Tag: CIncinnati

My Heart

Ah, the Thursday before Labor Day weekend and all is quiet in the Lost Apartment…at least until Scooter realizes I’ve gotten out of bed and comes galloping down the steps to demand, rather loudly, that I fetch his breakfast.

Wow, one week from today I’ll be waking up at Bouchercon and getting ready for my first panel. I’m not getting excited about the trip just yet, but I suspect that will get started over this weekend. I was realizing yesterday that I have Labor Day off, work Tuesday, and then am off the rest of next week…why didn’t I take Tuesday off as well? Seems kind of silly to work one day, but I was trying to conserve my vacation time, I think, because I didn’t know if I would have enough earned by the time of my November trips. And of course now it’s too late. Ah, well, there are worse things than having to work on that Tuesday, really, and it won’t kill me, and why not save the vacation time for use at another time?

I see that WordPress has yet again changed the way it looks when you’re drafting an entry, and I don’t like it. I will never understand the need to continually change things that are simply cosmetic for no other reason than to make a change, you know? It’s already irritating enough they don’t have a font that I like–would it really kill them to have Times New Roman? I know my personal favorite Janson is too much to ever hope for, really–that’s never standard anywhere. Ah, well, this is what happens when you get older and get sick and tired of things changing. Excuse me while I go outside at scream at the clouds.

I worked on the book some when I got home from work last night, and it’s astonishing how bad my first drafts can be. I think this is where some of the Imposter Syndrome comes from–writing such phenomenally shitty first drafts–and to be completely honest about it, it’s always, for some reason, the series books that turn out so bad for me every time in the first draft. The stand alone books, for some reason, have much better first drafts than the Scotty books. But it’s getting there, and eventually I’ll have a first draft done that I can agonize over and change and revise and fix and make stronger.

I also watched the incredibly exciting second round match of Serena Williams at the US Open last night, in which she took out the Number 2 player in the world in three sets. She played fantastic–and so did her opponent, for whom I felt a bit sorry, given the way she completely collapsed in her final service game of the match, in which she didn’t win a single point (I think). Serena looked like the Serena of old; the level of play was astonishing. I don’t know how far into the draw she is going to make it on this last US Open of her storied and legendary career, but as I said to Paul, “this kind of reminds me of that final run Jimmy Connors made at the Open, which got the whole country excited and watching. I think the entire world is going to pay attention if she gets further into this, but winning the whole thing is probably too Disney-ending to happen, although it would be incredibly satisfying.”

And we get our first look at the 2022 LSU football team this Sunday night, when they take on Florida State. I don’t know what to expect from LSU this year–new coach, almost a complete rebuilding of the coaching staff and the team–so while of course I always want them to win everything, I won’t get down on them this year because of that, but Brian Kelly is a decent coach (I know people say he “can’t win the big game” but he DID win some big games at Notre Dame, and he was enormously successful at Cincinnati before that and at Grand Valley State before that, so who knows?) and LSU always gets top talent when it comes to players, so you never know. I don’t know if we’ll get to go to any games this season–since we finally saw them lose for the first time in person at Tiger Stadium last year, now I no longer have that same confidence that LSU will somehow find a way to win because we’re there, which of course is completely absurd. (And let’s be honest–they should not have lost that Auburn game last year.)

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

Ours

And here we are on the second day of the new year. I didn’t not finish polishing the book yesterday; I am doing it old school–editing on paper–because of course there are endless issues with my MacBook Air still; the very problem I tried to get resolved the other day has returned, which means I am going to have to go to the fucking Apple Store in Metairie (because, you know, I have nothing but fucking free time) to get this piece of shit’s problems resolved once and for all. It’s a fucking iCloud issue (of course, the worst and stupidest fucking thing Apple ever came up with–hey, you don’t need any storage in your computer! You can just save everything in the Cloud! Oh, but if you do, it’s going to also somehow eat up the miniscule amount of storage we gave you in a laptop that cost WELL over a thousand dollars.

I will probably be arrested when I do go to the Apple Store.

So I was kicking it old school yesterday–sitting in my easy chair and going through it, line by line, page by page, catching discrepancies and contradictions and mistakes and repetitions. I only have about 100 pages left to go, so I am hoping I can get that done quickly and then start pulling the entire manuscript together so I can get it sent in. I had originally planned on writing a short story for 1/15 deadline this weekend and getting caught up on everything else I am doing (and am woefully behind on) but around eight o’clock last night my eyes started blurring and crossing and I knew better than to keep going with this. The work would just shoddy and sloppy–and the whole point of this polish was to get rid of the shoddy and sloppy writing (of which there is a ridiculous amount). But I should get it finished and turned in this weekend, and then I can move on to the next thing–the short story, and the manuscript due on 3/1.

After I finished last night I also had a bit of a crisis in conscience and confidence about the book–I’m not really sure why, to be honest. I am writing about race in the south, but I am also writing it from the perspective of a gay white college student whose been unexpectedly thrust into the midst of it by spending the summer in Alabama, and his dysfunctional family’s many dark secrets from the past start having an impact on the future. So, of course, last night as I sat in my chair watching the final episode of A Teacher (horrible right to the end; leaving us to question what the entire point of the show was in the first place) and the latest episode of The Stand (also not very good, but as a huge fan of the book I will watch to the bitter end), my mind started racing: am I depicting the people of color in the book properly and inoffensively? Should I be writing about Southern racism while centering a white character? Is the story itself offensive? Is this going to be another one of those “well he meant well but” things? I approached the whole thing respectfully, I think, and while having a main character who was raised not to be racist having to confront the racist past of his own family might come across as preachy–another fear–I think about all the young people I’ve worked with over the years and how open-minded they are; and they give me hope for the future–and that is what I drew from for this character and this book.

And ultimately, if I wind up getting called out for insensitivity, well, all I can do is apologize and try to do better.

But–sloppy and shoddy parts aside–as I read to revise I kept thinking this is actually much better and more cohesive than I thought it was, and things I was thinking I needed to add–about the family history, etc .–I already had, which was kind of lovely; I just need to make sure what’s in the early part of the book matches what’s in the later, and of course, hopefully whatever I may miss will be caught by my editor.

SO, it’s Alabama and Ohio State for the national championship. I watched the games–well, had them on in the background as I edited and read–occasionally looking up and being startled by the scores. They didn’t just win; they pummeled Notre Dame and Clemson, respectively. After the ACC championship game, I kept saying it didn’t make sense nor was it fair to put both Notre Dame and Clemson in the play-offs, giving them a chance to possibly play for the third fucking time, while shutting USC, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, and Texas A&M out of the play-offs entirely. (Well, Cincinnati lost to Georgia in a nail-biter–I also had that one on in the background, and watched the closing two minutes or so as Georgia rallied to win) But I think it is safe to say, yet again, that the four-team play-off just doesn’t work, and it’s maybe time to again look at and consider going to a six or eight team play-off.

I am skipping the gym again today because my shoulder is still sore from the inoculation Thursday.

And on that note, it is back to the spice mines for me. Y’all have a great day, okay?