Category: writing

That’s All For Everyone

Good morning. I finished Wicked Frat Boy Ways yesterday and turned it in. I am now in that weird afterglow of it’s done! it’s done! and oh my God it’s probably the worst piece of crap ever turned in to an editor.

Such is life as a writer.

I have decided that January is going to be yet another attempt at Short Story Month for me, in which I try to read, and blog about, a short story every day. I have tried this before, and have failed, but yesterday’s mail brought copies of Harlan Ellison’s The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, Strange Wine, Stalking the Nighmare, and Approaching Oblivion, so there is THAT, and I have lots of anthologies and single author collections haunting my shelves and my iPad.

I am also looking forward to reacquainting myself with some of Ellison’s short stories, and discovering new ones.

I am going to spend this weekend getting ready to dive headlong into finishing the next book, due on January 1, getting caught up and varied sundries that have fallen through the cracks, perhaps outlining the new book I started writing this past week, writing an essay that’s due soon, and maybe crafting/editing some other short stories that have been lying around unfinished or in need of a second go-round. My plans for the weekend are obviously rather ambitious, and I won’t get everything done I need to, but I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to have lots of plans; even if I feel like a complete and utter loser when I don’t accomplish everything I set out to. I also want to finish reading A Head Full of Ghosts as well as start reading something new; and there’s lots of organizing and cleaning in the kitchen/office that definitely needs to be taken care of.

It truly never ends.

The weather here has also finally turned; it’s chilly and I have to wear sleeves and head covering–probably what most people would call fall or autumn; what we consider the start our brief winter. It’s kind of gray out there today; but it is Friday which is lovely.

All right, I need to get my day started.

Here’s a hunk from the French Farmers calendar.

Storms

Ah, Thursday. And it’s December already. MADNESS.

Tonight is my late night, and so I have the day relatively free before I literally am testing all night (it’s also World AIDS Day–know your status, people!) so am debating on just which errands need to be run today and which ones can wait until the weekend. There are a few things I need to pick up and I may as well swing past the post office since it’s sort of near my CVS where I need to get my prescriptions…sigh. I also have some serious writing to do today. Busy day for one Gregalicious. I also have gotten some lovely news this week that I can’t share as of yet, either.

But I am chair dancing.

And I’m almost finished with the book. I hope to have it done today. Huzzah!

And then a free weekend and then it’s on to the next one.

I am currently reading Paul Tremblay’s Stoker Award winning A Head Full of Ghosts, which I started reading another time and had to put it aside for some reason; I don’t remember why, but when I finished reading Elizabeth Little’s superb Dear Daughter, and was looking for the next book to read I ran across it in the TBR bookcase (yes, I have a TBR bookcase, don’t judge me) and thought, I never finished this and picked it up again. It is riveting; I started from the beginning and now I can’t wait to get back to it again.

I also started writing another book yesterday; one that isn’t contracted anywhere, one that I don’t even know if anyone would want to publish–but it’s one that’s been dancing around in my head lately, and it’s actually the combination of several ideas I’ve had over the past few years that have come together cohesively and meshed into one book idea. The opening hit me the other day when I was finished working on the current work-in-progress, and so I wrote three paragraphs. It’s very different from anything I’ve ever done before–so is the current work-in-progress–which makes it very exciting for me; of course I have a multitude of other projects to work on and finish, but maybe it’s something I can work on around the others. I also have another couple of ideas I am toying with as well….I am never so creative as when I am on a deadline; but it’s never with the project ON deadline.

Heavy sigh.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for the day:

What Makes You Think You’re The One

This week, the Mystery Writers of America announced it’s special awards, to be presented in the spring at the Edgar Awards banquet along with the competitive prizes. All the recipients of these awards–the Ellery Queen for outstanding contribution to editing, the Raven for outstanding contributions to the field, and the Grand Master (s), for an outstanding body of work (like a Lifetime Achievement Award)–are always highly deserving; the first Grand Master, for example, was Agatha Christie, and over the years has included such names as Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Ellery Queen, Ross McDonald, Stephen King, and James Ellroy. This year, the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America chose two Grand Masters, Max Allen Collins and Ellen Hart.

Ellen Hart!

Ellen Hart is not only an amazing crime writer who deserves this honor, she is also the first out lesbian author of lesbian crime fiction to be recognized by the premier organization in our field with the highest honor in our field.

From the press release issued by the Mystery Writers of America:

Upon learning that she was named a Grand Master, Hart said. “A writer’s stock-in-trade is imagination. I’ve always felt mine was pretty good, but never in a million years did I ever think winning the MWA Grand Master award was a possibility. I’m stunned, grateful, and profoundly honored.”

Ellen Hart is the author of thirty-two crime novels. She is the six-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery, the four-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Popular Fiction, and the three-time winner of the Golden Crown Literary Award for mystery. Ellen has taught crime writing for seventeen years through the Loft Literary Center, the largest independent writing community in the nation.

Previous Grand Masters include Walter Mosley, Lois Duncan, James Ellroy, Robert Crais, Carolyn Hart, Ken Follett, Margaret Maron, Martha Grimes, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Bill Pronzini, Stephen King, Marcia Muller, Dick Francis, Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block, P.D. James, Ellery Queen, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Agatha Christie.

I’ve known Ellen’s work for over twenty years, and have known Ellen personally for almost seventeen or so. Ellen is from Minneapolis, and her outstanding Jane Lawless series is set there. I moved to Minneapolis to live with Paul in 1996; and this was around the time I decided to start taking writing seriously (this was in no smart part because Paul believed in me). We lived in Uptown Minneapolis (ironically we moved to uptown New Orleans from there), and right around the corner from our apartment was a mall at the corner of Lake and Hennepin called Calhoun Square, and inside that mall was a Borders. I used to go there every other week and buy books, and they had a huge gay and lesbian section. I had already decided that I wasn’t meant to be a horror or a literary writer, and wanted to focus on writing gay crime novels. It was at this Borders that I discovered both Ellen Hart and R. D Zimmerman (locals), and many other gay/lesbian crime writers and their books. I never met either Ellen or R.D. while I lived there, but it was at that Borders that I first met Felice Picano.

I think the first Jane Lawless I read was Faint Praise, and after that I was addicted.

Over the years I’ve gotten to know Ellen, and am proud to call her a friend. It was Ellen who got me to join Sisters in Crime, and her graciousness and her kindness over the years has been something I’ve, as a writer have tried to aspire to be more like. She so deserves this honor, and I can’t even begin to express how thrilled I am for her, and how happy this has made me; because in recognizing Ellen they not only recognized her for her brilliance as a writer, the longevity and consistent quality of it, but they’ve also, for the first time as a Grand Master and only a second time over all, recognized the sub-sub-subgenre of LGBTQI crime fiction. (The first time was when John Morgan Wilson won the Edgar for Best First Novel for his first Ben Justice novel back in the 1990’s.)

As a writer of gay crime fiction…well, I can’t even begin to say how impactful this recognition of Ellen is for me, personally. This is recognition from the Mystery Writers of America that LGBTQI crime fiction not only has a seat at the table, but belongs there.

It is something I never thought I would see happen in my lifetime; every step forward is amazing.

Now young, aspiring LGBTQI crime writers can actually dream of being MWA Grand Masters.

SO AWESOME.

And go ON with your bad, deserving self, Ellen!

Think About Me

My vacation is over, and while I do regret that–a stay-at-home vacation gives you a taste of how my life could be; just doing errands and chores around the house and of course, writing without interruption, without an eye on the clock knowing I only have so much time to get so much done; the leisure to take my time on projects and not feel rushed, to not feel like I’m not doing the best I can because the clock is ticking and there are other things I have to do…

It’s kind of nice, although it makes me kind of sad to have to go back to the clock-watching and time-scheduling,

I did finish reading Elizabeth Little’s superb Dear Daughter last night.

As soon as they processed my release, Noah and I hit the ground running. A change of clothes. A wig. An inconspicuous sedan. We doubled back once, twice, then drove south when we were headed east. In San Francisco we had a girl who looked like me board a plane to Hawaii.

Oh, I thought I was so clever.

But you probably already know that I’m not.

I mean, come on, you didn’t really think I was just going to disappear, did you? That I would skulk off and live in the shadows? That maybe I would find a distant land, a plastic surgeon, a ceramic half mask and a Punjab lasso? Get real.

But I never meant for it to come to this. There’s attention and then there’s attention, and sure, the latter gets you fame and money and free designer shoes, but I’m not Lindsay Lohan. I understand the concept of declining marginal returns. It was the not knowing–that’s what I couldn’t stand. That’s why I’m here.

It’s hard, really, to believe that Dear Daughter is a debut novel; Little writes with the punch and skill of a much more experienced writer. The main character’s voice is exceptional, strong, and even though she can read as vastly unsympathetic, she is always compelling.

A technicality has overturned Jane Jenkins’ murder conviction; when she was seventeen she was tried as an adult for murdering her socialite mother, with whom she had a rather combative relationship. Jane herself was what is called a ‘celebutante’, like Paris Hilton and others before her, famous really for being famous. (Imagine the circus a Paris Hilton murder trial would have been…) Now that she’s free, Jane wants to prove her innocence (she really doesn’t remember if she actually killer her mother or not) so, with the help of a trusted attorney, she takes on a false identity and disappears; even lying to the lawyer about where she is going. The night of her mother’s murder she heard her mother arguing with a man, and the only words she caught were ‘Tessa’ and ‘Adeline’; she has found a remote town in South Dakota named Adeline, and that’s where she is heading.

The twists and turns and surprises come fast in this novel, and once it kicks into high gear there’s no stopping. Jane herself is a strong, full-fledged character; smart yet vulnerable, lonely, yet the loneliness makes her stronger. She tries to sort out the complicated relationship she had with her mother while trying to find out the truth, not only about her mother’s murder but her mother’s past, as well as her own…very compelling reading.

And the writing itself is quite extraordinary, as well.

I highly recommend this! And can’t wait for her next novel.

And now back to the spice mines.

Ledge

I worked yesterday morning and in the early afternoon yesterday; the work didn’t go as well as one would have preferred but those are the breaks. Hopefully today it will be better. One can always hope.

I spent the rest of the day watching college football–it was a most interesting day–and reading, of all things, comic books on my iPad (the recent DC mini-series The Coming of the Supermen, which, not being up on my current DC Universe, was a bit confusing in places but over-all, kind of interesting), started rereading Garden District Gothic because I am getting ready to start writing Scotty VIII, and also rereading some short stories from one of my favorite collections of all time, Harlan Ellison’s Alone Against Tomorrow.

It occurred to me yesterday, as I was marveling at the mastery of Ellison at short story writing (he really is one of the best short story writers of all time; his “Paladin of the Lost Hour” might be my favorite short story) that with all my talk about short stories lately I never talk about Ellison, which is a shame. (Also, rereading these stories and being reminded of how extraordinary a writer he is sent me into an ebay wormhole of ordering copies of his collections; I do have The Essential Ellison omnibus, but it doesn’t have everything; he is so prolific I don’t think all of his work could be collected into a single volume.)

But in fairness to me, these entries are usually unplanned and written while I am enjoying my morning coffee and waking up, so I am not as clear-headed as one might think when I write them.

I first discovered Ellison through, as so many other things in the speculative fiction world, Stephen King’s Danse Macabre. I knew from reading that book that he had written probably the best episode of Star Trek ever, “The City at the Edge of Tomorrow”–also known as ‘the one with Joan Collins’, but in those pre-Internet days finding books wasn’t as easy as it is now. It wasn’t until several years later, when I was at a friend’s apartment that I discovered she had a copy of his collection Strange Wine, which she not only loaned to me but gifted it to me, saying, “Reading Ellison will change your life.”

And it did. Several of those stories haunt me to this day. I was poor then, very poor, and so rarely bought books new; I haunted second-hand bookshops (do those even exist anymore?), and started hunting for Ellison whenever I went into them. That was how I found Alone Against Tomorrow, among others, and became a big fan.

Looking over these stories again last night, I was reminded why I was a fan.

And rereading Garden District Gothic after spending some time with Ellison was quite humbling.

I ordered a copy of Strange Wine last night–because I definitely need more books–and think I am going to dig out my copy of The Essential Ellison because I want to read more short stories (I say that all the time, don’t I?) and maybe I’ll make my entries for January all about short stories again this year. But I have so many short story collections lying around the house that I’ve never read; single author collections and anthologies and magazines and so forth, that a focused effort is really necessary.

And I really want to reread “Paladin of the Lost Hour.”

And now I should get back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for the day:

Over and Over

My documentary binge continues. I was actually wrong–the series about castles in England was called Secrets of Great British Castles, and the presenter is a very attractive Brit named Dan Jones. The first episode was Dover; the second The Tower of London. The third episode was Warwick Castle, but I decided to skip that one. I’ll go back to the show eventually, but I wasn’t really in the mood to watch about Warwick Castle, so I went back to the documentary category on Netflix while waiting for Paul to get home (I wrote a lot yesterday) and found one called Shenandoah.

It was incredible, and I can’t get it out of my mind.

The documentary is about the death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico in the small town of Shenandoah Valley, Pennsylvania; a coal mining town which is dying a slow economic death. The town was made up of families descended primarily from European immigrants: Irish, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish–but has also seen a recent influx of Mexican immigrants. Luis Ramirez was attacked and beaten by four stars of the high school football team (again, yet another town whose identity is wrapped up entirely in its high school football team) and later died of his injuries. Two of the four boys pled guilty and agreed to testify against their friends; an all-white jury in the town shockingly (sarcasm) found them all not guilty on every charge other than simple assault. The federal government then stepped in and charged the boys under federal hate crime statutes, along with four local cops accused of hindering the FBI investigation and conspiracy to cover up the crime. All six were convicted.

What was disturbing, for me, was the horrific racism exhibited by the townspeople during the investigations, and how they saw the original verdict as a triumph for “white America”; the horrific xenophobia and the blaming of Mexicans for all their troubles. I am glad some of these people are now on film; some day they will be as embarrassed, hopefully, by their behavior and conduct preserved for all time as the racists during the integration struggle in the south. Chanting “USA!” in response to the death of a Latino at the hands of four white teenagers? Calling them good boys?

Despicable, really. And for the record, these are the white working class voters of ‘real America’, of ‘small town America’, that are held up as paragons of everything that our country supposedly is at its best.

Not all of them, of course. The documentary showed several points of view that also showed there were people who aren’t racist and were appalled by what was going on in their town. The young boy who was involved and pled guilty initially, Brian Scully, was kicked off the football team and the documentary actually traces his growth as a person, and how the horror of that night and what he was involved in changed him. He actually found some salvation and solace from, of all things, musical theater; joining the cast of a school production of Into the Woods (which, ironically, opened the night before he had to testify against his friends in the initial trial).

It’s an incredibly powerful documentary that I recommend everyone watch; it’s on Netflix.

I also watched Ghosts of Ole Miss, which was about the integration of the campus in 1962 by James Chambers and the campus wide riot that resulted, with the students attacking the National Guard and the National Guard having to fight back, resulting in the US Military having to come to the campus to put down the riot and finish the integration process. The documentary also talked about the 1962 undefeated Ole Miss football team, which held the university together and gave the students something to be proud of after the Battle of Ole Miss; yet at the football games the students were all waving Confederate flags and their mascot was still Johnny Reb, and…

Sigh.

Both documentaries have given me a lot to think about, and even some ideas about things to write; which means both films did their jobs.

Today I am going to write some more (the goal is five thousand words; I achieved that yesterday but I don’t know if I can do it a second day in a row but you never know!) and continue reading Elizabeth Little’s Dear Daughter around doing some chores. I don’t have to leave the house again until Monday when I go back to work (sob), so there’s that. I also got another deep good night’s sleep last night, so….can’t complain!

And now back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for today:

Gold Dust Woman

My windows are filthy.

Embarrassingly so. It’s always amazing to me how dirty the air in New Orleans must be; because I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere before in my life where dust accumulates so quickly.

Anyway. At some point this weekend I shall have to do something about it.

Thanksgiving was a lovely day; the pizza was amazing and we watched two movies, Absolutely Fabulous (which was so bad it was sad) and Neighbors 2, which was actually quite funny. If someone would have told me before watching that the movie I was really looking forward to would be terrible and the one I was watching because I thought it would be terrible would be enjoyable, I would have scoffed in utter disdain. But Rose Byrne is quickly becoming a favorite actress of mine, and this is the first thing I’ve ever seen Zac Efron in, and he played the role of douchey frat bro aging out much better than Rob Lowe did in St. Elmo’s Fire; in fact, I kept thinking as I watched that he would be perfect in the inevitable remake.

I also got further into Elizabeth Little’s wonderful Dear Daughter, which I am also really enjoying. I started off the day watching another documentary series, Secrets of English Castles, and was about halfway through the episode on Dover Castle when Lisa arrived with our pizza, and once I’m finished working today (Paul won’t be home until really late this evening yet again)I am diving back into it. I really am delighted to discover all the documentaries on all of my streaming apps; I see plenty of informational and enjoyable viewing in my future.

We also watched the LSU game last night; GEAUX TIGERS. It’s really quite a shame, as they lost four games by a total of twenty points. Yet another season so close, and yet so far. The coaching situation should be resolved soon; one thing for certain is that LSU football is never dull.

I also can’t believe my vacation is almost over. Where did the time go? I didn’t get nearly as much finished this week as I wanted to, and yet…I can’t really see where I wasted time or goofed off a lot. But the primary purpose of a vacation is to get rested, and I certainly have rested this week and gotten a lot of wonderful sleep. We shall see how that translates into next week when I return to work, won’t we?

And now I suppose I should return to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for the day:

Oh Daddy

work work work work work.

Can’t complain, though. I love my work, I really do–although I can always complain. Work on Wicked Frat Boy Ways is coming along swimmingly, if I do say so myself (and I do) and I project that I may be able to get it done by the (extended) deadline if things keep going as swimmingly as they are now. Of course, now that I’ve said that I will undoubtedly hit a snag. Heavy heaving sigh.

Ain’t that the way it always seems to go?

But I am very pleased with it so far; I am not having any of my usual doubts/fears/terrors about this one the way I usually do. I’m not sure if that’s progress on my part as far as confidence is concerned, or blithe unawareness. Perhaps both; we shall see.

After writing a significant chunk of the book yesterday–and cleaning–I settled in to watch some documentaries while waiting for Paul to come home; first I watched Trojan War, the ESPN documentary about the USC football program while Pete Carroll was coach, and then moved on to a three episode BBC documentary called Empire of the Tsars, about the Romanov dynasty of Russia. (It was also the first time I’d ever heard it pronounced ro-MAHN-off, which is probably correct.) As I had just finished watching the series Versailles earlier in the week and marveling at the magnificent beauty of that palace, I was also struck in this series about how incredibly beautiful and ornate St. Petersburg and the imperial palaces must be; both Moscow and St. Petersburg have always been places I wanted to visit–but it’s not like it’s particularly safe for a gay to go there. One never knows, of course–it may happen someday.

After Paul got home we also watched the most recent episode of Eyewitness, which is SUCH a good show.

I also finally started reading a book that’s been languishing in my TBR pile for far too long; Elizabeth Little’s Dear Daughter, and while I am only a couple of chapters in, it’s pretty terrific thus far.

Today, for Thanksgiving, I am probably not going to get as much writing done as I would like (I am not ruling it out, of course) but our friend Lisa is coming over and we are having our traditional That’s Amore Chicago-style deep-dish pizza meal while watching the Absolutely Fabulous movie and Neighbors 2.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.

I Don’t Want to Know

Thanksgiving Eve, and all is well in the Lost Apartment. I’m up early for Wacky Russian, and I actually woke up a half an hour before the alarm went off, well rested and not tired in the least. There’s something to this vacation thing, or it’s the sleepytime tea I’ve been drinking before I go to bed every night (I started that this week, and so far it’s been pretty effective).

Of course, now that I’ve said that, tonight it won’t work.

Last night I finished reading Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg.

It was Friday the thirteenth and yesterday’s snowstorm lingered in the streets like a leftover curse. The slush outside was ankle-deep. Across Seventh Avenue a treadmill parade of lightbulb headlines marched endlessly around Times Tower’s terra cotta facade…HAWAII IS VOTED INTO UNION AS FIFTIETH STATE: HOUSE GRANTS FINAL APPROVAL 232 TO 89; EISENHOWER’S SIGNATURE OF BILL ASSURED…Hawaii, sweet land of pineapples and Haleloki; ukuleles strumming, sunshine and surf, grass skirts swaying in the tropical breeze.

I spun my chair around and stared out at Times Square. The Camels spectacular on the Claridge puffed fat steam smoke rings out over the snarling traffic. The dapper gentleman on the sign, mouth frozen in a round O of perpetual surprise, was Broadway’s harbinger of spring. Earlier in the week, teams of scaffold-hung painters transformed the smoker’s dark winter homburg and chesterfield overcoat into seersucker and panama straw; not as poetic as Capistrano swallows, but it got the message across. My building was built before the turn of the centuryl a four-story brick pile held together with soot and pigeon dung. An Easter bonnet of billboards flourished on the roof, advertising flights to Miami and various brands of beer. There was a cigar store on the corner, a Polerino parlor, two hot dog stands, and the Rialto Theatre, mid-block. The entrance was tucked between a peep-show bookstore and a novelty place, show windows stacked with whoopee cushions and plaster dog turds.

The book was originally published in 1978 and was an Edgar Award finalist for Best First Novel; it didn’t win, losing to Killed in the Ratings by William L. DeAndrea. It was filmed in the 1980’s as the infamous Angel Heart, starring Mickey Rourke, Charlotte Rampling, Lisa Bonet, and Robert DeNiro. I enjoyed the film very much when I saw it, not knowing it was based on a book; it was another one of those films that drew me to New Orleans and Louisiana. Recently (in the last several months) I came across a listing of great crime novels or the ten noir novels everyone should read or something like that; so I thought, oh, I have to read that and there you go.

The plot of the novel itself was adapted almost perfectly for the film; a private eye named Harry Angel is hired by a strange man named Louis Cyphre to find Johnny Favorite, a singer who was apparently severely injured and left with amnesia during World War II; he owes a debt to Mr. Cyphre and he suspects that Favorite may not be in the hospital he is supposed to be. Angel starts looking for Favorite and discovers that Cyphre is right; Favorite is no longer at the hospital, and soon is drawn into a creepy world of black magic, voodoo, and ritual murder. The primary difference between the novel and the film is that the novel takes place entirely in New York; in the book Favorite’s trail leads Angel to New Orleans.

I guess the filmmakers felt voodoo, black magic, and ritual murders fit better in New Orleans that New York. Whatever; I’m glad they did because again, the film was another step in my journey to New Orleans.

The book is very well done, the pacing is great and as I have said in previous entries, that cynical, hard-boiled noir voice is captured perfectly. I myself have never been able to quite get that style down absolutely right; I do intend to keep trying as I love both hard-boiled and noir styles. Having seen the movie I knew the big surprise twist; I can imagine how surprising and shocking it was back in 1978, or if you haven’t seen the film; the twist was one of the reasons I loved the movie. Even knowing it, I still enjoyed the book tremendously because of the writing.

And now, back to the spice mines.

You Make Loving Fun

Another good night’s sleep. There must be something to this stay-at-home vacation thing, don’t you think?

I didn’t get as much writing/editing done yesterday as I wanted to, but I also had to run errands and bouncing back into a creative mode after dealing with the General Public is never easy; I find that always to be all too frequently true. But as I waited for Paul to come home last night, I watched the season finale of Versailles (which I am going to miss) and the Netflix documentary Audrie and Daisy, which made me smolder with rage, and made me realize my rape culture novel, sitting collecting dust now for over a year, really needs to get out there for people to read.

Will it make a difference? I doubt it, but change is water wearing away at a rock, and maybe at some point our culture and society will finally recognize that men do not have a right to women’s bodies.

I also read a few more chapters of Falling Angel last night. It’s the Edgar Award nominated novel the film Angel Heart was based on, and while I haven’t seen the film in decades, I remember liking it a lot (it was another one of those films that heightened the connection I felt with New Orleans before I moved here); once I read the book I am going to watch the movie again, see how it holds up. The book is quite good; as I read it I remember the film more and more; the book’s quality lies in that hardboiled noir voice I mentioned the other day having trouble capturing in my own work. I think part of the problem I have with that, frankly, is the straight male machismo aspect of it. One of the reasons I stopped reading crime fiction in the late 1970s (having exhausted Christie, Queen, and Gardner) was because the current stuff was pretty much the straight male gaze and that macho bullshit. (Not everything, of course, and that was, I realize now, an over-generalization; but that was how it seemed to me.) I eventually returned to crime fiction, primarily thanks to Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky; their work led me to a greater appreciation of the genre and enabled me to read and appreciate John D. Macdonald and eventually get back into the genre over-all, and is partly why, in my own work, I tried to develop my own version and style; the gay male gaze. Whether I succeeded or not is for future generations to decide–whether I am remembered at all or not.

Probably not, is the most likely.

And I’m fine with that, really.

Yesterday I did manage to get the kitchen cleaned (not quite organized as I would have liked, but small victories), and today around editing and writing I intend to do the same with the living room and start working on the kitchen cabinets and drawers. It is truly sad how these things give me pleasure, but on the other hand, I like cleaning up my house and feel truly satisfied when it is cleaned and organized and sparkling. (If it remains sunny but chilly, I am going to do the windows in the kitchen as well.)

And that is, really, the genesis of my story “Housecleaning”, in the wonderful anthology Sunshine Noir.

The smell of bleach always reminded him of his mother.

It was, he thought as he filled the blue plastic bucket with hot water from the kitchen tap, probably one of the reasons he rarely used it. His mother had used it for practically everything. Everywhere she’d lived had always smelled slightly like bleach. She was always cleaning. He had so many memories of his mother cleaning something; steam rising from hot water pouring from the sink spigot, the sound of brush bristles as she scrubbed the floor (‘mops only move the dirt around, good in a pinch but not for real cleaning’), folding laundry scented by Downy, washing the dishes by hand before running them through the dishwasher (‘it doesn’t wash the dishes clean enough, it’s only good for sterilization’), running the vacuum cleaner over carpets and underneath the cushions on the couch. In her world, dirt and germs were everywhere and constant vigilance was the only solution. She judged other people for how slovenly they looked or how messy their yards were or how filthy their houses were. He remembered one time—when they were living in the apartment in Wichita—watching her struggle at a neighbor’s to not say anything as they sat in a living room that hadn’t been cleaned or straightened in a while, the way her fingers absently wiped away dust on the side table as she smiled and made conversation, the nerve in her cheek jumping, the veins and chords in her neck trying to burst through her olive skin, her voice strained but still polite.

When the tea was finished and the cookies just crumbs on a dirty plate with what looked like egg yolk dried onto its side, she couldn’t get the two of them out of there fast enough. Once back in the sterile safety of their own apartment, she’d taken a long, hot shower—and made him do the same. They’d never gone back there, the neighbor woman’s future friendliness rebuffed politely yet firmly, until they’d finally moved away again.

“People who keep slovenly homes are lazy and cannot be trusted,” she’d told him after refusing the woman’s invitation a second time, “a sloppy house means a sloppy soul.”

Crazy as she seemed to him at times, he had to admit she’d been right about that. In school after school, kids who didn’t keep their desks or lockers neat had never proven trustworthy or likable. It had been hard to keep his revulsion hidden behind the polite mask as he walked to his next class and someone inevitably opened a locker to a cascade of their belongings. He’d just walked faster to get away from the laughter of other kids and the comic fumbling of the sloppy student as he tried to gather the crumpled papers and broken pencils and textbooks scattered on the shiny linoleum floor.

As I said, I like to clean, and I often joke that my own mother makes Joan Crawford look like a slob. One morning, when I was filling up my blue bucket with water and bleach, the smell of bleach reminded me of my mother and voila! A story was born. I actually stopped cleaning to sit down and write the entire first draft.

Sigh. I love when that happens.

And now back to the spice mines.