Tag: Bouchercon anthology

Will This Be The Day

I kind of feel like normal at long last this morning. It shouldn’t take one a week to recover from a weekend trip, but…in order to be fair to myself (something I’ve always had trouble with accomplishing, frankly, and is a goal of this new year for me) I also did some binge-writing before and after, so it was no surprise that I’d pushed myself on every level hard to the level of practically cratering everything. But I will undoubtedly forget the toll binge-writing takes on my body–binge work is always hard on my body, frankly–and will find myself in the same situation yet again when my next manuscript looms due. Heavy heaving sigh.

I did start cleaning and organizing last night after my work-at-home duties were finally complete. The living room looks much better than it did, even though it’s not completely done (more work for today, alas) and the same holds true for the kitchen. I also managed to launder the bed linens yesterday around my work, and today–today I have to make groceries and get the mail and put air in my low tire, hoping to keep it going until Friday, when I will have to get up early to take it to the dealership on the West Bank (I am still not happy about oversleeping yesterday, but I am also choosing to look at it in terms of clearly I must have needed the rest more than any other way; yes, it means I have to get up early five days next week but then I can sleep in that Saturday and on and on it goes and goes.) and get that over with at long last. Parades also begin on Friday, which should be a fun experience (he typed sarcastically)…heavy heaving sigh. But that will take us through the end of the month–Fat Tuesday is March 1 this year, and then the madness of spring truly takes over, and then…it’s summer time again.

I also intend to drop books off at the library today and since I flatly refuse to drop off a box of books that isn’t completely full (to the point of bursting seams) I am afraid I am going to have to do another run through the books this morning to find some more that will find good homes through the Friends of the Library. I was doing such a good job of pruning it down last summer (or whenever that was) and have allowed them to continue to gather and be hoarded and become dust collectors here in the Lost Apartment, and that’s wrong. I need to get them out of my house so they can be shared and read and enjoyed the way they were meant to be; and I need to keep that mentality alive so I can slowly but surely get rid of all the clutter here in the apartment.

Imagine a clutter free existence. It’s possible and it’s a reality and there’s no reason why that goal for 2022 cannot be accomplished.

I also, around the cleaning and organizing and so forth yesterday, figured out how to end “Condos for Sale or Rent”, which I am hoping to spend some time with today to get it closer to a finished first draft. I’m also going to spend some time doing Bouchercon anthology grunt work, and tomorrow we are going to Costco, since the parades mean we won’t be able to go again until after Fat Tuesday. So I also have to make a list for that, and I am wanting to get back to the gym tomorrow. Fingers crossed–the stretching alone will make the walk over there worth it, frankly. And it will be nice to get back into that routine again, too. The working out also should help me sleep better–although if this past week is any indication, I don’t really need to be so concerned about sleeping anymore, really–but I want to feel better, I want to get into better physical condition, and if it helps me burn off some extra fat, so much the better. I am not worried about ever getting back into “Greg dressing as a pro wrestler on Fat Tuesday” shape ever again–that’s too much work and too much worrying about diet; I am old enough now that I don’t care to go on a specialized weight loss diet again (even though it would make the weight loss easier in the long run) because no one is grateful, as they lay dying, that they didn’t have that bacon cheeseburger or that piece of cheesecake. NO ONE.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and get back to doing some cleaning and organizing and going through the books in order to fill up that box before I head out for today’s round of errands. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Who Could Ever Doubt My Love

Wednesday and sort of Hump Day. Ordinarily this would be my last day of work in the office for the week, but I have to go in tomorrow; next week my in-office days will be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and that’s what they will be going forward. This will be enormously helpful during Parade Season, which means I only need to leave early on a couple of days during Carnival, which is much easier to handle.

Yesterday was not a good day. I could tell when I woke up yesterday morning that the day was going to be off–the energy didn’t feel right. I wasn’t tired, but it was, as noted, the second day of insomnia/not sleeping well–but I never felt tired or worn out all day, but even when I got to the office yesterday morning I could tell the energy was off and it wasn’t going to be a great day. Everything felt just a little off, if you know what I mean? And since everything felt off I was on edge, and so when the day took a turn towards the darker side, I thought, ah, yes, I KNEW it was going to be this kind of day. I did manage to get through the day, though–felt overwhelmed only a couple of times–and managed to get another chapter done on the book last night (I was emotionally drained and exhausted and was very happy to get that much done, frankly, and was also proud I fought through the negativity and didn’t give in to it, thinking I am going to get a chapter finished no matter how shitty the day was and I did. Once that was done and I did some chores around the Lost Apartment, I got some clarity and realized everything will be fine and everything will get done: stress is the mindkiller.

I slept a little better last night than the previous two, even though I woke up around four thirty this morning and had some trouble getting back to sleep–I dozed on and off for the last hour and a half before getting up–and already I have a sense that today is better; the chemicals in my brain settled or something …or all that stress simply built up to a point that would have eventually boiled over into a breakdown of sorts (usually a meltdown, in the privacy of my own home) had I not worked on the book last night; stepping into that world was almost like washing the day off in a way; by the time I was finished with the chapter I was revising my mood had dramatically improved and I felt better about everything that had been making me crazy yesterday. I hate that “on edge” feeling, and that’s pretty much what yesterday was–like I was waiting for a shoe to drop, and when the shoes did drop (I don’t know how I sensed that it would be yesterday), at least I hadn’t been already having a good day so it didn’t feel like the day was ruined, if that makes sense in any way?

But I feel in a good place this morning–doesn’t mean the day won’t go south at some point, that’s part of the beauty and terror of each new day–and feel like I can get a handle on everything and make some clear-eyed unemotional decisions about how to move forward with everything and get everything under control again. Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, after all–staying the same and not evolving, there’s the bad thing, and who wants everything to just stay the same as it ever was? Everything changes eventually in order to survive, right? And I think that my focus this year has to remain clear-eyed and I need to keep my eye on the prize going forward. This year I am going to make a conscious, concerted effort to find an agent to represent me for Chlorine. This year I am going to write Chlorine. Those are the two most important goals for 2022 on my list–the rest of the writing I’ll figure out as I go; I know I want to finish the novellas and maybe write another Scotty while I try to get an agent with Chlorine. I also know that I have to be very strict and tunnel-focused on it to get the first draft–the all important first draft–finished. I think I have four or five chapters done already; it needs to come in at a very lean and tight eighty thousand words for the voice and tone to work properly, and with any luck and some strong focus I can get that first draft in place by the end of March, methinks. I have a ton of Bouchercon anthology work to get done once the current manuscript is finished, but I also can’t not be writing at the same time.

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

Do You Hear What I Hear?

It’s hard to believe that Christmas will be all over one week from today, but there it is. It’s been humid and in the eighties here in New Orleans the last few days, which is about as un-Christmas like as one can imagine. I don’t mind the heat, to be honest, but wouldn’t mind a slight temperature dip to recognize the holiday–a slight one. Not even a fan of it going much lower than sixty-five, and will inevitably whine when and if it does.

Yesterday was, all in all, a lovely day. I managed to get my chapters done yesterday, as I had hoped–the book is turning out nicely, and I am most pleased with how it’s going, even if I am behind schedule (as always)–and I managed to not make a complete fool of myself on the ZOOM promotion thing I did last night (well, at least I don’t think so). I slept deeply and well last night, managed to get a lot of cleaning up done around here and some organizing, and hopefully today the writing will go well yet again. I also am hopeful that I’ll have the energy to also get other things done around here today. I wasn’t as tired yesterday as I had been the previous two days, which had a lot, I would imagine, to do with sleeping well the way I have the last two nights. I probably need to run to the grocery store today, but I think I might actually wait and go on the way home from work tomorrow. We shall see, I suppose.

And I still need to figure out when things are due and what all I have agreed to do–which means at some point today I need to make A List, which is never really a bad thing to do at any time, really. I do feel a little overwhelmed with deadlines, and A List is precisely the thing I need for right now. All I want to do right now is actually go sit in my easy chair with my coffee and read Vivien Chien’s book, but that’s undoubtedly the part of my brain that always throws up roadblocks and tries to keep me from succeeding, which is the part of my brain I should also never listen to at any time.

Yet here we are.

I’ve also been abstractedly thinking in the macro sense about next year already, and what I want to get done. I had wanted to do another Scotty book this year (the book I am currently writing supplanted it in the schedule), but with so many odds and ends hanging out in my files…I think that after I get all the short stories that are promised out of the way in January, I am going to spend February writing Chlorine while working on the Bouchercon anthology, which I would love to have finished and out of the way by the end of February (while being aware that I probably won’t get Chlorine finished in that same period of time, most likely), and then I want to get all these novellas and short story collections and potential essays finished and out of the way before I dive into another Scotty book. I know what that Scotty book is going to be–which is a lot more than I usually know going into a Scotty book, other than the title, which this time around is Mississippi River Mischief–but I doubt that’s going to make it any easier to write for me, either.

I also have to bear in mind that Crooked Lane may want another book in this series, too, which I would have to carve out time for.

It never ends–and I hope that it literally never does, frankly; I never want to stop writing and publishing, ever. Even if I stop publishing traditionally, I would probably keep writing and might go the indie route, to be honest. I’ve always written, and will always write as long as I can sit in my desk chair and move my fingers across the keyboard.

There’s also another Corinth County book I want to write, and more Corinth County stories to work on as well.

It’s gray outside this morning, which means clouds and that inevitably means rain at some point. There’s no condensation on my windows so it’s not humid–or not terribly so, at any rate, outside.

Nightmare Alley and the new Spider-Man movie both opened this weekend, and I actually would like to see both films, but am not entirely comfortable going to sit in a movie theater at this point in time. I do love the original Tyrone Power version of Nightmare Alley, and I love the darkness of the book (which was recommended to me by my friend Megan); it’s one of those I would like to have the time to reread at some point. Spider-Man is making bank at the box office, as one would expect it to, and I do love Tom Holland–I think he’s adorable, charismatic, and a good actor–but as much as I think this spectacle probably would work best on a big screen, this current variant situation has me reluctant to go see anything in the theater. I mean, why take chances? And since I am in close contact with people every day I see clients at the office, why push my luck this way? Hopefully both will wind up on a streaming service relatively soon, and I’m not in any huge rush to see either film. There aren’t many films I absolutely have to see immediately right now cannot wait for them to stream these days.

We’re still watching the OG Gossip Girl, which is still fun even if the characters create drama by doing things that have always failed before, which makes it very definitely a soap opera. We’re up to season four now, with only two left once we get through this run, and I suspect our Christmas day is going to be nothing more than a massive Gossip Girl binge watch. There certainly are other shows now piling up on our “must-watch” list, so this lengthy visit with the Gossip Girl gang is certainly allowing us to bank up a lot of shows to watch in reserve–which hopefully means not running out of anything to watch for a good long time.

And on that note, I think I am going to retire to my chair for an hour or so with Vivien Chien before diving into the book for today. Wish me luck, Constant Reader! I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Winter Wonderland

And now it’s Tuesday! Hope your Monday was lovely.

Yesterday I was tired; I didn’t sleep well on Sunday night but managed to still get quite a bit finished over the course of the day. There were tornadoes (YIKES!) on the North Shore, but I ran some errands on the way home in the rain and then wrote another chapter of the book–another shitty-ass chapter, but a chapter nonetheless–and also caught up on logging entries for the Bouchercon anthology ( as well as sending acknowledgement emails), and made progress on the email inbox, which was delightful. It’s always nice to feel like you’re getting somewhere rather than just spinning your wheels, isn’t it?

I also spent some time thinking about my short story, “Solace in a Dying Hour,” which is what I’ve renamed “The Rites of False Spring” (which is a great title and I will recycle, it’s just not right for this particular story); I really like the new title, it’s from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Tamerlane”; I was paging through a collection of his poetry and that line jumped out at me, and I thought, you know what, that title fits the story you need to write better than the one it currently has and so decided to swap them out.

I woke up before the alarm this morning, and I do feel rested–the upcoming shower will undoubtedly shake off the cobwebs, at least one would hope so–but once I had finished writing and cleaning the kitchen last evening, I was a little too tired to actually do any reading, so I just sat in my chair waiting for Paul to come home while watching Youtube videos about ancient Egypt; the 18th dynasty to be exact, and primarily about the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten, who is just absolutely fascinating to me, and someone I would love to write about sometime–alas, it would require ever so much more research than I have time to do while working, of course, but someday I will make the young adult book ideas I have based in Egyptian history to fruition. (I love when I think about the books I will someday write–the ones that require more research than I have the time to do while juggling everything I must juggle now; as though retirement will eventually provide me suddenly with a lot of free time…which I have already become aware is nonsensical dreaming, since even taking time off from work inevitably involves time being lost to unforeseeable yet easily predictable distractions. Hell, just trying to carve time out of the day to go to the gym is a process of if I go what will I not be able to get done?)

We continue to wind our way through the original Gossip Girl, which is quite fun. I cannot imagine why we never indulged in it the first time around–probably the same reason we never indulged in either The Vampire Diaries or The Originals, assuming we weren’t the right audience for them–but I have no desire to read the books at all, and we’ve also noted continuity errors that are just sloppy writing; “oh, we need to completely forget about this in order to make this episode happen”, which often is annoying–like how i never forgave the Dynasty writers for the massive cheat out of the Moldavian Massacre season finale. I am also highly amused by the Dan Humphrey talented writer who wants to be a writer story–why is it that movie and television writers never understand how writing actually works? I love how he can, in one night, write a brilliant short story–without revision or rewrite at all; no one ever gets anything right in the first fucking draft–as well as the fact that as a seventeen-year-old he got a story published in the New Yorker, yet is worried about getting into Yale and his future as a writer. Um, if a seventeen-year-old got a story into the New Yorker, agents would be lining up for him and he probably wouldn’t have to worry too much about getting into Yale; every university with a strong writing program would be lining up with scholarship offers–faculty wouldn’t have stories in the New Yorker. None of the writing classes I ever took in college ever emphasized the importance of revisions, editing, and rewrites; that’s the one thing I wish I would have learned myself while I was in college.

I am also at the stage in writing a book where I am absolutely certain it’s horrible and I’ve lost my ability to write and this is the book that will decimate my career once and for all, so I guess what I am saying is things are back to normal in the Lost Apartment.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Happy Tuesday, Constant Reader.

It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

I cannot say I am not happy to see this past week end; for all intents and purposes, it was much more stressful than any week needs to be and equally disappointing. It was both tiresome and tiring; irritating, really, like an itchy rash that just won’t go away, frankly. By Tuesday night I was so exhausted already it felt like a Friday; and yet there were three more days yet to go and it never really got any better.

Begone, foul week! Get thee behind me, Satan!

I am so far behind on my emails now I may never dig my way out; that’s part of the plan for this weekend, at any rate; to try to get caught up on everything and make some progress. I had some stomach issues yesterday so I wound up staying home rather than heading to the office (the bathrooms aren’t close enough to my desk, and yes, I think you get the picture) so I spent most of the day recalibrating and doing some chores around the house and trying to get caught up on everything. But progress was made; I started getting my electronic files in the cloud better organized (which is quite a chore, I might add; one that is sort of mindless yet time-consuming in the worst way), and did some filing and so forth. There’s still quite a bit more to get done today, of course (isn’t there always?)  but I also want to get some writing done before the month slips away through my fingers. Ideally, I’d like to get a first draft of the Sherlock story finished as well as a revision of the one I’m revising for that anthology; and there’s another one I want to revise to send to the Bouchercon anthology. I’d also like to make some progress on the Secret Project, but that’s also predicated on my getting this short story work taken care of. I cannot believe how many stories I’ve started writing recently; it’s more than a little insane, methinks.

But then again, it seems pretty standard for my life–chaos, disorganization, and more chaos.

One would think I’d be used to it by now.

I also want to finish reading Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls today, if I can; so i can get started on Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One. I am moderating a panel with her, Elizabeth Little (Pretty as a Picture) and  Laura Lippman (Lady in the Lake) at the Tennessee Williams Festival at the end of the month, and it’s always better to be prepared to discuss their latest works. Don’t worry, I’ll also be asking Lippman about My Life as a Villainess, her essay collection coming out later this year.

We watched another episode of Harlan Coben’s The Stranger last night. It’s a fun, twisty show, with a rather complicated narrative; I think it’s actually better than his last one, The Five. I am way behind on my Coben reading–so far behind I may never catch up–but I do enjoy that he writes suspense novels built around family/friend structures. I’m behind on everyone, so don’t feel special, Harlan! I am also way behind on my reading of Michael Koryta, Jeff Abbott, Stephen King, and any number of other white males; prioritizing diverse writers and women (and a year judging the Edgars) will do that to one, I suppose. I really wanted to read The Outsider (Stephen King) before watching the show; perhaps once I finish the Goodman and the Rader-Day I can move on to the King and we can finally watch the show. I’ve become rather an enormous fan of Jason Bateman, and really can’t wait for Ozark to come back.

We also lose an hour tonight; the part of Daylight Savings Time that I really hate. But I do like having longer days; I like it still being light when I come home from work, or at least, the light fading into night rather than the velvety darkness of a winter nocturne. It’s a bright, sunny day out there today; I am debating whether I do want to go get the mail–it would be my only adventure out into the world today–and am thinking I might do it. I hate only going once in the week, but on the other hand I’m also not expecting any packages or anything urgent (read: a check) in the mail, either. But it looks like a lovely day outside–and perhaps I can do some scouting after I get the mail. We shall certainly see how I feel.

I think this morning I am going to read some more of the Goodman novel while I have my morning coffee, and then after a few hours of that I’ll decide whether I do, in fact, want to leave the house. (odds are I won’t, quite frankly. I know myself all too well)

And on that note, tis time to get back to the spice mines. May your Saturday be bright and happy and full of cheer.

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O Holy Night

The last day of 2018. I can hear the garbage trucks outside getting the trash, which means I’ve actually woken up at a relatively decent hour. Today is our annual lunch at Commander’s Palace with Jean and Gillian, which means very inexpensive martinis and all that entails. I also registered for Dallas Bouchercon yesterday and booked my hotel room. So much getting things done! I also worked on my technology issues yesterday–yes, they continue, Mojave is the stupidest thing Apple has ever done as an operating system–and have also been trying to update my phone, which doesn’t seem to be working. I really don’t want to have to get a new phone, but it seems as though this is what Apple is pushing me to do, which is infuriating.

But the desktop seems to be working the way it’s supposed to. Hmmm.

I read a lot of books last year, but I also judged for an award so I really can’t talk much  about any books that were actually released in 2018; which is unfortunate. I really enjoyed The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young (for a book not published in 2018). I also read a lot of short stories. The Short Story Project was originally inspired, and intended, for me to read a lot of short stories and work as kind of a master class for me as far as writing short stories are concerned. As a project, I originally began it in 2017, but didn’t get very far with it. As a result, I decided to give it another try in 2018 and was much more successful with the project. Not only was I reading short stories, I wrote a lot of them. Some of those stories were actually sold; “This Town” to Murder-a-Go-Go’s, “The Silky Veils of Ardor” to The Beating of Black Wings, “Neighborhood Alert” to Mystery Tribune, “Cold Beer No Flies” to Florida Happens, and “A Whisper from the Graveyard” to another anthology whose name is escaping me at the moment. I also pulled together a collection of previously published and new stories, which will be released in April of 2019 but will be available for Saints and Sinners/Tennessee Williams Festival, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. I also wrote another Scotty (I really need to finish revising it), which will also be out in the new year I think but I don’t have a release date yet. That was pretty productive, and I also managed eight chapters of a young adult novel, the current WIP.

Not bad, coming from someone who wrote practically nothing in 2017. So, on that score, I am taking 2018 as a writing win.

I also edited the Bouchercon anthology for the second time, Florida Happens, and read a shit ton of short stories for that as well. I was very pleased with how that book turned out, in all honesty, and it looks absolutely gorgeous.

I also published my first ever Kindle Single, “Quiet Desperation,” and also finally got the ebook for Bourbon Street Blues up for Kindle. At some point I do hope to have a print edition for sale as well, but I am happy to have the ebook available. I also have to finish proofing Jackson Square Jazz so I can get that ebook up as well.

So, writing and publishing wise, 2018 was a good comeback of sorts; I managed to get back into the swing of writing again, and started producing publishable work, which was absolutely lovely. I started to say I got my confidence back, but that wouldn’t be true; I’ve never had much self-confidence when it comes to  my writing. I also started writing in journals again in 2017, which was enormously helpful in 2018. (I actually went through my most recent one last night–the one I am currently using–and found a lot of stuff that I thought I’d lost in the Great Data Disaster of 2018; things I shall simply need to retype and of course will back-up immediately.

Yesterday, while electronic equipment repaired itself and made itself usable again–we’ll see how usable it is as the days go by–I watched two movies–The Omega Man and Cabaret on Prime, as well as the documentary Gods of Football (I highly recommend this one for eye candy potential; it’s about the shooting of a calendar in Australia to raise money for breast cancer charities, starring professional rugby players in the nude, and yes, the eye candy is delectable). I watched a lot of good movies and television shows over the course of the year–The Haunting of Hill House and Schitt’s Creek probably the best television shows–so it was a very good year for that. (I have some thoughts on both The Omega Man and Cabaret, but will save those for another post at another time.)

I also got my first New Orleans Public Library card this past year, and began reading New Orleans histories, which were endlessly fascinating, which led me into another project, Monsters of New Orleans, which is another short story collection about what the title says, crime stories based on real cases in New Orleans but fictionalized. And there are an incredible amount of them. I read the introduction to Robert Tallant’s Ready to Hang: Seven Famous Murder Cases in New Orleans, and while I am aware that Tallant’s scholarship is questionable (I figured that out reading Voodoo in New Orleans), his books are always gossipy, which makes them perfect for New Orleans reading. What is real, what is true, and what is not is always something one has to wonder when reading anything about New Orleans history; some of it is legend, which is to be expected, and unprovable; some of it is very real and can be verified. Some of the stories in this collection, which I am going to work on, off and on, around other projects, will inevitably be complete fictions; but others will be based on true stories and/or legends of the city, like the Sultan’s Palace and Madame LaLaurie and Marie Laveau. It’s an exciting project, and the more I read of New Orleans history the more inspiration I get, not only for this project but for other Scotty books as well…which is a good thing, I was leaning towards ending the series with Royal Street Reveillon, but now that I’m finding stories that will work and keep the series fresh…there just may be a few more Scotty novels left in me yet.

My goal of losing weight and getting into better physical condition lasted for only a few months, and didn’t survive Carnival season–it was too hard to get to the gym during the parades, and between all the walking, passing out condoms, and standing at the corner, I was simply too exhausted to make it to the gym, and thus never made it back to the gym. I began 2018 weighing 228 pounds, the heaviest I’ve ever been, and have managed, through diet and portion control, to slim down to a consistent plateau of 213. This is actually pretty decent progress; not what I would have wanted to report at the end of 2018, but I am going to take it and put it into the win column, and we’ll see how 2019 turns out.

The day job also had some enormous changes; we moved out of the Frenchmen Street office, after being there since 2000 (I started working there in 2005) and into a new building on Elysian Fields. This also caused some upheaval and change in my life–I’m not fond of change–and it wasn’t perhaps the smoothest transition. But I’m getting used to it, and making the necessary adjustments in my life.

Now we are on the cusp to a new year. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about new goals for the new year. It is, of course, silly; it’s just another day and in the overall scheme of things, a new year really doesn’t mean anything is actually new; but we use this as a measure of marking time, and new beginnings. I’ve always thought that was rather silly; any day is a new day and a new beginning; why be controlled by the tyranny of the calendar and the societally created fiction of the new year?

But it is also convenient. If you set new goals every new year, you then have a way of measuring success and failure as it pertains to those goals. I am not as black-and-white as I used to be with goals–which is why I use goals instead of resolutions, as there is also a societal expectation that resolutions are made in order to not succeed–and a goal is merely that, a goal, and not something that is fixed in stone. The endgame we all are playing with these goals and resolutions is to effect change in our lives and make them, in theory at least, better. So, any progress on a goal is a way of making your life better.

I didn’t get an agent this year; that was on my list of goals yet again. I am not certain what my own endgame with the agent hunt is; I need to come up with a book idea that is commercially viable for an agent to want to represent, and that isn’t easy. Most of my book-writing decisions were made, not with an eye toward the commercial, but with an eye toward I want to see if I can write this story. Was that the smartest path to take as a writer? Perhaps not. I don’t know what’s commercial. The manuscript I was using to try to get an agent never worked as a cohesive story for me, and in this past year I finally realized why; I was trying to make a story into something it wasn’t. If I ever write what I was calling the WIP but is in reality ‘the Kansas book’, I have to write it as I originally intended it, not as what I am trying to make it into. And that’s something that is going to have to go onto the goal list for 2019.

On that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a happy New Year, everyone.

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Diamonds and Pearls

Monday after Bouchercon.

It’s always lovely to sleep in my own bed; I have trouble sleeping when I travel so usually I am completely exhausted when I get home, and this trip was no exception. The Vinoy Renaissance Hotel in St. Petersburg is absolutely stunning; as Paul and I said to each other as we walked into our room, “This place is too nice for the likes of us.”

Our room had two balconies.

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The reason the image is a little blurry and not as sharp is because my camera lens kept fogging up every time I walked out there.

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Seriously, stunningly beautiful hotel. Paul was out at the pool every day and now has a tan on a par with the one we came back from Acapulco with twelve years ago. And oh, what fun was Bouchercon this year! I was a busy little bee making honey almost from the get go. And for someone who, no matter what, will always  be a fanboy…the first night we went to the Guest of Honor dinner, where I sat with Lawrence Block and Ian Rankin at my table–too starstruck to speak to either, frankly–but a lovely meal was had and I listened to some great conversation.

The next day, Thursday, I did the Coat of Many Colors event at nine in the morning with a Bloody Mary, and it was an absolutely lovely event, and a lot of fun. It’s rather fun always, methinks, to celebrate diversity in our genre as well as reminding people of terrific writers and books that may not have gotten the attention they should have. That day was also the anthology launch for Florida Happens, which entailed all the contributors present signing. I sat next to Debra Lattanzi Shutika, who was utterly and completely charming (you’ll love her story “Frozen Iguana,” people), and then came the big adventure.

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My friend Wendy had shattered her iPhone screen, and Paul and I had rented a car….so I offered to take her to the Apple Store.

In Tampa.

On the other side of the bay.

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So something simple–oh, let’s go get your phone fixed and have noodles for lunch–turned into a four hour adventure that probably should have ended with us being banned from Tampa, malls, healthy smoothy shops, and Targets for the rest of our lives. That night we ended up going out for dinner and having a lot of laughs and a lot of drinks (why did nobody ever tell me about the wonder that is a bleu-cheese stuffed olive in a dirty martini before?) we staggered back to the hotel to have more drinks and then I poured myself into bed. The beds at the Vinoy, by the way, just might be the most comfortable beds of all time.

Friday was my big day. Yes, not only did I have to be on three panels but I also ran for the Bouchercon board. The first panel was the sex panel, called “Nooner”, moderated by the divine Helen Smith, and my other panelists were the amazing Catriona McPherson, Heather Graham, Hilary Davidson, and the always hilarious and entertaining Christa Faust. The panel was smart, funny, fun….and I learned a few things.

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After that was the Bouchercon general election, and yes, I did win a three-year term on the Bouchercon board (although I am not certain “win” is the right word, KIDDING), which was absolutely lovely, and then I had to dash off to my next panel. I was moderating the Best Paperback Original Anthony award finalists panel, with the amazing James Ziskin, Eryk Pruitt, Thomas Pluck, Lori Rader-Day (who won the award on Saturday night), and the always amazing Nadine Nettman. This was so much fun, even though the entire time I was up there I had flop sweat and kept checking my phone to see how much time was left, and didn’t relax until I knew there was only fifteen minutes to go. (I always feel like I fail as a moderator; always.)

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(Thanks to Catriona McPherson for not only keeping time, but for taking this terrific picture of us afterwords.)

Then came to the Rainbow Connection panel, moderated by Terri Bischoff, where I got to meet some new-to-me writers and it was a really great discussion. Absolutely great.

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Immediately after this, I ran and changed so Paul and I could be the plus-ones of our friends Wendy and Alison at the Harper Collins cocktail party. (And yes, we started drinking wine in Wendy and Alison’s room.) After ensuring I’ll never publish at Harper (but I got to meet Carol Goodman, a writer whose work I’ve been wanting to read for quite some time, and NOW I REALLY WANT TO BECAUSE SHE IS ABSOLUTELY LOVELY) I somehow invited myself along to a dinner, where I drank more wine, and then I went to a rooftop cocktail party I was invited to where I was surrounded by enormously talented and incredibly smart people whom I admire. I stumbled back into my room around three in the morning after drinking almost all the wine in Florida.

Saturday….I made a lot of bad decisions, thanks to the encouragement of some dear friends.

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Although…now I am questioning the use of the word friends.

I remember going to dinner, and drinking more there. (The dinner was terrific, and again, surrounded by incredibly smart and successful and talented people.) Then we returned to the hotel and things are kind of fuzzy after that.

But the trip home went incredibly smoothly so smoothly that I almost didn’t trust it. But a lovely time indeed it was, and I already miss it.

Next year in DALLAS.

(Apologies to whoever I stole these pictures from; I wind up never taking pictures at Bouchercon and having to lift them from Facebook and Twitter.)

Achy Breaky Heart

Monday, and only one more week until vacation and next week includes my departure to Bouchercon in St. Petersburg! Huzzah! I am really looking forward to this trip–you have no idea, Constant Reader. I am getting really excited.

I managed to focus and get two stories finished and revised and ready for submission, which I will do tonight after I get home from work.

I am still reading James Ziskin’s Cast the First Stone and really enjoying it as it hits its stride. It’s going where I thought it was going to go–although I am completely at a loss as to who the killer is or why or how etc.–and I really like the character of Ellie Stone, which means I am going to have to add Ziskin’s series to my must-read list, which is always kind of fun; I love discovering new-to-me authors who are terrific at what they do.

We also are nearing completion of watching the second season of Kim’s Convenience, and I am going to be terribly sorry when it ends, to be honest. I’ve become very attached to the Kims, and the actors playing the roles. It’s honest and funny and heartfelt; one of the better sitcoms I’ve seen in a while. I am also impatiently awaiting the release of Season Three of Versailles to streaming services, but will settle for  continuing to watch The Musketeers in the meantime.

The next, and final, story in Florida Happens is Reed Farrel Coleman’s “The Ending.”

BIO: Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman is the New York Times-bestselling author of thirty novels—including five in Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series—short stories, poetry, and essays.

In addition to his acclaimed series characters, Moe Prager and Gus Murphy, he has written the stand-alone novel Gun Church and collaborated with decorated Irish crime writer Ken Bruen on the novel Tower.

Reed is a four time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories: Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, and Best Short Story. He is a four-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. He has been signed by film director Michael Mann to write the prequel novel to the movie Heat.

With their kids moved away to far off Brooklyn, Reed, his wife Rosanne, and their two Siamese cats, Cleo and Knish, live in the wilds of Suffolk County on Long Island.

His website can be found here.

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Everything ends. He couldn’t argue that. But what he had tried to say to her all those years ago was it wasn’t always about the end coming, but how the end came. How mattered. It mattered a lot. It mattered to him then and it mattered more to him now as he stepped off the Southwest flight and walked to the rental car bus at Palm Beach International. When she had ended it, there was more to his life than there was now. There was a family and a career. There was still a family of sorts, but his wife was dead and the kids were moved away. His career had morphed into golf, sad memories, and revenge fantasies. Currently, how she had ended it mattered more than anything had ever mattered.

At the counter, the pretty young blond with impatient blue eyes asked if he wanted a free upgrade to a midsize car. It hit him, hit him hard so that the wind almost emptied from his papery old man lungs. Except for what he and Marlene had done for those ten years, he had always operated in a very narrow bandwidth. His life had been a midsize car. 

“You got a Corvette convertible?” he asked, barely believing the voice he heard was his own. “Red or yellow, something fast and sleek that makes a statement?”

The blond, her long silver-painted nails clicking on the keyboard, smiled at him in a way that made his blood run cold. Another old man looking for excitement on his way to the grave. But he hadn’t come here for her. Their ending would come as soon as she handed him the little paper binder and the keys.

“Yes, we have a red Corvette convertible. It’s in spot A12,” she said.

He didn’t pay much attention after that, wasn’t sure what insurance coverages he had agreed or not agreed to, wasn’t sure which gas option he’d taken. All that mattered was the red car in spot A12. The rest of his life, no matter how short, would no longer be easy to measure in bandwidth nor would he ever think of his life again as a midsize car.

“The Ending” is a melancholy story about how a man reacts to the end of an affair; an affair that was much more important to him than he realized until it was over. Coleman is a terrific write,r and this vignette really comes to life in his capable hands; once I read it, I knew it had to be the final story in the collection–so it could have a big finish.

I hope y’all have enjoyed my journey through the stories in Florida Happens as much as I enjoyed revisiting the stories.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Black or White

Sunday morning. Seriously, I got absolutely nothing done yesterday; no writing, no reading, very little cleaning, no trip to the gym.

Nothing.

I also overslept this morning. I didn’t wake up until after ten, which is completely inexcusable. I went to bed early last night (my bedside reading is Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King, and it is riveting. We so frequently (deliberately?) forget just how awful our society was before the Civil Rights movement (awful as things can be now, sadly it was much worse back then),  that this book, and others about the Jim Crow south, should be required reading for all Americans…not that the racists would take anything profound away from it. Isn’t that always the problem? The people who should read a book are precisely the people who would never read it.

Today I may or may not make it to the gym–you never know, but sleeping so late has kind of thrown me off my gameplan (which is the problem with being so anal retentive/borderline OCD; when the plan gets thrown off I generally surrender and don’t try to make any of it work), so in a moment, after finishing my last cup of coffee for the day (I don’t drink coffee after noon; or rather, don’t make a cup in the Keurig after twelve) I am going to start reading “A Whisper from the Graveyard” out loud, followed by reading “This Thing of Darkness” out loud, and possibly “The Problem with Autofill”; I think I’ve found a place for it to be published (or at the very least, considered for publication). I also came across another place to submit a story; they are looking for historical crime stories…of which I have none, and might possibly mean having to write a new one. I might be able to find one that is in progress somewhere that might work…I have some stories set in the past but I also don’t know what they mean by historical crime. Does it have to be in the distant past, or can it be in the recent past, as I have some stories set in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s. Of course, I could email them and ask for a more precise explanation of historical. It might even be fun to try to write something very far back in the past, like during the time of Catherine de Medici, or Michelangelo.

Which of course means I could play around writing notes in my journal, which is always kind of fun.

The next story in Florida Happens is “When Agnes Left Her House,” by Patricia Abbott.

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two print novels Concrete Angel (2015) and Shot in Detroit (2016)(Polis Books). Concrete Angel was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award in 2016. Shot in Detroit was nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. A collection of her storiesI Bring Sorrow and Other Stories of Transgression was released earlier this year.

She also authored two ebooks, Monkey Justice and Home Invasion and co-edited Discount Noir She won a Derringer award for her story “My Hero.” She lives outside Detroit. You can find her blog here.

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“When Agnes Left Her House” by Patricia Abbott

When Agnes left her house, she picked her moment carefully. Only the greenhorn oil trucker battling the steep road coiling around her house might have caught a flash of red gingham in his mirror.  He did not.

As she crossed the fields lying between the house and Haycock, her resolve hardened. A walk turned into a trot, and then into a sprint, as she moved as fast as she could toting Henry’s old track bag. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, having seldom been south of Lancaster and never east of Smoketown.

The boys would be home from school in a few hours and find the kitchen table scrubbed clean but no snacks laid out. Had there been a day in the last eighteen years when she hadn’t baked cookies or brownies, made popcorn, or cored apples? And dinner was usually half-made by one o’clock, the smell of soup or a stew welcoming their return. Today not a single pot sat on the stove and the oven was cold. The only sign of tonight’s dinner was the chicken in the fridge, lemon and thyme sprigs resting inside and garlic tucked under the skin. She’d prepared it before the idea of escape overtook her.  

 Last night’s words with Henry rankled until taking off seemed like the only sane course of action. Sane—that word was ping-ponged across the kitchen table in a battle lasting until three a.m. She’d successfully ducked the back of his hand and his reach for her hair, loosened in the struggle. Swinging wildly, he caught his foot on the table leg and fell hard. By the time he stood up, she’d locked him out of their bedroom. That was the last she saw of him. Surely, the kids had overheard some of their scuffle. She blushed with shame.

This story is a gem. Married to an abuser, and mother of five young sons, Agnes packs a bag and goes on the road, running away from her life. Florida is her final destination, and Abbott offers no sentimentality about how Agnes gets there and what she has to do to survive. It’s a shocking story in some ways, but utterly realistic and honest and painful to read. Women like Agnes–there’s not really any answer for them in our society, and her descent is terrible to read about….and yet never once does she think it would be better to head back home to her family. And there’s a lovely twist at the end. Stunning and brilliant.

And now, to read some of my own stories aloud.

I’m Too Sexy

How lovely to wake up to a terrific review of Florida Happens on the Mystery Scene website! You can read it here.

Huzzah!

I have to say I am very proud of this anthology, but even prouder that my story “Cold Beer No Flies” was also singled out for praise, which is lovely. As Constant Reader is aware, I don’t have a lot of confidence when it comes to my short stories, so those rare occasions when they get mentioned by reviewers is always a treat for me. (Which reminds me, I need to work on some this weekend. Sigh.)

It’s been a long week; I had trouble sleeping in the middle of the week but bounced back really nicely in the latter part of the week. Last night’s sleep was wonderful, long-lasting and deep and relaxing; I am still in sort of a rest-coma this morning. My kitchen is a mess–and something will have to be done about that sooner rather than later–and other than a social obligation today and a couple of errands that must be run (mail, prescriptions) the rest of the day is mine to do with as I please. The clock is running out on my Bouchercon homework, so I am going to need to curl up with James Ziskin’s Cast the First Stone in order to have time to read Thomas Pluck’s Bad Boy Boogie before Bouchercon, so I am prepared to discuss their books with the fine panelists on the Best Paperback Original panel. I also booked my rental car and paid for the  early check-in on Southwest–which apparently now is automatic; you don’t have to do anything and it checks you in thirty-six hours before your flight, which is actually kind of lovely. I need to read “A Whisper from the Graveyard and “This Thing of Darkness” aloud this weekend, and I want to start working on the revision of Royal Street Reveillon which I’ve been avoiding all month (now that the month is almost over, sigh).

So. Much. To. Do.

We started watching Kim’s Convenience last night, which is, simply put, a very endearing and funny show about a Korean family–the Kims–who own a convenience store in Toronto. I was worried, of course, that the show might deal in stereotypes, but the family dynamic and the relationships between the characters is very complex, and underlying it all is a deep sweetness; there is more to the Kims than you think at first, and the show is actually funny but not at the expense of the characters. Of course, I’m not Korean, so I can’t speak to its authenticity or to its not being offensive, but Paul and I are both really enjoying it. And Jung–the son who is estranged from his father for being a bit of a juvenile delinquent when a teen, even serving time in juvie–is sexy.  I highly recommend it.

The next story in Florida Happens is  “Frontier Justice” by John Floyd.

John Floyd’s work has appeared in more than 250 different publications, including Strand Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Woman’s World, Mississippi Noir, and The Saturday Evening Post. A former Air Force captain and IBM systems engineer, he is also a three-time Derringer Award winner, an Edgar Award finalist, and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. One of John’s stories appeared in the 2015 edition of Best American Mystery Stories, and another is forthcoming in the 2018 edition.

John is also the author of six books: Rainbow’s End, Midnight, Clockwork, Deception, Fifty Mysteries, and Dreamland.

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The car was waiting in the alley, with Eddie Stark at the wheel and half a dozen cigarette butts littering the pavement below the driver’s-side door. Eddie had flipped a seventh out the open window and exhaled a lungful of smoke when he saw Charlotte Baxter stroll around the corner and head in his direction. Even from a distance, Baxter’s face looked as calm as always. Eddie Stark’s was sweating.

Baxter climbed in, set a thick brown attache case on the seat between them, and peeled off her honey-colored wig. She also took off a pair of glasses and removed two wads of cotton from inside her cheeks. Eddie hefted the case up and over into the back seat. It didn’t feel as heavy as it had been, twenty minutes ago, and he knew why: half its contents had been left in the building across the street.

With trembling hands Eddie started the engine and steered the big Lincoln out of the alley and into the downtown Tallahassee traffic. Finally he turned to look at Baxter.

“How’d it go?”

“Fine.” Baxter leaned back and closed her eyes. “Mission accomplished, package delivered.”

“Sure nobody recognized you?”

“Would you have recognized me? What they saw was a blonde with a chubby face.”

John Floyd is one of our best short story writers; I first met him at the Edgar Symposium several years ago when he was on a panel I moderated. He was nominated for the Edgar for Best Short Story for “The Ledge,” which I thought was simply brilliant. His work has been nominated and/or won many awards, and I am always excited to read a new story from him. He contributed a great story to Blood on the Bayou, “The Blue Delta,” and I am more than thrilled to have “Frontier Justice” in Florida Happens.

“Frontier Justice” is about a heroin ring’s decision to kill the investigating district attorneys by planting a bomb in their office. Charlotte Baxter, as seen in the opening excerpt, is the woman they hired to blend in and plant the bomb. But as always with a Floyd story, there’s more going on beneath the surface than is readily apparent to the reader, and the way the story flips on itself in the closing pages shows just how much mastery Floyd has over the form.

And now, back to the spice mines.