping well thing and it worries me a little; like the insomnia is going to come roaring back unexpectedly the moment I start taking sleep for granted again–so I feel pretty good this morning. We’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we? Anyway, I worked for a bit yesterday on “Smoky Mountain Rest Stop” and I also started working on a potential project on spec; it’s a book idea I’ve had for about ten years or more now (it really scares me to see how fast the last decade or so has passed by–let alone this year) so I feel like I am starting to get someplace again with everything, but then again, it only takes one day to fuck everything up and start the downward spiral again, which is always unpleasant and not helpful in any way. I didn’t make the to-do list yesterday as I originally intended; I’ll have to do that this morning, but I am making progress on emails and on other things I am doing, so I feel like I am actually getting somewhere–even if the to-do list continues to grow exponentially. It’s also starting to get warmer–the temps are into the 80’s and low 90’s again already, but so far the humidity hasn’t swept in like the horror it is, but that will be coming sooner rather than later. I need to start back to the gym again too–I’m starting to feel the tightness of my muscles again, which means they need not only stretching but to be worked again. I do feel scattered–it’s amazing how putting a to-do list can eliminate that feeling, really–which is why I really need to make it a priority this morning between clients.

Heavy heaving sigh. I really am terrible about being organized anymore, so I keep missing things and can’t find them and then have to depend on my memory–which isn’t the greatest anymore, but I probably shouldn’t say that; I’ve always had to write things down and have been making to-do lists since I was in my thirties, when I started buying the hardbound blank books to keep as journals and for writing down book ideas and entertaining myself between flights when I worked at the airport. That seems like a million years ago, doesn’t it? But it terms of technology and so forth, it practically was. Personal computers were still in their infancy, as was the Internet–the best you could do with it was dial-up back then–and everyone still had a landline and voicemail (some people still had answering machines) and the idea of streaming things to your television? We were still renting videos at Blockbuster and Hollywood Videos then, and if someone had told me I would have a phone one day that was basically not only a handheld computer but would also replace the need for a stereo system and could contain not just my entire music collection but a library of books I would have laughed my ass off at them. I still don’t utilize my phone as completely as I could and should, but that’s just the way it is. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to use all the functions of my phone…ha ha ha, just kidding.

But it’s Thursday already and I have a lot to get done before the close of the week. Nothing terrible–edits and so forth, reading Ellen’s book for the event on Sunday (I’m not terribly worried; Ellen is a pro and all I need to do is give her a story prompt and she’ll entertain the audience)–and I’d like to get this story whipped into shape over the course of the weekend as well. Not sure if all of this is indeed possible–certainly not when I get home from work too tired to do much of anything other than become one with the easy chair and watch stuff on Youtube and television–but here’s hoping.

I need to make that to-do list.

And now back to the spice mines. Happy Thursday, everyone!

Another Day

Sunday morning and I slept really well again. I woke up, as always, at just before seven, but stayed in bed lazily until nearly eight–when nature’s call became too much to be ignored for longer. But I have a nice fresh hot cup of coffee, a long Sunday with a lot to do and/or get done today (I also need to run to the grocery store this morning, which is always so exhausting) but I suspect that i can get everything I need to get done, done. Yesterday morning I spent some time with the Carol Goodman novel (which is really and truly spectacularly well done), went to do my self-care (which was lovely) and then picked up the mail and headed home to spend some time doing things. I did the bed linens, emptied the dishwasher and did another load (that needs to be emptied this morning) and also got some things organized for my next writing project. I did the Spirit of Ink interview at 2, as scheduled, and then when I was finished with that I was drained, as I knew I would be, so I did some more file organizing before retiring to my easy chair with my journal to make notes for Mississippi River Mischief, which I am also starting to get excited about writing (which is a lovely change from the usual, where I dread writing any and every thing).

So, overall, I was quite pleased with my Friday. Since we’d finished or gotten caught up on everything else we had started watching, we decided to binge through season two of The Hardy Boys on Hulu, which I am enjoying. Is it the Hardy Boys of my childhood? No, but neither was the 1970’s show with Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy. I belong to several kids’ series groups on Facebook (they are very interesting people; I’ve always wanted to write a book about kids’ series fandom) and they were, of course, quite unhappy with this adaptation (but not NEARLY as up-in-arms as they were about the Nancy Drew television series, in which Nancy actually has sex with Ned–who’s Black in the show–in the very first episode). Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but I don’t expect adaptations to match us precisely to the source material, and whether people in their fifties and sixties want to admit to it or not, both series in their original forms are horribly dated today. I did enjoy the show’s nods to the canon series throughout–one of the villains was named McFarlane (Leslie McFarlane ghost-wrote many of the original books) and the bad company is Stratemeyer Global (the Stratemeyer Syndicate created and owned both series, among many others), and there was also a single throwaway line at one point about “what happened at midnight” (which is one of the titles of the original canonical series); so that was all a bit fun for me. Even as I watched, I kept remembering all the dog-whistles of the fan group–disguised as “dedication to the original canon” of course–but when you use words like woke and so forth, your bigotry and personal biases are kind of put right out there on display.

And I can only imagine how upset they are that Aunt Gertrude (Trudy on the show) is a lesbian…which actually makes canonical sense, to be honest.

But it was a very pleasant way to waste the rest of the day, frankly, and I felt pretty marvelous when I went to bed last evening. I am really enjoying my sleep lately, which is marvelous, and lately I am feeling very–I don’t know, optimistic?–about my career and my future as a writer, which is always a plus. I am still waiting for my edits on A Streetcar Named Murder, and to hear back about my short story, but I am feeling pretty good about myself this morning (let’s see how long that lasts, shall we?) and tomorrow evening i am going to make a semi-triumphant return to the gym. This morning I am going to spend some time with The Lake of Dead Languages, and then I am going to head out to the grocery store, probably around elevenish, so I can come home and do some more writing and organizing and so forth. I am going to try to bang out a draft of a new manuscript by mid-June, and then I want to spend until August 1 finishing a first draft of Chlorine, at which point I will most likely have to start really working on Mississippi River Mischief. That’s a pretty good schedule, if I can stick to it–and then of course there are any number of short stories I want to get written in the meantime. There are two submission calls I saw recently (with very tight deadlines) I’d like to get something submitted to–but then it always comes down to time and motivation–both of which I am good at failing at–so it’s all going to depend, I suppose. But I am going to get organized here in my office space before retiring to read for the rest of the morning, which hopefully will mean productivity. We also need something new to watch, since we’ve binged our way through everything already–but there are any number of shows that dropped since the beginning of the year that we’d like to see that we never got around to, and more are coming out all the time.

I also want to rewatch Heartstopper at some point, so I can finish my post about it at some point. I really need to get those old unfinished posts finished and posted at some point, don’t I? I also have a bad review of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not to finish as well as a review of Marco Carocari’s marvelous Blackout, as well as some ruminations about the resurgence of anti-queer political homophobia which hs reared its ugly head again.

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

Mr. Bojangles

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I am kind of excited about the weekend if I am being honest. It’s nice, for one thing, to be able to sleep in a bit this morning and tomorrow; I do have some things to do today (one is doing something personal for myself; along the lines of important self-care) and of course, I am doing an on-line interview with Spirit of Ink’s Jaden Terrell as well (she’s actually quite lovely, too; I can’t believe how many years I’ve known her now). Tomorrow I have to probably go run some errands–I am hoping after my interview today I will make it to the gym, after which I will come home to curl up with Carol Goodman’s The Lake of Lost Languages with an eye to finishing it. It really is good, y’all; I hate that it’s taking me so damned long to get it done, really. I also have some other blog posts I need to finish and post–I’ve got to stop starting blog entries and then not finishing and saving them as drafts and then never going back and finishing and/or posting them; every time I go to the draft page here those unfinished entries reproach me, and they’re getting MEANER the more time goes by. Like I really need to be shamed and mocked by unfinished blog posts?

Bastards, really.

So, as I mentioned, we finished watching Minx earlier this week. I had started this during my festival widowhood, had some initial issues with it (still kind of have those original issues, to be fair) but somewhere around the third or fourth episode the show hit its stride and I started to really enjoy it. (It’s also a stark reminder that women had little to no rights less than fifty years ago, and thanks to the fuckhead judicial activists on the “supreme Court”–which should now always be put in quotes as the fucking joke it actually is, as well as supreme should henceforth be in all lower-case–those rights are about to be taken away in the service of an incredibly anti-American authoritarian agenda by the party of “small government”…yeah) The premise behind the show is simple: an ardent feminist and journalist wants to launch a new magazine for feminists called The Matriarchy Awakens (yes, that is actually what she is calling it) while working the subscription line at a magazine for teen girls. She believes that women–once they are aware of what feminism is really about–want and need such a magazine, to enlighten them about their own oppression and to learn more about their own power and equality. The show opens with her going to a weird fair where magazine companies take pitches for new magazines (is this something that really used to happen?) and of course, none of the old white men take her seriously or see anything of potential in her magazine. While she is waiting to go inside, she meets a pig of a man who actually produces porn magazines…long story short he offers to publish her magazine with the catch that she needs photo spreads of nude male models inside–“why shouldn’t a woman get to look at a dong if they want to?” Naturally, she is horrified…and then the Burt Reynolds issue of Cosmopolitan comes out and she realizes that it could, indeed, be empowering for women to look at naked men–but the editorial content will have a very strong feminist bent, and that empowering female sexuality should also be a part of feminism. As I mentioned in my earliest commentary on the show, I disliked the trope of the uptight feminist woman who needs to loosen up and enjoy herself–and her own sexuality–more; but it was handled a lot better than I thought it would be; it wasn’t the tired old “she just needs to get laid” thing. There are also a lot of male dongs shown in this; I wasn’t expecting the parade of penises as they look for their first centerfold–but there was nothing salacious or even erotic about the dongs on this show; they were just…dicks. But the show continued to improve with each episode, and it–along with Physical, which we didn’t finish–is a stark reminder of just how shitty it was to be a woman in this country back then (somewhat better now, but not even remotely close to where it needs to be, frankly).

It also made me think it would be interesting to see a documentary about how Playgirl got started and its journey over the years until it finally ceased publication. (I have an idea about a noirish type thriller set in the 1970’s about the struggle against prohibitions on porn called Obscenity, which is part of what I call The Chlorine Quartet.)

We also started watching The Offer last night, which is about the making of The Godfather, from the point of view of producer Albert Ruddy. I knew a lot of this material already–Mario Puzo had already documented the writing and selling of the book, and then the making of the movie, in a long-forgotten book called The Godfather Papers back after the movie was released and hailed as an instant classic; which included his memories, diary entries, and correspondence. I read the book (I mean The Godfather) when I was about eleven or twelve years old; I don’t really remember. My father had the paperback edition with the black cover and the white print, with the image of the hand holding the puppeteer’s strings, and I also recall one summer while visiting relatives in the South one of my cousins had a copy that had all the “dirty parts” dog-eared–so I had read about Lucy Mancini’s bizarre vagina problems before I actually sat down and read the book. I’ve been meaning to go back and reread it; it’s been called a turgid potboiler melodrama, trash, you name it–but if nothing else, it was a really good read. Obviously this is one of the cases where the film was better than the book, and I’ve been meaning to watch the movies again at some point, but it’s such a time commitment…

We also got caught up on this week’s Under the Banner of Heaven, which is twisted and bizarre. I’ve never read the book, despite being a fan of Jon Krakauer, so I don’t know where this is going, and I am very tempted to go back and read the book now.

I slept well last night (as I am sure some of you are wondering about; like anyone really cares whether I can sleep or not) and so feel pretty good this morning. I have a lot of things to get done around here before my appointment at 11:15–the sink is full of dishes; the dishwasher is also full with clean dishes to put away; I am doing laundry; and at some point the trash needs to be taken out–and of course I need to make lists so I know what all I have to get done over the course of this weekend.

Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I’d best head into the spice mines and make another cup of coffee. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader.

Spanish Harlem

Friday morning at last, and I am a more than a little happy to see this reentry week put to rest in the archives, if I am being completely honest. Reentry weeks are always a bit of a disruption, and the older I get the weird transition from one side of my life to the other inevitably becomes more difficult. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the different sides so much–I always feel that the day-to-day life, so disparate and different from the “writer” public life–is good for keeping me grounded as well as keeping my ego in check. After all, you could get whiplash going from being on-stage at the Edgars as the executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America back to lower-level clinic employee (although that’s really not a fair statement about my day job; my day job–while not in management or supervision–is actually important and I do help every one of my clients in a positive way every day; it’s just a vastly different enterprise than my life as a writer and/or everything that is involved, even peripherally, with that).

We finished watching Harry Wild, the new Jane Seymour crime series on Acorn and highly recommend it. Seymour is terrific in the leading role, and everyone in the supporting cast is also good. The young Black teenager who originally mugs her in the first episode eventually becomes her Watson, and they are great together. Paul and I, like so many Americans, are absolute suckers for British crime series, and now that we’ve (alas) finished Harry Wild, we’ll probably go ahead and finish Severance this weekend–we’re very close to the end of the first season, and I do find the show to be both interesting and disturbing at the same time; while I can see why the “severance” would be appealing to people–the utter and complete separation of day-job from personal life–at the same time it would seem incredibly weird and unsettling to me; not knowing what I did the rest of the time? It is interesting, and obviously there are deeper questions about morality and bodily autonomy here as well–and given what’s going on in this country at the current moment, it’s very timely.

I have big plans for this weekend. I have some self-care scheduled for tomorrow morning, and I am also doing an interview/event for Spirit of Ink on Saturday afternoon. I want to finish reading my Carol Goodman novel (it really is quite delicious); I need to do some writing; and of course, there’s always cleaning and organizing that needs to be done. We also had some horrific thunderstorms over night–I don’t remember if I woke up during the storms or not; the same thing happened Wednesday night and I do remember waking up to thunder; I think it was Wednesday night rather than last, honestly. I’ve really been sleeping great lately, and it’s marvelous. I still get terribly tired on the days I have to get up early–I don’t think that will ever change, frankly–but I am adjusting. I actually am planning on returning to the gym this weekend as well; I am hopeful that getting my act together and working out again will also help make me feel better, sleep better, and get more done. I’m really tired of carrying around this extra weight and not being in tip-top shape, but also have to recognize that it will take far longer than it used to now that I am older. It would probably go faster also if I started eating healthier…but I think we know how that is going to go, don’t we?

Yeah, not going to happen. I can try, but make no promises. I like fat and grease and breading and so forth too much to put my vanity (and it’s really not about vanity anymore, really) ahead of what pleasures I get from eating, to be honest. My relationship with food has always been skewed–so has my relationship with my body and my appearance, which I really need to write about sometime–and I always have to worry about my tendency to fall into compulsive/obsessive behavior (I really need to try to continue channeling those quirks of my personality into my writing and promotion of my career) when it comes to exercise and eating and so forth.

Ah, Greg’s personality problems and issues.

I turned my story into the anthology yesterday, and also found another (very short) call for submissions for another anthology I’d like to work on something for. I think my story turned out okay; it needs some tweaking and so forth, perhaps, but I am hoping the editors do like it. I also want to get a couple of other stories I’d also like to starting sending out to various markets to see if anyone wants them; it’s been a hot minute since I’ve sent anything out to other markets rather than the occasional anthology submission call. I wrote a story to submit to Land of 10000 Crimes, the Bouchercon anthology I am currently co-editing, but finally decided to not send in anything for the blind read; I made it past the blind reads in the last two anthologies I edited for Bouchercon, but I kind of got the impression (and it could be wrong; I tend to expect people to be critical and snarky of me and my work) that the fact that I made it past the blind reads on the anthologies I personally edited might look weird and/or suspicious to people on the outside–suuuuuuuure you made it through the blind read–but at the same time, I didn’t help myself by never submitting stories to the Bouchercon anthologies I wasn’t editing. But my story in Blood on the Bayou was a Macavity Award finalist, and my story in Florida Happens was an Anthony finalist, so that sort of makes it seem like my stories were worthy of being published?

But I can certainly get why it’s for the best that I didn’t submit anything to the anthology. But I also really like my story, “The Sound of Snow Falling,” and I’d like to get that out for submission; it’s pretty close to being finished and perhaps maybe one more go-round with it could be in order. There are a few others I’d also like to get out for submission as well–“Death and the Handmaidens” is certainly one of those–and so I am going to add that to my weekend to-do list; look at the some of the almost-completed stories I have on hand, and see which ones can be sent out next week. It’s never a bad idea to keep my hand in, you know.

And now that I am sort of feeling like myself again. I might as well ride this train as far as it will take me before it goes off the rails again.

Have a happy Friday, Constant Reader..

Yo-Yo

A little bleary this Monday work at home morning–another good night’s sleep in the books–and my morning coffee should do the trick–and thus I will be reacclimated back to my normal life and some sort of what passes for my normal reality and real life again. I had a very relaxing day yesterday trying to unwind from the trip and get my land legs, as it were, back; I got some things done yet not enough, which is par for the course. Paul and I also finished Ozark–I imagine its ending is controversial; I wasn’t really surprised by it, to be honest–and dove back into Severance, which is truly bizarre and a very slow, unemotional burn–and then we both went to bed early. I have to work at home today and run a couple of errands at some point (Scooter needs to be retrieved from the kitty spa and I need to get the mail and groceries), as well as my work-at-home duties (data to enter, condoms to pack) and all kinds of others things. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get to everything i need to go to, but sometimes you just need to keep your head down and work your way through your to-do list.

The trip last week was invigorating and definitely raised my spirits; it was a needed and necessary reconnection with my crime community, which was marvelous. It is terrible and sad that I haven’t seen some of my friends in nearly (if not more than) four years; my last pre-pandemic appearance out of town was Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, so 2018. That’s a very long time to be away from connecting with the community and could be a significant part of the strange distance I’ve been feeling from…well, everywhere, to be honest. It was lovely dressing up (even if the pants I wore two weeks earlier in Albuquerque were suddenly strangely tighter in the waist) and putting on nice clothes; I also survived my brief stint at the podium on Edgar night. (The temptation to drink was very strong, but I declined all alcohol until I was off-stage.)

But now, it’s Monday morning after and the afterglow has somewhat faded and we are back to the cold harsh light of reality this morning. I have writing to do and chores and all kinds of other tasks and things to do. I am speaking as a guest at Spirit of Ink on Saturday; being interviewed by Jaden Terrell, whom I’ve known for years since we were both on the MWA board together. That’ll be nice, and I think at some point this week that Ira Levin ZOOM thing I did from my room in New York will be up and available somewhere on-line (I’ll share the link should I ever get one; it was a bit fun talking about Ira Levin and surprise twists). I am not feeling terribly overwhelmed this morning, or daunted; that will come soon enough, no doubt–it always does–but I am feeling a lot better about the non-stop Imposter Syndrome that is pretty much my entire life these days. It’s also gorgeous outside; it’s May so the heat is back and the humidity won’t be far behind; nor will the stinging caterpillars and the swarms of Formosan termites that generally return with Mother’s Day like the swallows of Capistrano.

And soon it will be summer, with the sweating and the misery and the high Entergy bills. But I want to also start working out again more regularly (it’s been a hot minute since I’ve set foot in the gym, so I am going to have to slowly start working my way back into it again, Jesus) and should probably start eating more healthy; the tightness of the waist of my pants at the Edgars was yet another signal that it’s only going to get harder to lose weight the older I get (which is sadly true for everyone–so don’t keep putting off your fitness regimen, people–don’t be Gregalicious) but I think discipline and dedication will do the trick.

And on that note, I think I am going to get another cup of coffee and try to dive into my emails before I have to start working. Have a splendid Monday, Constant Reader–I will be back here at the crack of dawn tomorrow as I ease back into my day job at the office.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

And what a fucking glorious night THAT must have been, seriously. I’ve always found it interesting that Joan Baez of all people recorded that song and made it a hit. Maybe I should take a look at the lyrics to see how they look from a modern perspective? That’s a thought. There’s so many things we didn’t even notice were problematic back in the day in our comfortable privilege. (I don’t think I can ever watch Sixteen Candles again, honestly, and it was one of my favorite movies. I’m not so sure what that says about me, either.)

Today is another day in the office; I am not sure but I think I have to help out with testing during the needle exchange program today–like I said, I don’t know, but I will be there if they need me. I have other things to do at the office–most of which feels a bit like ‘make-work,’ if I am going to be completely honest, but it’s also tedious little chores that need to be done, and so I might as well do it to fill my day otherwise it may not get done after all. This has been a very weird week for me; I’ve been tired most of the week when I get off work so I’ve not really been getting as much done as I need to be getting done, which means I really need to get motivated for this weekend. I can do that, of course…it’s not always easy, but I can do it. I just have to work on not getting distracted.

Which isn’t as easy as it may sound on paper. (SQUIRREL!!!)

We watched The Batman last night on HBO MAX and I have to say, I really thought it was outstanding. It was nice seeing Gotham City looking like, you know, an actual city as opposed to the dystopic nightmare it has been in almost every Batman film since Tim Burton first brought the Dark Knight to the silver screen back in the 80’s. I also am very impressed with Robert Pattinson, who might be the most interesting iteration of the character yet–and seriously, how did the sparkly vampire from Twilight turn into one of the most interesting and talented young actors of our time? Zoe Kravitz can also be added to the list of well-cast Catwomen from over the years, and there was actually a plot to follow that involved Batman using his investigative skills to solve the mystery and find the Riddler–another excellent take I’d given up on seeing on the big screen–and overall, I didn’t really notice that the movie was nearly three hours long because I could follow the plot, it made sense, and the character arcs were well developed. I think we’re going to rent the most recent Spider-Man (No Way Home) this weekend–I do love Tom Holland–and then we need to figure out something else to watch. A lot of good stuff dropped during the Festival and its aftermath–so we can have our choices of things to watch for quite some time, methinks, which will be really nice. BUT I HAVE TO GET WORK DONE THIS WEEKEND BEFORE I LEAVE FOR NEW YORK OTHERWISE IT WON’T GET DONE UNTIL I GET BACK AND THAT IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE.

Most of all, I need to get that fucking short story written.

I really need to get motivated to get writing again–and I need to start going back to the gym as well. My weight hasn’t fluctuated very much since I went down to 200 and ballooned back up to 212 again; I’ve been a pretty steady 210-212 since then, and while I always thought that 200 would probably be the best weight for me, maybe my body is telling me 210 is where it prefers to be? I know I could, with discipline and hard work and proper eating, maybe get back to below 200 but my word, what a lot of work that would be and since I really no longer obsess about how my body looks (one way in which getting older has been beneficial; I really do not miss those days of body dysmorphia and constantly berating myself for not looking like a Calvin Klein underwear model), I don’t think I have the dedication anymore to do that again. It’s hard enough finding the time to go to the gym in the first place, let alone start eating in a different way and counting carbs and all of that nonsense. No thanks, not for me this time around, thank you very much. I suspect that the mild depression I’ve been dealing with over this last month or so has a lot to do with the not-writing and not-working out aspects of my life. That loss of serotonin probably has everything to do with it. I really need to focus.

I also still haven’t picked out my next read. I am thinking about rereading something–or maybe I am going to give Hemingway another try (Don’t Know Tough had a whole thing about the main character reading The Old Man and the Sea–which, along with A Farewell to Arms, I was forced to read in high school which gave me a deep and abiding distaste for Hemingway). I have a copy of To Have and Have Not, which is, in theory, Hemingway’s only crime novel–it was certainly made into a classic Bogart/Bacall movie–but every time I think about Hemingway I groan inside. But maybe now I am old enough to appreciate Hemingway–I also read Fitzgerald when I was too young, but I’ve always enjoyed Faulkner, which is weird. Maybe because he writes about the rural South? I’ve wanted to give Sanctuary another go for quite some time now as well.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a happy Friday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

A Reason to Believe

Work at home Friday, and I actually slept in till seven! A whole extra hour! (Don’t think I didn’t wake up right at six in the morning, though…) It looks like a sunny April first out there–cannot believe it’s actually April already. It’s very strange to wake up on Friday morning and look at a normal weekend for the first time in a long time–one where there’s not a looming deadline hanging over my head, the Festivals are done for a year, and I can actually relax and try to get those odds-and-ends that have been hanging around that I never seem to be able to get around to taken care of–if I am lucky. We need to make a Costco run, and Scooter has to go in for bi-annual “senior kitty” check-up. I need to get my story worked on a bit too this weekend, and maybe I can shoehorn in some other writing as well. I also want to spend some time with that Chris Holm novel, knowing I will most likely be sucked into it and won’t get anything else done over the course of the weekend.

It happens.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I was in a good mood and had energy most of the day–petering out as the day come to a close, as always–and left the office later than I usually do, resulting in the horror and frustration of being caught in rush hour CBD traffic on the way home. My office really is in probably one of the most inconvenient places in the city for me to get to; the old office on Frenchmen Street was only slightly easier to get to–but it still involved driving through both the CBD and the Quarter. Now that we’re further downtown, you’d think it would be easier–I live near an on-ramp to the highway system, and the office is right off the Claiborne exit on I-10 East; it can take me as little as five minutes to get there in the mornings (if I hit the lights properly, which never happens). But I can’t take the highway on the way home–because I have to use the I-10 interchange with Highway 90 to the West Bank (the twin spans) and the traffic is usually backed up almost all the way to the on-ramp at Claiborne Avenue), which is a nightmare all day every day, but is especially horrible in the later afternoon when everyone is getting off work. So I either take Claiborne Avenue all the way uptown to get the mail and make groceries on my way home, or I just take Claiborne to Orleans, head through Treme to the CBD on Loyola, turn onto Howard Avenue and that leads me to Tivoli Circle and St. Charles and BOOM I am home. Unfortunately, yesterday Loyola had a lane blocked by three streetcars that were just parked at the Poydras intersection (the absolute worst place, traffic wise) and as such, it was after five when I got home. I did some laundry, unpacked my backpack, and sank into my easy chair. Scooter climbed into my lap, cuddled and purred and fell asleep, and that was the end of that for all intents and purposes. I watched this week’s Superman and Lois–it really is a good show–and then switched over to Young Justice, which is incredibly well done; with each new episode I not only marvel at the storylines they’ve devised but the strong character building the writers manage, eventually going to bed around ten.

I am also hoping to return to the gym for the first time in a while. Yes, I will be heading out to Albuquerque next week, but I also can make it to the gym a few times before I do. I need to remember that I enjoy working out and that it feels good when I do. Plus, it’s lighter out later now, so I don’t have to walk there and back in the dark anymore. It’s not that I feel unsafe or anything, but walking around back streets in the neighborhood can sometimes be a bit on the creepy side; the problem of having a vivid imagination is that you can never really turn it off. Which is why I have files and files and files of book and novella and short story ideas…and keep having more every damned day. I had another great idea yesterday, in fact–well, I do like to believe all my ideas are brilliant, let’s be completely honest–which I dutifully made note of in my journal at work and expanded on it a bit for a couple of pages, but even as I closed the journal I thought, well, when precisely are you going to write this book, Gregalicious? Heavy heaving sigh. I do want to get a lot of writing done this year….and I need to stop beating myself up because my writing “muscles” are tired and need to rest for a bit.

It happens.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Tossin’ And Turnin’

I’ve been sleeping well lately, which I suppose means I’ve not been wicked for awhile? Isn’t it “no rest for the wicked?” (I’ve also always considered Ways to Be Wicked one of my potential memoir titles; one of many, to be true, but maybe when I retire I’ll write a memoir every year! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

If that didn’t send a chill down your spine…well, it should have.

Shudder. I can’t imagine anything more terrifying.

I had appointments and things yesterday, so I took a personal day from the day job and decided–once I was home, having been poked and prodded and all those lovely, distasteful things that are chalked up as “routine maintenance” on an sixty-year-old car–to take a Gregalicious day yesterday; no emails, no day job duties (I had taken the day off, after all) and little to no Internet for most of the day. I wanted to focus on me and my own work for the rest of the day, without any distractions or interference from other places (and yes, that kind of has put me a bit behind on the to-do list, but that’s okay; I also remember and realize that stress and pressure are mindkillers; they induce paralysis and keep me from moving ahead by allowing me to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things I have to get done. And once I kicked it into gear, I got a lot done yesterday. I reread the most recent drafts of six short stories that are stalled and I’ve been unable to unlock to secret to solving the problems to make them publishable; for whatever reason yesterday I was able to divorce myself from those creations and edit/review them with a very cold and distant eye. The result? I solved those problems, was able to write extensive notes on how to make them stronger and better stories for the next round of revisions, and even came up with notes on one that is in progress and needs to be turned in by the end of April. Huzzah!

Today I am back in the office, and while the return to the gym I’ve been wanting to make hasn’t happened quite yet (as I said, I really went into the world of self-editing yesterday and by the time I’d gotten through everything I was working on, it was too late to go to the gym), I am hopeful it will be soon enough (maybe this weekend; we shall see). I also continued watching Young Justice last night, which I am really enjoying. It’s sort of another take (with a different title) on Teen Titans, a comic I loved when I was younger (kind of like how Super Friends was the Saturday morning version of Justice League, but don’t get me started on how stupid that show was and how it undermined canon characters who were actually cool in the comics but bad on the show–cough cough, Aquaman, cough cough–but Young Justice, while geared clearly for a younger audience, doesn’t talk down to them the way Super Friends did. The show kicks off with the sidekicks being brought to the Hall of Justice–all of them expecting to become members of the Justice League now, only to discover it’s just step one of the journey and they actually aren’t going to be involved in any cases/adventures for the League. Speedy walks out, and the remaining three sidekicks (Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad) decide to answer an emergency call about a fire a Cadmus Labs, which leads them to the clone of Superman; whom they release. Lots of action and adventure end with Cadmus Labs being taken down and the clone becoming Superboy; the older heroes decide to give them an abandoned League facility for their own headquarters and add another young hero to the group: Miss Martian (a really stupid name), who is the niece of the Martian Manhunter.

(One thing I really like about this show is that it doesn’t just show the big names in the League but the lesser ones–Martian Manhunter, Red Tornado, etc.–as being active and vital members of the League. Well done, adapters!)

I am also hoping that when I get home from the office tonight I can spend some more time withAlex Segura’s marvelous Secret Identity. Next up will be Chris Holm’s Child Zero, and then I am not sure which treasure to pluck from the TBR pile. But I have a lot to get done this week and I need to get ready for work, so I am going to bring this to a close. Have a happy Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Joy to the World

Sunday morning after probably the best sleep I’ve had in quite some time; it felt lovely, and I am still a bit groggy as I sip my first coffee of the morning. Yesterday was a good day–not a great one–and so this morning I am going to work on some things I didn’t get around to yesterday; running errands, even as briefly as I did yesterday, always seems to throw me off my game for the rest of the day. I did get some cleaning done, did get some organizing done, and today I am going to have to finish those edits and maybe do some reading and cleaning and organizing. Tomorrow morning I am going to get up early and take the car in for an oil change–there’s no end to the excitement around here–and it’s also apparently the first day of spring today. Yay!

We finally were able to watch the latest Scream last night, and we really enjoyed it. I thought it was fairly clever–I also wasn’t really sure how they could do another one–but the meta humor was absolutely there (“it’s a requel! Not a reboot but not a sequel! THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT!”) as well as “I’m Sidney fucking Prescott, of course I have a gun.” Scream was the first slasher movie I saw that I really and truly enjoyed; I loved the addition of humor (that danced very close to the edge of camp but never quite crossed over) in addition to the tension and suspense. We also watched the first episode of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window or whatever the hell the title is. It’s not bad, but it’s not great, either. Kristen Bell is so eminently likable that it’s easy to watch her (although I kept waiting for her to say that’s a secret I’ll never tell, xoxo Gossip Girl), but it seemed a bit slow. I was, however, impressed with the fact that it’s parody being played absolutely seriously; the title alone tells me it’s parody, but if you go in expecting something along the lines of Airplane! or Police Squad–which is what I thought it was–you’re going to be disappointed. I am not sure if we’ll keep watching–I might, Paul is moving into the hotel on Wednesday and I’ll be home alone until Sunday evening–which means lots of boredom and lots of free time to get things done, I suppose.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I did make my to-do list yesterday so I can start working my way through it this morning. Yay! Always a plus. There’s supposed to be bad weather today, but right now the sun is out and it’s definitely New Orleans spring out there somehow, which is lovely and nice. I should start trying to make it back to the gym more regularly now; definitely should head over there today after I get some things done around here before the afternoon–reading and editing, being worn from working out inevitably keeps me from being productive after I get home; although I suppose I could go later in the day. Decisions, decisions. But it will make me feel a lot better–always a plus–and it should also help me sleep better as well. I am not sure what my work-at-home day tomorrow is going to be like; I may end up having to take the day off depending on how the oil change and so forth goes. (Maybe I should wait until next week. I can’t decide. My oil life still has about 20% use before it becomes a problem; I just worry it will become a problem on a day of the week that I have to work and can’t take it in immediately.) Decisions, decisions….

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and enjoy your first day of spring.

This Is The Story

Wednesday and pay the bills day. Yay? Yay. At least I can pay them. I remember the days when I had to juggle them, and I frankly do not miss that at all.

I had another poor night of sleep last night but I don’t feel terribly tired this morning, which makes no sense. I even got up out of bed earlier than usual. I woke up several times during the night–which is the worst, really–and yes, checking my Fitbit confirms that I am correct; last night was a shitty night’s sleep. I am sure I will be tired this afternoon, yay. Ah, well, at least I am coming straight home from work tonight and have no errands to run. Yesterday I wasn’t all that tired when I got home. I did some editing on a manuscript (not mine), and I also got my copy of Secret Identity by Alex Segura yesterday–a very good mail week, since Monday brought me the ARC of Chris Holm’s Child Zero; I know what the next two books I’ll be reading will be. Yay! I also have some chores to do around the Lost Apartment tonight when I get home. If I get home early enough I really should go to the gym, though. My body could use the exercise, and maybe that would help me sleep better tonight.

It’s supposedly going to be colder today than it was yesterday; I had to turn the air on when I got home from work because it was very stuffy in the Lost Apartment. You gotta love March in New Orleans! Although I suppose by May I’ll be longing for the bipolar March weather, won’t I?

But I am getting things done and making progress, which is always a lovely thing. I sent the most recent edit of my manuscript to my editor–there are still some issues, methinks, but nothing that I can’t eventually fix. I realized last night one of the problems–probably the primary problem–I have whenever I write a book is that I will think I wrote something when I actually just thought about it; I know things that I don’t share with the reader and that I need to share with them. I also never catch these things in the rereads and revisions, either, because I already know them. This is why I can’t ever not be edited, really.

I also realized last night while editing this other book that I am sort of between books now; this one is in its last stages and I’ve not really started even thinking much about the next Scotty (which I really need to start doing, actually; it even occurred to me last night that after I finish this edit and get my taxes together, I could start working on the Scotty Bible I’ve been meaning to pull together to make life easier for me going forward writing those books…). I know I wanted to work on Chlorine and possibly revise one of those longer novellas in April. There are four short stories I also need to work on for places I want to submit them–it’s been a hot minute since I sent a story out into the world–but I am also in this very strange place where the relaxation from the stress/worry about the manuscript hasn’t really sunk in to me just yet. I’m not sure what’s causing the insomnia, but I think maybe I need to mix up the sleeping assistance things that I take.

And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.