Tag: Bury Me in Shadows

I Want Your Sex

Here it is, Friday morning, and we’ve survived another work week, haven’t we? I can tell that the seasons are changing, as the light isn’t quite so bright in the early morning and it’s getting darker earlier.

The day job has been challenging this week. We’ve been  busier than usual–which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong–but being as busy as we’ve been wears me out. By the time I get home I’m drained and exhausted, which isn’t helpful when it comes to getting things done when I get home. I was already behind on things because of the massive volunteer project, and this doesn’t help. The next project, due to begin on October 1, has been pushed back so I have the month of October suddenly free to focus on my writing again, which is lovely. I am trying to decide if I want to revise the Kansas book, or work my way through Bury Me in Shadows for a second draft. Maybe this weekend as I work on the short stories I need to get finished I’ll be able to figure out, by reading through the manuscripts, which one I should get back to work on. I am more leaning toward the Kansas book; I’ve been dickering around with it in one form or another for nearly three decades and it’s probably time to finish it off, once and for all. It does, after all, make the most sense.

It would be lovely to spend all this time getting caught up on other things as well. I think getting those two short stories finished this weekend would be lovely, and perhaps some work on “Never Kiss a Stranger” and “Fireflies.” I’d submitted “Fireflies”–an ancient story I originally wrote in or around 1987–to an anthology that later commissioned me to write a story for them; they liked “Fireflies” but felt it would work better in longer form, perhaps as a novella. I never think about fiction in terms of novellas; novellas are even harder to place than short stories, and so for me it’s always about short story vs. novel when I come up with an idea. Last year I wrote “Quiet Desperation” as a short novella and self-published it on Amazon before adding it into Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, and while it didn’t exactly set the e-novella market on fire, it was kind of nice having it out there. That’s why I decided to do “Never Kiss a Stranger” as a longer form story, so I could make it more layered and explore the complexities of the characters more–I knew I could self-publish it as a novella in a worst case scenario, and then later add it to another short story collection. I’d never considered “Fireflies” as a longer form novella; part of the problem with the story has always been it’s much too short for everything that is happening and going on in the story. (Rereading it recently I saw this very clearly, and another one of its problems is how it jumps around in time; you can tell I had just read Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury when I originally wrote it.) As I reread it recently, I realized just how richer and better the story would be if I expanded on it, so that’s also something I look forward to working on as well.

We started watching Succession last night, and wow. What a bunch of horrifically terrible human beings. We’re going to continue to watch–we also want to watch Unbelievable on Netflix–and of course, other shows we watch are back, like How to Get Away with Murder, and I also want to finish watching Murder on the Bayou, and the second season of Titans, which might call for a rewatch of season one, because I think Paul would enjoy it.

And on that note, I think I need to attempt to clean out my emails again. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

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Walk Like an Egyptian

And just like that, it is now Friday. I’m still not entirely certain of everything I must get done this weekend, but at some point today I am going to have to make a list. I know I have to finish my essay, get further along on that short story I have due at the end of the month, and get some work done on another that isn’t due until March, but I want to start playing with.

Last night was another bad night as far as sleep was concerned, but I do feel somewhat rested today. My friend Lisa from Atlanta is in town, and I am meeting her after work today to hang out for a bit. My schedule has changed from early morning to early afternoon, which is always my preference–I’d rather never do any early mornings, quite frankly–and I am hoping this morning’s coffee will not only fuel me through this entire day of work but get me through hanging out with Lisa with some coherence. I have a lot of work to do this weekend–one of the many things I’ve allowed to fall to the wayside whilst working on this enormous volunteer project is housework, other than the dishes and laundry–and I really need to get that under control. The weather is still pretty awful here, although it’s getting to the point where it’s cool in the morning and cool in the evenings, which is a sign the heat’s going to break relatively soon.

It’s also Friday the 13th, which I just realized, and there’s a full moon tonight, methinks.

I’ve been reading Lords of Misrule by James Gill, as I have mentioned previously, and it’s really quite eye-opening. It’s funny to me in some ways because all of my reading of New Orleans history this and last year has shown me that New Orleans has always been a rather lawless city, with high rates of brawls, murders and robberies; I am sure rape rates have always been high but never reported back in those days. The history of the city can essentially be summed up in the theme I am using for Bury Me in Shadows: “The history of this city was written in blood.” It shames me that I’ve not studied the history of my home city and state in more detail, and that it has taken me this long to start. I’m going to be writing a historical short story soon–I’ve been asked to write one for an anthology, and I am setting it in 1913-1914 era New Orleans, in Storyville, and I think it will be incredibly fun to write, and I know it will be incredibly fun to research. I really do want to, at some point, write more historical fiction set in New Orleans; the history here is fascinating, if a little frightening–the white supremacy and racism is particularly horrible for such a seemingly tolerant city; but we also have to remember the horribly homophobic reaction of most of the city when the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter, was set ablaze in the worst mass murder of queer people in American history until the Pulse massacre in Orlando a few years back. (I really can’t wait to read Robert Fieseler’s Edgar winning Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Upstairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.)

Anyway, I am at the chapter in Lords of Misrule called “The Battle of Liberty Place,” and I am already dreading reading it in some ways. I know a little about this; all I really need say is it involves a mob of white supremacists and it happened in 1874, during Reconstruction while the state was occupied after the Civil War and…I don’t really need to draw a picture, do I? The Battle of Liberty Place monument was one of the Confederate memorials in the city that were taken down during Mitch Landrieu’s administration, and while I believe they all had to go (I was truly tired of saying to visitors I was showing around, “and here we are at politically incorrect Lee Circle, which memorializes treason”), the Liberty Place monument in particular was a disgrace to a modern city. (I had considered doing a Scotty book around the memorials and their removal, but decided ultimately against it. I don’t like the Scotty books to be fixed in time; there are times when I’ve regretted writing about the Saints winning the Super Bowl) I don’t consider myself to be particularly “woke”, but I do recognize I’ve benefited from privilege most of my life, and while being gay has resulted in some marginalization, I’m still a cisgendered white male, which in this society and culture puts me on third base already.

I can always do better when it comes to issues of race, gender, and sexuality–and it’s something I think about every day at least once. I strive to be a better ally than I am. It really is amazing, when you think about it, how indoctrinated we all are into this shit.

And the history is absolutely horrifying–and it’s disgraceful how it’s been sanitized into mythology.

Heavy thoughts for a Friday morning, aren’t they? Sheesh. But it’s hard not to read about  angry mobs murdering people they’ve othered, and not be appalled by it. I haven’t even gotten to the xenophobic massacre of Italians in the 1890’s yet.

Yes, New Orleans is a city with a history that drips blood; a city of massive contradictions, and it’s not hard to believe that the city’s history haunts it. And yet it is still a magical place, where all that pain and blood and suffering has been somehow transmuted into gold through art and music and literature. The city will probably never stop fascinating me, and I will undoubtedly spend the rest of my life studying it.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. One of the things that is completely out of control is my inbox; I’ve got to do something about that this morning.

Heavy sigh.

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Here I Go Again

Facing down yet another Monday like a beast.

I went to bed early last night–just watching the Nadal-Medvedev final in the US Open was exhausting, in addition to the emotional rollercoaster of the LSU-Texas game the previous night, and putting finishing touches on the volunteer project (we’ll be tying up loose ends all week, I suspect), and around nine-ish last night I was just worn out, and went to bed. I slept off and on all night–not sure how that’s going to play out today–but I guess we’ll see. I have two long days in a row for the first time in a few weeks, and I fear my body is no longer used to that abuse…but I guess we’ll see. Now that I have a half-day on Wednesday instead, it might make things easier for me in the middle of the week.

Here’s hoping, at any rate.

I printed out the first four chapters of the final rewrite of the Kansas book last night, and it’s better than I thought it would be–the chapters I’ve already done need some work, and I need to seed the rest of the story a bit more. I’m trying something different with it–just as I did in Bury Me in Shadows, which is first person present tense–I am trying to do this in a remote third person point of view in the present tense. I noticed that despite my attempts to keep it in present tense, I slipped into the past tense a number of times out of force of habit, which is one of the reasons why I am writing this in the present tense; I want to not only shake things up for me as a writer, but break the habits of doing things the same way every time. I want to continually push myself as a writer and as a story-teller, and the best way to do that is to expand and try different things, different styles, different methods of storytelling, different ways of presenting the narrative and writing different kinds of crime novels. Laura Lippman is a master of this; her last few novels have all been dramatically different in style, voice, tone, and presentation–After I’m Gone, Wilde Lake, Sunburn, and Lady in the Lake–there’s definitely a Lippman sensibility to them, but the stories and storytelling and construction of the books are all dramatically different. That’s kind of what I want to do with my own stand-alone novels; I’ll probably always come back to Scotty, and as I’ve said recently, there’s another Chanse novel I’m probably going to try to write sometime next year–but the entire point of the stand alones was to do different things and experiment with style as well as story and writing.

But now that all that’s left is wrap-up on the volunteer project–thank the Lord, you have no idea what an enormous venture this was–I can start getting caught up this week on everything else that has slid while I focused all of my prodigious energy on getting it finished. I love doing volunteer work; I often take things on that I shouldn’t, as they interfere with my writing and staying on top of everything else in my life, but I like helping out. One of the primary reasons I love my day job so much is because I feel like I’m helping people make positive changes in their life, and at the very least I am helping people get STI’s cleared up, if nothing else. I need to finish an essay by this weekend, and I have to finish a first draft of a short story that’s due by the end of the month. I’d also like to get some work on the Kansas book done–it may not be finished when I want it to be finished, but that’s also life, and I am certain I can get it finished, at the latest, in December. I also remembered I have a novella a publisher is interested in that I need to get to work on; it’s a long short story but there are any number of places where it can be expanded easily, and so I should be looking at that as well.

This has been, all in all, a pretty good year for me–I had a short story collection come out in the spring and a novel this month–and while I’d like to get both of these novels that are in progress finished and out by next year as well, I don’t think that’s going to happen, which is perfectly okay. Bury Me in Shadows took me a lot longer than I intended to get finished, and that’s perfectly okay; it happens. But I also think I can get a strong revision of it finished this December, and then I can get it turned in for January; a strong push and the Kansas book can be turned in at the end of January, and hopefully by then, doing a chapter a week,  I can also have a strong first draft of Chlorine finished as well. I also want to get more short stories written, as I would love nothing more than to have another collection out sooner rather than later. I’m also nominated for an Anthony Award for my short story “Cold Beer No Flies” from Florida Happens, which is pretty awesome; I sold my short story “This Town” to Murder-a-Go-Go’s (and the story was received pretty well by most reviewers; probably the most, and best, feedback after publication I’ve ever had on a short story) and I also sold my story “Moist Money” to Dark Yonder, which I’m pretty pleased about.

I’m still reading both Rob Hart’s The Warehouse, which I hope to have more time to read now that the volunteer project is under some sort of control, and  James Gill’s Lords of Misrule, which is giving me a rather pointed history of racism in New Orleans, and it’s not pretty. We New Orleanians know there’s still systemic racism here in the city, as well as individual racism, but the history of slavery and racism in New Orleans is unique to this place and different than everywhere else; we had an entire middle-class of free people of color before the war, who weren’t obviously slaves but had to show deference to white people and were segregated out of places frequented by whites; Barbara Hambly’s brilliant Benjamin January series, beginning with A Free Man of Color, and Anne Rice’s The Feast of All Saints, are excellent fictional representations of that weird second-class citizenship the free people of color of New Orleans and Louisiana experienced. It’s still appalling, though, to read about lynch mobs and murderers never brought to proper justice for their crimes. Stained in blood as it is, New Orleans has a fascinating history, and has always been one of the more interesting places in this country.

And tomorrow is officially my new book’s birthday! Huzzah!

And now back to the spice mines.

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Space Oddity

So, the eighth Scotty book drops in exactly one week. Those of you who preordered (and thank you!) might even already have Royal Street Reveillon in your hot little hands. Yay, for preorders, and thank you again if you did preorder.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a long time, or follow me on social media, or do any of those lovely things that make me feel better about myself, are probably aware of one of my primary mantras of writing: never throw anything away because nothing you write is waste. It can, after all, always come in handy later. I’ve repurposed work before; Murder in the Rue Ursulines, the fourth Chanse novel, began life as the fourth Scotty, Hurricane Party Hustle. My short story “Survivor’s Guilt,” nominated for a Macavity Award, began life as a short story called “Blues in the Night,” and so on, and so on, and so on. Fragments removed from a novel have ended up in a short story; short story pieces have wound up inside novels. That’s why I always save everything, including drafts and partials–I never know when that writing might come in handy for something later, and it inevitably always does.

Many years ago, the publishing of fiction as ebooks only exploded with the development, and sales, of Amazon’s Kindle device, as well as those from competitors–I chose to go the iPad route, and use the apps for book reading; Kobo and Kindle and iBooks. A friend had started her own e-publishing company, and was encouraging me to develop a long-dormant idea for a series–the idea I had, almost from the earliest days of the Chanse series, of spinning off his reporter best bud, Paige Tourneur, into her own series. I am always willing to give new things, and new technology, a spin, and so I produced two lengthy novellas with Paige as a main character, out of a proposed five: Fashion Victim and Dead Housewives of New Orleans. The former was originally a short story I sat on for years; the latter an idea born of my interest/borderline obsession with reality television, primarily Bravo’s Real Housewives franchises. It was born of a joke between Paul and I, while he suffered in silence through my watching of these shows (mostly the New York and Beverly Hills editions; I never got into the others quite as much, although Atlanta and now Potomac I”m more hit and miss with) in which we picked women we thought would make interesting choices for a New Orleans franchise, and then would simply laugh and laugh, saying “Can you imagine?” The novellas, however, were on a very tight turn around time, and I was writing them between other novels I had contracted. They were good, but I was never completely satisfied with them, and Paige was, frankly, not as popular with readers as I thought she might be. People either loved the character or hated her; and of course, some Amazon reviewers disliked Paige’s feminist politics and her habit of using foul language.

Also, as it turned out, ebook marketing is a lot of work–work I didn’t have the time or knowledge to put in, and ultimately the return on the investment was simply not worth it. My friend and I agreed to cancel the series and the contracts, and shortly thereafter both novellas were pulled from Amazon.

And that, I thought, was the end of the great Paige experiment of mainstream crime fiction writing for me.

But I still believed, and still do, that the Dead Housewives idea was a good one, and deserved better than it got as an e-novella for Paige.

So…I decided to reboot and repurpose the idea, and develop it into a Scotty novel; and so a forty thousand word novella turned into a Scotty novel of closer to a hundred thousand words; it’s the longest Scotty book since Jackson Square Jazz. If you are an avid Greg reader, and you read Dead Housewives (thank you for that, by the way), some of Royal Street Reveillon might seem familiar; the opening party for the show, some of the characters and their relationships to each other, and so on. But the outcome of the story is different, and there’s a lot more going on in this book than in the original. Royal Street Reveillon is much closer to what I always wanted the story to be, and really, it works much better as a Scotty story than it ever would did as a Paige story. The “Grande Dames of New Orleans” are all the same women; I introduced Serena Castlemaine in Garden District Gothic, and also previewed the filming of the reality show in that book. Margery, Megan, Rebecca, Fidelis, and Chloe are the same women from the original, but their stories and relationships to each other (and in some cases, to their spouses and the men in their lives) are dramatically different. The first murder is different, and there are several more story threads in this final version of the story than there were before. And there is a lot more of Scotty’s personal story, and that of those he loves, in this book than in the original (obviously, as Scotty wasn’t in the original story).

And, for the record, the resolution of the mysteries (yes, plural) are markedly different than what it originally was.

Also for the record;  I am much more pleased with this book than I was with the original story. I hope you’ll like it, too.

I spent my entire Labor Day, well, laboring over a volunteer project; it’s still not quite finished despite the eight or so hours I dedicated to it yesterday, but I feel very confident that it will be finished tonight. So, while I didn’t really get to spend my long weekend relaxing as much as I would have liked, I was able to get some things done, including the draft of Bury Me in Shadows, this volunteer project, and I did sign the contract for that short story, which was lovely.

And so now on to a short week. I don’t have a short day this week until Friday, as I am covering for someone tomorrow evening, but that’s fine. I seem to have my sleep back under control again as well, which is a major plus and very satisfying.

So it’s off to the spice mines with me for the day. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

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Money

So, my next Scotty book drops on September 10th, and I’ve been so incredibly, mind-numbingly busy lately that I’ve done very, very little to either acknowledge, or promote, that fact.

This is the eighth book in the Scotty series, which makes it my longest series to date thus far (although the next Chanse book will be the eighth in that series), and I am thinking about starting a new, different series….but I’m digressing, as I am wont to do. After I proofed the galleys and sent the corrections in, I decided that this time–as opposed to what usually happens; i.e. I am so busy and have so much to do that I forget the book is coming out–I was actually going to try to get the word out and do a better job of it than I usually do. But the official release isn’t until September 10th, but if you want it faster, if you order it (paperback or ebook for any reader) through the Bold Strokes website, you can get it now.

It really is a wonder that I have a career, isn’t it? And yet, here we are.

I did manage to finish the first draft of Bury Me in Shadows yesterday, and while it is a considerable mess in need of lots of work, now i have something to actually work with, and I know what the story is, how I want it to play out, and where I have to go back and put things. The ending also needs more work, but it’s done, it’s finished, and now it needs to sit and marinate while I work on revising the final draft of the Kansas book, preparatory to a two-month project that will take up most of my time for October and November. So, I’ll probably get back to Bury Me in Shadows in December, and hope to have it ready for submission by the end of January.

I also signed a contract for a short story yesterday; the anthology I was asked to submit a story to sent me a contract for “Moist Money” and I signed it and sent it back to them. Huzzah! It doesn’t pay much, but it definitely counts as a sale, and I’d have never written the story had they not asked me to write one. It’s a delightfully dark little story, and I like the voice of the main character that I found. The funny thing is, as you well know by now Constant Reader, that I often start with a title, and the genesis of this story is kind of funny.

I’d been asked to submit something to this anthology–I’m not sure I’m allowed to name it or share any details yet–and I agreed, but couldn’t think of anything to write. I don’t ever try to force these things–it happens when it happens–but it was there, in the back of my mind, and I knew I had a very short turnaround on the story. One day on Twitter someone talked about–and I don’t remember exactly how it went–how no one ever wants to take money that someone pulls out of their bra or underwear “because it’s damp.” I replied, “When I was in college I worked at a bank that was near several strip clubs and we always accepted the moist money.” Bill Loefhelm than replied, “MOIST MONEY needs to be the follow up to CHLORINE” which made me laugh out loud, and I replied, agreeing it’s a great title…and then it hit me. The story had to be set in a bar….moist money from stripper tips…why not have a male stripper, who happens to be gay, hired to perform at a bachelorette party at the bar, and have the bride–and her fiance–turn out to be people who bullied and tortured him in high school?

Now there’s the set-up for a deliciously dark tale of revenge, and noir to the core. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

I also got the web copy I needed to write yesterday done, so over all, the entire day turned out to be a win, which is lovely–and seemingly, increasingly rare these days. And once I’d printed out the final chapter, three-hole punched it and put it into the binder with the rest of the book, like an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Even when I’m not consciously thinking about it, it’s there in my subconscious; the stress and worry about it not being finished, and it weighs on everything else I do, and creates even more stress. Last night–and even this morning–I feel lighter and more free. I’ve also been sleeping better, and last night got a terrific night’s sleep. I was also still kind of worn out from going to the game Saturday night, as well as condom patrol in the heat Friday night, so feeling rested, not sore, and not stressed today has been lovely. I have one more volunteer project to wrap up today, and then some other stuff to take care of in my free time tomorrow, and then on Wednesday I’m going to start working on the final revision of the Kansas book.

At long last, a book that’s taken me about three years, give or take, to finish will finally come to an end, and that’s also an incredibly lovely feeling.

It’s so nice to be able to check things off on my to-do list. It really makes me happy.

Alas, I have to run to the grocery store for a moment before I get anything else done today, so it’s necessary for me to get going now. Have a lovely Labor Day, Constant Reader!

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Stir It Up

GAME DAY! GEAUX TIGERS!

I got home from Outreach last night drenched in sweat, overheated, and  generally feeling pretty awful, I’m sad to say. I felt much better all day than I had the day before–the day of rest was obviously something I had needed–but when I went out to catch the streetcar–well, the heat and humidity was a bit much. I waited nearly half an hour, without luck, for a streetcar before finally giving up and walking the three miles or so to the outreach corner.  By the time I got there, I was drastically overheated and felt terrible. I stuck it out for as long as I could, but finally realized around eight o’clock that if I didn’t start heading home, I might not make it. Once home, I rehydrated and watched some weird history videos on Youtube before finally heading up to bed and going to sleep.

This morning? I feel better, and rested, but my legs are very tired and there’s still some rehydration required. I’ve got about seven hours to get myself together before we head up to Baton Rouge for the LSU home opener tonight (GEAUX TIGERS!), but hopefully by the time the game starts the sun will be setting and the heat will ease up a bit. I survived the horrible heat during the LSU-Auburn game of 2015, when the heat index was 117 inside Tiger Stadium, and while yes, I am some four years older than that now, I think I can survive it again.

Time will, of course, tell.

Today is the day I need to buckle down and finish writing Bury Me in Shadows, and there’s definitely some straightening up around here that needs to be done. I’m also planning on spending some time curled up in my easy chair with Rob Hart’s amazing The Warehouse, which I highly recommend, even thought I am not very far into it. The characters are interesting, and the concept of the story is even more compelling and original; it’s quite an accomplishment! Bravo, Rob, bravo.

I love when writers hit the ball out of the park and their careers take off, which is what is happening here. GO ROB!

I also have a lot to get done over this holiday weekend. I must fight off the demon of procrastination–which even as I type this is trying to lure me into my easy chair with The Warehouse–else none of this will get finished. The volunteer project I’m working on–have been working on–should be finished with one last big push on Monday (yes, that’s what I’ll be doing on Labor Day; laboring) and I have some website copy to write tomorrow (it’s due tomorrow as well) but if I managed to get Bury Me in Shadows finished today, I’ll be ready to get going on the final revision of the Kansas book for the month of September, which is the plan. It won’t be easy getting it finished in a month, particularly during football season, but if I focus and stay on top of it, I should be able to get it done. I have an essay due on September 15th, and another short story due on October 1 that I also need to get written.

Heavy heaving sigh. There really is no end to any of this, is there?

And on that note, it is back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader!

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Papa Was a Rolling Stone

Wherever he laid his hat, was his home…and when he died…..all he left us was alone….

I do love that song. It’s always fun when a song title pops up for use that’s a song I really love.

I’m not feeling particularly well this morning. I’m not sure what it is. I had another not-good night’s sleep last night–two days in a row, actually–and this morning my stomach is really bothering me. I’m not sure what it is, but yesterday was terrible. I was so tired and blood sugar was ridiculously low most of the day, which also didn’t help very much. I did manage to get the major project done, and this morning I am glumly looking at about a gazillion emails in my inbox that must be dealt with. I’d hoped that tired as I was yesterday, I’d sleep well–and was very sleepy throughout most of the evening, until, of course, I went to bed.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I was so tired yesterday I forgot it was the anniversary of the evacuation in 2005, which makes today the Katrina anniversary. Lovely, particularly as there’s a storm in the Atlantic targeting Florida–just the same way Katrina did fourteen years ago, before crossing over into the Gulf, speeding up and heading for Louisiana. My thoughts are naturally with everyone in Florida; but I am also keeping a wary eye on this storm’s progress. We may have tickets for the LSU-Georgia Southern game on Saturday night (GEAUX TIGERS!), which is another reason I don’t want to be sick for the weekend. A conundrum, really, and a quandary; should I stay home and rest today, dose myself liberally with–I don’t actually know what, to be honest. It’s my stomach, combined with exhaustion; what do you take for that? I guess one could simply lie down and read, or something. I don’t know. I also hate to use up my sick-time this way; but I need to decide sooner rather than later, don’t I? But all I have to do tomorrow is pass out condoms for four hours tomorrow night, which means I have the whole day free to sleep in and rest and all of that; and then it’s a three day weekend.

Decisions, decisions.

Okay, well, now that I’ve eaten something we’ll see what happens next. I’m personally hoping my stomach settles down, because I would rather go to work than stay home, to be perfectly honest.

Since I finished the big project again yesterday–some more work from it will show up, in dribs and drabs over the next week, I suspect–I can now focus my energies on these last two chapters of Bury Me in Shadows’ first draft, which I would like to be done with by Sunday, which is September 1st. I also want to start reading Rob Hart’s The Warehouse, and Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows.

Well, I’m still feeling terrible and it’s about time to start getting ready, so I think I’m going to stay home. I hate skipping work for sickness; I also hate being sick in general. As I’m getting older that’s one thing I’ve noticed–I’m more susceptible to being sick than I was when I was younger, to go along with all the newfound aches and pains; it seems like every morning there’s a new one. I honestly don’t mind getting older–I certainly never thought I’d make it this far–other than being betrayed by my body and my health. About the only thing I’d want back from being younger is energy and the ability to sleep deeply and well every night. I know that my body is changing–and not for the better–but every time something happens–like when my back wrenches from picking up the laundry basket wrong, or I turn my head too quickly and my neck gets sore–I think to myself, yes, you really can’t fool yourself into thinking you’re still a young man anymore, can you?

Sigh.

Well, I’m going to go lay back down. Hope you have a better day than me, Constant Reader.

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Peaceful

Hello, Wednesday!

I slept strangely last night, in that I felt like I was awake all night but my body was resting–you know, that awful feeling of awareness where you know if you just open your eyes you’ll be awake? That. So I feel rested this morning, but at the same time I don’t completely trust that I’m rested, and suspect I’ll be very tired this evening. Today is my new short day of the week, which is lovely–I’ll be leaving the office around three-thirty this afternoon, stopping at Rouse’s for a few staples, and then I’ll be home.

One of my massive volunteer projects–the one I was so proud of finishing a few weekends ago–has reared its ugly head again, so I spent a good portion of last evening working on it before I went to bed. Another solid push and this phase will be finished; with one shorter phase still to come. Ideally, this will all be done and finished by the end of the weekend, which would be absolutely lovely. But then again, you can’t always count on things finishing when they should or on time, can you? But it was also one of those things hanging horribly over my head and causing me stress, including the stress of inertia; the feeling that there’s so much to do there’s no way I will ever get it done. I sent “Moist Money” off the other day; we’ll see how it plays. It’s a very dark story, but I kind of like it, and I really love the hardboiled gay voice of the main character.

I’ve always thought the Chanse series was my outlet for darkness; my hard-boiled series, whereas the Scotty books were more along the lines of a cozy series, even though Scotty became a licensed private eye. Even though he’s a professional, he’s still really an amateur. But there are people who have told me they love the humor in the Chanse series…which I’ve always thought was rather humorless, so there you go. (It’s like how I thought my story “Annunciation Shotgun” was pure noir and dark; people found parts of it funny even though the story was noir…which was weird for me. But at least they weren’t laughing at the story, but with it, so I didn’t mind so much. I have such a dark sense of humor anyway, I guess it was inevitable that my dark stories would also be humorous in some ways, too.)

Obviously, as I’ve been working on this project I’ve not gotten back to Chapter Twenty-four of Bury Me in Shadows (oh, so close!), but I am hopeful that if I finish the project today, I can get back to the book tomorrow night, and maybe get it completely finished Friday afternoon. I only have to work Friday night, passing out condoms in the Quarter, so I am probably going to run my errands and everything Friday during the day, so I can just stick close to the Lost Apartment over the weekend. There’s college football this weekend (HUZZAH!) and an LSU game Saturday night (GEAUX TIGERS!), and of course the Saints play on Sunday. I also want to start reading Rob Hart’s The Warehouse this weekend, and then I have Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows queued up next, before I get back to the Diversity Project.

We watched another episode of Thirteen Reasons Why last night, and Episode 8 is a particularly good one. The cast is so appealing, and they have such great chemistry together, that I am glad to overlook some things in the plot that don’t make a lot of sense. I also noticed–and maybe I am just not remembering anything from the previous seasons–but there used to be two queer kids at this school; a guy and the Asian girl who is student body president. They’ve been basically erased from the story–the guy is not even mentioned, and the girl was only in a couple of episodes in her role as student body president, but she was downgraded from supporting cast to cameos with little to no explanation. I wonder why? Anyway, last night’s episode is the one where Tyler finally tells Clay the truth about what happened to him, and why he snapped and wanted to die. The kid playing Tyler is phenomenal, probably one of the best actors in the cast, and he was heartbreaking., positively heartbreaking. I’m also not comfortable with the redemptive arc being given to the rapist, even though he’s dead. I understand what they are doing–what he did was inhuman and monstrous, but he was a person, and I think by trying to show him having regrets about what he did, and doing good things for other people, trying to atone…we never saw that in the first two seasons. But yes, it is important for people to understand that monsters are also human…as an editor told me once, years ago, when I was getting started, even Hitler loved his dogs.

Probably some of the best advice about character I’ve ever gotten from an editor.

All right, back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

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Funny Face

Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day, you know?

Saturday night I watched a documentary about college football on ESPN, Football is US: The College Game. It was interesting–I didn’t know who Walter Camp was, but I’d heard the name before. I also knew who Amos Alonzo Stagg was–there’s a high school in Chicago named for him, and I also knew that the University of Chicago was an early power in college football, until they disbanded their team and stopped playing. It lightly touched on how college football parity helped desegregate the Southern universities–their football teams were mediocre, once other schools started recruiting, and playing, black players–but there was one line, when talking about the civil rights struggles in the 1960’s, and how Southern people, especially those in Alabama, focused on football as a source of pride for their state, that was particularly true and honest, and I wished they would have followed up on it some more: they didn’t like the way their state was being portrayed on the news, and felt like these representations of Southern states as hotbeds of racism was unfair.

Yes, indeed. It was incredibly unfair how the national news depicted Southern racism as how it actually existed in the real world. This resentment of how they are viewed by outsiders is keenly felt down here, and that sense of resentment is very key to understanding their behavior.

I reread the final few chapters of Bury Me in Shadows yesterday, and then planned out the final three, so I have a good shot at making my deadline of finishing the first draft by September 1. I also revised both “Moist Money” and “This Thing of Darkness” yesterday, so it was a fairly productive day for me on the writing front. Both stories need to be gone over again before sending them out into the world–both are rather dark stories; I sometimes shock myself with how dark I can go if I set my mind to it. (Fully cognizant of the notion that other people’s opinion of what dark is can vary wildly.)

We are still watching the third season of Thirteen Reasons Why, and I have to say, the show is both ridiculous and over the top–last night I said to Paul, “you know, this high school is completely fucked up–I can’t imagine anyone I went to high school with being murdered, let alone that almost everyone I was friends with would have a motive for killing another classmate”–but the show’s true appeal lies in the cast, how good they are in their roles, and the chemistry they have with each other. And let’s be honest–it hasn’t come remotely  close to Riverdale when it comes to plots going over the top. While watching last night, it occurred to me that the show is really kind of an Edge of Night type serial, only set in high school; every season’s plot has had something to do with death and crime. There has been at least one suicide, one suicide attempt, an almost-school shooting, several rapes–one particularly brutal one involving a young man and a broom handle–and so I can see why teenagers who’ve been through a trauma of some sort would find the show hard to watch.

I also watched Roll Red Roll, a horrifying documentary of the Steubenville rape case–which also is an exploration of rape culture in small towns–and that case was what initially inspired my own in-progress manuscript about the same thing; rape culture in a small town. Watching the documentary, and remembering how awful the story was as it unfolded–several other cases broke around the same time; there was another in Marysville, Missouri, and another in southern California, which were the subjects of another documentary–also made me see, again, what are the many problems and holes in the plot of the book I wrote on the subject, and what needs to be fixed about it.

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

Happy Monday, everyone.

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Funky Worm

Well, it’s Sunday morning and the windows are covered with condensation again, which means it’s hot and humid outside (with a chance of rain). I finished reading Laura Lippman’s brilliant Lady in the Lake yesterday, but after running my errands in the heavy heat and damp, I was pretty wiped out by the time I’d put everything away and found it incredibly difficult to focus on much of anything. I did some more cleaning, brainstormed a lot more in my journal (I’ve been having some great ideas for “Never Kiss a Stranger”) and then watched the first official game of the college football season–Miami vs. Florida on ESPN last night. I’m not much of a fan of either, to be honest, but it’s an in-state rivalry game and they don’t play each other very often. It was a great game, actually; I didn’t think Miami had much of a chance, but ended up only losing 24-20, and they had a chance to win the game in the closing seconds but couldn’t convert. LSU’s first game is next weekend–a non-conference snoozer; I don’t even remember who they are playing–and soon enough the Saints will be playing their regular season games too. I love college football, and the Saints–I only watch the Saints play in the NFL and pay little to no attention about other teams unless the Saints are playing them. (This goes all the way back to when I was a kid; I’ve never cared much for the NFL but have always loved college football…if I didn’t live in New Orleans I probably wouldn’t care about the Saints, either; but you can’t live here and not love the Saints. It’s practically a city ordinance, and I will say I’ve never seen or experienced anything like the way this city loves its football team.)

Today I have a lot to do. I am going to revise my short story that’s due next weekend, and work on a big project that needs to also be finished by next weekend, and I am probably going to mess around with “Never Kiss a Stranger” a little bit today. I am also going to reread the last few chapters of Bury Me in Shadows so I can finally get those last three chapters written, hopefully by getting a start on that today, and finishing by September 1 so I can do one last pass on the rape culture novel before sending it to my publisher. I also think I’m going to work a bit on my story for the MWA anthology. It’s already finished, and I’ve revised it already a couple of times, but I think I am going to revise it one more time, give it another going over, to make sure everything is fine and ready to go. I doubt it’ll get taken, but I like submitting stories to these anthologies, and one of these days I am going to actually make it into one of those anthologies if it kills me.

And it just might!

Oddly enough, these last week or so I’ve had a sense of general malaise–the notion that I have so much to do that I’ll never get it all done, which then creates inertia/paralysis: there’s no way I’m going to get this all finished so what’s the use in trying? This is incredibly self-defeating, and I know I have a tendency to often defeat myself, so these are alarms and triggers I know to watch out for, fight against, and not get too deeply imbedded in my brain. I don’t always succeed; sometimes the inertia/paralysis wins and I get nothing done, which only exacerbates the problem. But I somehow manage to always get everything done, which is very exciting.

This coming weekend is Southern Decadence, and this is going to be my first Southern Decadence when I am not working in the office on Frenchmen Street–I don’t even have to drive through the Quarter to get to work anymore, so I won’t be caught off-guard by seeing hordes of gay men walking around in the Quarter on my way to work. I am going to do condom duty on Friday night only, giving me a lovely three day holiday weekend to enjoy, watch LSU and get to work on the rape culture novel for its final draft before submission. I’ll be glad to have that book finished, and then I have another project to work on for both October and November, and then in December I can return to Bury Me in Shadows. If my plans hold up, I should be able to then finish revising another unfinished manuscript in January before starting to write the new Chanse, while doing the final research and prep work to get started on Chlorine. These plans are, of course, always subject to change; you never know when another project is going to drop into your lap and that could possibly change everything yet again.

I really need to make a to-do list, and do some other business-type stuff today. I’ve also started packing another box of books to go into the attic; I should probably finish that today as well. I think I’m going to read Rob Hart’s The Warehouse next, followed by Lisa Lutz’ The Swallows, and then I’ll come back to the Diversity Project, probably with Michael Nava’s Lay Your Sleeping Head.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

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