Category: writing

Caroline

It is grim and dreary and windy outside this morning; gray and kind of nasty–the kind of day where you are grateful to stay inside and not ever leave (as of right now, my plan for the day is to stay inside and only go outside to take out the trash if I have to). I got all of my Christmas shopping done Friday and mailed the gifts that needed to go yesterday after I saw (drum roll please) Rogue One.

I. LOVED. It.

I woke up feeling crappy yesterday; congested and mildly feverish. In fact, had I not already bought the ticket on-line I would have probably changed my mind and stayed home. But I needed to mail my presents and stop at the grocery store, and had already paid for the ticket…so I went. (It did occur to me that if I was contagious, I could possibly Typhoid Mary the entire theater; but I wasn’t coughing or sneezing, and I didn’t have to turn over money or make physical contact with anyone. It wasn’t crowded, either–it was a ten a.m. show; so I made sure I sat by myself where no one else was sitting. So there.)

I will admit I was incredibly disappointed at the beginning when the big STAR WARS logo didn’t appear nor did they play the theme music; and I will readily admit I was a bit pouty about it. It kind of, for me, got off to a bit of a slow start which was necessary in order to provide back story, but once it got going, it was great fun. I’ll see it again, undoubtedly (Paul is seeing it with his mother this weekend, so I didn’t go see it without him; his mom suggested it last week when he talked to her, and so that was when I bought my ticket.)

Although after running my errands, I felt much worse than I did when I woke up. I tried to write but couldn’t, and finally abandoned the effort, retiring to my easy chair and my book. I finished reading it, then watched the last few episodes of Medici: Masters of Florence, another couple of episodes of The Man in the High Castle (season two started out kind of slowly but has definitely picked up steam), and another show I’ve been watching on-line: Yuri On Ice.

Yuri On Ice is a Japanese anime television series about Yuri Katsuki, a Japanese male figure skater. The show opens with him finishing last at the Grand Prix final, and questioning whether he should just retire. He is considered to be Japan’s best male skater, but he also is shy and introverted, with very little self-confidence, and also suffers from crushing self-doubt and anxiety, which is why he performs poorly. After graduating from college in Detroit, he returns home to his small home town in Japan, and while visiting the ice rink, is recorded perfectly mimicking a routine by five time world champion Viktor Nikiforov. The video goes viral, and Viktor, also questioning his own future in the sport, comes to Japan to be Yuri’s coach–Yuri has always idolized Viktor, and decides to give the sport one more year.

I’m really enjoying the show, quite frankly. I’ve never watched Anime before, so I don’t know if the weird lapses into over-the-top emotion from the characters is normal for Anime, but it’s the only thing that bothers me about the show. The character of Yuri is so incredibly well developed; and the skating sequences are absolutely amazing. As a long time figure skating fan, it’s only natural that I would enjoy the show, I suppose. I’ve long been wanting to write a noir about figure skating, and watching this show has really intensified that desire–plus, I’m writing something else, which always makes me want to write other things.

I started reading Exit, Pursued by A Bear by E. K. Johnston last night, and am enjoying it thus far.

All right, I need to make up for lost time today, so it’s off to the spice mines I go.

Everywhere

So, Season 2 of The Man in the High Castle drops today, and there’s also Medici: Masters of Florence for me to watch, plus all kinds of reading and cleaning and so forth for me to do around the house this weekend. I also have all kinds of errands to run today–just thinking about it makes me tired. On the other hand, I can get everything done and hopefully be home long before five this evening (I am hoping at any rate).

I slept remarkably well last night–was tired, no doubt–and woke up this morning feeling rested and almost prepared to face a day of malls and shopping and errands and appointments and all that jazz. It will be lovely to get all the Christmas stuff done and out of the way, and that way I can have everything wrapped before Paul gets back on Sunday evening.

I also need to spend the late afternoon/early evening writing before retiring to my chair this evening. I am almost finished with Gore Vidal’s Empire, and last night before falling asleep I read some more of The Tigress of Fiori, which I haven’t looked at in a while. I think I’ll probably get all three books I’m reading finished either this weekend or over the course of the next week, and I am trying to decide what I want to read next–horror? Another crime novel? True crime? Literary fiction? I’m very behind on some of my favorite writers.

I also remembered some books I did not include on my list of the best reads of the year: Bent Road by Lori Roy, Lily by Michael Thomas Ford, Slade House by David Mitchell, Iron House by John Hart, and Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas. My bad, I shouldn’t have just gone off the top of my head.

Bad, bad,bad Gregalicious.

I am still very pleased about my editor’s response to my short story. As I constantly say, and Constant Reader is aware, short fiction is very hard for me, so it’s enormously satisfying for me to write something that pleases an editor. It actually–and I honestly know this is twisted–means a lot more to me to be recognized for writing a good short story than writing a good novel.

Crazy, right?

Well aware.

All right, I need to make a list of what all I am going to be looking for at the various places I will be stopping to shop at today. Sigh. Groan. ARGH.

I detest shopping, I really do.

And as I prepare for my voyage deep into the heart of the spice mines today, here’s some French firemen hunks for you.

Seven Wonders

Paul left early this morning–4:45 am to be exact–and somehow I then managed to sleep in until ten. I have another late night of bar testing this evening, and had planned to get up early and head out to the mall to do my Christmas shopping for Paul as well as stop by the Apple store. Alas, I overslept, and while I could go ahead and get ready quickly and head on out to do it all, I’m also thinking I can just do it tomorrow. Yes, the weekend before Christmas is going to be hideous out there in retail land, but I also don’t want to be rushed. I took tomorrow off because I have some appointments in the late afternoon, but if I can get up by nine tomorrow morning, I can do it all: Target, Apple, Macys, and even Costco. I have tickets for an early (10:00 am) showing of Rogue One Saturday morning at the Prytania Theater, and I intend to get quite a bit of writing–and cleaning–done this weekend.

In other exciting news, my editor got back to me and was enormously pleased with the tweaks I made based on her suggestions for my story; I cannot make an official announcement yet but I am very excited. The name of my story is “Lightning Bugs in a Jar,” and I can’t wait to talk about it. Woo-hoo!

There’s nothing quite so satisfying as getting praise for your work, is there? Particularly when you’re an author. I always thought that the more work I published, the further along in my career I got, the easier it would get and the less self-doubt there would be. Alas, that isn’t true; if anything, it gets worse. Heavy heaving sigh.

Ah, well.

So, as soon as I finish this I am going to get cleaning and organizing around here so I won’t have to take time from my weekend to do it.

I really want to get this book done. I’m itching to get going on some other projects (as always).

All right, sorry for the brevity, but I need to get back to the spice mines.

But here’s a hunk for you in the meantime.

Big Love

I worked late last night, and so had to cancel Wacky Russian this morning; it simply wouldn’t have worked–there was no way I was getting up in time to see him this morning at eight. I actually didn’t get up until almost nine, and I am still a little sleepy-groggy, but hey, I’m awake and drinking coffee, so that’s a start. I also have a late night on Thursday, but I have appointments Friday afternoon so I took that day off. Paul is leaving tomorrow morning for his mother’s, so I am hoping to get his Christmas gifts handled then as well–even if it means a trip to the mall in Metairie. (shudder)

In other exciting news, I bought a ticket for a morning matinee showing of Rogue OneSaturday. (Paul and his mom are going to see it while he is visiting her.) This is inordinately exciting for me. I generally don’t go see movies, and I certainly never go see them alone. Kind of cool.

I finished revising my short story yesterday based on the editor’s notes, and I am hopeful that I was able to get the tweaking done properly. I am never confident that I am doing what the editor wants, and my guess is always that I have not. I’ll read it over again this weekend along with her notes to double check, but I always doubt myself, which drives me crazy.

CraziER. Crazier.

Sigh.

The book continues to hum along. I managed to write a chapter yesterday in less than an hour, and when I started writing it I didn’t think I’d be able to get a thousand words done because it was hard to get started, but then I thought, anything is better than nothing and next thing I knew I had a chapter done.

Remember how this works, Gregalicious. It always happens this way.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Today’s hunk:

Never Forget

It looks like it’s another lovely morning out there. I didn’t have to get up early today, as I have to do bar-testing tonight and thus my shift was adjusted to accomodate not getting off work until eleven thirty this evening; I slept long and deep and hard, not waking until after ten. I guess I needed the sleep? I’m not going to complain, it felt good. My windows are covered in condensation–we had to turn the air on last night, so condensation on the windows means it’s probably in the seventies out there, or at least humid. Crazy December weather.

I just took out the trash. It’s in the seventies and a bit humid out there.

The revisions on a short story are due today, so as soon as I finish this and shower, I am going to dive back into them. I did it last night, but don’t trust myself enough to send it in again. I am going to reread the whole story this morning, and then reread the editor’s notes to see if I accomplished what she asked, or if I simply shoehorned/grafted some stuff onto it that doesn’t fit in the rhythm of the story and would prove kind of jarring to the reader. I also have to work on the book today and I’d like to solve the problem of the other story as well; I think I figured out how to really make it work last night while watching Ray Donovan (the two are not connected; my mind will sometimes wander while I’m watching something, no matter how riveting it is, and I am really enjoying this show); this is why short stories are so hard for me. I’ve already done at least six drafts of this particular story, but I think I finally, FINALLY, put it all together in my head last night.

Again, it comes down to cutting things that were rather well-written. I shall have to save them for another piece, maybe a book, I don’t know.

And in fairness, this short story was originally a book idea that I decided to turn into a creepy short story.

The book so far has been a slog, but I am starting to find my character’s voice, which is half the battle. Once I have the voice–I already have the plot–it becomes that much easier. I am hoping to get a lot of it done this weekend. I need to get these two short stories out of the way this week, and I have two other stories I need to work on by the end of the month, and I also have an essay I need to write.

Sheesh.

Merry Christmas to ME.

Ah, well, such is life. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I weren’t busy, you know?

Here’s a hunk for today:

Tusk

Paul is leaving to visit his mother on Thursday for a few days, which leaves me with a stark and lonely weekend of cleaning, writing, and reading. It’s needed, and there are also some long weekends coming up thanks to the holidays, so am feeling relatively confident I can get things finished the way I need to.

Fingers crossed, at any rate.

The weather, after that abysmal cold spell over the weekend, has now climbed back into the seventies for today; the high is supposed to be 74. It is one of those lovely days–warm, slightly cool breeze, bright blue sky with nary a cloud to be seen anywhere. Of course, I am convinced this is because I finally realized that it was smart to prepare myself for the cold in my home office and broke out the space heater.

*shakes first at universe*

Of course, rather than working on the two stories that need to be revised or the book in progress, all I can think about is the stupid short story i started writing this weekend. Do other writers have this creative attention deficit disorder? Why is it so flipping hard for me to focus on one writing project at a time, and why, oh why, can’t I simply focus on the one that has to be done? Heavy heaving sigh.

We continue to watch Ray Donovan, and continue to enjoy it, although there have been moments of ‘oh really?’ here and there. I am also still reading I Am Providence, not as quickly as I would like–the writing and everything–but I am moving along rather nicely. I also have been rereading Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly (watching Medici: Masters of Florence triggered me into wanting to read the section “The Renaissance Popes Trigger the Protestant Reformation” again). This book is one of Tuchman’s best; in it, she talks about how governments fail to act in their own self-interest with disastrous results because of an inability to see the big picture. She opens with book with the myth of the Trojan War and the Trojan Horse; an illustrative myth demonstrating folly. The war was folly, taking the horse into the city was folly; and then she moves on to three historical periods where folly and the short-term overruled the big picture with disastrous results: the afore-mentioned study of six consecutive popes (Pius II thru Clement VII); “The British Lose America”; and finally, “America Betrays Herself in Vietnam.”

I would love to write popular histories, but the problem of course is I don’t have the time to do the research. My time is already pretty limited, and let’s face it, if I learned anything from college it’s that I would rather read for pleasure than read something I have to. In fact, nothing takes the pleasure from reading for me faster than being forced to read something, which is why I want to reread some of the things I was forced to read for classes–like The Great Gatsby, which I absolutely loathed, and Hemingway, and various other things.

Ah, well, enough delaying, and it’s back to the spice mines with me.

Here’s today’s hunk.

Walk a Thin Line

Yesterday morning it was cold for here; it was only forty degrees out when I got out of bed and lumbered downstairs. It was even colder inside that it was outside–the joy of old New Orleans homes, built to be cooler inside than out–and sat here shivering at my desk trying to get some work done. It wasn’t easy and I was so cold, so cold that I decided when out running errands to buy gloves in order to cut off their fingers so I could type with them on so it wouldn’t be an issue. It wasn’t, of course, until later that I remembered I had a space heater in the closet upstairs, which I brought downstairs and set up. It’s not as cold this morning as it was yesterday, but I do have it on and I am relatively comfortable in here. This is a good sign. I didn’t get as much writing done yesterday as I’d intended; I have to write at least two chapters and revise two short stories this weekend–so of course, I started writing an entirely different short story yesterday, and one I don’t have a market for.

Heavy heaving sigh. Isn’t that always the way?

Ah, well. It’s an idea I had actually a really long time ago, and something I saw on Facebook reminded me of it, and so I actually started writing it. I’d forgotten the idea, quite frankly, hadn’t made any notes or anything, and it is a good idea, so I thought it better not to forget about it a second time so I took some action and wrote the opening. I also don’t know how to end it, either, so I am not going to try to write any more of it; rather, I’ll just print what I had and write out some notes and create a folder for it so it’s there when I want to get back to it. Which is what I usually do. Which is why I have a million folders everywhere.

We are still watching Ray Donovan, but I also discovered a new series on Netflix last night, Medici: Masters of Florence, which I of course wanted to start watching. Paul’s not into it as much as I am, of course, but he’s also going to visit his mother this coming weekend so I will have plenty of time to watch it while he’s gone. It’s focused on Cosimo de Medici (I love me some Medicis), and the building of Il Duomo. It’s lavishly and expensively shot–they’ve spared little to no expense–and the lead actor is the guy who played Robb Stark on Game of Thrones, Richard Madden, who is quite lovely to look at.

Those eyes!

The story flashes back and forth between the time when Cosimo is a young man with aspirations of being an artist, and forced into the world of banking and power by his father, Giovanni (played by Dustin Hoffman)–who dies of poison at the opening of the first episode. The present day is 1429, so the ‘past’ is 1409. Giovanni is the one who started the bank and founded the dynasty; Cosimo took it much higher–Cosimo’s grandson laid the groundwork for two Medici popes and, in time, two Medici queens of France. (The Medici eventually reached noble status, and eventually royal. Not bad for a family of bankers.) The Medici are fascinating, of course, and watching the episodes we did see made me, of course, long for Italy. (Next year’s Bouchercon anthology is themed Passport to Murder; I have some ideas for stories set in Italy, which is kind of exciting for me. And of course, there’s an Italian novel I want to write–not in Italian, set in Italy, of course.)

I am also still reading and enjoying Nick Mamatas’ I Am Providence, which is really hitting its stride nicely. I am not sure what I intend to read when I finish it; there are some lovely horror novels in my TBR pile, but then again, every book on my TBR pile looks lovely.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Honey Hi

The book is coming along nicely, if slowly, but I feel that this weekend (no college football) will be a MOST excellent time for me to get caught up on it. I am also making terrific progress on the revision of the short story, and I have another to revise on top of it, so my work–around errands and cleaning–this weekend is cut out for me indeed.

But as I always say, I’d rather be busy–and holiday weekends are coming, as well. I’ve done the majority of my Christmas shopping already; Paul is, as always, a challenge as he simply buys what he wants when he wants it, and he never really wants much in the first place.

We’ve started watching Ray Donovan on Showtime, and we’re enjoying it so far. I’ve always been fascinated by Hollywood ‘fixers’–albeit the ones in the days of the big studios–so it’s kind of interesting to see a fictional series about one in the present day.

I am almost finished reading Gore Vidal’s Empire; it’s slow going, as so much of Vidal’s work is (although I’d really love to reread Julian the Apostate again; and The City and the Pillar as well). It’s part of his fictional ‘American history’ series, which I’ve not read. Vidal was, as one of my co-workers said, the kind of American intellectual we will probably never see again in this country; I tried to think, and have been trying to think, of whom the current day American intellectuals are, without much success. I don’t know if that’s my failing, or that of our society; I don’t know who the current day equivalent of Vidal or William F. Buckley Jr. would be. Vidal was incredibly intelligent, but there was also a sneering, condescending superiority to him that I never particularly cared for (Buckley was much the same); a sense that “if you don’t agree with me you are clearly mentally inferior.” No one likes to be told they’re stupid or not as smart as someone else; that puts me off even when it’s someone I agree with. Vidal had a deeply cynical view of American history and of the country itself; I’ve not read his essays on American history and politics so I am not sure if that cynical contempt was of the country or how it mythologized its past and the hand-over-heart patriotism it promotes; the concept of American exceptionalism, which does bear much deeper scrutiny than it gets as a general rule. I do know that he was fascinated by Aaron Burr (his fictional biography, Burr, was the first book in his series about American history) and felt he was an unappreciated American hero unjustly vilified by his enemies, whose view of him has come down to us through the centuries.

I’ve actually never read Burr, or any biographies of him; what I know of Burr has primarily come from reading biographies of his political enemies (Hamilton and Jefferson) or histories of the period that are slanted towards his enemies; it only stands to reason if Hamilton and Jefferson are to be heroes, than their enemies must therefore be villains. Yet Hamilton and Jefferson were political enemies; throw John Adams into the mix and you have quite a confusing mishmash of who is the bad guy/who is the good guy. The truth, of course, is they were human and a mix of both the good and the bad, despite the mythology.

Heavy thoughts for a Friday morning; and not where I really wanted my blog entry this morning to go.

Then again, I’m listening to the Hamilton cast show album, and Burr is mentioned periodically in Empire, so perhaps there was an inevitability to this, after all.

(And now, of course, I want to reread both The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers, damn you, Hamilton cast show recording!)

All right, perhaps it’s time to return to the Spice Mines.

Here’s today’s hunk:

Never Make Me Cry

I had a major breakthrough on one of my short stories yesterday, and got some decent work done on the book. Not as much as I would have liked–and yes, I am behind on it–but progress is progress and I will always take it. Here’s hoping I can get back on schedule this weekend. A couple of really “on my game” days is all it will take, really.

Hopefully, some of that magic will occur today.

It’s always lovely to have a breakthrough on a story. This particular one was written several years ago for an anthology submission, was turned down for that–then slightly revised and resubmitted twice more, only to be rejected twice more. It’s seem right for yet another submission call, so I dragged it out again because I know there’s a publishable story in there somewhere. Yes, I can be stubborn, and I am determined to get this story not only right, but published somewhere. (I hate that there are so few markets for short stories, but that’s a whole other story.) But I did go through it another time and make some good corrections; then last night in the car on the way home I was struck by the proverbian lightning and realized exactly what was wrong with the story, and now I know how to not only fix it, but make it so much better.

It’s SO annoying when it takes me so long to work out what’s wrong with a short story.

THIS is why I find short stories so hard, I might add. Sometimes a short story just springs from me, the first draft just being rough but the actual story is there and just needs tweaking, some polish, and some refinement; other times it takes me years and I can never quite put my finger on what’s wrong with it–and then, hopefully, out of the blue the answer comes right to me, like yesterday.

Needless to say, I prefer the former over the latter. There are some stories still languishing in my files, waiting for the lightning bolt to strike. Some of those waiting for me to figure out what’s wrong with them include “Fireflies”, “The Ditch,” and “The Weight of a Feather” (although I think I’ve figured out how to fix that one).

There’s another subset; stories that began as ideas that I started writing, got pretty far into, and couldn’t figure out how to end: “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”, “Never Kiss a Stranger”, and “All Hallows Eve.” What often happens is the stories turn out to be different then the original idea (the last being one of those) and yet I still try to graft the original idea onto it rather than saving that for another story and just writing the story as it comes to me.

Idiocy, really.

And now back to the spice mines.

Today’s hunk is Zac Efron, on a skateboard.

Brown Eyes

It has rained all night, and in the dawn’s early light outside my windows everything looks wet and soggy. It was still raining this morning when my alarm went off, but as I sip my cappuccino and prepare my lunch before sitting back down to my computer, the rain has ceased, or at least there’s now a temporary respite. These are the days when I would rather curl up under a blanket and read a book, but alas–that is not to be.

I started reading Nick Mamatas’ I Am Providence last night and am enjoying it so far, although I’m only a few chapters in. I’ve not read him before, and this is a crime novel set at the Summer Tentacular, a conference/festival in Rhode Island celebrating Lovecraft. (I’ve also not read Lovecraft, which is another reason, one would suppose, why I am terrible at writing horror; Lovecraft apparently is de rigeur for writing horror or fantasy. I tried reading him when I was a teenager and didn’t get very far; I would try again but my TBR has basically already taken over my living room.) I love books about writers, and I love books about writing conferences–two of my absolute favorite books are Isaac Azimov’s Murder at the ABA (long overdue for a reread), which is set at what was once called the ABA (American Booksellers Association) and now called BEA (Book Expo America), and Elizabeth Peters’ hilarious Die for Love, set at a romance fan festival in New York (also long overdue for a reread).

I recently realized I’ve been writing stories about writers a lot lately–a couple of unpublished short stories, and of course, Jerry Channing appeared in both The Orion Mask and Garden District Gothic; I’m even thinking about an entire book with Jerry as the main character–and it’s always been something I’ve resisted–writing about writers, even though it’s something I know intimately and always enjoy reading. I even said this to one of my co-workers at the office lately, a quote that’s always in the back of my head: there is nothing more narcissistic and masturbatory than writing fiction about writers. That thought has always been in the back of my mind, and whenever I start creating a character who is a writer or have an idea for a story about one, I always pull back, remembering that. Saying it to my co-worker recently got me thinking about it–where did I read it? Who told me that? Stephen King has, for example, always written about writers–both ‘salem’s Lot (Ben Mears, moderately successful novelist) and The Shining (failed novelist Jack Torrance) have writers as main characters; and I can think of any number of other authors who’ve also done it, quite successfully. Elizabeth Peters’ series character Jacqueline Kirby starts out as a librarian, and eventually becomes an international bestselling romance novelist, for another example.

And then, last night as I revised a short story about a writer, and then curled up with the Mamatas novel, I heard the words clearly in my head again, and knew exactly where they came from.

That wretched writing professor who told me in 1979 I would never get anything published.

I might have known.

So, tonight as I continue to revise that story and work on the new book, I am giving you once again, Asshole Writing Professor, the finger.

And now back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for today: