Tag: Game of Thrones

Welcome Back

I managed fourteen hundred words today, and then came up blank. I hate when that happens, but I just can’t force the creativity, you know? And those fourteen hundred words were hard to do, frankly. But I printed out the next chapter (Chapter Seven, to be exact) and will reread that at some point before getting to work on it, perhaps later, before Game of Thrones airs. I am planning on making this weird combination Swedish meatball/beef stroganoff dish for dinner (I’ve made both, and then one time when I was making Swedish meatballs later I realized I’d used the stroganoff recipe, but you know what? I also liked it. A lot. And I’ve made it that way ever since) later, and the kitchen is relatively clean already (and my goal is to leave it clean when I finish cooking; the worst thing is to go into my two long days at work with a messy kitchen, knowing it will most likely stay that way, getting worse, until Thursday–unless I somehow have more energy during the week than I usually do). I’ve filed stuff, cleaned the floors, paid the bills, made groceries, mailed things that needed to be mailed, and I wrote fourteen hundred words on the WIP today before running out of steam. Perhaps someday I’ll work my way back up to those halcyon days of three thousand or more I used to do routinely, but having a nice, relaxing weekend where I am actually able to get started writing and get caught up on things and have a clean home is a lovely way to start, don’t you think?

I certainly do.

I’m going to miss Game of Thrones when it ends, and I doubt very seriously I will ever go back and watch the entire series again. It’s a tempting thought, to be honest, to devote several months to rewatching it in full, from episode one to its conclusion, in one massive binge and think about what I am watching, in terms of what I know is going to happen and watching for possible foreshadowing. I’ve always loved history, and that’s part of why I love Game of Thrones so much; it’s kind of like history where you don’t know how it all ends. When I was a kid I used to redraw maps of Europe and create countries and change the way wars ended and try to create my own Eurocentric history of the world; who knew that what I was actually doing wasn’t simply a waste of time but rather an incredibly creative experiment in world building via alternative history. Every so often, when I’ve been caught up in a science fiction or fantasy epic series, I wonder at the world building/universe building creativity of the author and think I could never do that. I’ve always wanted to, but never have; but perhaps that was simply a failing of my own. Of course I could do it, but whether I could do it well would be an entirely different thing.

I don’t read as much science fiction and fantasy as I would like–I’ve always geared more towards crime and horror–but I’ve certainly read and enjoyed the Dune series, The Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad, The Shannara Chronicles, and Azimov’s science fiction novels about the robots and the empire and the Foundation, which wound up in the end all being one great big long series. There are writers out there now that I am looking forward to reading–I am not only diversifying the types of stories I read by race, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, and sexuality, but I am also trying to read more broadly across genres. Reading science fiction, fantasy, romance, even what is condescendingly called “chick lit”, and even some literary fiction will influence me and help make me a better writer in the long run. I read primarily for enjoyment, yes, but I also want to be a better writer, and reading different stories and different perspectives can only serve to make me a better writer.

I guess in reality when the show ends I won’t be saying goodbye completely to Game of Thrones; I still have the books to finish reading, and there will undoubtedly be spin-off shows–but seriously, is anyone at HBO listening? Your next big series should be Anne McCaffrey’s The Dragonriders of Pern. Her dragon books would be fantastic television, and for that matter so would Naomi Norvik’s (which I need to read; I started reading one a long time ago and was completely enthralled; something came up and I never finished and I never got back to it, and I’ve always regretted that).

I am also, in case you haven’t noticed, not only in that stage of writing where I never want to do it, have to force myself to do it, but when I finally do I am not happy with what I have done. I am completely convinced this book isn’t going to be what I want it to be, what I envisioned it to be, and its entirely due to my own various shortcomings as an author. It’s all part and parcel of the same neurosis, really; the endless cycle of Imposter Syndome, where you think you’ve somehow managed to con people for years that you can write but eventually the gig will be up and the marks you’ve been conning all along will finally wise up. This all too frequently translates I need to work today into what’s the point of writing? This book is shit, anyway, and no one is going to want to read it which very easily becomes let me get watch Youtube videos of Game of Thrones fan theories and listicles or highlights of exciting LSU football games or really hot well built muscular professional wrestlers or old music videos or clips from old episodes of All My Children–yes, those downward Youtube spirals can be quite frightening sometimes.

But I did make myself get those fourteen hundred words done today, even though I didn’t want to do it, even though I thought I should do three thousand, even though I currently think the words I wrote are crap and the chapter is crap and the character is two dimensional and I don’t know what I am doing, I FUCKING WROTE THOSE GODDAMNED WORDS TODAY.

And that’s fourteen hundred more words than I did yesterday, or Friday, or Thursday.

And I bet tomorrow I can do more than fourteen hundred.

Watch closely now.

What do I say to the God of Imposter Syndrome? NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER, NOT TODAY.

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Shannon

Friday night, while dinner was in the oven and the laundry was finishing, I sat down in the easy chair, and rewatched last week’s episode of Game of Thrones. I wanted to watch “The Long Night” again; knowing how it ends, and what is coming, I could pay more attention to what was going on and view it from a story perspective, rather than riveted to the screen, barely able to breathe, watching in nervous apprehension and building tension as literally anything could have happened.

(Aside: While I get why they called it “The Long Night,” I kind of wish they’d called it “Not Today.”)

And I did notice several things, and appreciated the episode much more than I did on first viewing.

I didn’t, for instance, think it was too dark. There were a lot of complaints and commentary that it was shot too dark for anyone to see anything; and yes, there were times when I couldn’t see what was happening. But that was intentional, and it wasn’t all the time. I also thought it worked for the dramatic arc and helped amp up the tension for the viewer. I was aware of who was fighting every time the camera was on them; the action was also moving so quickly it was hard for the eye to ever focus. I did keep mixing up Gendry and Podrick, and am still not entirely certain I was correct every time I saw one or the other.

In some instances the cinematography was so beautiful it was like looking at a painting. Dany and Jon on the dragons, flying in place above the clouds watching for Viserion and the Night King–that was breathtakingly gorgeous. There were so many iconic images–the lighting of the Dothraki scimitars and watching the flames spread across the army in the darkness; the lighting of the fire moat surrounding Winterfell; the battle of the dragons in sight of the Godwood; Drogon surrounding Dany as she wept for Ser Jorah. And the opening three to four minutes are all one continuous shot following first Sam, then Tyrion, through the courtyard of Winterfell as it prepares for the battle. Visually, I thought the entire episode was an extraordinary achievement.

I also was a little disappointed, on first viewing–and actually, when I thought about the season and how the episodes were scheduled to play out, really, since it was announced very early on that the big battle between the living and the dead would air as Episode 3, leaving three episodes to go; it had always seemed as though this was battle, this war, was the actual point of the entire series. I thought the way everyone ignored the imminent danger while they squabbled amongst themselves for wealth and power and yes, the Iron Throne, was a metaphor for how these things occur in reality–the real danger is ignored as it grows until it is too late, or almost too late. But the name of the series is Game of Thrones, and while the book series they are based on is called A Song of Fire and Ice, the show didn’t take that title, rather taking the name of the first book in the series and sticking with it. This show has always been about the struggle for the Iron Throne; the Night King and the Army of the Dead were simply yet another threat, another obstacle, that had to be faced by our heroes before they could focus on the final struggle for the Seven Kingdoms. I’ve also gone back and forth many times while viewing the show about the title A Song of Fire and Ice–originally I assumed it meant the struggle between the dragons and the people of the south–fire–and the Night King and the Army of the Dead–ice. I then began to think Dany was fire and Jon was ice…only to discover, as I wondered deep down, that Jon is actually both fire and ice. The revelation that Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell, treated like a second class Stark for most of his life and held down for his illegitimacy, is actual Aegon Targaryen, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne–particularly since Robert’s Rebellion was also based on a lie in the first place–had me convinced that this was simply another retelling of the Arthur story; almost to the point where the world of Westeros was an easy stand in for the Britain of the Arthur tale (I’ve always thought Westeros was shaped like Great Britain; and of course Hadrian’s Wall is there as well), but Westeros is much bigger.

Now, though, after last week–is Game of Thrones Arya’s story?

But the thing about Game of Thrones, and what this latest episode has shown us, is that there is no one hero; Jon Snow would probably come the closest to what would be considered a traditional hero, but he has so many flaws…his sense of honor, and that nobility, often causes him to make bad decisions and get in trouble…rather like his uncle, Ned Stark. The main characters are clearly Jon, Daenarys, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion, Jaime, and Cersei; the question now is which of them will fall in the Last War, which is now coming.

The character arc of Theon Greyjoy also isn’t talked about enough in the aftermath of last week’s episode, and Alfie Allen has, over the years, given a stunning performance in the role. I cried when I originally watched, and did again on the second watch, when Bran grants Theon the absolution he so desperately wants before he tries to take out the Night King and dies.

And seriously, shouldn’t we have known all along that the obvious choices for killing the Night King–Jon and his sword, Dany and her dragons–wouldn’t be where the show went? The chills I got when Arya’s flying form appeared through the murk behind the Night King; the gasp as he grabbed her by the throat, the instant thought when she dropped the knife (no no no no!) and the sudden realization that the drop was deliberate as it fell into her right hand…on first watch the elimination of the threat seemed too sudden after all the misery and horror of the entire episode (as I said to a co-worker the next day, “Classic storytelling; make everything look as desperate and hopeless as possible and then at the very last second good triumphs–think the Death Star, Starkiller Base, etc.”) but on a rewatch–knowing it was coming–you can see how it was foreshadowed throughout the entire episode; so many things, so many small touches in an epic episode full of them that it’s easy to forget them as the action moves on; Melisandre looking up to the castle walls as she rides in at the beginning and locks eyes with Arya; Arya taking out a wight about to kill the Hound with an arrow fired from the wall and their eyes meeting; Jamie and Brienne fighting back to back like the true equals they’ve always been and finally are; Sam, shivering in fear as he lies on his back on a pile of the dead killing everything that comes near him despite his quite obvious terror; and finally, the amazing epic filming of the collapse of the Army of the Dead.

Simply extraordinary.

Tonight is the aftermath of the battle, and the beginning of the final arc of the show, and then it’s goodbye to a cultural event like few this country ever sees.

It’s going to be hard to wait until Thanksgiving week to read Book Two.

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Fooled Around and Fell in Love

It’s Sunday morning in New Orleans and I am already awake and swilling coffee. It looks kind of gray outside my windows this morning. The sun is trying to come out from behind the cloud cover so I don’t think today is going to be one of those rainy days like yesterday, but it’s kind of nice. The humidity has returned–Friday was miserable–and it’s only May. The true dog days are yet to be upon us. Heavy heaving sigh.

Yesterday I was moving stuff around, trying to lessen the appearance of clutter as well as to figure out where to put all the extra paper towels (thank you, Costco!) and put the things I was moving into places that I would remember when I discovered a copy of the first anthology I ever published a short story in, released way back in August of 2000: Men for All Seasons, edited by Jesse Grant, and from Alyson Books. It’s an erotic story, of course; my first two published short stories were erotica an d I don’t think I published a story that wasn’t erotica until “Smalltown Boy” in Rebel Yell 2, several years later. It was also interesting to look at the table of contents and see that my original by-line for fiction was Gregory Herren, not Greg; I do think I switched to Greg for the second story that was published that same month in Men magazine. Going through the list of contributors, I was struck by how many of those writers are no longer writing–or if they are, they aren’t using their “erotica” pen names anymore.

Back in the day, if you worked really hard you could make a lovely little income writing gay erotica. I was paid $300 for the story in Men; I published a second story there a few years later for the same pay. I think I got $75 for the story in Men for All Seasons. I started writing erotica primarily as a lark; Alyson’s publicist advised me to start writing short fiction for their anthologies, primarily for the publication credits and the money, as well as to make my name better known and more familiar to the Alyson editorial staff. He was right; Alyson wound up buying my first novel Murder in the Rue Dauphine, and I stayed with Alyson for the first five Chanse books, as well as several erotica anthologies I edited for them. I always called myself “an accidental pornographer” because it wasn’t anything I’d ever wanted to do, but the money was nice and the books actually did very well. But now…now there’s no market for actual gay erotica. Anthologies don’t sell and so no one is doing them anymore; the only market for erotica is novels, and reality is most of those are written now by straight women for other straight women, and that’s not the kind of erotica I write. (This is not to say straight women cannot write gay erotica geared toward gay men; in my editing days I worked with a lot of straight women who wrote horny, nasty, raunchy men on men erotica and you’d never know the author was a woman.) But the women who like to read the m/m stuff don’t like the erotica I write, and so I don’t really write it anymore.  I don’t miss it, to be honest–there are only so many ways to write about male on male sex originally, only so many words–and I even at one time wrote a column for the Erotica Writers Association on how to write good porn. I think my favorite column title was “Sometimes A Cock Is Just A Cock.”

I didn’t do much writing yesterday–actual physical writing–but I did do a lot of thinking and rehashing and going over my notes for the WIP. I doubt very seriously I will get as caught up as I had wanted to get this weekend, but you know, that’s just how it goes sometimes. Today is May the 5th, and I am going to dig into Chapter Six again in just a moment, with the hopes that Chapters 7, 8 and 9 will fall into place as I go…and then maybe I can start with Chapter Ten. I got so far off track with this WIP that I don’t really remember the story I was trying to tell in the first place, which is terrible–my memory, once so incredibly dependable I didn’t really need to take notes, in now completely unreliable. Part of the reason I decided to go back and redo the chapters I’d already written was to get myself immersed back into the story, get a feel for the characters, and maybe find the flaws and mistakes and holes in the plot. I’ve managed some of that, of course, which makes it all worthwhile, and I did find the outline for Chapter Ten in my journal (which I’d completely forgotten I’d written down), so yes, not actually spending time at the keyboard yesterday while actually simply reviewing notes and rereading things was a pretty smart thing to do.

Going through the current and previous journal also reminded me of some short story ideas I’d had that had somehow slipped, unbidden, from my memory. I also managed to page through The Gulf by Jack E. Davis yesterday, and I believe it will be a rich source of ideas and materials for me to write another book–my spring break murders novel, Where the Boys Die–and many others. Nonfiction is a great source of material for fiction, in case you were wondering.

And now I am going to sign off with this entry as I have another, Game of Thrones specific one I started yesterday that I would like to finish this morning.

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A Little Bit More

Thursday morning and I have errands to run before I head into the office. Prescription pick-ups and the mail, which means a voyage uptown and then taking Highway 90 all the way back across town until I can get on I-10. I’ve started taking I-10 to and from work, which has dramatically cut back on my travel time. My office is literally a block from the on/off ramps, and I only live six or seven blocks or so from the highway. It only recently occurred to me to take the highway, and was stunned when I got from the office parking lot to my house in about six or seven minutes; if I hit the lights correctly on St. Charles I can do it in almost under five.

Driving through the city instead? Anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. #madness

I woke up tired and a bit out of it this morning; not so much tired as more not rested enough. I’m not sure what that’s all about or why, but it’s annoying and it needs to stop happening. It was that way yesterday as well; I couldn’t really focus because I felt like I was still drowsy all day. Tomorrow I have to get up ridiculously early again (sigh) but I am also going to Costco tomorrow after work, which means girding my loins and sucking it up. The tiredness yesterday also precluded me from actually doing any writing–I did reread Chapter Six, and that was part of it; the chapter as written is a mess and is going to require brain power and work to sort and I just kind of sighed and surrendered in defeat to  it yesterday–and I also reread my story “And The Walls Came Down,” which I want to rewrite and revise and possibly send out to some markets over the course of the weekend. (There’s also more than a slight fear that the early part of the week will render me useless on the weekend, but I do think a good night’s sleep on Friday night will resolve that problem.)

And, of course I am really looking forward to seeing this weekend’s episode of Game of Thrones, to see how the show is going to move through these last three episodes now that the threat of the dead from the north is over. I just have some errands to run and some house to clean–since I get off from work early tomorrow that should do the trick; I am hoping to go to Costco and then come home and perhaps go to the gym (!!!!) before coming back home and cleaning the Lost Apartment. If I can manage to get it cleaned up on Friday, I shall have the weekend to write.

And continue reading Jamie Mason’s The Hidden Things, which I started reading this week and am really enjoying thus far.

And that’s kind of the goal for now, at least.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Deep Purple

It isn’t much, but I managed to get that bitch of a Chapter Four slogged through yesterday. It was almost like pulling teeth–and then when I was near the end, I remembered that the entire purpose of this chapter was to establish something near the beginning that will come up again later in the chapter and of course I forgot to put that thing in.

Heavy heaving sigh. And this, Constant Reader, is why writers drink.

To excess.

Regularly.

I am also still processing last night’s Game of Thrones. In all honesty, I didn’t really notice that the episode was almost too dark to see things; Game of Thrones has always, to me, been shot very dark so it wasn’t big enough of a change to be necessary. I simply thought I wasn’t able to see because there was literally, in some moments, so much to see and so much going on that my eyes and mind were kind of overwhelmed. It wasn’t until after the episode had ended and I went on social media to see what other people thought that I saw that so many people were complaining about how poorly lit the episode was. I’m also not sure how I felt about the episode itself; as I said, I am still processing it. I’m not sure that making the Great War the prelude to the Final War was necessarily the best way to go; surely it should have been done in reverse? I am not sure, but I guess we’ll see how these final three episodes play out.

Also interesting are the turns Veep is making this season–I honestly can’t believe how spot-on they are in satirizing our current situation and our last election.

I also read a lot more of Kellye Garrett’s debut novel, which I am hoping to get finished this week–either today or tomorrow. I am greatly enjoying this book, and I’m glad I finally got around to it. So…the Diversity Project, despite my slight misgivings about it, is actually doing some good for me.

I also feel well enough to go back to work today. Yesterday was still kind of iffy for me, but I decided to set the alarm for this morning and just see how I felt when it went off. I am awake–maybe not as rested as I might prefer, but I am awake and don’t feel like death, so I am also seeing that as a plus as well. My throat is still sore, but I am not sure why, and it isn’t affecting my voice at all, which is also a plus. I’m not really aware of it unless/until I swallow, but it’s still not very pleasant.

C’est la vie.

And on that note, I suppose I should get in the shower so I can head into the spice mines.

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Love to Love You Baby

Paul’s flight was delayed a bit, but he got home last night just after nine pm and all is right in the Lost Apartment. I have ceased to exist to Scooter except as a conduit for treats, food or water–he hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet this morning to demand food! I also woke up this morning feeling much much better than I have in days, which means I think I should be able to return to work tomorrow. Huzzah!

I’m sure it’s an utter coincidence that Paul’s return home cured me.

Yesterday I ran some errands over to the West Bank that simply couldn’t be put off until next weekend–and, I figured, it was better to try to get it over and done with while still feeling slightly unwell than wait until today when I might have relapsed–and so I have Paul’s birthday present ready to give to him when he wakes up, for yes, today is Paul’s birthday. He was honored with the Leadership Award from the Publishing Triangle on Thursday and today is his birthday, so he’s had quite a lovely long weekend of it. I also spent some time reading Kellye Garrett’s delightfully fun Hollywood Homicide yesterday, while I also did some odds and ends cleaning up around here. I still have some cleaning to do today, and I want to get that pesky chapter written once and for all today so I can move on to the next and try to get this entire pesky thing finished soon enough. I am behind, of course, as I always seem to be, but I am hoping/hopeful that I can get this first draft finished by the 15th of May. That’s basically two weeks, and there’s absolutely no reason I cannot be finished by then other than sheer, utter laziness.

Everyone who thinks I won’t be done by the 15th, raise your hand.

Bitches.

And so I shall spend this morning cleaning and working on the WIP. I suspect Paul, who was exhausted when he got home last night, will sleep till about noon–if not longer, which gives me a free morning to get all of this done. I am planning on going to the gym (I know, right?) around noonish/one, to get started again with my regular workouts and getting my body back into shape. We’ll see how it goes, but that is my plan at this moment–although there’s also a stray thought that I should go now, this morning, to get it over with and get my day kick-started, but no, I think I’ll spend the morning doing precisely what I said I was going to spend the morning doing. I need to get that fucking chapter finished, and maybe even get started on Chapter Five while I have Word open.

I also want to start doing something with all these short stories I have just lying around here in one form or another. Maybe after the gym I can read some of them, or something. They aren’t doing me any good sitting in my computer as files, that’s for certain.

And I also need to steel myself for tonight’s Game of Thrones. It’s certainly going to be a bloodbath, with characters whose lives I’ve been following since the very first season an eon ago certain to die tonight. Perhaps I should take a Xanax before watching? I also want to read some more of Kellye’s book, so I can move on to Jamie Mason’s The Hidden Things, which is up next in queue….although I am very tempted by Marlon James’ latest, an epic fantasy set in Africa which is being called “an African Game of Thrones“, although I am certain that’s simply a marketing gimmick to try to appeal to George R. R. Martin’s fans, and fans of the show. Marlon is a terrific writer, and he won the Mann Booker a few years ago for his A Brief History of Seven Killings, which I’ve not read, but have wanted to for quite some time. My TBR queue is quite something, I have to say, and I am really looking forward to reading all the books in it at some point.

At some point.

There will never be enough time, will there, to read everything I want to read and write everything I want to write. I think that’s why I get so caught up in falling behind and the sense of time slipping through my fingers, which gets more intense the more I age, which is, of course, every fucking day.

And now back to the spice mines, my friends. It’s already ten and I’ve gotten nothing done other than writing this.

And that shall not stand.

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Only Sixteen

I woke up this morning with no fever and no congestion, huzzah! I still have a sore throat, however, and a little bit of medicine head, but I also went to bed early last night and woke up at a relatively decent, respectable hour–not too early, not too late, which of course is quite lovely. Paul returns home this evening (or sometime in the late afternoon). Therefore I have to run some errands this morning–it cannot be helped–which include going to the West Bank (on a Saturday! Madness) to get him a birthday gift, for his birthday is tomorrow. Since I am over there, I am going to stop at Sonic for lunch (it will be lovely  eating something other than soup, let me tell you) before heading back over here. I need to vacuum downstairs before I head out for the errands, and then until he gets home I am either going to write, or read Kellye Garrett’s wonderful Hollywood Homicide.  I wanted to do both yesterday, but my head was too foggy and medicine-y from all the DayQuil and the final spike of whatever it was that was wrong, and I couldn’t focus. I wound up mostly falling into a Youtube vortex on my television for most of the day–it’s really amazing how many fan videos/theories of Game of Thrones are out there–and I also rewatched last week’s episode of Game of Thrones again. It was, of course, the first and perhaps only episode of the show where someone, anyone, didn’t die–and you know what that means: CAST BLOODBATH TOMORROW. It was so emotionally manipulative, but at the same time genius: by giving the audience these incredibly touching moments, it makes this weekend’s deaths all the more heartrending and poignant. And yes, I cried several times during the rewatch; knowing what was coming didn’t change that: I cried when Jaime asked to serve under Brienne; when Theon offered to fight for Winterfell if Sansa would have him; when Sam gave the sword of his family to Ser Jorah; and of course, the ultimate tears came when Jaime knighted Brienne. Gwendoline Christie deserves an Emmy for that scene alone.

I can’t wait for tomorrow’s episode, even though I know I’ll probably have to take to my fainting couch after.

And those were the scenes that made the tears come; there were others that came close. It was probably one of my favorite episodes of the show, from start to finish; primarily because it was all about character. And that’s what Game of Thrones does so well; character. It’s an epic show to be sure, and even without the strong character development it would still be great to watch…but the character arcs, for me, is what makes the show spectacular.

I am terribly behind on the WIP. April slipped through my fingers somehow; there are only three days left in the month and there is simply no way I am going to be able to get this entire first draft completed in three days. Hell, I haven’t finished the revision of Chapter fucking Four yet, and I still have fifteen new chapters to write. I think it is fairly safe to assume I am off-schedule a little bit (a lot of bit) which means I won’t be getting to the final draft of the other WIP in May the way I’d planned. Meh, it happens. I also need to check my project schedule; I am not sure when exactly I have to step away from all of this to work on another one; it’s sometime this summer, I know, but I don’t remember the date off the top of my head. But I feel so much better this morning than I have all week–I think whatever was wrong with me these last few days clearly started earlier in the week; I was lethargic and fairly low energy since last weekend–and so maybe, once I get home from the errands today I can sit down here at the computer and get Chapter Four finished and maybe even make some headway on Chapter Five. And perhaps work on a short story.

Paul will be home tonight and tomorrow is his birthday, so perhaps I’ll take a look at the movies available to rent on iTunes. I got a giftcard in the mail–when I bought the new Air I also got an Apple Mastercard (ugh, like I need more credit) and I’ve already earned a reward; a $25 gift card for iTunes or the Apple Store. So…maybe I can rent a movie for us to watch tonight for his birthday. There are still plenty of other movies still on both Prime and Amazon that I want to watch, but…since tomorrow is going to be all about Game of Thrones, tonight will be the only option. I think I am also going to get us a deep dish pizza from That’s Amore for our dinner this evening (and it will take care of all our food needs for tomorrow as well).

And on that note, I need to get things done around here before departing for my errands, so I’d best get started on that now.

Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!

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Love Rollercoaster

Oh, Game of Thrones. What a lovely, lovely episode last night. I think I cried two or three times…and then of course, as it slowly began to dawn on me that we are getting all this closure because so many of my favorite characters are going to mostly likely die next week.

Gah. And of course, I cannot wait.

Game of Thrones, for all of its problematic scenes and subplots (remember Jamie raping Cersei over the corpse of their dead son?), has been such an incredibly enjoyable ride since that first episode all those many years ago; when the royal party marched into Winterfell and all the pieces on the chessboard were put into place (mostly by Littlefinger, as we were to gradually find out over the years) I had absolutely no clue nor idea how this wild, crazy, polyglot quilt of a story with layers and levels and still more layers was going to play out. We’ve watched the children–Bran, Sansa, Arya–grow from children into young adults. The character development and story arcs they came from all carefully done and planned; who would have ever thought that, as I watched Jamie push Bran out the window at the end of episode one, that he would become one of my favorite characters? Or that Theon’s betrayal of the Starks would lead to his unending humiliations and finally, despite his mutilation, becoming a man and a true knight of the north? Spoiled, silly Sansa becoming the smartest woman in Westeros?

Next week is going to be deeply, deeply emotional for those of us who watch and love the show. Paul and I came to the show late; back in the day, we got the DISCS from Netflix; as we caught up on the show we eventually decided it was worth paying for HBO in order to watch as it aired live; I think this might have been Season Three; we’d just finished watching Season 2 and decided we couldn’t wait until it was released to Netflix…and despite the shocks and heartbreaks, it’s been quite a ride. I finally read the first book in the series over Thanksgiving last year; I think I may read the second over Thanksgiving this year; perhaps it will become a holiday treat for myself each year.

Although there are still only four books.

Yesterday was a good day; I didn’t feel particularly motivated to do any writing–it’s amazing how easy it is to talk myself out of writing–but I am just getting warmed up again these days and should soon be back in the saddle again, writing every day and creating. I managed to get myself organized yesterday, and we also watched Crazy Rich Asians on HBO in the late afternoon, and enjoyed the hell out of it. I have some thoughts about this movie as well, but I want to let them percolate for a day or so before talking about it. But I enjoyed the movie very much, even cried a bit in places, and loved see romantic comedy tropes turned on their ears while being used. I also read some more of Alison Gaylin’s superb Never Look Back, which is shaping up to be her best novel thus far….which is saying quite a bit (she’s been nominated for the Edgar four times). I also have sort of figured out all the things I need to get done this week–I even made a list–and I organized computer files. I cleaned the kitchen and went to the grocery store. I filed and made notes and over all had a highly productive, if non-writing, day. It was a lovely three day weekend and I do feel rested this Monday morning, even though I would much prefer to have remained in bed.

Paul leaves early Wednesday morning for New York; he’s being honored by the Publishing Triangle so he is heading up there for the ceremony on Thursday and flying back here on Saturday afternoon, so I will have the Lost Apartment to myself for a few days. Hopefully I can use that time to get more things done and more organized and maybe even clean the upstairs? Madness, I know, but…we shall see. Scooter will be his usual needy self but at least I only have to work half-days both Thursday and Friday.

Huzzah?

And now back to the spice mines. Happy Monday, all.

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More More More

Monday morning, and I overslept a bit this morning. Not a good start to the week, but the week is also only a four day week, as Good Friday is a city holiday (one has to love Catholic New Orleans, doesn’t one?) and so it’s a short week for me. Perhaps not off to the best start, but it’s off to a start at any rate.

In other exciting news, some of my computer issues have been solved, My friend Stuart, whose company is exclusively Mac and therefore is a sort of non-Apple-employed genius genius, is in town and we spoke on the phone yesterday (we are having dinner tonight) and he explained to me what some of the issues I have been having might have been…and he was correct. I worked on correcting those issues yesterday, to a point, and now my desktop computer is operating a little more normally than it was–it’s certainly faster, and the program crashing issue, at least for the last twenty-four hours, has apparently corrected itself–or my actions have corrected it. We shall see how long this lasts, shan’t we?

I also managed to get back to work on the WIP yesterday. I only managed about 400 words, but it was work and it was progress and I am definitely counting that as moving forward. I also did some brainstorming on the potential new series I am considering writing, which was lovely. The more I think about this new series the more I like it. Hopefully, it will work out and turn into something truly terrific; one can hope, at any rate. We shall certainly see. The goal for this week is to get several chapters on the WIP done, and to get some more work done on the two proposals I am writing. I am excited about both, even though they are both new things that I hadn’t even thought about it two months ago–which is pushing other projects I want to write further back into the ethereal future–but there you have it. That is this writer’s life, and someday–someday–I hope to have written everything I want to write.

I also managed to get some serious cleaning done yesterday. I had a great night’s sleep Saturday night, and therefore yesterday had more energy than I was expecting to have/thought I would have/have had on a Sunday in quite some time. So the kitchen and the living room look really lovely; I am hoping to use the extra day this coming weekend to do some other, more serious cleaning (oy, my ceiling fans are filthy, and I don’t even want to discuss my kitchen windows). So, in other words, Sunday was a much more productive day than I’d thought it would be, and it turned out quite nicely–particularly after I didn’t get anything really accomplished on Saturday, other than finishing Steph Cha’s wonderful book, which I greatly enjoyed (more to come on that later). So…despite my late start to the day–which I am not letting discombobulate me at all, instead of stressing about being late I am going to just get the things done I need to get done before I leave the house this morning and let the day play out as it may.

The premiere of the penultimate season of Game of Thrones  last night was a bit slow, but it was also a set-up episode, setting the stage for the big finish of all the stories that are currently spinning out and coming to their inevitable end. We did get the big reveal about Jon Snow’s true parentage last night, which was incredibly cool, plus the scene of Jon and Dany riding the dragons (BIG hint, as only Targaryens can ride dragons), and I love how Sansa has turned into a Bad Boss Bitch. The evolution of Sansa as a character, from the wide-eyed innocent girl who dreamed of marrying and being a queen to the calculating, suspicious, trust-no-one Lady of Winterfell has been extraordinary, and bravo to Game of Thrones for this. Bravo.

We also watched the season finale of Schitt’s Creek over the weekend and it, too, was enormously satisfying. Watching Stevie on stage coming into her own as Sally in Cabaret singing “Maybe This Time” was one of those in-your-feels moments that the show does so remarkably well. Schitt’s Creek may be one of the best sitcoms in the history of television; it has rarely missed a beat, has always been funny, and no matter how crazy or insane situation develops in each episode, every character remains true to themselves even as they develop, change and grow. I told a friend the other day that the run of Schitt’s Creek has had some of the best character development and growth I’ve ever seen in a television comedy series, and it’s incredibly true. The fact that there is only one more season breaks my heart more than just a little bit–and while I may have been late to watching this show–well, this is indeed another case of better late than never.

I also hope to start reading the ARC of Alison Gaylin’s new novel, Never Look Back, this week, and am most excited about it.

And now back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader.

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Bohemian Rhapsody

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide no escape from reality.

I do love the song. I wasn’t an enormous fan of the movie–primarily because I wasn’t that interested in the trajectory of the bad so much as I was more interested in Freddie and his life–but it was a perfectly good movie about a rock band.

I did finish reading Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home yesterday and I highly recommend it. The writing is exceptionally done well, and her character, Juniper Song, is terrific. I have some other thoughts about the book in my head, but am going to wait until they fully form before I write about it more. But…while I am sure I would have eventually gotten around to reading Steph–I’ve met her and like her–I am glad that I made a point of moving her up in the TBR pile. As I said when I was talking about the Diversity Project the other day, it’s the unconscious bias against minority writers I am fighting against within my own head and within my own choices, and trying to retrain/rewire my brain to not automatically move toward white writers when selecting the next book to read–even if they are women, who are also historically undermined as ‘not as serious as the men’ by not just the industry but by society itself. (I am really itching to start reading Alison Gaylin’s Never Look Back.)

As I’ve mentioned, my reading has always skewed more toward women than men; as a child, I preferred Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden to the Hardy  Boys (although the Three Investigators are my absolute favorite kids’ series, and they were boys), to the point where I was forbidden to read books either by women or about women for a period of time–which quite naturally made me want to read them even more.

The absolute best way to get me to do something is to either forbid me from doing it, or telling me that I can’t do it. Forbidding me makes me want it all the more, and telling me I can’t do something makes me want to prove you wrong.

I am ridiculously excited that Game of Thrones returns tonight for its final season. I am going to be terribly sorry when the show is over; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride from the time Paul and I got the DVD’s from Netflix and starting binge-watching; loved it so much we paid for the HBO app subscription so we could watch it as it aired, once we were caught up. I do want to finish reading the books–I’ve only finished A Game of Thrones–and maybe if I get a long vacation on a beach somewhere, I can finish the entire series that has been published thus far. I really loved the book, and suspect I’ll feel the same way about the rest of the series. Yesterday I spent some time reacquainting myself with some of my favorite moments from the series over the years, thanks to said HBO app–the Battle of the Loot Train, the end of Ramsey Bolton, the trial of Littlefinger, the big reveal about Jon Snow’s parents, the Battle of Meereen, Daenarys conquering the Dothraki by killing all the Khals, Cersei’s revenge on the Sept–and was again, as always, blown away by the sheer scope and scale of the show, and how fucking fantastic it is from top to bottom. Game of Thrones, whether you love it or hate it, is always going to be considered one of the greatest television series of all time, up there with The Wire, The Sopranos,and The West Wing, and deservedly so. We truly are in a marvelous time for television programming.

Friday I was even more ridiculously excited to see the first trailer for the ninth episode of Star Wars and to learn its title: The Rise of Skywalker. I really cannot wait to see this movie, and I suspect we are going to go see it on opening weekend this December if it kills me. It’s very strange to realize that Star Wars has been a part of my life for over forty years now…and while the second trilogy, episodes one through three, aren’t amongst my favorites (I’ve not rewatched them very much), I still have a big love for all things Star Wars, and frankly, Rogue One just might be my favorite Star Wars film of them all.

So, after a really good night’s sleep and waking up later than I usually do, I am going to clean this kitchen and then I am going to work for a while. I might go to the grocery store; we need a few things, but at the same time I should also be able to get the things we need on the way home from work tomorrow, if they are, in fact, so desperately needed. I think I’m going to do that–wait, I mean–because if I’ve learned anything from the Termite Genocide experience, it’s that I hoard food and really need to use the things I already have on hand rather than go out and buy new things to prepare.

I’m actually looking forward to working today, if you can believe that, Constant Reader. I am determined to get the next chapter of the WIP finished, and then I am going to work on these other two ideas I’ve had, and then I am going to spend a couple of hours with the Gaylin novel.

What a lovely Sunday this will turn out to be.

Have a terrific day, everyone–and in one week, it’s Easter!

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