Tag: bourbon street blues

Suddenly

Yesterday I finished revisions on four stories, took a deep breath, and submitted them. Now, we wait. I’m not entirely certain the stories were right for the markets I sent them to, but you know what? Letting them just sit in my computer wasn’t getting them out there. Better to try and fail than not to ever try at all.

As I said yesterday, my confidence in my writing, which, despite all appearances to the contrary has never been strong, was dramatically shaken in the last year; I am only now starting to come out of it, and I am coming back out of it by working. I’ve written well over a hundred thousand words thus far in 2018; most of it short stories, some of it work on a new Scotty novel, still other the manuscript I intend to try to lure the ever elusive agent into my web with; and since sitting down and actually taking stock, I am realizing what I’ve accomplished, and am very proud of myself. The stories I worked on again this week, revising and editing and reading aloud, were quite strong; the two I am struggling with perhaps not as strong–although I do like their titles. Forcing myself to continue working on them is futile at this moment; much as I am loath to put them to the side, I am going to; there is nothing more self-defeating and depressing than trying to force yourself to write something that just isn’t coming. The stories are there, of course; I just haven’t yet worked out how to get them down onto paper yet. I think very often we, as writers, get so bogged down in our stubborn determination to finish something we are working on that we just keep fighting, pounding our head determinedly against an immovable wall–when the smart thing is to take a break from it and work on something else; then come back to the wall with fresh eyes and a rested forehead.

A vanity project that I have always had in the back of my mind was to put together a short story collection of my crime stories. I first had the idea several years ago, but didn’t have enough stories and was going to combine my horror and crime together: the folder and table of contents I created at the time was for Annunciation Shotgun and Other Stories. I’ve never forgotten this vanity project; and even now, when I should be preparing the manuscripts of Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz for their long overdue ebook editions, I go back to the vanity project again and again: well, I’ve published THESE stories since then, maybe I can just go ahead and remove these others that don’t fit as well–take these horror stories out, since my horror is clearly not as strong as my crime fiction. I made another table of contents, just the other day; only now I am calling it Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. Whenever I’ve been stuck this past week or so, for want of anything else to do, I’ve started pulling the stories together into a single document to get a word count. The realization the other day of how many stories I’ve done so far this year already, and adding them casually to the table of contents–today it hit me: the manuscript is already publishable length, is over eighty thousand words, without an introduction  and without all of the stories I’ve done so far. I removed all the horror–goodbye, “Crazy in the Night” and “Rougarou” and “The Snow Queen” and “The Troll in the Basement”–and added some more of the newer material. It was astonishing to realize how much there actually was; that I cannot add much more because there simply isn’t room, and that I might have enough for a second volume in a couple of years.

Mind-blowing, really.

Short story collections don’t sell as well as novels, of course; short stories are the bastard stepchildren of publishing, and crime stories even more shunned at the family holiday dinner table. I don’t know if my publisher will want this collection, and I may end up having to self-publish it. Whereas I would have shrank in horror from that possibility a few years ago, it doesn’t matter as much to me now as it did then to have a traditional publisher pull the book together; although I would like another pair of eyes on it, some copy editing, a cover design and packaging done for me. But I am very proud of all of these stories; each one of them means something to me in some way. And if my fears about crime stories with gay characters in them not being acceptable to mainstream short story publications, well, I can always get them seen this way. And I am proud of the new crime stories I’ve written with gay characters in them.

I didn’t write crime stories for the longest time because of that fear; the fear that no matter how high the quality of the story, gay characters would make them unpublishable. The two stories I published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, “Acts of Contrition” and “The Email Always Pings Twice,” were mainstream–not a gay character in either story. I did publish two stories in Novelists Inc. anthologies with gay characters, “A Streetcar Named Death” and “An Arrow for Sebastian.” My stories in New Orleans Noir and Sunshine Noir (“Annunciation Shotgun” and “Housecleaning”, respectively) were about gay characters. My story in Blood on the Bayou, nominated for the Macavity Award last year, “Survivor’s Guilt,” wasn’t gay in any way, nor was my story “Keeper of the Flame,” published in Mystery Week. Some of the new stories are gay, some are not. Two that went out today were about gay characters, two of them were not. I was originally not intending to write any crime stories with gay characters this year; it just sort of happened. I think the Chanse story I’ve written–which needs a new title–is pretty decent; but am I limiting my chances of getting the stories into print by writing about gay characters? It’s already a difficult haul finding markets that still take short stories, and the competition is obviously fierce.

And again, as I said yesterday, you never can be certain your story was rejected because you wrote honestly about gay characters. It’s all part and parcel of the insanity of being a gay writer, or a writer who is gay, or whatever the hell label fits on my sash as I walk across the stage at the beauty pageant of publishing.

But I’ve got more than enough stories for a collection now, and I am going to keep playing with the manuscript; what is the proper mix of previously published stories versus new material? Should it all be new material, or should it all be previously published material?

Decisions, decisions.

Therein, indeed, lies the path to madness.

I also read some short stories. First was “Still Life with Teapots and Students”, by Shirley Jackson, from the  Let Me Tell You collection.

Come off it, kids, come off it, Louise Harlowe told herself just under her breath. SHe smiled graciously at her husband, Lionel’s, two best students, noticing with an edge of viciousness that they both held their teacups exactly right, and said lightly, “You’re going to have a pleasant summer, then?”

Joan shrugged perfectly, and Debbi smiled back, as graciously as Louise had smiled, but with more conviction. “It will be about the same as the others, I guess, ” Debbi said. “Sort of dull.”

They’re both too well bred to tell me what they’ll be doing, Louise thought, and asked deliberately, “You’ll be together, of course?”

Jackson is one of my favorites, and while she is mostly known for “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House and macabre, Gothic work, she wrote a lot more than people think and not everything she wrote was macabre. This nasty little tale, in which a professor’s wife has two of his students over for tea–during the course of which she lets the rich little bitches she knows about their affair with her husband, and what’s more, doesn’t care because they are nothing more than something of the moment, is quite rich and layered and textured. From a modern day perspective the wonder is why she doesn’t leave him, as it becomes clear this happens regularly; they politely discuss another faculty wife who wasn’t quite as calm in confronting the student her husband was messing around with, and it’s all very polite and reserved…yet, in this modern era of #metoo and power differentials, the agency both Jackson and the wife in the story give the students–and the contempt and hatred for them the wife feels, but never reveals–makes me wonder. I’m still unpacking this story, several days after reading it; which is how amazing it–and Jackson–are.

And then it was time for “The Doll” by Daphne du Maurier, The Doll: The Lost Short Stories.

I want to know if men realize when they are insane. Sometimes I think my brain cannot hold together, it is filled with too much horror–too great a despair. And there is no one; I  have never been so unutterably alone. Why should it help me to write this?…Vomit forth the poison in my brain.

For I am poisoned, I cannot sleep, I cannot close my eyes without seeing his damned face..

If only it had been a dream, something to laugh over, a festered imagination

It’s easy enough to laugh, who wouldn’t crack their sides and split their tongues with laughing. Let’s laugh till the blood runs from our eyes–there’s fun, if you like. No, it’s the emptiness that hurts, the breaking up of everything inside me.

DuMaurier’s story often have a polite, observational distance and formality to them; much like her novels, even in the first person. This story, of obsession and lust and desire, all of which are thwarted, is not only reminiscent of My Cousin Rachel, but also, as I was reading, made me wonder. We never learn the name of the first person narrator, but the object of his obsession is a woman named Rebecca–you see where my mind was going with that, don’t you? And in some ways, it works as an almost prequel for the novel; the deep obsession and need; the mysterious woman who plays out her cards slowly. What of course doesn’t fit is the doll itself; the woman owns a male doll she has a strange attachment to, a doll our narrator despises, hates, is jealous of; it’s a terrific story of darkness and deep passion and obsession and perhaps, madness….a great example of why I love du Maurier so much.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Dance Hall Days

Sunday! I have a panel and a signing at Comic Con today; the Saints have a play-off game, and the Golden Globes are tonight…and sometime today the Olympic ice dancing finals are also airing. Madness! Usually my Sundays are a lot more mellow than this. I did manage to get a lot done yesterday; cleaning and organizing and laundry and filing and even some brainstorming. I am definitely going to be hitting the ground running this week; it’s so lovely to finally feel 100% me again, stupid flu or whatever it was I had.

So, this morning I need to do some more cleaning, am going to do some more brainstorming and perhaps an edit on a story, work on the new Scotty outline, and do some other editing before it’s time to get ready to head down to the Convention Center. Damn it, I also have to copy edit that damn file of Bourbon Street Blues, too, don’t I? Sigh. My work is never done.

And the Scotty Bible. Heavy heaving sigh.

I also read another short story yesterday, Angel Luis Colon’s “My Heart Died on Blackrock Avenue.”

meat city on fire

I’ll never forget my first fight.

And I mean a real fight, not the random tussles with my brothers or cousins. I’m talking a knuckle-busting, lip-splitting, eye-swelling fight. The kind of fight where you go savage and the world’s pure fire, where there’s no concern about whether your punches connect or if they’re going to do permanent damage. A real street fight–drawn blood, scrapes and cuts you find later, and that taste at the back of your throat, as if you’d been chowing on pennies all day long. The kind of fight a person with more brains than heart knows to avoid.

Obviously, my first fight was over a girl–surprise, surprise.

I met Angel in Toronto at this year’s Bouchercon; as is usual with the business, we have a lot of mutual friends. And then he wrote this brilliant piece for Medium, and I thought to myself, I need to read this guy, so I ordered his collection Meat City on Fire and Other Assorted Debacles.

Wow.

I said when I posted about Sue Grafton that she was the writer who brought me back to the crime genre; the stuff that was getting published in the 1970’s and early 1980’s that I was reading held no interest for me; I hadn’t heard the term toxic masculinity yet, but that was primarily what turned me off to crime fiction at the time. To this day, I still have trouble reading some male authors for that very reason; I’m just not interested in reading any more books about the tough, tragic, closed-off man who drinks himself into oblivion because the love of his life is dead, or he’s obsessed with some dead, beautiful woman that makes him reflect on life and the harsh, cold, cruel world in which we live. No thank you. This trope also pops up in what’s called ‘literary fiction’ as well; it’s hard for me to identify with, or care about, these kinds of characters; the plight of the straight white man simply doesn’t interest me that much. Does that mean I’m prejudiced? Maybe.

It’s something I can live with.

So, as I started reading Angel’s first story in this collection, I winced a little bit inwardly. Great, I thought, here we go again with the tough-guy stuff. But the story–which isn’t a crime story at all, I might add–isn’t that; it’s actually fantastic, to be honest. There are so many truths, and so much honesty, in this story that it’s almost painful to read, to digest, to think about. I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn, as the main character in this story did, but I grew up in the working class neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, where casual racism not only existed but simmered; where prejudice wasn’t just about the color of one’s skin but also about religion and your ethnicity; if you were a Pole or a Slav, etc. Violence was always just there under the surface, and this story took me back to that neighborhood, the innocence of childhood and learning about the cold, cruel world out there. It’s a truly terrific story, and I encourage everyone to read Angel’s collection, or one of his novels.

I’m really looking forward to reading more of his work myself.

Sister Christian

It’s cold, gray, and damp in New Orleans this morning. I would guess it’s probably less than sixty degrees inside the Lost Apartment–I am wearing a wool cap and my hands are cold as I type this–but I also have a short day of work today, and I intend to use this time wisely this morning–writing, cleaning, etc. Paul returns home tomorrow everning late; so I am going to need to finish cleaning the upstairs. I bought our advance tickets for Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi yesterday; Sunday of opening weekend so I won’t have to avoid spoilers on-line as long as I did for The Force Awakens. Woo-hoo!

I’m about halfway through Patricia Highsmith’s The Blunderer, and marveling at how bleak her world view is, to be honest. Highsmith writes in a very distant third person point of view, and her voice is terribly matter-of-fact, which makes the reality of the story she is telling much worse. Highsmith is a master of the wrong-place-wrong-time suspense tale; which is something I absolutely love. These kinds of stories build suspense naturally; the reader and the main character know they’re innocent of any wrong-doing, but no one else believes them, which also tends to make them paranoid and the pacing picks up the more paranoid the main character becomes. I sort of did this in Bourbon Street Blues, only Scotty’s only crime was to be the unwitting recipient of something both the villains and the FBI wanted to get their hands on. You can’t, of course, turn that type of a tale into a series, although part of the problem I’ve always had with writing Scotty books is I’ve always tried to turn each new book into a traditional mystery series tale, and Scotty books aren’t, and should never be, a traditional mystery tale. I always run into trouble when I try to make them out to be that way.

Heavy sigh.

I managed to get some work done on a short story yesterday as well; I’d love to get that first draft finished sooner rather than later, so I can polish it and get it into submission-ready shape.

Lord, it’s cold in the kitchen this morning. I may have to go get a blanket in a moment.

Christmas looms on the horizon, and I have yet to shop for anything. I will finish the Christmas cards this weekend–yes, I actually started addressing them and signing them and putting them into envelopes; I may even get them in the mail so people can receive them before the holiday, look at ME adulting–and I also probably should do some shopping this weekend. I need to make up my mind whether I want to simply shop on-line or if I want to actually brave a mall. I used to abhor malls, but over the years as I spend less time in them the rare occasions I actually go to them turn out to be kind of enjoyable. Lakeside Mall has both an Apple Store and a Macys, and that’s usually all I need to do at a mall, besides the Food Court–I always treat myself to something at the Food Court whenever I go to one; and yes, I am aware how weird it is that fast food is something I consider a treat. But I never eat fast food; there’s really not anything conveniently accessible, which made moving into this neighborhood a genius move for that reason alone.

And on that note, I think it’s time for me to head back into the spice mines.

Here’s a Calvin Klein ad for your delectation; Marky Mark from the 1990’s for Throwback Thursday.

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Time after Time

Saturday morning! I have to work today, and then am going to make groceries on the way home from the office–and I am going to go to the gym before the LSU-Tennessee game tonight. Yes, I’m going to do it, and I am going to lift weights–easing myself into it, with one set of fifteen with low weights and doing a full body workout; just like I did when I first started back in 1994. I am actually looking forward to it. (Right? Who am I, and what have I done with Gregalicious?)

I have a lot to do over the next few weeks, but I am embracing it rather than fearing it. I have to get a short story finished this weekend, and maybe some chapters written; and I am also going to work on the Scotty Bible a bit. I also need to clean the house a bit, and I am going to play with the structure of the WIP yet again. I do have moments when I think that maybe, with all the revisions and problems I’m having with it, that maybe that means I should simply give up on it–but I am being stubborn, and I do think there’s a really amazing novel in there, and if I keep tinkering away at it I’ll eventually get to it. I’m not used to having to work so hard on a book, but I also think hard work and pushing myself isn’t a bad thing, either.

I also need to copy edit the hell out of the manuscripts for Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz.

So much to do. This is why, I think, I don’t get as much done as I should; I get overwhelmed simply thinking about everything I have to do. But I need to get past that, and of course, the best way to do that is to make a to-do list; which I am going to do as soon as I finish this. There’s also a city election today, so I need to walk to my polling place and take care of that as well before I head to to the office.

I got caught up on Riverdale last night–I was three episodes behind–and wow, did this show ever take a turn for the dark. I really do like the show; it started out as a kind of cross between your typical teen CW drama and Pretty Little Liars, only using the canon Archie Andrews/Riverdale characters, but this update is pretty incredible. The kids are dealing with serious issues that modern day teens have to deal with (although I doubt many of them have to deal with serial killers or murder or incest or….), and the young cast is incredibly appealing–and their character arcs actually make sense. I also love that Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks plays Betty’s mother Alice–ALICE COOPER (I giggle every time someone says it)–and that she’s kind of a villain. I also love that Molly Ringwald occasionally guest stars as Archie’s mother.

We also got caught up on The Exorcist last night, and I have to say, Season 2 is way better than Season 1. The episode we saw last night took the story down an even darker path than it was on originally, and the addition of Alicia Witt to the cast was a genius touch. Nice job, The Exorcist!

Okay, so it’s time for me to tackle the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and see you tomorrow.

Here’s your daily hunk:

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What About Me

It is fall in New Orleans, and the light has changed. Summer is a brutal season here, and it is easy to wonder, as you bake in the sun and get drenched in sweat from the thick humidity, why on earth you ever thought you could live here. Then fall comes, and you remember; the extreme heat and thick humidity are gone and the light is just spectacular. The blue of the sky is simply stunning, like the Mediterranean Sea where it’s shallow, and the sunlight itself, softened and not quite as harsh after the shifting of the earth on its axis, bathes everything with a gorgeous glow.

I am off to Thibodeaux today, to do testing at Nicholls State University this afternoon with some of my co-workers. I’ve never actually been there before; I’ve never explored Louisiana south of the city–now that I have a new car, once football season is over I am going to rectify that by not only exploring more of New Orleans but more of Louisiana as well. I printed out Bourbon Street Blues last night preparatory to doing a copy edit and some tweaks to the story; it is still firmly fixed in 2004 so I won’t be updating some things that I don’t think should be changed: Scotty still won’t have a computer nor a cell phone, and will still be a a bit of Luddite when it comes to the Internet (he still is, but not to the degree he was when we first met him). It’s pretty amazing to realize how much technology has changed since the book was first written, back in 2001-2002. It’s also going to be kind of fun to go back to Scotty’s roots, as it were, and reacquaint myself not only with his origins but who he was when I first created him.

That can only help me write the new one, you know?

I also found the original electronic draft of the short story I started rewriting this week, but the whole story isn’t there. I don’t know if I ever wrote the entire first draft, or if I just did so in my head. I was pretty certain I’d written the entire thing, so I might have to go digging through the files this weekend to see if I can find it. I am off tomorrow, which is lovely, and Saturday as well. I am now reading Anna Dressed In Blood, by Kendare Blake. I’m enjoying it so far; a y/a reviewer compared my book Sara to it, so I thought I should read it, and am finally now getting around to it. I’m toying with the idea of another paranormal y/a with a gay main character, and so it’s kind of nice to see what other stuff is out there as well.

We got caught up on American Horror Story last night; although the stupid FX app skipped last week’s episode, so we were a bit lost, but after we finished we didn’t see any reason to go back and watch the previous one–although apparently there was a hot sex scene with Billy Eichner and Colton Haynes. Meh, don’t care enough; maybe this weekend.

So, I should probably dive back into the spice mines this morning before I leave for work. For Throwback Thursday, here’s the original cover of Bourbon Street Blues.

BourbonStreetBlues

Lawyers in Love

The cold spell we brought with us back from Toronto continues, and it’s lovely, if I am going to be honest. I had yet another good night of sleep after bar testing last night, and of course, walking back to the office through the Quarter was wonderful. It was a beautiful October night, and the Quarter is putting on its Halloween finery. There was a house completely done up with killer clowns, which was fantastic.

See what I mean?

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I’m going to have to do bar testing again before Halloween so I have an excuse to walk around and look a the decorations. There’s a pair of houses on Royal Street between St. Philip and Ursulines that goes all out for every holiday; I can’t wait to see what they’ve done for Halloween this year.

I have this Friday off because I am working Sunday, doing condom outreach at the Tea Dance party along the river…which means I should have some great pictures.

I am slowly crawling out from under the backlog that piled up while I was in Toronto, which is lovely. I made a list and started working my way through it; and I am pretty jazzed. Scooter will be pleased, no doubt, because my plans for my days off this weekend entail mostly sitting in the easy chair and editing. I also have some news to announce relatively soon, which is also pretty cool.

I had decided not to re-edit Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz because, you know, I wanted the new editions to be like the originals…but then I realized the files I have are unedited; no copy edits or anything, so I am going to go ahead and try to do some mild revisions. I also think doing this will help me with the new Scotty as well.

All right, back to the spice mines.

The Other Guy

Thursday!

I survived the long day yesterday somehow, slept beautifully last night, and am wide awake and raring to go this morning. Hurray! I am still reading Background to Danger by Eric Ambler, which is another one of those “uh oh, what did I get myself into?” style espionage stories, and am enjoying it tremendously. I also made more progress on the new Scotty yesterday morning–having my usual this sucks doubts as well–and it looks like I am finally going to be getting the ebooks for Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz under way; with an eye to hopefully having them available after the first of the year.

Right? It certainly has taken me long enough.

I also want to get a short story revised and out into the markets over the course of this weekend. We shall see how that goes.

I hope to finish reading the Ambler either today or tomorrow, and then dive into The Elementals by Michael MacDowell. Toronto Bouchercon looms on the horizon; and I need to start thinking about getting ready for that.

Also, speaking of the first two Scottys, I am donating a signed copy of the first two–unavailable in any form other than second-hand sellers or ebay–since 2010 to a fundraiser for disaster relief being organized by Murder by the Book in Houston. So…this is a good chance to see where the Scotty series began, before the ebooks/POD versions become available.

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We’re very excited to announce that Murder By The Book will be organizing and hosting BOOK LOVERS CARE, a collectible book auction benefitting natural disaster relief. The book-loving community is a generous one and we’re hoping this news gets spread far and wide. Authors, readers, collectors – we’re looking at you!

We are currently soliciting donations of signed/collectible books and book-related items to be auctioned off online. While Murder By The Book specializes in crime fiction, we are looking for books of all genres.

* 90% of the money raised will go to Direct Relief, a highly-rated charity providing worldwide relief, specifically to areas affected by Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, and the Mexico City earthquake.

* 10% of the money raised will go to the BINC Foundation – the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, providing aid to booksellers in time of crisis.

* Please mail all donations to the following:

Murder By The Book
Attn: Book Lovers Care 
2342 Bissonnet St.
Houston, TX 77005

* We will be accepting donations through the end of October, with the hope of the auction occurring in November – just in time for holiday gift-giving!

* While any donation of a book is a good deed, we are specifically looking for signed first editions, limited editions, unique book swag, and unique items that would bring excitement to an auction because of their value and rarity. We are not looking for used paperbacks. If you’re looking to donate them, we suggest Operation Paperback.

* For any specific questions or media inquiries regarding this, please contact us at the following email address: bookloverscare@gmail.com

And now back to the spice mines.

Come Dancing

Tuesday!

Being off yesterday was kind of nice. I started a project I’ve been meaning to start all year (it was one of my goals set on the first of the year) and went to my storage unit. The goal is to clean a lot out of it, as well as get some more copies of my books out to replenish the supply in the Lost Apartment. I was actually worried that the boxes of my books were in the absolute back, but they weren’t. I was able to assemble three boxes of books to donate, found the copies of my own books I needed (hello, Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz!) and now that I’ve actually done it–it’s not as intimidating as I thought it would be. I’ve also always kept my papers–manuscript drafts, notes, etc–in manuscript boxes or small boxes that approximate a manuscript box; those don’t end up stacking well and you can only imagine how many of those there are. I’ve decided that the smart thing to do is get rid of those small, collapsing, not-so-sturdy boxes and assemble file boxes, and move the papers in there, labelling the new boxes appropriately. That way they’ll stack better, and will most likely create more room. And when I am moving all that stuff around, I can drag out other boxes of stored books to donate. So, yes, I am feeling inordinately proud of myself.

I started reading Eric Ambler’s Background to Danger, which I believe may be his first novel. It’s really quite good; Mr. Ambler certainly knew how to turn a phrase: One sunny morning in July, Mr. Joseph Bhaltergren’s blue Rolls-Royce oozed silently away from the pavement in Berkeley Square, slid across Piccadilly into St. James’, and sped softly eastward towards the City of London.

I so wish I’d written that sentence. While it’s ostensibly about the car and the drive into London, it also tells you everything you need to know about the passenger. That’s pretty masterful.

After taking the weekend off (from writing) I managed to get back to work. I intend to get the reread of the WIP finished over this week, and then the adjustments to the manuscript that need to be made done this weekend, as well as writing the query letter. I also hope to get some of the new Scotty written this week; Chapter Six is sucking big time.

Ah, well. I don’t have to go into the office until later today, so I should be able to get some work on it finished. We are greatly enjoying Harlan Coben’s The Five on Netflix; we’re about four or five episodes in, so about halfway finished. I have an excessively long day tomorrow, but that’s cool.

All right, I’ve got things to do this morning.

Here’s a Tuesday morning hunk for you:

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Sexual Healing

Friday, the cusp of a three day weekend. Southern Decadence gets into full swing today, and I shall be out on condom duty with my wonderful and young co-workers, standing at the corner of St. Ann and Bourbon. I shall be taking lots of photos of the crowd; it’s always kind of a fun time, if a bit exhausting to stand that long in the heat without the benefit of alcoholic beverages. It’s hard to believe this is my (sigh) twenty-second Southern Decadence. Yikes.

Southern Decadence was one of my favorite times of the year; I still enjoy it, but not quite to the extent that I used to, of course; being older and wiser in theory, the truth simply being that my body cannot bear the wear and tear of a Southern Decadence the way it used to. There are few things my body can handle the wear and tear of these days. But I don’t mind it, please don’t think that I am pining for my past, misspent youth (or middle age, really). I even wrote a novel about Southern Decadence, my second one to see print, and the one that introduced Scotty Bradley to the world: Bourbon Street Blues. It’s so weird to me to still be writing about Scotty, all these years later. But I did get some work done on Chapter Four yesterday; it’s still not completed, but it’s getting there. I hate writing transitional chapters, but at least this time I was able to use this chapter to find, once again, his voice. I always worry that, as I get older, I will lose the ability to find Scotty’s voice inside my cluttered, scattered brain; and yet there it was again these last two mornings, spilling out of me and making me smile. I love the character very much, you see, and I never really want to let go of him or say goodbye to him. He’s not the same sweet, fun-loving rascal that he was when I first dreamed him sixteen years ago and started writing about him; he’s older, he has to be a little more cautious about what he eats, he aches a lot more than he ever did before and his body takes more time to bounce back. But he’s in a good place, he doesn’t resist getting older, and he doesn’t miss being younger. Scotty still sees life as an adventure, and always looks forward to what’s going to happen next.

He’s just so much fun to write about, you know?

It’s hard to believe there are so many books with him now–Bourbon Street Blues, Jackson Square Jazz, Mardi Gras Mambo, Vieux Carre Voodoo, Who Dat Whodunnit, Baton Rouge Bingo, and Garden District Gothic. I am writing the eighth Scotty now; I would have never believed back in 2001 when I was writing the first one that I’d be writing an eighth one all these years later; I certainly never thought this series would last longer than the Chanse series. Scotty’s world is much richer and more vibrant than it was when I first wrote about him; we’ve gotten to know him and his family on both sides; he has a nephew-in-law now that he cares about very deeply; and he’s a richer character from everything he’s been through–but he doesn’t regret anything. Everything he’s experienced, good or bad, has brought him to where he is now and who he is now, and he’s happy with his life so he doesn’t regret anything.

And that’s kind of a lovely thing, you know?

And since we’re on the subject, before I head back into the spice mines, here’s who I currently think would be perfect to play Scotty, True Blood star Ryan Kwanten, and how delightful that I was able to find a picture of him wearing pretty much what Scotty was wearing in the opening scene of Vieux Carre Voodoo:

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And here’s an excerpt from Chapter One of Bourbon Street Blues:

In the summer, the French Quarter reeks of sour beer, vomit, and piss. At seven ever morning, the hoses come out and the vomit and spilt liquor and piss is washed down off the sidewalks. By eight, Bourbon Street stinks of pine cleaner, a heavy, oily scent that cloys and hangs in the air. It hit me full force when I slipped out of the front door of the Bourbon Orleans hotel at eight-thirty in the morning. The bellman on duty winked at me. I shrugged and grinned back. I wasn’t the first non-guest to slip out of the Bourbon Orleans that morning, and I wouldn’t be the last that weekend.

It was Southern Decadence, after all. Urban legend holds that Southern Decadence began in the 1980’s as a bar-crawl-type party a group of gay guys had for a friend who was moving away. They had so much fun, they did it again the next year. Each year it grew and grew until it became a national event, drawing gay men from as far away as Sweden and Australia. As opposed to other circuit events, for years there was no big dance party. It was just a big block party held in what we locals called the Fruit Loop, a five-bar, four-block stretch that runs from Rawhide to Good Friends to Oz and the Pub to Café Lafitte’s in Exile. All the bars have balconies except for Rawhide, and of course you can always take your drink with you.

The gay boys had started arriving yesterday afternoon, with the big crush coming in today, Friday. Labor Day weekend. The end of summer, when the locals can begin to breathe a little easier. The mind-numbing heat will break in the next few weeks, and what passes for our fall season will begin. Sunny days with no humidity and the mercury hovering in the seventies and low eighties. In New Orleans, we turn off the air-conditioning when the temperatures drop into the low eighties and open the windows.

I headed for the corner of Orleans and Bourbon. My stomach was growling. The Clover Grill was just a few blocks up Bourbon, and one of their breakfasts was sounding damned good to my slightly swollen head. There’s nothing like scrambled eggs and greasy full-fat bacon to make you lose your hangover. The food at the Clover Grill is one of the best hangover cures in town. I shifted my gym bag to my other shoulder.

The bars at the corner of St. Ann and Bourbon still had patrons. It was probably too early for new arrivals from out of town, so these were the holdouts from the night before, who still hadn’t grasped the fact that the bars don’t close. Tourists always have trouble pacing themselves in New Orleans. Bars that have no last call is an alien concept to most. The bars had been packed with tourists who had come in early for the weekend, the liquor had flowed freely, and there were very likely a lot of drugs to be had. Today the bars would be packed again, almost impossible to navigate through. I waved at Abel, the morning bartender at the Pub.

I was dancing at the Pub this weekend for extra cash. One of the porn stars, Rock Hard, who was supposed to dance this weekend, had overdosed on crystal meth on Wednesday. Condition stable—but no condition to dance. Randy Westfall, the manager, had called me on Thursday afternoon to fill in. It was very good timing. I was behind on some bills. It probably wasn’t very good karma to be happy that Rock Hard had overdosed, but I reasoned that it was probably a good thing. Perhaps the overdose would wake him up to the fact he had a substance-abuse problem, and he would now get some help for it. The summer’s heat is always a bitch on my personal training business, but this one had been particularly bad. It had been hotter than usual, which is a staggering thought. Everyone who could afford a trainer had left town. Those who didn’t leave didn’t want to sweat any more than they already were. Can’t say that I blame them—except when the second notices from my utilities start arriving.

Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone!

You Light Up My Life

Last night I took the streetcar down to the Quarter to have drinks with two friends in from out of town at the Carousel Bar. It was a lovely day in New Orleans, with no humidity (any day without humidity is a beautiful day, frankly) and then the ride home after dark was equally lovely.

I didn’t get as much writing done this weekend as I had hoped, and I really need to get over this procrastination thing. A friend pointed out to me that I do this to myself all the time; that rather than sitting down and making myself write every day, I’ll just on any excuse not to–which results in stress and panic as the deadline looms. I did get some writing done yesterday; just not as much as I would have liked. I think I solved the problem I was having with one short story, and as I rode the streetcar yesterday I think I may have solved the problem I was having with the other.

Both of these are, of course, good things.

So, my plan is to continue working on the revision of Bourbon Street Blues, finish those two short stories this week, edit the other two for submission, and get about five thousand words written on the next book, while mapping out my ideas for the next Scotty. It may seem daunting–and it is; that’s a lot of work–but as long as I stay focused, I can get it all done; there’s no doubt in my mind. It is amazing what you can do when you focus on one thing at a time. If I get stuck on one of the stories, I’ll work on something else. This has been the problem I’ve been having lately; if I get stuck on something I just stop working, and that isn’t how I’ve managed to remain productive for so long; if something stalls I move on to something else and come back to the original piece of work the next day. Working on something else keeps my creativity working, and shakes out the cobwebs. And there are always cobwebs. Don’t ask me how it happens, but it does.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines.

Here’s today’s hunk:

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