Thursday morning and I could have slept later for sure, LOL. But I did sleep well, which was nice despite being so rudely interrupted by my alarm. I have to get up early again tomorrow for PT before I drive to Alabama, but now I can listen to The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman in the car (I started it when I drove to Florida last fall, but the drive was too short for me to finish, sadly), so hurray! And it’s better than driving to Kentucky, which I will be doing later this spring probably (unless airfares dramatically drop by then, which I rather doubt).
Yesterday was a weird day, obviously. I wasn’t feeling like myself yesterday. I didn’t sleep as deeply Tuesday night as I would have liked, and of course, it was probably sublimated grief. I managed to get my work done at the office, saw all my appointments and made groceries on the way home. The store was crowded, of course, because men were there buying flowers and chocolates and things for their significant others, which always makes me snicker to myself. I have a lot of thoughts about Valentine’s Day, most of them negative, but it’s going to always be the anniversary of Mom’s death from now on, and probably best to not talk about the so-called holiday going forward. The day will probably always be melancholy and sad going forward, and I really need to let go of the “stiff upper lip” thing and grieve. I have sublimated a lot of it by worrying about Dad, which I don’t think is all that healthy for me. Something else to work on for this year, I guess.
I was pretty tired when I got home, and so didn’t do a whole lot of anything. I had intended to empty the dishwasher and finish the laundry (it just needs to be folded and put away) but once I sat down, there was no getting back up again other than for necessities. Sparky is a bad influence, of course; all he wants from me when I get home is attention and it’s so easy to give in to quality time with my cat. He’s getting bigger and bigger every day, and getting smarter, too. Remember how I thought he turned the washing machine on by accident? Not an accident. If the washing machine lid is up, he’ll turn it on to watch it fill up with water, and stands on the dryer watching. So, not an accident, but deliberate. He’s also learned how to open the freezer, so I had to blockade the top of the refrigerator so he can’t climb or jump up there from the counter, which explains all those times I’ve found the freezer slightly open and not sealed and just thought need to be better about closing that.
Nope, it’s just Sparky. He is so lucky he’s adorable.
I also woke up this morning to yet another scandal about the Hugo Awards lighting up social media, making me glad my creativity doesn’t loan itself to the writing of science fiction. We do have our blow-ups in the crime fiction community (see Bouchercon 2024), but at least it’s never about the awards. Probably be more on that later–I’ve been itching to write about the Bouchercon 2024 kerfuffle and some other things going on in my corner of publishing, but it’s something that needs a gentle, delicate touch and probably needs to be more of an essay written off-line than an off-the-top of my head blog entry.
We finished season two of Abbott Elementary and started season three last night, which means we’ll be looking for something else to watch. I am intrigued by The New Look, which seems to be bent on portraying Coco Chanel as a resistance heroine, while ignoring her closeness to the Nazi occupation leaders during the actual war. It’s never been proven she was a collaborator, but it definitely tarnished her reputation a bit, and glossing over it doesn’t seem to be the right answer. I could be wrong, but I’ve never cared enough about clothes and fashion or Chanel to bother to read up on it and “do my own research”, as they say all over social media.
And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a great Thurday, Constant Reader, and I’ll chat at you probably later on.
Okay, that’s technically not true. I don’t write fiction every day, and I don’t work on a book every day. I generally don’t count the blog as actual writing, but it is writing, I suppose, so I do write that pretty much every day. But I’ve never included the blog in daily word counts or anything; just as I wouldn’t (and didn’t) consider emails, text messages, and social media posts as being part of the daily production output (although I suppose I should; I estimated how many words of blog I’ve done since starting this nineteen years ago–twenty in December–and it was a staggering amount, especially since it was probably dramatically under-counted), and never will.
I do think about writing fiction every day, even the days when I am so exhausted and brain dead I don’t think I’m capable of much of anything creative. I am always thinking, and it’s very rare that the brain turns off, unless I go to sleep (thank you, sleeping pills!); as long as part of my mind is awake and alert my mind will eventually wander into creative thinking. It’s just how my mind works.
During the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon last month, I was on a couple of panels, and as usual have decided to turn the questions sent by the moderators as the basis for self-promotional posts. It has been a hot minute–I’ve not done a hell of a lot of promotion since the surgery knocked me off my tracks for a few months–and while I know many other books have come out since and the Greg has a new book excitement amongst my readers has already died down long since, but what the hell, right? I’m nothing if not a narcissist (or have, at best, some narcissistic traits at any rate), and let’s face it, one of my favorite subjects is ME, so why not? No one has to read these self-promotional posts, either. Just scroll on by, if that’s how you feel; my feelings will not be hurt in the slightest, and I no longer have the anxiety of oh my god no one likes me how can I make everyone like me?
How do you ensure that your latest work is not similar to something you have written before? Can you even remember everything you have written before?
After the eighth (?) Scotty book, someone on social media commented on one of my posts asking how many car accidents has Scotty been in? I’d never really thought much about it, but in that moment I realized quite a fucking lot, and that doesn’t include my other, non-Scotty books, either. I realized that I had been in a car accident in 2008 (the first in decades, and I wasn’t at fault) and my car was totaled. It was so weird, and so different from anything I’d ever imagined being in a serious accident like that would be; it took me days to get the taste of chemicals from the airbag out of my throat and my voice was scratchy and husky for about a week or so after. So, of course, I wrote about it in my next book…and then I think I started having a car accident in a lot more of my books. There was also a car accident in one of the earlier Scotty books–Jackson Square Jazz–and so…I didn’t put one in Mississippi River Mischief.
I had never truly worried about repeating myself until that moment of oh my God do I have a car accident in every book? And so now, I try to be really careful. Am I just rewriting a scene I’ve written before? Scotty is on book nine now; I don’t think it’s feasible for me to sit down and reread the entire series every time I am about to write another one. I have always intended to make a Scotty Bible–what all the regular characters look like, their relationships to each other, where they live, little tidbits I’ve dropped over the years that are clues to their personalities–so that I could verify the information in the series and not have to go looking for it (because I am nothing if not lazy, so I’d put it off and forget it and then realize it’s too late to change that now! FUCK!). I also should go back and outline the books, too–just to have something easy to reference when writing another one.
Since I write more than one series and I also write stand-alone novels, I just realized I should probably do this with all of my books…but I am way too lazy to ever get that done. So I will go on trusting my brain and my memory…which is clearly a mistake!
When naming your characters, do you completely avoid names which you have used in the past or do you feel that the characterization alone is enough to differentiate?
I have names I always fall back on–I also tend to like names that start with L’s and J’s for some reason–so I have to be careful with that. I don’t keep track of all character names I’ve used, and I suppose it’s possible that I could “recreate” a character with a name I’ve used before, and even make them the same…but I also re-use characters; they cross over from series to series and back and then to the stand alones. When I was writing Death Drop, I was originally going to have Blaine and Venus be the cops; they were the cops in both of my previous series with a gay male protagonist, so why not keep expanding my New Orleans universe? I eventually changed my mind–I don’t know why, really, or remember, which is probably a more accurate statement–and changed the names; I think I wanted to differentiate the Killer Queen series and make it more distinct from Chanse and Scotty.
I’m worried more about creating characters that are similar to others I’ve written about more so than the name. I was thinking about starting another series–one with a true crime writer as the main character, and he’s already appeared in both the Scotty and Chanse series; I even had an idea for the story. But when I started creating him, I began to realize he was like a mash-up of Chanse and Scotty, so I abandoned the idea. Now that I am thinking about it again, so what if their backgrounds are similar? He’s nothing like either one of them, and it was a good story idea, so…you never know. I try not to ever conclusively rule anything out. I even think about bringing Chanse back every once in a while.
A question I’m sure most of you have received—do you ever worry that you will run out of ideas?
That’s the least of my concerns. I am more worried I won’t live long enough to write everything I want to.
After all these books, do you still enjoy the writing process?
The primary goal of my life has always been to try to surgically remove anything I don’t enjoy from my existence. I am very blessed in that not only do I get to write and tell my stories and people want to read them but I also have a day job that I enjoy and can feel good about the work I do there. So, the only way I would ever stop writing if I stopped enjoying it, and I can’t ever see that happening. Sure, I’ve had times where I had to step away because of burn out or exhaustion, but I always knew it was a break and I would come back to it again. It’s been difficult for me since my surgery in November to get back into it, but I am making progress. I love writing, and am so grateful this childhood dream came true.
I used to bristle a bit when people called me prolific; I just love to write. But I finally stopped that nonsense and accepted the descriptor when I hit my tenth book…which was over thirty books ago. If that’s not prolific, I don’t know what is. ↩︎
And just like that, it is Thursday again. I have to leave the office a little early today because I have PT at five today, which means getting uptown at a peak traffic time. But it’s a nice way to end my day, really; I doubt I’ll be much in the mood to do much of anything when I get home from that. Tomorrow is another work-at-home Friday, which means I’ve somehow managed to get through another week, and January is rapidly coming to a close. The first night of parades is a week from tomorrow! But my work schedule has been all worked out, I might have to use up some vacation time here and there to make up for leaving the office early that big final weekend, but that’s also okay. It’s hard to believe it’s here already; Krewe de Vieux is this weekend, too.
I did write last night when I got home. I didn’t write as much as I did the night before, but I am very happy with the slightly less than two thousand words I added to my story “When I Die,” and I also realized last night–and double checked to be sure–that my geography in the story was wrong; I then looked at a map to see that yes, I was indeed correct about the geography in question. The story is also running a bit long–but the geography mistake will save me some words when I go back and make that correction. The story is taking shape nicely, and I think I may even be able to get it finished tonight, if I remain ambitious and stay on top of things. I was a bit tired when I got home from the office yesterday, but did manage to get some chores done and yes, I spent some time playing with Sparky, which is always a lovely and nice way to wind down from the stress and aggravations of a work day. I also took care of something that I’d been avoiding and hadn’t been terribly happy about, in all honesty, but it felt really good to get it taken care of and was one of those things I do generally avoid and put off in case of unpleasantness, but I got it taken care of and am very pleased with myself, to be perfectly honest.
But it does feel amazing to be writing again. I’m not worrying about the quality of the story or anything, just getting it out there, and it is starting to take shape nicely. I am giving my creativity free rein with the story, and so I know I am overwriting and probably contradicting myself and other things like that, but I am also really looking forward to polishing, editing, and trimming it down into shape. I really do love short stories and I really enjoy the challenge of writing them (novels are easier for me, which doesn’t make any sense), and I am really liking this story. I have another on deck that I am looking forward to finishing, too. Let’s hear it for writing again, shall we? Huzzah? HUZZAH!
I slept really well last night–it rained overnight, which always makes me sleep better, and I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow, which means I can sleep late if I so choose, and I am starting to feel better about how the apartment looks and getting it back under control. I have another load of dishes to do when I get home tonight after emptying the dishwasher, and I also have laundry in various stages that all need to be finished off this evening when I get home. I’m pretty pleased with how well this first full week of work has gone for me, at least so far; I am neither tired nor fatigued this morning, I got up easily, and my coffee tastes marvelous. I think we have a slow day at the office today so I can get things done that I need to so I can sail into my work-at-home day relatively easily. Next Friday I have a doctor’s appointment and PT on the same morning of the first day of parades, which means any and all errands for the weekend must be completed by the afternoon so I can safely park the car on the street for the weekend. I think it’s supposed to rain all day today, too, and the weather is warming up some. I could tell last night that the weather was changing; it wasn’t stuffy and warm enough to turn on the air conditioning, but it was borderline close.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and you never know–I may be back later, I may not. Stay tuned!
I don’t know if all writers have the same fears that I do, but chief amongst them for me is that the words will stop coming one day. I know, I often will have fallow periods where I don’t feel like writing anything, or that the well needs to be replenished before I can draw from it again. Since the surgery I’ve been trying to write, and not succeeding. The brace was a problem, the loopiness of my brain was another problem, and of course the correct medications at long last also relieved me of the stress/anxiety, which naturally I worried my anxiety might be the seed and root from which my writing sprang. But last night when I got home from work I was determined, and I sat down and started writing. I had been trying to work on this short story for quite some time, and over the last few weeks the form of the story began taking shape in my head. I decided, once I got home from running errands, I was going to sit down and work on the story. The most I’ve ever been able to do at a time since the surgery is a couple of hundred words here and there, and a great day was getting more than three hundred. I had started the story last week, got about five hundred or so words in, and then….not much. But last night, I sat down and added almost twenty-five hundred words to it in one sitting. And it felt amazing. I’m sure they aren’t great words and more story and editing is definitely required on the story, but I hadn’t had a writing day like that in a very long time–so long I’d also reached a point where I was worried that the words weren’t going to come anymore.
It’s so nice to know that isn’t the case, and that the magic is still there.
And it feels even better this morning. I just needed one day of that, apparently, to get my confidence back. Hopefully, tonight I’ll finish that story and tomorrow night after work and PT I can start another.
I was a Festival widow again last night–Paul not getting home until well after I went to bed–but last night was, of course, the final episode of the three-part reunion for The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which was kind of disappointing, given all that had been promised. Ironically, reality television (or at least the kind I prefer to watch) has become so scripted and produced that surprises–like the ones this show delivered–are very rare (and you also have to wonder, still, how much of it was produced and created), and so they get a lot of attention and publicity and are all over the zeitgeist (Vanderpump Rules and Scandoval, anyone?), and of course, ratings are the most important thing. Anyway, I did spend almost two hours watching that and even the Watch What Happens Live that follows, which I never watch (I loathe Andy Cohen), but that was it for me; once the credits rolled I went to bed and had another lovely night’s sleep.
It feels, in some ways, like my life is starting to come back together and fall back into what it was before 2023 again, which is kind of nice. I’ve felt like my life has been out of my control for a very long time now (and yes, I’ve accepted finally that such control is actually an illusion; we have so little control over what happens to us and in our lives, really), but I kind of feel like I’m starting to get a grasp on everything again, and that’s nice. It’s amazing what a difference it makes when I actually am writing something, isn’t it? I feel so much better and at peace with the world and centered. Life provides enough drama as it is, so why seek it out? I find myself checking Twitter less and less now; I do miss the people I used to engage with there, who are now scattered over numerous other platforms, and having to check more than one and try to be active on more than one (and let’s face it, both Twitter and Facebook were more than enough for me) is more than I have the bandwidth for, let alone any such desire to maintain all these different social media accounts. I do seem to spend most of my time on social media blocking people more than anything else, and I don’t know that that is a productive use of my time on social media? Looking for people to block rather than to interact with? Really no, and it’s just more negativity.
Because that’s what I need more of in my life: negativity. Please.
And on that note, I think I’ll go ahead and head into the spice mines. I may be back later or it may be tomorrow; who can say for sure? But whatever happens, have a lovely middle of the week Wednesday, Constant Reader.
It’s Thursday morning and it’s not as cold as it’s been; it’s barely below fifty degrees, which feels like a heat wave after the last few days. I didn’t sleep deeply last night, but I do feel rested today. I suspect I will hit a wall this afternoon and crash really hard, too. I have to get up early tomorrow for PT before my work-at-home duties, and after that I am hoping to dive headfirst into some writing. Parades are literally around the corner, and that’s going to be ridiculously stressful for me…although it may be interesting to see how my new meds affect parade stress. This weekend is more of the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon, which means I won’t have as much free time as I ordinarily would, either. But I’ve been feeling very clear-headed these days, which is lovely after all that time with my brain clouded and clenched into a fist of anxiety. I’m still not as much on the writing horse as I want to be and need to be, but I am hopeful this weekend I’ll kick back into gear.
I was tired after I made groceries in the cold after work yesterday, so once again spent most of the evening ensconced in my chair with Sparky sprawled across my lap. I watched this week’s dose of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which was one of their most entertaining episodes in a very long time, and then Paul came down and we watched an episode of Lupin, which I am really enjoying, and now I kind of want to read about Arsené Lupin, too. Le sigh. So much to read and so little time.
Remember yesterday when I talked about how Tuesday I had kind of spiraled, despite the new medications? I just figured that sometimes it just might not be strong enough to do the trick or something. Anyway, so yesterday morning I didn’t have time to take my daily morning meds so I put them in a little plastic container and brought them to work with me. Around noon I went into my backpack and saw the little plastic container, and thought oh, I forgot to take them I’ll do that now but just as I swallowed them I saw another plastic container on my desk and realized I had taken the pills for the day already, but clearly had forgotten them in my bag on Tuesday…and it all clicked into place. So yes, I took a double dose of everything yesterday and I was in a great mood by the time I left the office to make groceries in Mid-city. But by the time I got home and unloaded the car and put everything away while also being out in the cold? Ugh, exhausting. I did finish folding a load of laundry and started doing another load I’ll have to finish tonight–along with the dishes; I want to clean the kitchen as much as possible so I don’t have to do any of it tomorrow or over the weekend. I also will have to swing by the postal service on the way home tonight, but that’s my only errand so I should be home relatively early and thus able to get those other chores done, possibly some reading, and even some writing in addition to quality kitty time. I’ve become quite attached to Sparky since he came home with us a few months ago. My arms and legs and chest and back are covered in scabs thanks to his Freddy Kruger-like claws, but that’s fine. I used to call Skittle Satan’s Kitty for much the same reason. I do love that he likes to sit on my shoulders, which is very cute. It’s also kind of fun to wonder what kind of havoc he hath wrought in the apartment every day when I come home–and it’s getting better every day. I think maybe that has more to do with me being better about leaving things out on counters and surfaces instead of him learning anything–he really doesn’t–but I’ll take it. The apartment is also slowly starting to come back together, too.
Last year was a bit of a whirlwind. Lots of ups and downs and a lot of brain frying, to be completely honest. It’s difficult sometimes to remember when you’re going through tough times that–hard as it is to see while you’re dealing with it–that eventually you’ll see what you learned from it. Sometimes I do need to be hit in the head with a sledgehammer, but eventually I do see it. What does 2024 hold in store for me? I don’t know. I don’t even want to hazard a guess!
And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you again later.
Wednesday morning in the Lost Apartment, where it is a staggering 39 degrees outside. Brrr! But I slept pretty well (even if I didn’t want to get up), and my mind is slowly but surely coming back to life. Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all, but I was out of sorts and off-track for pretty much the entire day, because my routine was disrupted when I got to work and so…yeah. I did run my errands on the way home from work last night and got home to a needy Sparky, so I had to spend some time playing with him and then transformed my lap into a cat bed for a little while. Tomorrow morning I have to get up super-early for PT–which I am not looking forward to, and of course there’s a department meeting on Friday morning, that I think I’ll go into the office for despite it being my at-home day and having the ability to call in for it. I have some on-line events Saturday for the January Bold Strokes bookathon, which I should post more about, and then the rest of the weekend is mine.
I did some more research into a story I am writing last night, and yes, I actually started writing the story. I’m writing about Julia Brown, the “witch” of Manchac Swamp who worked as the healer in a small town inside the swamp and along the lake shore, which was only accessible by railroad. Frenier was a small community, and it was completely destroyed by the 1915 hurricane; all that is left of it is the cemetery and it’s only accessible by boat now. I’ve always wanted to write about the 1915 hurricane since I first learned of it–it came up when I was down a rabbit-hole about the Filipino settlements on Lake Borgne, which were also destroyed in the 1915 hurricane, which led me to reading about Frenier, and the so-called curse of Aunt Julia Brown. (I do wish I’d known about all this before I wrote a Sherlock story set in 1916; no mention of the previous year’s destruction in that story is odd but maybe unnecessary; it didn’t impact the plot of the story at all, but…if I set another Sherlock story in that same time period I need to address that elephant in the room.)
I also went down another research wormhole last night, too–inspired by Mary & George–about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and his close relationship not only with James I but with his son, Charles I…although the relationship between Villiers and Charles I wasn’t quite the same kind of erotic friendship as Villiers enjoyed with the senior Stuart. Buckingham was also one of the real historical figures that appeared in Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, which I still want to retell one day from the point of view of Milady deWinter. It’s such a fascinating period, really, and the clothes! MonDieu, the clothes! I’ve always been fascinated by Cardinal Richelieu, and really need to get over my fear of writing about a historical period and just buckle down and write that damned book, don’t I? Sigh. I also need to get back to both Chlorine and Muscles, too.
Heavy heaving sigh.
But I am also starting to feel like I am settling back into my normal, every day life, and I feel better than I have in years. That cloudy feeling in my brain seems to be gone, and I am adapting to getting back up early in the morning without much hassle; I suspect the sleeping pills are working their magic and sending me into a deep healthy sleep every night, which pays off in being both awake and lucid in the morning. I’ve also got some blog entries to finish writing–my thoughts on Saltburn, because I know everyone is just waiting to hear what I have to say about it, and some analysis of the most recent chapter of the graphic novel Heartstopper, both of which are destined to be queer cultural artifacts.
And I hope to finish reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat before the weekend, too. I should have spent some time with it last night, but it was after six when I got home and by the time I was finished with putting stuff away and quality Sparky time and writing, it was later and so I just went down the Villiers wormhole. I also watched the final episode of season 2 of War of the Worlds, and am officially tapping out now. Not only was the shark jumped, the story became preposterous. I thought it might be a bit more interesting and intriguing once I realized the direction they were going in, but no. I also forgot part one of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was airing last night, so I’ll be catching up on that tonight after reading. I get to go straight home from the office tonight, so fingers crossed that I’ll get some good reading time in before I shut my mind off and dig into some reality television.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later.
Monday and back to the office with me this morning, woo-hoo! Yesterday was kind of nice. It rained overnight and we had a couple of amazing thunderstorms in the morning which cooled everything off (for a quick moment) so I was able to cuddle up under my blankets with a cup of coffee and finished reading Megan Abbott’s amazing Beware the Woman (get a copy now and you can thank me later–I prefer cash), before doing some chores around the house and getting a handle on the kitchen/office mess situation. Yesterday afternoon around one I checked the temperature and it was a mere 78 degrees here. In July, in the afternoon. Madness, am I right? But it gradually started climbing again, as always, but it was a lovely respite from the brutality that has been this summer.
I also read a short story from one of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Lady’s Man” by Ruth Chatterton, which I found interesting as it was nothing more than a little ghost story, set at a country home of none other than Noel Coward! I’m sure this must be the same Ruth Chatterton who’d been a film star in the 20s and 30s; a quick Google search answers the question that yes, the film star also was a writer! How delightful. The tale was told in a conversational style, as though Ms. Chatterton was making interesting conversation at a formal dinner, which made it really fun to read, even though the chills weren’t quite as pronounced as they were in some of the other stories I’ve read in these books. I do love revisiting these old anthologies and stories from another time.
I also spent some time going through my recent journals and marking pages with sticky notes that are applicable to things I am currently working on or thinking about going to work on. I usually brainstorm and think in my journals. It used to be just the act of writing something down was necessary for me to remember it later–which is why I never needed to really consult my notes in the Olden Days–but that is clearly no longer the case. Even writing stuff here in blog posts is no guarantee I will remember it later. It was also interesting because so much of my journal is just me scribbling, free associating names and titles then who the people are who got with both, quotes I like with attribution, and then the most bizarre things that literally make no sense at all; where did this thought come from? Is it original or did I see it somewhere and wrote it down? It’s always fun to see just how schizophrenic my creativity is when I don’t try to harness it. I actually wrote longhand in my journal last night while watching a documentary–I sometimes takes notes in case I want to blog about it later–and wound up writing several pages of a personal essay about my own experience going to Boys’ State in Kansas the summer I turned sixteen. (Yes, I was watching Boys’ State on Apple Plus, which was filmed at the Texas Boys’ State, which was interesting and well done, and a lot like I remembered it being all those years ago in a different state.) That evolved into me writing about always feeling like an outsider, observing from a slight remove, and went on for quite some time, rather indulgently, and I kind of was amused. There I was, feeling like I was creatively stifled and not able to write, yet writing in longhand in a journal, no less. It wasn’t fiction, of course, but it was still a creative expression, a free form exercise in stream of consciousness writing to see where my mind went–and inevitably, as always, I had to take the piss out of myself.
And that led to another page about my difficulties in taking myself seriously, and thus self-sabotaging myself and my career.
It truly is a wonder I have a career, or for that matter, even had one to begin with.
One thing that did come from that free form writing was a reiteration of something I think I may have posted here recently, that I should take just as much pride in my novels as I do in my published short stories. Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it, but my inner editor always wants to find and fix things in the novels, which inevitably leads to me wishing I could have another pass at it, and the reality is I will always feel like I should have taken another pass at a novel manuscript before it went to print. I need to get over that, or to at least keep it to myself and my journals rather than dragging my own work on my blog. I AM proud of my books, every single one of them, and every single one of them was the best book I was capable of writing at the time I wrote it. As I believe I continue to learn and grow as a writer the more I write, I will always think of my past work as something done when I wasn’t as mature a writer and was still learning because I am always learning. And hope to always continue learning and get better, not just as an author but as a person.
The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know, and how much I will never know. It’s kind of humbling, really.
I did decide what the next book I am going to write is going to be, and that’s a good thing. I was pretty sure of what it was going to be, because it’s in my head and needs to come out more than anything else at the moment–but there’s always something else nagging at the back of my mind saying write me write me! It has the potential to be very good, but I still need to figure some things out. I know how it starts and I know how it ends and I know the back story; I just don’t know the middle and how to get from Act One to the start of Act Three; I always struggle with the second act. I started writing it for a friend who was an acquiring editor, it was something I had been wanting to do for a while and he was interested in acquiring it once it was finished, or at least a first draft completed. So, while I was working on two other books at the same time, I was also taking one day every week and writing a three thousand word chapter and emailing it to him. I had completed Chapter Four and needed a transitional chapter that wasn’t boring or expository, so I had to put more thought into it than I had the previous four. This was last fall, when things started to get out of control in my personal life and with everything else, when I started falling behind on everything and my anxiety was out of control and I just didn’t have the headspace or creative energy to spare to figure out that chapter, so I stopped working on it.
But I never stopped thinking about it.
So, now I have to write it. I may continue to send it to him although he is no longer an acquiring editor, but he’s also a friend and I respect his opinion (he is remaining unnamed because I cannot say kind things about him publicly), so maybe I will. He was very encouraging, and sometimes I need a little bit of a push every now and then. I’ve also mentally worked out some of the kinks in those first chapters, too. I think it will be fun to write; I know I was enjoying it when I was working on it before, and it wasn’t like fuck, I don’t want to work on the structure and plot and meaning of this fucking thing, it was yeah, let’s figure this shit out.
That’s a good sign, methinks.
I’ve also decided my next read is going to be Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt. I love Kelly and I love Kelly’s work, so I can’t wait to see what this is about. She has a truly masterful grasp of the rural South, and that voice! Oh, that authorial voice! She takes me back to my childhood summers in rural Alabama, shows those folks with a clear and unblinking eye, and then writes with language so beautifully and magnificently constructed that it makes me feel seen, home, and alive. I have some more fabulous books coming–what a summer for releases! New books to come from Laura Lippman and Angie Kim and Michael Koryta on top of all the treasures that have already been released this year? I’ve got Eryk Pruitt’s latest and Scott Von Doviak’s latest on their way, with a new Donna Andrews right on their heels. I need to stop slacking and get back to reading on top of everything else! Mon Dieu, how am I ever supposed to keep up?
There simply isn’t enough time in every day, is there?
There were also short stories in my journals–either the idea or the openings or an outline–that I’ve never transferred out or transcribed, which also needs to be done. God, there are so many short stories in progress…it’s daunting just thinking about it.
But it was a good weekend. I got some rest and I accomplished some things. I got better organized, with a short way to go, and am proceeding with plans to get everything back together again and start writing again, clearly and clear-headedly moving forward on something I’m really interested in writing, something I’ve wanted to write for a very long time–and it’s enormously satisfying knowing I am finally going to be working on it for real.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. I tend to turn up like a bad penny here and there, now and again.
And here we are on a lovely humid Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment. I overslept this morning, or rather, slept later than I had intended or wanted to, but seriously, I’m learning to accept these things as messages from my body that I need more rest. I felt weirdly tired most of yesterday, despite the good night’s sleep; it kind of felt like my body never completely woke up, although my fevered brain was working properly. My body just felt like it would have preferred to stay in bed for the rest of the day. On the way home from work I stopped and made some groceries; today I’ll run uptown and get the mail, making a stop at the Fresh Market for fruit, vegetables and berries on my way home. I may order a Costco delivery for this afternoon (or tomorrow) as well; I haven’t really decided. I started doing some shopping on their website yesterday, but we really didn’t need as much stuff as I would have thought we needed going into their website. (Some of the stuff I wanted wasn’t available, either; which was annoying to say the least–but that would probably also be the case were I to actually go there in person, as well) I also have a library book to pick up today while I am out and about in the humid air of an August Saturday. Huzzah?
I hope I can stay motivated today and get to everything I want to get to this weekend; the jury, of course, remains out at this point.
But if I don’t, I don’t. The world won’t stop turning, after all.
We watched They/Them last night, and it was interesting. It was billed as a horror film, but I really didn’t feel like it was a horror movie rather than social commentary using horror tropes, if that makes sense? The young queer actors playing the kids at the conversion therapy camp were terrific–so were the older cast (Kevin Bacon, Anna Chlumsky, Carrie Preston)–but the movie never quite gelled as being anything more than a clever idea. A “slasher” movie with “they slash them” in the title I bet made the people around the creative table very excited. And maybe I went in expecting a little too much from it, I don’t know. But it really says something about us as a society that this is the first time we’ve ever seen a horror film rooted in the real-life horror of a reparative therapy camp; they are such real horrors that it’s hard to clear your mind to watch the film objectively; obviously, everyone involved with running the camp are the real monsters, etc. and Paul figured out very early on who the killer was–I didn’t bother trying to figure it out, because the identity of the killer (or killers) in these movies, Scream series notwithstanding, really isn’t a big Scooby-Doo reveal or the point of the films. Ultimately, while the film was actually well done, if you want to see a better send-up of slasher flicks, much as I hate to say it, the latest season of American Horror Story was probably better than They/Them, but at least They/Them is mercifully shorter than any season of AHS. Watch it for yourselves and make up your mind; it does bring up some interesting things to think about.
We then watched the first two episodes of a Netflix true crime series The Most Hated Man on the Internet, about Hunter Moore and his horrific revenge-porn site IsAnyoneUp.com. It’s a horrible story–we stopped before the third and final episode, in which Moore is finally arrested and charged–but riveting and hard to stop watching. The story is primarily told through the eyes of his victims–women whose intimate photos were posted on his website–and its yet another compelling example of how women can so easily be dehumanized and devalued by men and society as a whole. It’s a pretty disgusting story, as these kinds of stories so often are, but I think people do need to watch it. It’s pretty frightening how successful a sociopath can become in this country, and a stinging indictment of our society as a whole. Tonight I am excited to start watching The Sandman–one of the greatest comic book series ever done; I hope it translates well to the new medium (I really didn’t care for other Neil Gaiman adaptations, American Gods and Good Omens, even though I loved the books they were based on). There’s a lot of good stuff dropping this month, too–yes, I will watch House of the Dragons because I’ve missed Westeros since Game of Thrones ended, and I am not ashamed to admit it, either.
Just glancing around my home office as I swill coffee and swim up from the depths of Morpheus (see what I did there?) induced sleep, I can also see that there are a lot of odds and ends that need doing around here as well. I am hoping to get some writing done today–I want to really start digging into the Scotty book this weekend, and of course I need to work on some short stories and so forth. I went ahead and bit the bullet and submitted a story yesterday. I don’t think they’re going to accept it, to be honest, but that’s okay. They certainly can never accept it if I never send it to them for consideration, can they? It never gets any easier, either, the longer I do this: the minutes-long debate with myself before I hit the submit button. I hate that I still have so little confidence in my skill as a writer and I am this far into it, which means that confidence will probably never come along; it’s not like one day I will wake up with an entire new mindset and brain…plus, I think the insecurity is a driver in keeping me writing, frankly, which is in and itself probably more than just a little bit neurotic.
Nothing ever really changes around here, does it? I suspect that this blog–going back now seventeen years or so–is nothing more than an endless log of neuroses and insecurity and self-loathing. (A little voice in my head just shouted, and that will be your legacy!) I was also looking at the saved drafts in my folder–entries that I wanted to write but decided I needed more time to think about before posting, and in many cases they are unfinished–and thinking I should spend some more time actually finishing and posting them. While the blog has always been intended primarily for me–it’s a warm-up writing session at best, at worst it’s some writing I do every day to keep my hand in–there’s no reason I can’t use the blog for other purposes; like publishing an essay about something that I care about, or a personal essay built around something that happened to me. I don’t trust my memories, as I’ve often mentioned here (I sometimes think that if I were ever to start writing memoirs, it would have to be called False Memories or Memory Lies), and so writing about personal experiences is something I have always been highly reluctant to do. There are any number of things I could write personal essays about, but everything is entirely subjectively MY opinion, which makes it a bit harder for me to think anyone would even care to read them. I am not known as a great thinker or as an intellectual; far from it, in fact, and there’s quite literally nothing I can think of to say about anything that would be clever or insightful or meaningful.
Then again, that could just be the Imposter Syndrome speaking again, too.
Heavy heaving sigh.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow, okay?
Queer and Loathing in America 