Saturday morning here in the Lost Apartment and I am feeling rather pleased with myself as I accomplished a great deal. After finishing my work-at-home duties yesterday, Constant Reader, I worked on the filing…and by that, I don’t mean “put files away”–no, I mean I went through the boxes of files in the apartment and cleaned them out. A lot of files are just titles and a quick scribbled note; I got rid of all files for stories/books that didn’t have at least a few paragraphs written; was able to combine duplicate files and pare them down; and I had files of research and ideas for multiple projects spread out over the various file boxes are now all consolidated and together. I still have the filing cabinet to work on, but I still feel like I accomplished quite a bit. Having everything together for the various projects will make working on them that much easier, and it’s exciting to know I went from four and a half boxes of files down to one and a half. GO ME! I also managed to launder all the bed linens, and also a load of dishes. I reorganized my workspace as well, so all in all, a most productive day and one with which I am very pleased. I am going to work on the kitchen cabinets today as well as the file cabinet and workspace. I also have to make a mail and grocery run, need to clean the car, and go to the gym for more arm rehab as well.
Sparky even let me sleep in until nine this morning, wasn’t that kind of the dear boy?
One thing I also noticed yesterday was that I turned on Spotify on the television in the living room while i was organizing the files and it helped me to focus–which reminded me that back in the day, I used to always listen to music while I wrote and it helped me go into the focus zone. Listening to headphones doesn’t quite work for background noise, but the reconnection with music as a tool for focus was wonderful. How could I possibly forget how necessary music was for going into the zone to write, or helped me focus while cleaning? It’s nice to know that I can start remembering methods and tricks that helped me write and zero in on things I was doing with laser-like focus. In some ways, I feel like I am learning how to write all over again, which isn’t a bad thing.
I also realized yesterday that what I have been feeling now for a few weeks is good. It’s been so long since I’ve felt good about anything and have been in a headspace of anything other than just getting through and surviving for so long that I am really not even sure how i managed to write and publish anything between 2016 and now, but oddly enough those books are some of my best work–Bury Me in Shadows, #shedeservedit, A Streetcar Named Murder, Death Drop, Royal Street Reveillon and Mississippi River Mischief, not to mention some of my best short stories. Go figure, right? I also have done some excellent essays during that time, too. Even on auto-pilot, as I dealt with a lot of personal and professional trials for nine years, I still improved as a writer.
Today I am going to work on the book around some more chores and the errands already mentioned, as well as work on the filing cabinet and finish the floors downstairs. There’s a load of dishes to be put away, and more organization in the living room; getting rid of those file boxes opened up space in the living room and I want to work on making the living room look more spacious rather than cramped–and that has a lot to do with paring down the books some more as well…and I haven’t even started on the attic. I also want to spend some time with the Tremblay novel this morning, which I am enjoying but want to get to the next read in my TBR stack–I am going to read two queer novels back to back, I think, and would love to be able to review them by the time Pride Month ends.
And so, on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a delightful Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back later.
Ah, Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Awesome. Yesterday morning I once again did the old “don’t leave the house until 7:30” again, and once again I wasn’t groggy or tired by the time I left the house. Bizarre how that minor shift in how my days are structured has created such a significant change to everything. I really need to remember to pay attention to routines before they become ruts, so I can change them and avoid said rut.
I did finish the first draft of a short story Tuesday night, and I am most pleased with it. I am writing it for an open call for an anthology, and I am very pleased that I got a first draft done long before the deadline. (I’m still bitter about missing the Chessies anthology deadline, for which I was working on three stories. Note to self: never write three stories for a submissions call because you think it sounds like a great idea. It is not, nor is it ever, a good idea.) Yay, me! I also decided to work on revisions of some other stories in progress; I am still struggling working on this book, but I’ve also decided I need to really immerse myself in it for at least one day so I can get a handle on this plot and figure out where it’s going and what needs to come in and what needs to come in so that I really feel like I have a grasp on the characters and the story. Those stories in progress are the first drafts I never got a chance to revise for the Chessie anthology, and all three will fit snugly into the end of my short story collection…so technically, if I can get the three stories whipped into shape, I can also go ahead and get the collection turned in. Huzzah! All three of the stories are actually ghost stories of a sort; “Passenger to Franklin” needs some serious revision, and so does “When I Die,” which is a terrific concept and really needs some work too. I think I can get one of my oldest and most beloved stories of my own whipped into shape and added into this collection as well, which just goes to show–never discard an idea or throw out a story because you’ll eventually come back to it someday.
I wrote out the opening paragraphs of the next Scotty, which I want to write this fall and hopefully get turned in around November or December. I am pretty pleased with the plot and story of this one, too, but I also need to spend some time brainstorming the plot and how it twists and turns around and turns out. I still haven’t dipped into my Paul Tremblay yet, and I think I may save it for Sunday morning reading over my coffee. Saturday morning I am going to reread/skim Death Drop so I can get a better feel for the current WIP and make sure I have the voice right, which I don’t think I do yet, which is also why I think I am having so much trouble writing it. It’s always a struggle for me to write a book when I don’t hear the voice of the character in my head, so I need to get it there ASAP.
I feel like I am making progress with my writing, even if working on the book is like pulling recalcitrant teeth.
I feel pretty good this morning, a little tired perhaps, which is oddly different that the past few weeks, when I was tired earlier in the week and felt more rested as the week progressed. This of course made no damned sense at all, but that’s okay. Few things in my life have ever made sense, and a lot of it probably is related to the anxiety and medications, as well as this week’s change in schedule. Last night when Paul got home we watched the first episode of The Sympathizer, which was very intense. I loved the book, and the new series is actually quite excellent–but more on that as it develops, obviously. I also managed to fold the laundry and do a load of dishes. I also picked up two new books, the new Scott Carson (aka Michael Koryta) and the new Alyssa Cole. I want to get some serious reading done this weekend as well as some cleaning and writing, and I also need to get my taxes completed this weekend and off to my accountant. An odious chore, to be sure, but a necessary one. I also have a lot of errands to do this weekend–we need to go to Costco, I need to make groceries, and of course there’s a shit ton of cleaning that needs to be done. I will need to work on reorganizing the freezer/refrigerator tonight in order to make sure there’s room for what we pick up this weekend.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday Eve, Constant Reader, and one never knows, I could be back later.
Ah, some more blatant self-promotion! I’ve done some on-line panels so far this year, which has been terrific. Here are the questions from one I did, turned into an interview so I can promote myself! I believe these questions were for a queer crime panel, and the credit for the questions goes to the one and only J. M. (Jean) Redmann; you can order her books here.
Why did you choose your characters and their professions? What drew you to them?
Hmmm. This is tough, because I have so many books and so many different main characters…I think I’ll stick to my two primary series to answer the question. I wanted to write about a gay private detective in New Orleans, and I wanted him to be a big man, a former college football player who may have been able to be a journeyman NFL player had he not been injured in his final college game. I wanted him to be uncomfortable in his gay skin, and the point of his journey throughout the series was to grow and learn until he was finally comfortable in that skin, and able to be loved and give it.
Scotty, on the other hand, was created as a stand-alone character and I wanted him to basically be the antithesis of Chanse; in which he had few if not hang-ups, was completely comfortable being a sexually active gay man with a snarky sense of humor covering an incredibly big and kind heart. He didn’t really need to grow much–he usually is the catalyst for other characters’ growth–but as he’s aged, I’ve really enjoyed his journey.
What attracted you to writing mysteries?
I always liked them. As long as I can remember, my two biggest reading passions were history and mystery, with horror/Gothics close behind. I would check anything out of the library with mystery, haunted, ghost, phantom, secret, or clue in the title. Then I discovered the series books–The Three Investigators, Trixie Belden, et al–and after that there was no turning back.
What does being queer/gay/lesbian bring to your story?
I think queer people have the outsider point of view down to an art form because that’s how we see the world–from the margins. The easiest way to critique society, the culture, and how people interact with each other is from a remove–and queer people see all of those things from a remove through no fault of their own. I didn’t have role models when I was growing up, at least to teach me how to be a decent adult gay human being, so I had to learn it all on my own for the most part. I’ve also been confused and mystified by American culture, philosophy, and society, because it wasn’t designed for people like me. When I came out, I was just at sea in the queer world as I always had been in the straight one, and I’ve never forgotten those experiences, either, and they also inform my work.
How do we deal with how the wider world deals with queer characters? Especially in these times?
It can be depressing, which is emotionally and psychologically dangerous. It’s bad enough experiencing homophobia, but then to immerse yourself in it in order to write about it? Even more horrific. Watching Pray Away this weekend made me furious with the ex-gay movement all over again; listening to queer people hating themselves and their desires in order to be at peace with God in some twisted way? But if God is infallible…this is the doctrine Christianity gets hung up on. They think we’re mistakes, but if their God is infallible, He had to have made us perfect and its willful sin or the devil whispering in our ears. This is their incredibly harmful and dangerous rhetoric. If God tests humans, perhaps he made queer people to test the faithful–and they are failing.
But they can never admit to that.
How do you deal with diversity? No author can be everything their characters need to be, how do you handle reflecting the wider world?
I write mostly about New Orleans, and beyond that, mostly the south with occasional forays into other areas of the country–upstate New York, Kansas, California–and you cannot write about a city like New Orleans realistically without having Black characters, period. New Orleans is a majority Black city. You also can’t write about the South without touching on the issues of race and a problematic history. I’ve always included diverse characters in my books. I don’t like to describe skin color, frankly, and most white writers do it in the form of food, which I find unsettling–do you want to eat them? Cinnamon skin, cocoa, cafe au lait, eggplant, dark chocolate, etc.–I’ve seen all of those used to describe skin color and it always makes me recoil because it’s so damned lazy. I don’t think I would ever write from the perspective of a Black character–there are plenty of Black authors who can do that more authentically, and given how most diversity pledges by major publishers also inevitably end up in quotas, I don’t want to take a spot from a Black creator. I do love reading work by racialized authors, but I would never try to write from that perspective.
How do you use setting? What does it bring to the story?
Setting is one of my strengths, I think, so I always use it to enhance my story. I am also very lucky in that I live in New Orleans, where anything can happen on any given day and you can never go too far over the top about anything–if anything, you have to tone things down to be believable. I think setting is important because it tells you so much about the characters–why do they live there, how has it shaped them, did they live somewhere else, how do they deal with the challenges, what annoys them, what do they love–and is an important foundation for your story.
How do your books start—not the book beginning, but the start of the process of writing the book. Where do the ideas come from and how does that coalesce into a book?
It usually is something I find interesting and I think I should write about that. Sometimes the ideas take years to coalesce and come together, sometimes they are immediate. The Scotty books inevitably begin with three disparate things I want to address in one book, and then I have to figure out how to combine them all into a story. The next Scotty’s prompts are evacuation, statute of limitations, and obsession. It’s coming together in my head enough that I think I’ll be able to write it this fall.
Once you’re writing, what’s your process? Outline? Write from start to finish?
I used to outline, but now I kind of have it in my head and then will only go back and outline when I am stuck, so I can see where I went wrong in the manuscript. I always write from beginning to end. I don’t know how people can write backwards! I’ve thought about trying it sometime, though.
What are the hard parts of writing for you? The parts you enjoy?
Definitely the middle. The middle is soul-destroying, and always triggers Imposter Syndrome. I also hate copy edits, but recognize them as a necessary evil.
I love the actual writing and revising and all of that. There’s nothing like putting down a good word count for the day, regardless of how bad those words might be. I think revising is magic: you take garbage and turn it into something terrific.
Which writers influenced you?
All of them, in one way or another. I especially love Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Daphne du Maurier, and John D. MacDonald. Currently? Alison Gaylin, Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Michael Koryta, Alex Segura, Michael Thomas Ford, S. A. Cosby, Kellye Garrett, and Alafair Burke–there really are so many. I always take something away from everything I read, whether good or bad.
What are you working on now?
Right now I am writing a sequel to Death Drop, in the Killer Queen series. I also have a ton of short stories and novellas in progress, and I already have ideas for the next three or four (or more) books.
Any advice for newer writers?
Keep writing and keep believing in yourself, and keep reading.
Last words of wisdom?
If you want to be a writer, read Benjamin Dreyer’s Dreyer’s English and Stephen King’s On Writing.
Wednesday morning and the downhill slide into the weekend. Today I have to see my surgeon before I go into the office, which means this might get posted later than my usual. I am awake and feeling pretty good, actually. I am going to the gym to do my physical therapy on my own Friday, which is kind of scary. But I will muddle through somehow, and take my time with it rather than trying to rush through the way I always used to.
I made groceries after work last night and picked up the mail, so I don’t have to pick it up again until the weekend. I am going to be doing a lot, it seems, on Saturday morning. But this is the first free weekend I’ve had that’s normal in a while. I finished watching the Netflix Alexander when I got home, with Sparky asleep in my lap. I folded laundry, too. All in all, a slightly productive night, as I also worked on a short story a bit. I hope to get both of these (one a first draft, the other a revision) by the weekend, so I can work on other things over the weekend. We were super busy at work yesterday; it’ll be a bit slower today but still busier than usual. The post Mardi Gras boost in testing, I suppose.
I’m not sure what project to work on next. I’m actually thinking that this longer story I am writing could close the short story collection…the manuscript itself is sitting at about 72000 words right now, so either story could run long and the book would be finished and can be turned in. This is of course great news; I would also need to write an introduction to it as well, but maybe–just maybe–I could get it turned in by the end of the month, too. I also have to finish the sequel to Death Drop–which means revising what I’ve already written so I am back into Jem’s head and into his life and story again, which is also fine. I feel like I can really do the book justice now more so than any time since the surgery.
I also need to get back on the promotion interstate highway again, too.
But the appointment with my surgeon went well. I don’t have to see him again unless I have pain or something odd going on with my arm again, and I am going to be gradually phasing out the PT now. I should be fully healed by the sixth month (which would be April) but he thinks I’ll be fully healed before then, since everything has progressed so nicely with the healing thus far. I won’t be completely back to absolute normal, most likely, for at least a year. But the strength therapy will be enormously helpful in that; the real curiosity is wondering, when can I start working my chest and back and legs again? I don’t think legs would be too much of an issue, other than lifting the weight plates. I’ll have to ask my therapist next Friday when I see him again. But yay, right? Huzzah for progress! But the weather is also starting to get nice again, so I think it’s time for me to start taking walks regularly again. It’s staying light longer, too. I also need to start stretching at least every other day, too.
And the festivals are nigh, too. Woo-hoo!
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close so I can eat my lunch and answer some emails. May you have a Wednesday that is as awesome as you are , Constant Reader.
Weeheeheehee dee heeheeheehee weeoh aweem away Weeheeheehee dee heeheeheehee weeoh aweem away
You’re welcome for that hellish ear worm.
Well, here it is Tuesday morning and I feel a lot better, more rested, than yesterday. I was extremely tired when I got home after work last night. I didn’t really do much of anything once I was home, other than cuddling with Sparky and watching this week’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which I always enjoy, as well as two more episodes of Alexander on Netflix, which I am enjoying. I was always interested in Alexander when I was growing up–I liked Egyptian, Greek, and Roman history and culture before moving to United States history, then British, and ultimately European. I also watched some documentaries on forgotten kings and queens of Europe. Sparky mostly slept in my lap for much of the evening, and I retired early. PT was rough yesterday morning, but this Friday I get to go to the gym on my own for the first time in well over a year. YIKES. I only have a few exercises to. do there, and I am a little bit excited about going for the first time and getting back into the swing of working out regularly again.
I am starting to feel acclimated back to my life again, and I am also thinking I am feeling more like myself. I’ve been flooded with story ideas over the last few days (Alabama always does that for me, for some reason), solutions to issues in works in progress that I’ve been struggling with, and book ideas. This is, of course, a relief, as I’ve felt kind of stagnant creatively since the surgery. It’s like my brain is finally waking up again, something I was concerned about, obviously–when your identity and most of your life is wrapped around being a writer, the loss of creative energy in my mind is even scarier than falling from a great height or cutting myself (two of my biggest fears). I suppose it would be okay, but I also can’t imagine never writing again.
I actually have thought about it seriously during this time of forced solitude and recovery. Writing and publishing is like a roller coaster ride–filled with ups and downs and frightening hazards to get past. 2023 was obviously a bad year for me, but I did produce two books I am proud of, Death Drop and Mississippi River Mischief. Is it any wonder that I wasn’t able to get much work done after they were finished and proofed and approved? Bouchercon was at the end of August, and when I got back was when I had my teeth done and went on the soft diet–no surprise I was low energy and not able to write very much–and then came the surgery and the recovery. And of course Scooter died last summer…yeesh, what a shitty year, underscored by the grieving for Mom. So, having not really written much after the books went into production, and not really being able to create while I recovered, made me take some stock and wonder if I wanted to keep doing it–the publishing side, anyway. But now that my overactive imagination has been reignited, all those doubts and self-questioning seem like self-pity. Waaah, I’m not Stephen King. So what? Sure, more money would be nice, but it’s not really the be-all end-all of why I do this, anyway. I love writing, I love telling stories, and I love creating characters I genuinely am interested in and want to get to know better.
I feel good this morning. I woke up and didn’t feel fatigued, either. I got a lot of work done at the office yesterday, which was awesome, and tonight when I head home I am making groceries and have some chores to do around the house, too. And…hopefully will get some writing done, too.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I’ll check back in with you later.
Okay, that’s technically not true. I don’t write fiction every day, and I don’t work on a book every day. I generally don’t count the blog as actual writing, but it is writing, I suppose, so I do write that pretty much every day. But I’ve never included the blog in daily word counts or anything; just as I wouldn’t (and didn’t) consider emails, text messages, and social media posts as being part of the daily production output (although I suppose I should; I estimated how many words of blog I’ve done since starting this nineteen years ago–twenty in December–and it was a staggering amount, especially since it was probably dramatically under-counted), and never will.
I do think about writing fiction every day, even the days when I am so exhausted and brain dead I don’t think I’m capable of much of anything creative. I am always thinking, and it’s very rare that the brain turns off, unless I go to sleep (thank you, sleeping pills!); as long as part of my mind is awake and alert my mind will eventually wander into creative thinking. It’s just how my mind works.
During the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon last month, I was on a couple of panels, and as usual have decided to turn the questions sent by the moderators as the basis for self-promotional posts. It has been a hot minute–I’ve not done a hell of a lot of promotion since the surgery knocked me off my tracks for a few months–and while I know many other books have come out since and the Greg has a new book excitement amongst my readers has already died down long since, but what the hell, right? I’m nothing if not a narcissist (or have, at best, some narcissistic traits at any rate), and let’s face it, one of my favorite subjects is ME, so why not? No one has to read these self-promotional posts, either. Just scroll on by, if that’s how you feel; my feelings will not be hurt in the slightest, and I no longer have the anxiety of oh my god no one likes me how can I make everyone like me?
How do you ensure that your latest work is not similar to something you have written before? Can you even remember everything you have written before?
After the eighth (?) Scotty book, someone on social media commented on one of my posts asking how many car accidents has Scotty been in? I’d never really thought much about it, but in that moment I realized quite a fucking lot, and that doesn’t include my other, non-Scotty books, either. I realized that I had been in a car accident in 2008 (the first in decades, and I wasn’t at fault) and my car was totaled. It was so weird, and so different from anything I’d ever imagined being in a serious accident like that would be; it took me days to get the taste of chemicals from the airbag out of my throat and my voice was scratchy and husky for about a week or so after. So, of course, I wrote about it in my next book…and then I think I started having a car accident in a lot more of my books. There was also a car accident in one of the earlier Scotty books–Jackson Square Jazz–and so…I didn’t put one in Mississippi River Mischief.
I had never truly worried about repeating myself until that moment of oh my God do I have a car accident in every book? And so now, I try to be really careful. Am I just rewriting a scene I’ve written before? Scotty is on book nine now; I don’t think it’s feasible for me to sit down and reread the entire series every time I am about to write another one. I have always intended to make a Scotty Bible–what all the regular characters look like, their relationships to each other, where they live, little tidbits I’ve dropped over the years that are clues to their personalities–so that I could verify the information in the series and not have to go looking for it (because I am nothing if not lazy, so I’d put it off and forget it and then realize it’s too late to change that now! FUCK!). I also should go back and outline the books, too–just to have something easy to reference when writing another one.
Since I write more than one series and I also write stand-alone novels, I just realized I should probably do this with all of my books…but I am way too lazy to ever get that done. So I will go on trusting my brain and my memory…which is clearly a mistake!
When naming your characters, do you completely avoid names which you have used in the past or do you feel that the characterization alone is enough to differentiate?
I have names I always fall back on–I also tend to like names that start with L’s and J’s for some reason–so I have to be careful with that. I don’t keep track of all character names I’ve used, and I suppose it’s possible that I could “recreate” a character with a name I’ve used before, and even make them the same…but I also re-use characters; they cross over from series to series and back and then to the stand alones. When I was writing Death Drop, I was originally going to have Blaine and Venus be the cops; they were the cops in both of my previous series with a gay male protagonist, so why not keep expanding my New Orleans universe? I eventually changed my mind–I don’t know why, really, or remember, which is probably a more accurate statement–and changed the names; I think I wanted to differentiate the Killer Queen series and make it more distinct from Chanse and Scotty.
I’m worried more about creating characters that are similar to others I’ve written about more so than the name. I was thinking about starting another series–one with a true crime writer as the main character, and he’s already appeared in both the Scotty and Chanse series; I even had an idea for the story. But when I started creating him, I began to realize he was like a mash-up of Chanse and Scotty, so I abandoned the idea. Now that I am thinking about it again, so what if their backgrounds are similar? He’s nothing like either one of them, and it was a good story idea, so…you never know. I try not to ever conclusively rule anything out. I even think about bringing Chanse back every once in a while.
A question I’m sure most of you have received—do you ever worry that you will run out of ideas?
That’s the least of my concerns. I am more worried I won’t live long enough to write everything I want to.
After all these books, do you still enjoy the writing process?
The primary goal of my life has always been to try to surgically remove anything I don’t enjoy from my existence. I am very blessed in that not only do I get to write and tell my stories and people want to read them but I also have a day job that I enjoy and can feel good about the work I do there. So, the only way I would ever stop writing if I stopped enjoying it, and I can’t ever see that happening. Sure, I’ve had times where I had to step away because of burn out or exhaustion, but I always knew it was a break and I would come back to it again. It’s been difficult for me since my surgery in November to get back into it, but I am making progress. I love writing, and am so grateful this childhood dream came true.
I used to bristle a bit when people called me prolific; I just love to write. But I finally stopped that nonsense and accepted the descriptor when I hit my tenth book…which was over thirty books ago. If that’s not prolific, I don’t know what is. ↩︎
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.
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 getboth 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?
And now it’s Christmas Eve. I slept super-late today, not rising from my bed until almost ten(!!!!) which is unheard of since the weekend after Thanksgiving, when I was still recovering from surgery, but it doesn’t happen often. I started feeling bad yesterday–scratchy throat, stomach upset–and I feel both of those more intently today. I did spend the morning finishing reading Tamara Berry’s Buried in a Good Book, which I really enjoyed; definitely will be more on that later.
I picked up the mail yesterday and came back home, feeling terrible, and spent the day plotting the book and cleaning/organizing the house, going back and forth between the living room and the kitchen and the laundry room. I watched the 2014 Godzilla yesterday, confirming that Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was indeed a sequel; I’m not sure if I need to watch the 2019 Godzilla King of Monsters or not, but it doesn’t seem necessary. Those movies–gigantic creature monster movies–terrified me as a child and gave me nightmares and anxiety; I don’t remember why I watched them in the first place, but I never rewatched them and never had any desire to do so. We started watching the Apple series because I was curious about it, and I find it interesting enough to keep watching; Paul thinks they need more monsters, but this show is more about the backstory/current story of the company Monarch, but they are also out looking for monsters actively while searching for the missing expert, who just happens to be the father of the half-siblings involved in the search. (And the best part of Godzilla was Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who should be a much bigger star than he is, really.)
We also watched more of Looking last night, which I continue to enjoy with each episode. The thing I really like about it is the characters, for good or bad, feel very real to me; these are gay men I’ve known, as opposed to the two-dimensional archetypes of Queer as Folk that I couldn’t relate to at all.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about what I’ll be writing in the new year. I have an old novella, y/a really, that I wrote from the perspective of a teenaged girl that was kind of a sequel to Sorceress; I’ve decided to rewrite it from the point of view of a gay teen and turn into a novel with the title The Grimoire of Broken Dreams, which I think is a better title and makes for a more compelling story. I’m also going to spend some time today rereading some of my books; I really need to reread Death Drop to get more of a sense of Jem’s voice for its sequel. So, yes, even when I am not feeling well I am thinking of new stories, things to work on, and things to prepare me to get back to working hard.
And on that note, I am going to medicate and get cleaned up and try to get something done today. Check in with you again later, Constant Reader, and have a lovely evening.
Cozy mysteries often get little respect from the other subgenres of crime fiction, and their authors likewise generally only get respect from their cozy colleagues; but the disdain they get from a lot of other crime writers is actually kind of criminal. It’s no easier to write a cozy than any other form of mystery; if anything, I would think it would be harder to write about a murder without much blood, no violence, no profanity, and no sex on the page. Part of the reason I decided to write A Streetcar Named Murder was the challenge of writing one, and it was far harder writing that book than it was writing the ones in other subgenres of crime; I wish I had a dime for every time I backspaced over a profanity I’d automatically typed; I curse a lot and so do my characters.
So while I am writing a new cozy–the sequel to Death Drop–I thought I’d read some while I wrote to get a good feeling for the subgenre.
And I am finding one can never go wrong with Raquel V. Reyes.
Halloween was a week away, and we didn’t have s single decoration up. The living room was littered with shopping bags, extension chords, four-foot-tall plastic jack-o’-lanterns, and one handsome Frankenstein.
“Babe, we’re going to need a ladder and a staple gun,” Frankenstein said.
“Can you borrow one from a neighbor?” I asked as I squeezed my foot into a shoe that had fit perfectlya few weeks ago but was now tight. My costume, like my husband’s, was a modification of something I already had. I’d taken a white apron and smeared it with beet juice. In red marker, I’d written Chef Vampira on a paper toque, the tall hat fancy chefs wore. I was not a trained chef, but I had reached local stardom with my two cooking shows, Cocina Caribeña and Abuela Approved.
“Do I look undead enough? Do I need more white makeup?” I asked.
I got a copy of Raquel’s Lefty Award winning novel for Best First at Left Coast Crime in 2022. I read it later that year, and kind of fell in love with the series and its main cast. After years of living in New York and working as a food anthropologist, Miriam, her husband and son all move to his hometown, Coral Shores–a town within Miami’s borders. As she found her footing in this rich and posh neighborhood of McMansions and racist snobs (including her mother-in-law) she gets involved in a murder when someone–her husband’s ex and whom his mother wanted him to marry–died of poisoning right in front of her at a charity luncheon–and Miriam develops a nose for mystery.
This second book in the series is a welcome second offering. This time out, there are bodies everywhere. Did the chef at the country club accidentally fall to his death, or was he pushed?The mother of the victim in the first book is found unconscious and incoherent on the side of Miriam’s house. Her neighbor is found unconscious and frothing in the mouth on Halloween night, so she has to take in his dog until he’s recovered. AND her mother-in-law has coerced her into putting together the charity fundraiser at her snooty country club, so she is constantly picking at Miriam…even in front of her grandson. And then there’s another murder. Miriam can’t help sleuthing, everything keeps building until the night of the gala–when Miriam gets to the truth finally and puts her own life at jeopardy.
I love this series. I love Miriam, and I love that Reyes doesn’t italicize Spanish words (she says she writes in Spanglish) and that she authentically sprinkles Spanish organically through the books. I love that the books focus on Caribbean cooking, and how it developed culturally and anthropologically. I cringe at the racism Miriam experiences (while getting angry at it; I despise bigotry), and I really care about Miriam; which is the key to writing a good cozy mystery: a main character the reader can identify with and like.
Do read this series. I can’t wait to get my hands on the third!
Queer and Loathing in America 