Tag: Dancing in the Shadows

Sweet Time

And it’s New Year’s Eve.

I slept well last night but my blankets were all tangled up this morning, indicating the sleep was more restless than it has been for weeks. I also wasn’t in the mood to write my blog when I first woke up, so I decided to read, drink my coffee, and maybe have some breakfast before getting cleaned up. I usually write this over my morning coffee, and since I don’t reread or re-edit once it’s written, that could explain the run-on sentences, word repetitions, and occasional poor grammar no one ever points out to me. This blog began nineteen years ago (!!!) on Livejournal (the anniversary was 12/26), migrated over here in about 2016 or so, and still somehow keeps chugging along. It always surprises me that people read it, to be honest. It was always meant mainly for me, and was originally intended as a daily exercise to get me writing again. I guess it worked. When I started I had published four novels, a few anthologies, and some short stories. Nineteen years later, I’ve way surpassed that total, despite some fallow years in which I produced nothing.

I did some more picking up around here yesterday while watching football games. It was fun watching Mississippi beat Penn State, and don’t even get me started on the Florida State-Georgia game. I get the disappointment at not making the play-offs, but you also knew you were scheduled to play Georgia, another team disappointed in not making the play-offs, but instead of showing everyone that the committee was wrong and showing up to beat Georgia…and Georgia also had star players injured and over a dozen opting out and even more entering the transfer portal. This would have been a play-off game had either Auburn or Georgia beaten Alabama this year, but that’s how things go. Auburn went 13-0 in 2004 and wasn’t invited to the BCS title game. You don’t always get what you want in life or sport, and the question is how you handle that. If this was going to be the case, don’t accept the damned bowl bid. Your fans spent a lot of money to go to that game, and it was incredibly disrespectful to the team, the fanbase, and the university to show up and get embarrassed like that. After Coach O was fired in 2021, LSU went to its bowl game with 39 scholarship players and got trounced by Kansas State….but how does it appear in the record books? KSU 42, LSU 21. Twenty years from now when people look back at the history of college football and bowl games, it will read Georgia 63, Florida State 3. It’s a program and culture problem, and all the FSU fans apologizing for this disgraceful beating–do you quit when you don’t get a raise or promotion you worked hard for and feel like you deserved? The word for that is quitter…and for the record, Georgia played it’s back-ups, walk-ons and so forth in the second half and still beat your ass 21-0.

And if LSU went 12-0 and didn’t get picked for the play-offs…and pulled the same shit? Sure, I’d be angry about the play-offs but I’d also call out the Tigers for embarrassing the state and the university that way.

I’m really enjoying Danielle Arsenault’s Glory Be, and am savoring every word. What a fresh and unique voice! I have to say I am so glad I realized I needed to be better about my reading choices and should read more diverse writers. It’s been a great education for me as a reader, a writer, a person and a citizen. I’m still learning how to be better about race and gender and gender identity and sexuality; and I strongly encourage other readers to do the same. Crime fiction is so much stronger and healthier when it represents everyone, I think, and while I don’t consider reading diverse writers to be the total education I need on any social issues facing the country–I need to read more non-fiction and theory.

I rewatched The Birds yesterday after the football games, and it was pretty much as I remembered it. I’d only seen it twice before; originally as a child edited for television, when it frightened me so badly that I had nightmares (I was prone to them growing up) and for years could never see crows on a jungle gym or a wire without feeling uneasy and then again as a rental in college after I’d read the short story again and wanted to see how faithful the film was to the story. I didn’t care as much for it the second time around–the acting is really terrible and so is the script–but the suspenseful parts still held up and were scary. This third time around confirmed my second viewing; and I noticed some other flaws in the picture. Rod Taylor’s mother isn’t much older than he is, and why is there about a thirty year age gap between him and his sister? I think the short story is better than the film, but I can also see why people like it. I do consider it one of Hitchcock’s lesser films.

Since tomorrow is a day for thinking ahead and coming up with some goals for the new year, I suppose today should be a recap of sorts of this past year. It was, as I mentioned in a previous entry, a rather up-and-down rollercoaster of highs and lows with very little level ground in the middle. The recognition of mainstream award nominations for my work–even queer work–was a delightful surprise this past year. But even more important than that is I think my work is getting better. I had felt, some years ago, that my writing was becoming stale and that I wasn’t growing as a writer anymore; I’d become stagnant and that was one of my biggest fears. I wound up deciding to take some time away from writing books on deadline and write things just for me, things that I wanted to write but also wanted to take the time to do correctly. It was during this time that I worked on both #shedeservedit and Bury Me in Shadows in early drafts, and also started the novellas and working more intently on my short stories. I accepted the challenge of writing stories to themed anthologies, and produced some terrific ones of which I am really proud. When I dove back into series work with Royal Street Reveillon, I wanted to write something non-formulaic for the Scotty series. I also wanted to shake things up with Scotty a bit, as the series was getting a bit too comfortable and safe for me. Royal Street Reveillon certainly was neither comfortable nor safe, and neither was Mississippi River Mischief.

Bury Me in Shadows was not easy for me to write. When I went back to the book after setting it aside for awhile, I realized several things: I couldn’t ignore race and racism, I had to address the Lost Cause narrative, and I also had realized while doing more reading and research that the stories my paternal grandmother used to tell me about the Civil War and Alabama and the family were apocryphal stories you can turn up about almost everywhere in the rural South. The book wasn’t working, in fact, because I was trying to elide those issues because I was afraid of doing it wrong…so it pushed me to do better. And actually addressing those issues made the book easier to write. The same thing was true of #shedeservedit; I’d been working on this book in one form or another since I actually lived in Kansas. But again, I realized when I went back to it that what I was doing didn’t work because I wasn’t going there with toxic masculinity and rape culture because it wasn’t personal enough for my main character, and so I bit the bullet and made it more personal for him. It dredged up a lot of memories, some of them painful, but it also made the book better and stronger. I had been wanting to write a cozy for the longest time, and decided to try it for something different and new–and that became A Streetcar Named Murder. I was also very pleased with it, even though the deadline and the turnaround on it was a bit insane…but I still managed to take my time and turned it into something I was proud of when I got the final author copies.

My two releases of this year–Death Drop and Mississippi River Mischief–are also books of which I feel proud. I also published three terrific short stories this year: “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell; “The Ditch” in School of Hard Knox; and “The Rosary of Broken Promises” in Dancing in the Shadows.

I think I’m settling finally into an acceptance that I am pretty good at what I do. I may not have the master’s or PhD in creative writing or literature of any kind; but I’ve never really wanted to be an academic writer. I never wanted to be Faulkner, but Faulkner did inspire me to interconnect novels and stories in my own fictional world (also Stephen King). I would like to do some non-fiction studies of genre and writers I enjoy, but in an accessible rather than academic way. Academics used to make me feel stupid and uneducated, and I also used to envy those writers who had that kind of background because I felt it made their work stronger than mine, or gave them insights into writing and building a novel that I’d never had, which made me and my work somehow lesser. But that wasn’t on them; that was on me. I was the one who felt inferior and lesser, not talented or good enough. That chip was on my shoulder and I was the one who put it there. My peers actually consider me a peer, and newer writers look at my longevity and my CV and are impressed by the prodigious output, if nothing else. I used to think all the award nominations were kind of hollow because I so rarely won; which was incredibly ungracious because some writers are never nominated for anything…but it doesn’t mean their work isn’t good. Now, I just find myself grateful to make a short-list of five out of all the possibilities for that slot, you know? I’m lucky, and I’m blessed.

I’ve reflected a lot on my life and my career this past year–Mom’s death had something to do with that–and I’ve identified, in many cases, why I am the way am by remembering the event that triggered the response in my brain of “okay, never want to experience that again” which led to so many self-toxic and self-defeating behaviors. But the bottom line of it all is I’ve finally accepted myself for who I am, have determined to stop self-deprecating, and take some pride in myself and my career and my life. I know the most amazing people and have the most incredible friends. I have a day job where I make a difference in people’s lives. I have an awesome life-partner, an enviable writing career, and I get to live in New Orleans.

Not bad, right?

(It’s Going to Be a) Lonely Christmas

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and if you don’t–well, happy Monday off!

Yesterday was not a good day. I woke up feeling like crap, and it never really got much better until later in the day, when I realized it had started raining during the night. It rained all day, actually, and I was so tired and dragged out and felt so terrible that I didn’t put it together until late in the afternoon–oh, this is SINUS related, because of the rain–and took a Claritin-D, which made me feel somewhat better. I also slept super good and slept in, too. I did manage to get some things done yesterday too–I finished reading Buried in a Good Book (more on that later) and started reading another one. We also finished watching both Looking the series, and then watched the wrap-up film (more on that later as well). I am going to pick out my next read, spend some time with it this morning, and at some point today we are probably going to watch Saltburn. I also have to put the turkey breast in the slow cooker (pulled turkey is quite delicious) and put dishes away, but I also have tomorrow off, so am not overly concerned about getting things organized and cleaned up. I worked on the books some more and pruned some more out, and started learning how to use the microwave–which does make a difference.

Christmas is usually when I started looking back on the year, and 2023 was a bit of a rollercoaster for me (they usually are). My personal life really sucked balls this past year, but it was a very good year for me professionally. The year started with me behind on two deadlines, but I managed to get both books finally finished and turned in, once I was able to turn MWA over to my successor, which was part of the delay on the books. In late January I injured my arm, and got misdiagnosed by my primary care physician. As we rolled into Mardi Gras, Mom had a massive stroke and I drove up to Kentucky to see her one last time in hospice. She didn’t really know me, she was pretty much unresponsive unless she was in pain, and it was rough. I drove home that Sunday, and she died on Valentine’s Day, so I had to drive up to Alabama that last weekend of Mardi Gras for the funeral. Not going to lie, it was tough losing my mother, and it’s been tough all year. I have sublimated most of my grief into worry about Dad, frankly. I went up and met him in Alabama for their anniversary, and we convoyed up to Kentucky, where I stayed for a week. I met Dad at my aunt and uncle’s place in Panama City Beach in October for their birthdays. When my primary care finally recognized what was wrong with my arm (torn biceps), I got referred to a orthopedic surgeon–but I needed a specialist. I had all my teeth removed finally in September, right after Labor Day, but didn’t get my new teeth until the week before the arm surgery, so was on a soft diet for two months which sucked….and then had to go back on it after the surgery because I couldn’t really cut up food. I also got hearing aids, which was great and has helped dramatically.

I also finally realized what the core mental issue was, thanks to a conversation with Dad–when I found out she suffered from generalized anxiety disorder and the light bulb went on over my head: that is exactly what is wrong with me, and all these years what I thought was “normal” because I didn’t know any different and I just always thought I was like Mom…yeah, I am like Mom, and all these years all I’ve been doing is treating symptoms and not the root cause. In consultation with my new primary care doctor, I weaned off the old medication and started treating the anxiety and the insomnia (anxiety related) properly, and it has made such an amazing difference in my life. I think more clearly, and I can analyze myself better. I’ve also started thinking about how most of my life I’ve tried to avoid confrontation (like Mom) and whenever something has happened that hurt me…well, I’ve tried to avoid those kind of situations again. My trust issues come from the anxiety and being hurt before, and I also realized that my socialization as a child was delayed and/or stunted because of being unable to control my brain. I had undiagnosed ADD as a child, and I feel pretty sure that’s carried over to my adulthood, as well. I couldn’t focus or concentrate because I didn’t know how to shut my brain off or keep it until control. The only time I could find peace, really, was reading or writing.

Professionally, I started off the year by getting nominated for a Lefty for Best Humorous for A Streetcar Named Murder, which was a very pleasant surprise. I debated going, but the timing was bad and with all the traveling I was having to do for family stuff, I had to conserve and preserve paid time off. This was followed up by an Agatha nomination for Best Children’s/Young Adult for #shedeservedit, and this time I did go. I lost to Enola Holmes, but I also became friends with Elizabeth Bunce (we’d been nominated together for an Anthony the year before) and Frances Schoonmaker, who was an absolute delight. I was nominated for three Anthonys at Bouchercon this year–Children’s/YA again; anthology for Land of 10000 Thrills, and Best Humorous for Streetcar again. None of those nominations ended with a win, but for me the nominations alone were the real win. I never ever thought I would be shortlisted for mainstream mystery awards, and what a delightful surprise.

I did publish two novels this year–a new series debuting with Death Drop, and the ninth Scotty, Mississippi River Mischief. I also got an (undeserved) editorial credit for School of Hard Knox, along with Donna Andrews and Art Taylor, for publisher Crippen and Landru–which meant working with my dear friend Jeffrey Marks. I have a story in the book, too–“The Ditch”–which was something I’d been working on forever. I also published two more short stories, “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell, and “The Rosary of Broken Promises” for Dancing in the Shadows. I’m pleased with both stories, but I also need to get more. I have any number of incomplete projects that are nagging at me that I would like to finish in the new year. SO MANY PROJECTS.

But I feel good today, and very rested. I’d intended to take today as a do-nothing day, but I will probably do stuff because I am not really wired to not do anything all day.

And on that note, I will wish you happy holidays for the moment and head into the…well, not the spice mines, but perhaps a spice resort?

Shadows in the Moonlight

When Anne Rice died back in the winter, I posted a memoriam to her here in which I talked about a very generous thing she did for me and Paul back in the days after he was attacked. It was something deep and personal–one of the reasons why I won’t abide criticism of Mrs. Rice in my presence–and while I did tell some people about it, I kept it quiet for the most part. It was an odd little personal connection I had with one of the most successful writers of my lifetime, and as it had to do with Paul and what happened to him, I also thought it was kind of untoward to write or talk about it publicly. But when she passed, I wanted to let people know a human side of a public figure who could be divisive; I never listened to criticisms of her after the spring of 2004 or could be bothered to read them. There was little, if anything, she could have ever done to change my opinion of her or to forget the grace and kindness she showed to me when I was in a very low place in my life, so I wasn’t interested in listening to or reading anything negative about her. The Witching Hour was also one of the reasons I was drawn to New Orleans in the first place; so overall I would say she had a very positive influence on me and my life, and I will always be grateful to her for that.

Last year, an editor reached out to me (maybe it was two years ago; I really have no concept or sense of time anymore) to write a story an anthology called Unburied; the editor was Rebecca Rowland. I gave her one of the stories I’d written but never found a home for–“Night Follows Night”–which she liked and used and that was very cool. In the wake of Mrs. Rice’s death, she contacted me again to see if I would write a story for a tribute anthology to Mrs. Rice that would also be a fundraiser for a charity she supported.

It was, I thought, the least I could do, so I pulled out “The Rosary of Broken Promises” and finished the first draft before revising umpteen times and turning in.

“Someone was murdered in this house.” Susan Norris said.

Her tone was idle and matter of fact, like she was making small talk at a cocktail party with women she didn’t know and what she was saying didn’t matter in the long run. She was already redecorating the place in her head, picking out color combinations to paint the walls and trim, what furniture she already had could be used or discarded and where it would go. For this front upstairs bedroom, for example, she pictured long curtains of shimmering bright colors in gauze, which would look dramatic billowing out into the room when the windows were open. This would be the room, she decided, where she would have readings or hold seances for her clientele. Those long billowing curtains on nights when thunderstorms raged would be the perfect setting to make even the most cynical skeptic into a true believer. She ran a hand along the beige wall slightly yellowed from nicotine. She could feel layers of paint under her fingertips. The walls hadn’t been stripped in years, which she would need to rectify. It would be a crime to slake another layer on top of what was already there.

The realtor—whatever her name was, Collette or Colleen or Doreen or something like that—paused in her sales patter when Susan’s words finally penetrated her professional façade, a frown furrowing creases into her forehead as she stumbled over a few words and finally stopped speaking. She was a beautiful woman in her late forties, maybe early fifties; one benefit of the Botox she clearly used was a blurring of her actual age. Her long red hair cascaded down over the shoulder pads inside her blouse, which also showed a lot of decolletage. A golden cross with a diamond set in the center glittered against her white bosom. An expensive watch decorated her wrist, her freckled hands were bare other than a wedding band and a diamond engagement ring. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” the realtor asked, surprise giving way to concern that what she hoped would be an easy sale—this place was exactly what Susan had described as wanting to her, when they first spoke—might actually be turning into something else.

Inwardly, Susan cursed at herself. She’d done it again, said something to a stranger that she should have not said aloud. She didn’t want to explain herself to Collette/Colleen/Doreen any more than she wanted to stick a fork into an outlet, so she turned back to the redheaded realtor with a charming smile and said, “I said someone was murdered in this house.” She exhaled. “I did some research on-line when you gave me the addresses of the places you suggested I look at. It was a long time ago, and I shouldn’t have said it out loud, my apologies. I do think this house is perfect for me.”

I was originally using this title for a different story (which has since been renamed “Solace in a Dying Hour”), and so when I started writing this story it was called “The Oracle of Orange Street” (the house she is buying is on Orange Street, one of those mysterious hidden streets in New Orleans whose blocks have slowly vanished over the years until all that is left is a single block between Coliseum and Prytania; it’s very near where I live so I see the Orange Street sign all the time…I think there may be a continuation of it on the other side of Magazine Street; a quick look at a map indicates that it does, indeed, continue on the other side of Magazine to Tchoupitoulas–but if you asked most New Orleanians were Orange Street is, they’d give you a blank look); I’d even already started another story with the character of Susan Norris in it (“Parlor Tricks,” which I tried to finish again recently for yet another last minute submission and wasn’t able to). I like the character of Susan Norris, psychic detective; her mother is actually Madame Xena, who Scotty aficionados might recognize as the woman who originally told Scotty’s family that he “has the Gift!”

So yes, all of my work is connected in some way besides just being by me.

I’ve always loved the idea of a psychic detective (and yes, I watched Psych for years before tiring of it), which is part of the reason why I made Scotty one, but my inspiration for this kind of character goes back to my teens, when I was enjoying Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax series so much that one day at the bookstore I picked up two of her non-Pollifax books, A Nun in the Closet and The Clairvoyant Countess…the latter of whom was, indeed, a psychic and an amateur detective. The book was really a series of connected short stories, each detailing a case that the Countess became involved in helping to solve; gradually the police detective began actually consulting her. I don’t remember how limited her powers were, but to work in a crime story the psychic cannot be all-knowing and all-seeing, obviously; otherwise there would be no mystery to solve. But I enjoyed the book and reread it many times, and always wanted to write about a psychic detective. Scotty’s powers have always been incredibly vague; he usually can channel it through reading tarot cards (which doesn’t always work) and sometimes he goes into a fugue state while he actually talks to the Divine Feminine (She comes in many forms to him) and she gives him hints and clues to the future and what is going on–but he has to figure it out for himself.

One day when I was walking home from the gym I took a different route home than I usually do–I do this to mix things up a bit when I have the time to leisurely stroll, and it’s been helping me reconnect with my neighborhood as well as find many secrets and hidden treasures–and one day the different route took me up Felicity Street from Camp. One of the houses I passed–a lovely old Victorian–actually had an orange tree in the front yard and oranges were littering the ground and sidewalk; some of them rotting (there’s nothing quite like the smell of oranges rotting in the sun) and it reminded me that, oh, yes, indeed, Orange Street was originally named that because there was an orange grove here–whether it was indigenous and imported I cannot say, but I suspect imported–and then I thought, oh, that story you’re writing about the psychic (at that time, it was “Parlor Tricks”) could easily be titled “The Oracle of Orange Street” and I quite liked that title…so when I couldn’t get that story to work for this anthology, I decided to write another story about Susan Norris, reluctant psychic detective, and the opening line just kind of jumped out at me the day I picked the house on Orange Street which would be hers–and it also just happened to be for sale when I picked it; and as I stood there snapping pictures of the house with my phone I thought, yes, what would it be like for a psychic to buy a home in New Orleans? And I quite liked the idea of her just absent-mindedly blurting out to the realtor, “Someone was murdered in this house” and then I was off and running.

You can preorder the ebook here!

If You Really Love Me

Wednesday morning and I forgot to set my alarm. No worries, because my body went ahead and woke me up before the alarm would have gone off, so that I could see that the alarm hadn’t been set–which isn’t, frankly, very like me, but yesterday was a weird transitional day where I went to the office and had to deal with the jarring reentry into my normal everyday life after the high of the Edgar banquet last week. I think I slept well last night; I certainly feel awake and alert this morning, more so than I did yesterday, which is great. I have some errands to run on my way home from the office tonight–mail, groceries–and then I am in and settled for the evening. We finished watching Minx (I do have some thoughts on this show) last night and started Under the Banner of Heaven, starring Andrew Garfield and based on the Jon Krakauer book (I am a fan of Krakauer, but I never got around to reading this one), so am not really sure what true crime the book was based on, so the entire thing is new to both of us, and we are definitely enjoying it. I didn’t get to spend any time reading or writing last evening because I had a long overdue phone call with a friend (it was marvelous) when I got home from the office and by the time we were finished talking Paul was home and it was time to watch some of our shows.

Scooter has also readjusted to being back home, and it’s not he was never boarded now and has completely forgiven us (or forgotten it happened, more likely) and is back to normal again. He spent most of the evening moving from my lap to Paul’s and back again; moving whenever one of us got up and/or shifted how we were sitting (or lying down, in Paul’s case), so he’s happy again, which is nice. I always feel guilty about boarding him, especially since the kitty spa he boards at is also where we acquired him; so I always worry he thinks he’s being abandoned again whenever we take him there. I know animals may not think in those kinds of terms, but I always imagine they do, and it kind of breaks my heart for them.

My own reentry/readjustment period actually comes to fruition today, I think. Yesterday was difficult in some ways adjusting back to the work schedule and routine of the every day; today feels more in line with how things were before I left for New York. I’m not traveling again until June (I also am traveling in July; again in September, and then hopefully not again until the holidays; I may be heading up to New England again in November but we’ll just have to see how that works out, with vacation times and all but I don’t really want to think that far ahead of things, either), if then–the jury remains out on that one–and time is really slipping away through my fingers. I need to get back to writing, and soon–I am glad that I have that story draft finished–and I also need to get the Bouchercon anthology finished as well. I think if I can get these fragments of things finished and crossed off the list that will make getting back to actually writing something much much easier as I move forward through this swimming pool we call life.

“The swimming pool we call life.” Jesus fricking Christ, I can get full of myself and write some garbage, can’t I? This is yet another example of why no one sees early drafts of anything I write.

The Anne Rice tribute anthology I was asked to write a story for–which wound up being “The Rosary of Broken Promises”–is going to be released later this month; it’s called Dancing in the Shadows: A Tribute to Anne Rice and it’s a fundraiser for a charity Mrs. Rice supported during her lifetime–although I cannot for the life of me remember what that is right now (no worries, Constant Reader, at some point I will post the cover art and the name of the charity along with buy links and the opening of my story, as I always do with anthologies that I am in).

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!