Cruel Summer

I am having a rather productive day so far, really. I slept late–which I didn’t want to do, but maybe, you know, just maybe I needed the sleep–and since getting up feeling completely rested, I’ve been taking my own advice I gave out on the panel yesterday and am cleaning; and the cleaning is clearing my mind and that mind clearance is bearing fruit. I’ve already made some good notes on a short story I’m working on, and as the Lost Apartment slowly but surely gets more clean, I feel more on top of my game; I think I am finally getting back on track after being derailed by being sick for so long.

Huzzah!

I have also dived back into my Short Story project, and today I read Laura Lippman’s “What He Needed.”

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My husband’s first wife almost spent him into bankruptcy. Twice. I am a little hazy about the details, as was he. I don’t think it was a real bankruptcy, with court filings and ominous codes on his credit history. Credit was almost too easy for us to get. The experience may have depleted his savings, for he didn’t have much in the bank when we married. But whatever happened, it scared him badly, and he was determined it would never happen again.

To that end, he was strict about the way we spent money in our household, second-guessing my purchases, making up rules about what we could buy. Books, for example. The rule was that I must read ten of the unread books in the house–and there were, I confess, many unread books in the house–before I could bring a new one home. We had similar rules about compact discs (“Sing a sing from the last one you bought,” he bellowed at me once) and shoes (“How many pairs of black shoes does one woman need?”). It was not, however,a two-way street. The things he wanted proved to be necessities–defensible, sensible purchases. A treadmill, a digital camera, a DVD player and, of course, the DVD’s to go with it. Lots of Westerns and wars.

But now I sound like him, sour and grudging. The irony was, we both made good money. More correctly, he made decent money, as a freelance technical writer, and I made great money, editing a loathsome city magazine, the kind that tells you where to get the best food/doctors/lawyers/private schools/flowers/chocolates/real estate. It wasn’t journalism, it was marketing. That’s why they had to pay so well.

How much truth is there in those three paragraphs? Haven’t we all been in that kind of relationship/marriage, where one partner tries to control the money and judges the other’s every cent spent? And how confined and trapped that can make one feel? In those casual, almost careless and unemotional paragraphs Lippman deftly paints the portrait of a marriage in trouble and a woman who is desperately unhappy, both at home and at work.

The story was originally published in Lauren Henderson and Stella Duffy’s wonderful anthology Tart Noir (from which I’ll undoubtedly be pulling more stories from during the course of my short story project) and was reprinted in Lippman’s wonderful short story collection Hardly Knew Her. 

Lippman is one of crime genre’s bright shining lights; her Tess Monaghan series is one of the best private eye series in print currently, and her stand-alone novels are incredible accomplishments, in which she stretches herself, the boundaries of crime fiction itself, and tells well-written, amazing stories about women and their realities, their choices, and how they respond to the bad things that happen to them. I’ve already read her yet-to-be released 2018 novel Sunburn, which is destined to make a lot of Best of 2018 lists and get shortlisted for every crime award out there (most of which she has already won, sometimes more than once). I will be discussing that one, as well, closer to its pub date.

And now, back to the spice mines.

An Innocent Man

EPIPHANY. King cake season has officially begun! HUZZAH! Although…Christ on the cross, it’s Carnival season already. In fact, a month from tonight there will be parades. As I sit here shivering in my kitchen (although the sun is out) this morning, that thought blows my mind.

Anyway, Comic Con was very fun yesterday.

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And this was lovely:

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And instead of name plates, they had a MARQUEE:

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How lovely to have one’s name up in lights, as it were!

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It was a great panel, lots of great questions from the audience, and some great discussion and tips and hints about writing.

Then I walked home, and watched the live stream of the US Figure Skating National Championships, which reminded me that I had an idea for a figure skating noir, and even started writing the first scene in the book, so here’s yet another fragment for you:

The move is called a charlotte.

The move is not considered masculine so his coach will not let him do it in a program. But he’s proud that he has the flexibility to do it, and he always gets to the rink early so he can practice the moves he will never be allowed to do until he lets his Olympic eligibility go and scoring no longer matters.

Men don’t do spirals.

He reaches the end of the ice and goes into a curved turn, going to the inside edge and letting centrifugal force pull him back around so that he’s facing the other end of the ice. He turns and glides backward. He brings his arms together, crossing them at the wrists in front of his chest and explodes them out in a straight line at his sides at ninety degree angles. With his chest puffed out he bends at the waist, raising the left leg up, perfectly straight, the toes pointed as he brings his chest down to his right knee, grabbing the right ankle with both hands as he continues to glide toward the other end of the rink, his left leg raised in a perfect split, feeling the stretch in his groin and his hamstring. The stretch feels good and he works to catch his breath, his heart still thudding in his chest and his ears, the cold emanating from the ice slapping his cheeks, a drop of mucus hanging from the end of his nose as the slide slows.

When he is almost to the other end of the rink he pushes with his hands off from the ankle, bringing the back leg down and tapping the toepick on the ice, digging it in and launching himself up into the air, pulling his arms back in and together as he spins neatly in the air, ankles crossed and counting.

One….two…three.

After the third revolution he releases the tight arms, exploding them out at ninety degree angles to the side as his right foot comes down and his left leg goes backward. The blade of his right skate lands off balance, on the inside edge and hits a groove in the ice. There’s no way to save the landing. His ankle gives under the pressure of the force and he falls.

This is going to hurt.

Is all he has time to think before he hits the wet, glistening ice. He lands hard, chest first followed by the rest of his torso and his legs tangle. The impact forces all of his air out of his lungs and the thud sends jolts of pain, dull agonizing pain, through his ribs and he gasps for air as he spins on the ice, out of control and unable to stop himself until his crashes into the boards with his right side and bounces back off out onto the ice, finally coming to a stop with stars dancing in front of his eyes and his lungs gasping to take in the icy cold air. He lies there for what seems an eternity, the wet ice soaking through the sweatshirt he is wearing, his ribs aching, his legs screaming in pain from the lactic acid burning through the muscle fibers. He lies there, knowing he needs to get up and start moving before the muscles seize and tighten, knowing he needs to get back up on the blades and build up speed and try the lutz again, it has been drilled into his head so many times to get back up and skate, when you fall you have to get up and try the jump again and keep trying until you land it, otherwise you’ll become afraid and will never be able to land it, you have to be fearless, get up, get up, get up….

But sometimes he wanted to never get up. Sometimes he wanted to just crawl over to the opening, take off his skates and grab his bag and put on his shoes and walk out of the rink never to come back.

He gets up, his breathing still labored, his legs still aching. He starts doing crossovers, even though his legs are shaking, and he picks up speed, going faster and faster and it feels like he is flying…flying…and nothing will ever bring him down.

A little rough, but not bad.

And here’s Guillaume Cizeron, the sexy French ice dancer, for your Saturday viewing pleasure:

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They Don’t Know

Friday, and this afternoon I am paneling (well, I guess it’s more of an early evening panel, really) at Comic Con, and that should be a lot of fun.

My Short Story challenge has not gotten off to the best start; here it is the fifth day of January already and I have only just now managed to finish reading one story; it’s shameful, I know. But I got out my enormous volume The Best American Noir of the 20th Century, and dutifully read the first story, from 1923 (!). 1923! Who knew noir went back so far? Much as I love noir, and as often as I think about it–I really should do a lengthy study of noir, both print and film–I don’t know much about its history; seeing that stories defined as noir were being published as far back as 1923 was a bit of a surprise for me; I guess I just always assumed noir fiction was something that came about in the late 1930’s, and was primarily pioneered by the great James M. Cain.

Shows you how little I know.

But I love noir; I am more drawn to it than actual more traditional crime fiction, to be honest. Most of my short fiction would be classified more readily as noir rather than as crime; as I have said before, I like to write about damaged people, and the stories of damaged people are more prone to wind up categorized as noir. I am currently in the midst of writing two stories that are noir–more details on them both when they become available–but I am very excited about both of them.

But I read this amazing story, “Spurs” by Tod Robbins, which is the opening story in the Best American Noir omnibus.

Jacques Courbe was a romanticist. He measured only twenty-eight inches from the soles of his diminutive feet to the crown of his head; but there were times, as he rode into the arena on his gallant charger, St. Eustache. when he felt himself a doughty knight of old about to do battle for his lady.

What matter that St. Eustache was not a gallant charger except in his master’s imagination–not even a pony, indeed, but a large dog of a nondescript breed, with the long snout and upstanding aura of a wolf? What matter that M. Courbe’s entrance was invariably greeted with shouts of derisive laughter and bombardments of banana skins and orange peel? What matter that he had no lady, and that his daring deeds were severely curtailed to a mimicry of the bareback riders who preceded him? What mattered all these things  to the tiny man who lived in dreams, and who resolutely closed his shoe button eyes to the drab realities of life?

I’m not sure that I would call this story noir in the classic sense; but who am I to argue with James Ellroy or Otto Penzler? The story, which is centered around the performers in a French traveling circus, is reminiscent both of American Horror Story: Freakshow and of course, the classic film Freaks, and, as it turns out, the film was based on the short story. Courbe has inherited money and an estate; he has fallen in love with one of the bareback riders, a large strong woman who agreed to marry him for his money; despite being in love with another one of the bareback riders–she is marrying him for his money, of course, and assuming he won’t live long; if he does live longer than is convenient, she will poison him, and she and her true love with live happily ever after on the little man’s money. But despite the same set-up, the film deviated from the story from the wedding onward; the story isn’t quite as dark as the film (seriously, what could be?) but it’s plenty dark and plenty creepy; and an excellent way for me to kick off short story month.

And now tis back to the spice mines with me; here is a hunk to ease you into your weekend.

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Adult Education

Thursday, and I am sitting in the kitchen shivering just a little bit. Of course, the ‘bomb cyclone’ or whatever it is they are calling it is pounding the eastern seaboard, and we have a bright sunny (if chilly) day here, so I am going to count my blessings rather than complain about how cold it is in my kitchen this morning. I have a space heater, a wool blanket, and coffee. Things could be so much worse, seriously.

Comic Con kicks off tomorrow, which will mean me rushing home from the main office so I can walk to the convention center in time to check in, get my badge, and head up to where my panel is. I don’t have to be there on Saturday, so I can use that day to run errands and do chores around the house as well as get some writing and editing done (also, US National Figure Skating championships are this weekend; we watched the ladies’ short program live last night on the NBC SN app on the Apple TV), and spend Sunday, when I am not at Comic Con, relaxing and trying to get some odds and ends finished.

My mind has been incredibly creative lately, which is not only an interesting thing–it feels like it’s been a long time–but I also find my mind wandering over to some projects that I started and never finished. Sometimes I get an idea for a book or a story, complete with an opening so strong and vivid that  I have to write it down or fear it will be lost forever.

Like this one, the opening for a high school noir about a twisted mother-daughter relationship:

Razor blades look so innocent, really. Clean, precise, glittery silver, utilitarian and oh so useful, so useful they’re tucked away inside a vanity drawer close to the sink basin in everyone’s bathroom. There were so many uses for a razor blade. They cleanly scrape glue left behind when pulling tape off glass, for one thing, and of course a razor will cut that pesky unwanted hair away from skin. How many times had she sat in this bathroom, in this bathtub, using a razor without a second thought? Soaping up her legs, pulling the razor along in a long steady motion, her mind a million miles away but careful, always careful, to make sure she didn’t press too hard so that skin would be cut away along with the blonde hairs? She always put her phone into the iHome on the counter and would hum along with Katie Perry and Taylor Swift and One Direction, it made the effort of shaving her tanned legs so the skin would be silky smooth to the touch go so much faster.

These were safety blades. Safety meant there was a metal cap opposite the sharp side so it could be handled without danger of cutting skin. It seemed crazy, a stupid obeisance to some past lawsuit where someone was too stupid to understand how carefully a razor had to be handled was rewarded by a jury with millions. Flesh is delicate and tears so easily, after all, and once it’s torn, the blood flows so dark and richly red.

She wipes steam off the mirror so she can see herself, distorted, through the moisture on the glass. Distorted. Always distorted. She takes the safety blade and sets it on the side of the white bathtub, the emerald green shower curtain pulled to the side. Steam curls off the top of the water. She drops the robe and steps into the hot water, flinching against the heat against her skin as pores pop open and sweat forms under her arms and above her lip. She pulls the long blonde hair back, securing at the nape of her neck with a pink scrunchie. She lowers herself into the water, bracing herself against the shock. Down into the water she goes until all that is left above the surface is her neck, her head.

 Her lip trembles.

I don’t appreciate your guilt-tripping me. It’s over. His voice echoes in her head.

What the hell is wrong with you? Her father’s voice, screaming at her.

No one likes you because you’re such a bitch. Her former best friend.

A single tear dribbles from the corner of her right eye.

Her nose starts to run.

She picks up the razor blade and presses it to the inside of her left arm.

Next time remember to cut up, not across. Her mother’s voice, always sneering, dripping with contempt.

Always her mother, always.

She presses down and gasps at the unexpected pain, unexpected because she didn’t think she could actually feel anything anymore.

Up, not across.

She drags the blade up towards the crease of her arm.

Blood, not bright but rich and dark.

 It runs down and drips into the water, diffusing and spreading.

The blade goes into the other hand. Presses against the right wrist.

Up, not across.

Finished, she drops the blade into the soap dish.

 She closes her eyes and waits for death.

Creepy, right?

Here’s a hunk for you as I go back to the spice mines.

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Breakdance

Another cold morning in New Orleans, but it is helping me sleep. I went to bed early last night (before eleven) and woke up at nine thirty this morning. Of course, the cold isn’t nearly as awful here as it is in other places, but still. It ain’t supposed to be this cold south of I-10, yo.

But I am living through it, persevering as it were, and as I said the other day, the cold spell is supposed to snap this weekend. I am, of course, going to be at Comic Con this weekend at the New Orleans Convention Center:

PANEL: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller and Suspense Storytelling
DAY: Friday
TIME: 6:00-6:45pm
ROOM: 288
SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, THRILLER AND SUSPENSE STORYTELLING
What does it take to create stories and worlds in the science fiction, fantasy, or thriller genres and what do we hope to see in the future for these genres as well? Join Genese Davis (The Holder’s Dominion), Lilian Oake (Nahtaia: A Jaydürian Adventure), Bill Loehfelm (The Devil’s Muse: A Maureen Coughlin Novel) and Greg Herren (Garden District Gothic) as they unlock their writing process and experiences as creatives. The stories and worlds behind sci-fi, fantasy and thrillers will be revealed in this panel and hopefully any hinderances standing between you and your sci-fi saga, epic fantasy, or that heart-pounding thriller will disappear!
PANEL: Start Your Creativity Engines
DAY: Sunday
TIME: 2:30-3:15pm
ROOM: 291
START YOUR CREATIVITY ENGINES
Having trouble revving up your creativity engine? Writer’s block and general creator’s block often succeeds in stalling every type of artist at one time or another, but thankfully, there are creative solutions that can bulldoze those standstill challenges! With the right tools and inspiration, the wonderful world of art, writing, and creativity becomes your oasis. Join Genese Davis (The Holder’s Dominion), Tom Cook (Saturday Morning Cartoons) and Greg Herren (Garden District Gothic) as they divulge their experience when creating worlds and storytelling. Discover the routine, environment, and even networking and collaborative solutions that can bolster creativity and help you complete your artistic endeavors during this fantastic discussion!

I am signing at the Tubby and Coo’s Bookshop booth on Sunday before (starting at 1) and after the above panel (ending at 4). If you’re there, stop by and say hello, buy a book, and check out the merchandise. Candice always has lots of cool stuff in the booth, and the store is pretty awesome too–it’s on Carrollton, just up the street from Five Guys. I mean, you can go buy some books, and then wander over and have a fantastic burger and Cajun-style fries. How awesome is that?

I went over some edits on a short story this morning; there will be more info on that particular anthology as it develops.

And now, back to the spice mines. Here’s a hunk for your Humpday viewing pleasure:

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Come On Feel The Noise

Day two of the New Year, and it’s still miserably cold here in New Orleans. This cold spell is supposed to last through the weekend, but next week the range will be between the high forties and mid-sixties, which is more normal for New Orleans winter. The lovely thing about this cold snap is that I am sleeping magnificently; the problem is I don’t want to get out of the bed in the morning.

First world problems, right?

This weekend is Comic Con here in New Orleans; I am speaking on two panels and I am doing a signing; the panels are on Friday and Saturday and the signing is Sunday afternoon. While it’s kind of a drag having to have something to do every day of my weekend, it is Comic Con, which is always fun. My favorite thing to do is walk around and look at the costumes, to be honest. Every year I promise myself that next year I’ll wear a costume; and when it rolls around every year I am not physically costume ready. But one of my life-goals is to wear a costume to Comic Con one year; maybe if I stick to my gym goals this year I’ll be able to do so next year.

The journal is working out great so far; I did some more brainstorming in it yesterday, and the WIP is really starting to take shape–a better shape than it was. It’s strange, but thinking things through, hashing them out on paper and writing them down makes the process work better for me. I can’t believe I’ve not been doing the journal thing for so long. I’ve really come up with some good stuff over the last few days since buying it. I am quite excited about this new development, and am getting quite excited about writing again; which, to be honest, it’s been kind of a while since I’ve felt the creative joy of writing.

I also started reading several books over the weekend which didn’t pass the fifty-page test; so off into the donation pile they went. This isn’t to say the books were bad, they just didn’t grab me, and there are just too many books to keep trying to read something that hasn’t grabbed me by page fifty; that turns the reading into the category of pulling teeth and then I don’t read as quickly and then the books continue to stack up. One I put aside to try again at a later date; I really like the concept of it, but the writing just didn’t grab me and encourage me to keep going. I’m starting another one tonight; hopefully it will work out better.

I also didn’t read a short story yesterday; I started reading one, but Paul and I also started binge watching Broadchurch this weekend, and we are totally sucked into the show. The first season was truly wonderful; lots of twists and turns that i certainly didn’t see coming, which was lovely. We’re one or two episodes into Season 2 now; the addition of Charlotte Rampling and Jeanne Marie-Baptiste to the cast can only make it stronger. The acting in Season One was pretty spectacular, and I have to say, after The Night Manager and this, I’ve become rather a fan of Olivia Colman.

I have a lot of emails to get caught up on today, and I also want to get some writing done. The illness is mostly past; all the remains is a tubercular cough; deep and throaty and phlegmy, but at least it no longer hurts to cough. Baby steps.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Here’s a hunk for you for today, Constant Reader. In honor of Comic Con, this is cosplay specialist Michael Hamm as Nightwing.

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Cover Me

The first day of the new year: 2018. It is currently twenty-eight degrees outside; which is hideous for New Orleans. Much as I would rather spend the day curled up beneath blankets with a good book today, I am venturing out for an early lunch with a friend before heading back home for the LSU bowl game. I am currently wrapped in a wool blanket sipping my first cup of coffee. I didn’t want to leave the warmth of my bed this morning; it was comfortable and warm in there under all those blankets. Tomorrow I have to work a long day which will entail getting up quite early; I am not looking forward to that as the temperature is supposed to be around the same as it is this morning.

Not a pleasant start to the new year, but i am grateful that at least our thermostat is in the positive numbers.

Yesterday after lunch at Commander’s, I stopped at Garden District Books and bought myself a blank journal; while watching the Saints lose (seriously, they couldn’t have played worse if they were trying to lose) I wrote three pages of notes on the WIP in it; and they are good notes. Sometimes, it’s necessary to go back to your roots to kick the cobwebs out of your mind and get things together. I’m glad I remembered that I used to do this with my journals, and I can carry it with me everywhere, just like I used to; and I can just scribble notes, even just brainstorming and free association the way I used to rather than rabidly checking my phone.

So, here are my goals for 2018. I prefer to set goals rather than make resolutions; goals sounds, for one thing, more positive, and not reaching a goal isn’t like failing; breaking a resolution sounds almost criminal, whereas not making a goal doesn’t mean the goal isn’t still attainable; just taking longer than originally anticipated. So, here goes.

Get to the gym at least twice a week. I was doing quite well with doing crunches at home several days a week, until I got sick a few weeks ago and it flattened me out. It will be easier to get to the gym now on the weekends since football season is past; ideally I should make it three times per week; but two is better than once; and once is better than never. Getting into a regular routine will help me get back into better physical condition; being in better physical condition will help me sleep better and help regulate my vitals–blood pressure, etc.

Write a short story every month. I always try to write more short stories; I set this goal every year, and I am even going to allow myself a little more wiggle room here with this one; I am going to expand it to mean just working on a short story every month. I have any number of short stories in a draft form, either unfinished or in need of rewriting/revising/polishing, and the sooner I can get those files off my desk the more room I will have on my desk.

Get an agent. This was a goal last year that I didn’t achieve; but last year I did start submitting queries. Now that I’ve ripped off that bandage, I am going to get going on this and get somewhere with it. However, part of this is having something to submit; and the WIP needs more work. So, I am setting May 1 as the goal date of having the WIP in shape and submittable. That gives me four months, and I should be able to get it done in that amount of time.

Finish the new Scotty and a young adult novel. I’ve had to stop the current Scotty because it was kind of a mess; I am debating whether any of the chapters I’ve written are even usable. I’ll need to reread them all, of course, but I am thinking that not only does the title need to be changed but the book itself needs to be overhauled. This is do-able. I also have about 40k of another y/a novel that’s been haunting my files for several years. It needed about another 20k, and I wasn’t totally satisfied with the plot. I think I know how to fix the plot and get it up to about 60k; with a goal of getting that finished by the end of the summer.

Pay down my debt. Buying a new car and having to have full insurance coverage on it put a major dent in my finances this year; so much so that it’s almost frightening how close to the edge I’ve skated at times. Obviously, the best way to not have financial concerns would be to pay down the debt that I owe, rather than just, as I said, skating along the way I have been, which means tightening my belt and maybe doing without. I am already denying myself new books until I clean out my TBR pile substantially (I will make exceptions, of course, to this rule), and frugality is the key to this year.

Do a better job of staying on top of the household chores, and maybe add a cleaning project each week. The condition of the Lost Apartment is really appalling, and trying to stay on top of things has been much harder than it should have been, but if I add one extra chore to the weekly ones rather than trying to do a massive, over-all all-at-once clean, I can get the house back under control in a matter of months and having it under control after a matter of months is better than never at all, right?

Those are all attainable, and putting them out there in public does make it slightly more likely that I will get them done.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines. I need to finish the laundry and grab a shower before lunch.

Here’s a Happy New Year hunk to kick off the year for you, Constant Reader, and as always, thanks for being here.

 

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Lucky Star

New Year’s Eve, a time to look back on the past year and reflect on goals either achieved or missed; to look at what was accomplished and what wasn’t, to think about and make plans for the future year.

So, what kind of year was 2017? I didn’t achieve many, if any, of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. I intended to write more short stories (which I sort of did) and publish more short stories (which I didn’t really do); I intended to start my search for an agent (which I did); but I didn’t seem to get much else done. I didn’t start working out more, but I did lose weight–so that one’s kind of a toss-up; I weigh 15 pounds less than I did a year ago. I did buy a new car, which was also a goal, and I’ve not regretted it once, despite the impact on my finances. I also didn’t write nearly as much this year as I had hoped/wanted to; there were no new novels published under my name this year; which is the first time I think that’s happened since 2005. That doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it did in 2005, to be honest; my self-worth and identity as an author apparently no longer requires me to write and publish at the insane pace that I used to keep.

I read a lot of good books in 2017, discovered a lot of great new-to-me writers, watched some amazing television shows and movies, but creatively I spent most of the year in stasis; just kind of getting through the day every day and then watching as those days turned into weeks and then months. I started a number of short stories that I either didn’t finish, or finished but didn’t know how to fix. The WIP, the manuscript I am shopping to agents, needs some more work. I had started sending it out in the fall, but I am going to hold back on it for a few more months as I revise and polish it some more. I always felt it was missing something, even though I thought it was a good manuscript, and I’ve recently figured out what that something is; and I’ve also realized part of the problem I had with the manuscript and fixing it has to do with my own stubbornness. It’s starting point needs to be before where I start the book; I flash back to the beginning of the story and that kind of is not only a cliche but also steps on the action. Also, where I start the book itself is kind of hackneyed and cliched. There’s another subplot or two that needs to be woven into the story, and I  need to develop my main character more; and there are things about him that I know that are kind of crucial to the story that don’t actually appear in the story, and some of the relationships between the characters need to be developed and deepened, more layered. It’s a very basic story right now, and it needs to be more complex; and it needs to go deeper into its theme.

So, that’s something, at any rate.

I also had a good year in that I was nominated for a Macavity Award (Best Short Story, “Survivor’s Guilt”) and an Anthony Award (Best Anthology, Blood on the Bayou). Both were completely unexpected surprises, and enormously gratifying.  As Constant Reader knows, I struggle with short stories and have very little to no self-confidence when it comes to them. So, to get nominated for a Macavity Award for a short story I wrote? That was probably one of the most meaningful things to happen to me in my career thus far. And I was nominated against some amazing writers–I read all the stories–and wasn’t in the least surprised when Art Taylor won; any of the other nominated stories were award-worthy. It was such an honor.

I was so certain I wasn’t going to win the Anthony Award that Paul and I booked our plane tickets home from Toronto for Sunday morning; I was boarding my flight to New Orleans when I started getting texts and tweets and Facebook messages that I’d won. It, too, was an incredibly lovely surprise, and I was extremely happy for the contributors, and thankful to them for their amazing stories.

I also realized this year that something I used to do when I was writing–something that was highly effective, and I don’t know why I stopped doing it–was write about whatever I was working on in long-hand in notebooks. I started doing that again this year, in these last few months–and it proved incredibly helpful with a couple of things I was working on at the time. So, I am going to make that a goal for the new year; to return to buying a blank book to carry around with me at all times, to use for notes and questions I have for myself, for developing characters and things. I think I stopped using the blank books because I started keeping physical files, and it was easier to use a spiral notebook for notes that could be removed and put in the files. There’s no reason I can’t stop doing that, either; but the point is that I need to start doing things like that in long-hand again. It was an excellent way of brainstorming and free-associating that I’ve sadly gotten away from over the years.

Despite getting off to a rough start, LSU also had a great season, one with lots of highlights and excitement, and wound up 9-3 on the year, with a chance for a ten-win season with a bowl win. The future also looks fairly bright for the Tigers going forward; the Saints are also having a great season. Back in September this football season was looking really bleak; who could have foreseen that both of our teams would have such a remarkable turnaround?

I had a lot of fun this past year. Last January I did two library events in Alabama, which were way fun, and was invited back again this year; I also spoke at an event at the University of Mississippi as well as at the Alabama Book Festival (both events were in teh same week, so I was driving around the deep South quite a bit then), and of course, Bouchercon in Toronto was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to this year’s event in St. Petersburg, and I am also looking forward to a trip to England this spring.

We’re having lunch later at Commander’s Palace; our annual New Year’s Eve meal with Jean and Gillian, which is always a lovely way to ring out the old year. I’ve started reading John Hart’s Redemption Road–I greatly enjoyed his The Last Child and Iron House, so am greatly looking forward to this one. Next weekend I am appearing at Comic Con at the Convention Center every day; that should also be a lot of fun.

And so, I should get some things done before it’s time to go to lunch. The spice mines are always calling me, so here’s one last hunk for 2017, Constant Reader, and have a lovely and safe and happy new year.

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You Might Think

Friday night I finished reading Lisa Unger’s exceptional The Red Hunter. I don’t remember who originally told me to read Lisa Unger’s work, but whoever it was, I really need to say thank you again! She is an exceptionally terrific writer, and as I make my way through her canon, it is startling how fresh, new and completely original every single volume is.

Take The Red Hunter, for example, her April 2017 release. Unger’s books are always about the damage humans do to each other, and how that damage and/or abuse creates ripples that eventually become waves that affect the present, and the necessity of coming to terms with that past in order to solve the problems of the present. The Red Hunter is, at it’s core, the story of a house in rural New Jersey; an old derelict place that is falling to pieces. Claudia, a publishing executive whose personal life is in shambles, decides to renovate the house as a project and blog about it, moving into it with her daughter, Raven. But the house has some terrible secrets.

the red hunter

There’s nothing about me that you would ever notice. I am neither especially thin, nor overweight. My face will not be one you remember. With dark eyes and pale skin, hair the color of straw, cheeks round and just rosy enough that you won’t wonder if I’m ill, I will blend into the sea of other plain faces you saw before and after as you went about your day. nothing about my clothes will capture your notice. No brands that incite jealousy, or anything revealing, no stains, maybe just wrinkled or worn enough that you’ll dismiss me as someone without much money, though not poor enough to be in need. If I’m wearing a uniform, I don’t even exist. I am the checkout girl at the grocery store, or the maid that cleans your hotel room, the girl woh answered the phone, or the young lady at the information desk. No, you would say later, you can’t recall her name or what she looked like, not really. The truth is you don’t see me; your eyes glance over me, never coming to rest. But I see you.

This is Zoey Drake, one of Unger’s point of view characters. Zoey is a young college student at NYU, who studies martial arts and works in a coffee shop; she house and cat sits for a place to stay. Zoey sees herself as the Red Hunter, a vigilante/Batman of sorts, who stops crimes from happening when she comes across them and always dresses nondescriptly; she is trying to right a cosmic wrong. When she was a young girl, her parents were brutally murdered in front of her, and she too was injured and left for dead; she survived that horrible night, but has always been looking, ever since, for answers to the question of who murdered her parents and why.

Claudia herself is surviving a brutal attack; she was assaulted and raped brutally years earlier, which wound up damaging her and her own marriage in ways she couldn’t even comprehend at the time. There has always been a question as to whether her daughter, Raven, is her husband’s or her rapist’s. This is part of the reason why Claudia has brought Raven the old house in the New Jersey countryside; she is trying to rebuild the house and their lives at the same time. Raven has her own curiosity about the question of her paternity.

Their lives are destined to cross because of the house; you see, the house is where Zoey lived with her parents and where they died in front of her. The killers were looking for something in the house that has never been found…and Zoey’s actions have set everything into motion again so that the tangled skeins of their livers are going to cross again as the mystery of how and why what happened when she was a little girl rears its ugly head again, and now all of them are in terrible, deadly danger.

Wow. This book is a thrill-ride from start to finish; fully developed characters that you care about, a fascinating unfolding of a crime with twists and turns that keep the reader balanced firmly on the edge of their seat.

Seriously, if you aren’t reading Lisa Unger, what the hell is wrong with you?

If This Is It

Sue Grafton died this week.

Bookstop in Houston, the late 1980’s. I hadn’t read mysteries in years, abandoning the genre in the late 1970’s because I was tired of the straight white male point of view, and I wasn’t really aware there was any other, to be honest. I’d always loved the genre; as a kid I read every mystery I could get my hands on, from Mary C. Jane’s books for kids to the Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew to Trixie Belden to The Three Investigators. I read all of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. I was a huge fan of the Gothic suspense writers, Phyllis A. Whitney and Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart. I read Charlotte Armstrong. But once that store of writers and their works had been exhausted, I tried reading the male voice…and didn’t care for it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the problem was, but they weren’t anything I could enjoy. So I moved away from the genre, reading family sagas and romance novels and science fiction and horror and fantasy; literary fiction and historicals; I’ve always read, and I always will. But I remember stopping at the Book Stop in Houston on pay day–I always went to a bookstore on pay day–and they had a little glossy magazine about new books and writers they always put in the bag. The cover story was an interview with a writer I’d never heard of, and about her new book, D is for Deadbeat.  “Wow,” I thought as I read it, “a woman private eye? This sounds interesting.” So on my next pay day I bought the first four books in the series: A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, C is for Corpse, and D is for Deadbeat.  I enjoyed the first two, and they got me thinking about my own plans about being a writer. (I’d given up the idea of being a crime writer–which was my first inclination–when I lost interest in the genre in the late 1970’s.) And then I read C, which to this day remains my favorite of the entire series. I was hooked, sold, and a Grafton fan for life.

And I realized that despite some of the criticism she received (misogynistic at its heart; male critics dismissing Kinsey as “a man in a skirt,’ which was such utter bullshit I couldn’t believe a paid critic could be that ignorant and obtuse–now, of course, I can readily believe it), she had really reinvented the form; by creating a tough, loner female private eye she had forever changed the form and recreated it. And made me realize, hey, if someone can write a series about a female private eye, why can’t I write a series about a gay one? 

She made me realize that anything was possible in the form; if you only had the courage to shatter the mold and recast it.

Reading Grafton led me to the other great women writers–Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller–and the ones who came in their wake: Lia Matera, S. J. Rozan, Laura Lippman, Megan Abbott, and so many others. And I grew to love the genre again,  and realized that it was what I was meant to do myself.

I had the great good fortune to meet her here in New Orleans at a party given in her honor; I don’t recall why she was in town, I know she came to the Williams Festival one year and I got all of my books signed. But she made time for a conversation for everyone at the party, was gracious and friendly and kind. I don’t remember what we talked about–I was too in awe and tongue-tied to be anything other than a blithering idiot, so I mostly stuck to  innocuous party conversation, but I remember she was very kind, had a wonderful warm smile. and an infectious, joyous laugh.

I started buying the books in hardcover around I; I am woefully behind on the series, and now there won’t be another to come; the series ended before she reached Z, only falling one short; if I am not mistaken, I have W, X, and Y left.

Thanks for all the years of great reading, and inspiration.

RIP, Sue.

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