Sunday morning blog after an uneventful yet sort of productive day yesterday. Our Internet went out around one yesterday afternoon, and was essentially in and out (mostly out) until about eight o’clock last night. I did finish reading my book, which was superb (more on The Cypress House later) and I did get two more blog post drafts finished, which felt great. I ran my errands, cooked outside last night, and did some cleaning up around here as well. When it came back and we could watch television, we finished Pray Away and moved onto The Gentlemen, which we are really enjoying, on Netflix.
It was actually nice not having Internet, if odd–you never realize how much you depend on it until you don’t have it, seriously–because I was able to relax all day, instead of getting caught up on the news (rage-inducing, as always) or watching old LSU football highlights (always a joy) or finding new documentaries to watch. Pray Away was the final step in our “teenager abuse programs” watching, following The Program and Hell Camp, and what’s truly frightening is the gaslighting involved, for both kid and their parents–and that the troubled teen industry is still chugging along, abusing kids and bilking their parents of money. I’ve never wanted to do a conversion therapy story–I briefly touched on this in Baton Rouge Bingo and again in Royal Street Reveillon; that Taylor’s parents wanted to send him to one in Mississippi. I had also talked about a conversion therapy camp in Mississippi before in other works, some of them my Todd Gregory stuff, and maybe someday that will come to fruition in some way. Watching all these documentaries has put me in mind of how to write about one in a Scotty book or a stand-alone; there’s also another idea for a mystery/crime novel I’ve been thinking about a lot as I watched these horrific documentaries, only set in Kansas. (Oddly enough I find myself thinking about Kansas a lot more and more these days, not sure what that’s all about.)
I also was looking through books yesterday after I finished the Koryta to decide what to read next, and I was having trouble deciding; mainly because I have so many damned fine books to read in the TBR stack. I also ordered two more books yesterday morning–poems by Mary Oliver, recommended by the fabulous Carol Rosenfeld (me trying to learn more about poetry and start appreciating it) and the newest Scott Carson (which is a pseudonym for Michael Koryta). I think I am going to read The Pallbearer’s Club by Paul Tremblay (I’m a huge fan) while also embarking on a reread of Thomas Tryon’s The Other, which was probably one of the most influential books I read when I was a kid. I am still reading Rival Queens as my current non-fiction, and I am thinking that The King’s Assassin, the basis for the incredible new Starz series Mary and George (which you should be watching) and again, a period of history I’ve always been fascinated by, and watching the show has given me an idea about how I could approach another project that’s been in the files for almost two decades.
Today I intend to write and read and clean and organize for most the day, although I am sure once Paul gets up we’ll start streaming The Gentlemen again. I have some blog entries I also want to finish writing, and of course, there’s all kinds of writing that I need to get done today as well. I’ve been really scattered with my writing this year, and part of it has been an inability to focus on just one project with my usual laser-like focus, and that’s why I’ve not been able to get anything much done this year. This morning I feel more awake and focused than I have in a long time, which is great. Once I finish this and my review of The Cypress House I’ll get cleaned up, read for a bit, and pick up around here before focusing in on what I want to get written today. Being organized helps, and if I could simply manage to stay organized rather than just letting things pile up everywhere, I wouldn’t have to do as much cleaning and straightening and organizing as I always do on the weekends.
The Lefty Awards were presented last night in Seattle at Left Coast Crime, and I was very delighted to see the results this morning–Tracy Clark, Best Novel, Hide; Nina Simon, Best Debut, Mother-Daughter Murder Club; Naomi Hirohara, Best Historical, Evergreen; and Best Humorous, Wendall Thomas, Cheap Trills. I don’t know Nina, but the other three winners are friends, which is delightful, and I couldn’t be happier for Naomi, Tracy, and Wendall–who was on that Humor panel I had to step in to moderate at Bouchercon in San Diego last year, and was wonderful. Kudos to all winners and nominees!
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you again later!
The hunky Alan Ritchson, starring in Prime’s Reacher, did an interview recently calling out evangelicals and Trump supporters, who got all in their feelings and have decided not to watch the show anymore. Sounds like ‘cancel culture’ to me. How woke!
It’s been interesting watching the right backpedal as hard as they are currently doing in order to convince voters that they aren’t that kind of Pro-Lifer, when we know damned well exactly what they will do about abortion if given the chance. The way the right managed to convince everyone in the decades after Roe was decided that pro-choice was actually an unpopular position, and that the American people wanted either an outright ban or severe limitations. It has always infuriated me because I knew it wasn’t true; most Americans would never say it out loud–the true success of the right-wing noise machine right there; be loud and scream a lot and you’ll convince people (particularly the media, which is not only disgusting, but was also decades of journalistic malpractice visited upon the public, who trusted them) that you are a majority position. (NARRATOR VOICE: If you have to outscream and outshout people about a position, your position is probably not popular). South Dakota had a ballot initiative three times to ban abortion outright in order to let the voters decide. These initiatives weren’t covered much by the media, and you can be forgiven for not knowing this happened…but in 2004 when Turdblossom and W made gay marriage a scare tactic to drive conservative voters, that ballot initiative was trounced in South Dakota soundly. It was once again trounced in 2006, but the big story that year was Republicans losing Congress and our first female speaker. I kept pointing this out to people, and have long said that Democratic candidates and politicians should work to put abortion on every ballot so the people could decide, instead of these lunatics that keep getting put in state legislatures and governor’s mansions.
And pro-life is a very toxic and unpopular political position, as politicians and judges in Virginia, Kansas, Alabama, and other red states have since discovered. NONE of their policies are popular and liked by the general population; and I love that the Democrats are finally fighting as hard and as dirty as the Lying Evangelicals. They need to be exposed as traitors, charlatans, and cosplay Christians. This latest ruling in Arizona? The justices need to be taken out and horsewhipped if they like 1860 laws so fucking much.
And don’t think they won’t come for birth control and divorce. You can never believe they are ever finished with their grasp for power and control–as long as they are the ones in control. If they aren’t. they’ll scream about how their “freedoms” are being oppressed.
They. Will. Never. Stop.
Yesterday was a wild day here in New Orleans. I knew we were going to have terrible weather, and it was pretty bad. We were under a tornado watch until one or two, and of course we were having flooding rain all day, and the streets were flooded all over the city (on the other hand, it gave me the opening line for the next Scotty: It was August and the streets were flooding.). We didn’t have a lot of clients come in for testing (obviously); when I got to work, I got out of my car just as the rain started, and I was pretty much soaked through by the time I got into the building (my socks were damp all day, which was super-annoying). But I got caught up on my work stuff, our site visit was cancelled but I am glad I got everything caught up–and I am hoping now to be able to stay on top of everything instead of being lazy and letting things slide. I was very tired when I got home–the city had pretty much shut down, to the point that I could actually take the highway home at 4:30, and got home in five minutes–and managed to finish a load of laundry and do some dishes. We watched the Hell Camp documentary about how the kids sent there were tortured and abused, some being seriously injured and some even died, and parents are still sending their kids to these places! We then watched a German documentary series about a gay serial killer in Berlin (a German serial killer? Who’d have thunk it?), which was interesting and creepy and more than a little scary (I’ve always held that gay men are the perfect victims for serial killers, because they are used to going home with strangers or bringing one home), but it was fun to watch while wrapped in a blanket and listening to the rain. Not quite the enormous pleasure it is to read in that situation (I am really looking forward to getting back to The Cypress House this weekend.)
And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. May you have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will probably be back here possibly later.
Ah, being a teenager. A lot of people look back on their teen years through rose-colored glasses, always smiling wistfully about the ‘best times’ of their lives. This always makes me reel back from the screen; it’s unfathomable to me that people miss being in high school. I made the best of high school, as I always try to make the best of every situation I find myself in, willingly or no; but you do eventually reach the point where you are so sick of the bullshit and the bullies and the assholes that it can’t end soon enough. I managed to make the best of high school all the way up until the second semester of my senior year, when I just reached the breaking point and just didn’t fucking care anymore–about my classmates, the other kids, the teachers, everything. I kept making the best of Kansas for another year or so–and when my parents were transferred while I was in college to California, I didn’t even think twice about deciding to leave Kansas in my rear view mirror.(I’ve also never been back since that snowy February night when I boarded Amtrak and headed west, either, other than in my fiction.) So, you’re probably wondering why I write about Kansas; why I dig into all those unpleasant memories and the horrible way I used to feel every day. In some ways, I suppose, it’s therapeutic; dealing with the memories and processing them now that I’m older, more centered and stable, and no longer hate myself. But…those are the important memories for writing about teenagers, which I do fairly regularly.
It’s always important to process your traumas by writing about them, I suppose.
It’s work-at-home Friday and Gregalicious slept a little late this morning. I was very tired last night–even fell asleep in my easy chair around ten, woke up just before eleven, and then proceeded home. I was too tired after work to get much done around here, or to do any writing, so I will definitely have to make up for that today and this weekend, once the work duties are done. I also have to get to the gym this morning to get back to the working out. After the Festivals and Paul got sick, my hands were a bit full and working out after being pronounced healed just wasn’t possible. Now I have to get back into it, adding a couple of back and chest exercises into the mix, and even having an official Leg Day work out, so as I get my strength and stamina back I can start using heavier weights and gradually get myself back to the point where I can workout the way I used to, before all the injuries and depression and so forth all kicked me off the gym wagon; hopefully by the summer I’ll be able to get myself back into some semblance of good physical condition again.
I suspect the tired thing will never go away.
We started watching Ripley last night around the Fayetteville Regional for NCAA Gymnastics, which LSU won while not having their best night, and I have to say I am enjoying it thus far. It’s a slow burn, but it’s incredibly stylish, and the black-and-white cinematography is terrific. The shots are amazing, and Andrew Scott manages to give Tom an air of menace, a kind of emotional flatness Matt Damon couldn’t have pulled off in the Minghella film version. I think part of the reason for the steady slow burn of the plot is because there’s not a lot of material…the book is actually very short (Highsmith was never wordy and rarely wasted time on back story), and my sense is that Scott’s Tom is much more like Highsmith’s ideation than the Minghella film. With all the comparisons made of Saltburn to Ripley, I’ve been thinking about the book and the Minghella film again, and this Netflix version seems like the Ripley Hitchcock would have made, which makes it more interesting to me. At first I was a little bummed not to see the Amalfi Coast in color; Italy is so beautiful, after all, but the black and white gives it a more pristine and polished look that is beautiful in an entirely different way. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the show to see how it flows and develops–as well as comparing it to the book, the Matt Damon film, and Saltburn. It actually has made me rather happy that I haven’t finished my essay on Saltburn yet.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Friday, and I may check in again later.
Sparky was cuddling with me this morning in the bed as I took my time deciding whether the siren song of the comfortable bed and blankets was resistible when I heard thunder and that decided me. I do think I will take advantage of this gloom and the falling rain and the thunder to read some more of my book this morning (The Cook by Harry Kressing) before diving into an exciting day of writing and cleaning. Yesterday I ran some errands–Lowe’s and Rouse’s–before coming home and getting back into the filing and cleaning. I got us a pizza for dinner, and when Paul got home we watched two more episodes of The Tourist, which I am really loving (despite the fact there have been no gratuitous shirtless shots of Jamie Dornan, which seems a shame and a waste). Oh, and the Saints and Sinners program is available here. I am moderating a crime fiction panel with a powerhouse panel, and I am also doing a reading. I’m not sure what I will read from, but I am leaning towards my short story “Moist Money” or “The Ditch.” Guess I should start rehearsing. Or getting ready to moderate the panel. Maybe later.
“The procrastination is strong in this one.”
But once I finish this and make myself some breakfast, I am going to take my coffee into the living room and read some more for a little while before getting cleaned up and heading back into the spice mines. I feel like I can get some good work done today. Paul will probably get up later today, and we’ll probably finish watching The Tourist, which is a fine and lovely way to spend the day, methinks. I also need to finish up some filing and emptying out my inbox, and before you know it it’ll be bedtime. I had hoped to barbecue today, but if the rain doesn’t let up that’s a no-go, alas. I also bought a new grill yesterday (Lowe’s) which needs to be assembled and the old one disposed of; I also bought blinds for the window which I fear might be too small. I am debating whether I should try to put them up myself or ask Sam our handyman to do it when he works on the windows (he’s trying to unstick them so I can get fresh air into the house), The desk and the computer need to be moved before hand, of course, which is a problem…but I also have a laptop and an iPad with a keyboard, so I have no excuse for not writing when I’m in the chair, do I? And yet…
I do feel good this morning, rested and alert and awake and raring to go; we’ll see how long that lasts. It’s very gray outside, which means we’ll most likely be getting rain for most of the day. Which is okay; I can make something else with the ground sirloin in the fridge, and I am adapting, always a good sign–I used to get so unsettled by a change in plans for the day that I’d inevitably wind up doing nothing, which was not a good thing.
I’m also thinking about what I want to do for the rest of the year, and with my career for the rest of my life. It’s weird to think in those terms, isn’t it? But I am also getting to the point where I am having to start thinking in terms of well, if you die, which idea will you be most disappointed in not writing? And this is tricky, because I am always getting new ideas that sound terrific. It’s really important, at least to me, that I spend the rest of this year finishing things in progress and getting them out of my hair. I know I want to write about both Alabama and Kansas again, and probably a New Orleans ghost story I’ve been wanting to write for a very long time now. I have a book that has about 40k done on it, but will need extensive revision and at least another 40k.
And who knows? I may even bring Chanse back ONE MORE TIME–but don’t count on it.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back at some point later.
Sunday morning and everything aches. I went out to Iris yesterday by myself (see previous post) and had a lovely time. It was indeed a gorgeous day and a wonderful reminder of how much I love everything about Carnival–and why I put up with the challenges of living inside the box; because once you are safely home and have parked your car, the convenience of the parades being only a half-block away simply cannot be beat. I got a lovely haul of beads, caught numerous plushies and cups and various other toys–including a super-hero Iris cape–which I gave to the children who were near where I was standing. I also gave away a lot of beads. Despite my gradual exhaustion that came on slowly, it was marvelous and despite having to spend the rest of the day in my easy chair (and still feeling the muscle fatigue this morning) I do not regret going out there, just as I will not regret going out there for Orpheus tomorrow.
I guess the Super Bowl is tonight and I also suppose we may end up watching. I don’t really care about either team that much, honestly; I lived in Kansas so I have a connection to the Chiefs, and I also lived in California and San Francisco is the motherland of my people. Of course, I’ll wind up rooting for Taylor’s boyfriend because it is fun watching the MAGAts lose their minds over this. I also love that “liberals” have now ruined football for them. They can’t root for Taylor’s boyfriend so they’ll root for the queer homeland and Nancy Pelosi’s team?
Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Eat shit and die, MAGAts. You don’t own football, either.
Paul stayed up late Friday night working and so he was asleep until shortly after I came in from the parades to find a toy for Sparky on our doorknob from the neighbor ladies; it’s one of those serpentine tunnels for cats, and Sparky loves his already. I think I’m going to get him some more toys once i get the house back into some semblance of order. I am going to try to work on that today and work on some writing as well; I also want to spend some time reading Lina Chern’s book, which I’ll probably do after I finish this post. It’s quite good actually, despite my taking so long to read it–which definitely should not be seen as a criticism of the book, which will get its own entry at some point. Once he got up we watched My Best Friend’s Exorcism on Prime. It’s based on the Grady Hendrix novel, and I do need to read his work. (I really loved Paperbacks from Hell, which was his first book, about the horror boom of the 1970’s thru the early 1990’s.) He’s also openly gay, and the movie is terrific. It’s set in the 1980’s, and while I was a teenager in the 1970’s I was only in my twenties during the 1980’s, so all of it–cultural references, clothes, the music–was also pleasant nostalgia for me. (The 1980’s was a difficult time for me, but I really need to confront that decade and my memories and move past them at some point.)
I then showed Paul the pilot for Abbott Elementary, and we then binged the entire first season and well into the second before it was time for me to call it a night. This show is amazing, and I had always meant for us to get around to it. I’m glad we finally are watching, because the cast is fantastic; the writing is sharp, crisp and funny; and the characters are fun and interesting. Highly recommended, and looking forward to getting back into it before watching the Super Bowl (or not. I can certainly follow the game on social media).
And on that note, I am bringing this to a close. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll catch you again later.
So, are you ready for some MORE blatant self-promotion?
During the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon, the other panel I was on had to do with writing young adult fiction (the other panelists were amazing, I might add), and once again, I am answering the questions sent to us by the moderator to turn into an interview with JUST me (because it’s all about ME ME ME) but I do urge you to seek out the video of the panel. It was terrific, and I was definitely the most uninteresting person on the panel, seriously; this is NOT self-deprecation. (I bought everyone’s books during the panel, I might add; definitely check out Lauren Melissa Ellzey.)
What is the definition of Young Adult? How does it differ from other genres?
I think it’s primarily an age distinction, to be honest, which is something that always makes me uncomfortable. Growing up I read far above my age level; when I was in seventh grade I was reading at a college level, per the tests and so forth. I mean, I did read The Godfather when I was ten; my parents, despite their conservative religious beliefs and values, let me read whatever I wanted without having to ask permission–I think when I asked Mom if I could read something the last time she replied “Read whatever you want, I don’t care” and after that I never asked again. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as young adult; everything was either for adults or “juvenile.” The juvenile category contained multitudes, beginning with the Little Golden Books and picture books to kids’ mysteries to Judy Blume. I think sometime in the 1980’s the genre was separated into “juvenile” for kids 8-12 and “young adult” for 12-18.
But there are kids like me, who can read above their age/class level and others who can’t read at their age/class level, and I think in some ways that differential could be harmful for those who are below-average readers–reading is the most crucial aspect of education, because if you can’t read…and no matter how many ways they try to make the language around slower readers more accepting and less stigmatizing…it doesn’t really help kids to be told they’re below average or not as smart or quick as the other students. (One of my primary problems throughout my education is I would understand something the first time, while others inevitably didn’t, and as the teacher explained for a second or third or more time, my ADD would kick in and my mind would wander because I didn’t need to listen and then wouldn’t be listening when the teacher moved on.
Ah, well.
Oh, and all subgenres of fiction also have the middle grade/juvenile and young adult sub-sub-genres.
Why or how did YOU choose YA?
I don’t know that I chose y/a so much as it chose me.
I started writing when I was a child (all my childish scribblings are lost to moves and time passing), and I wrote about kids my age. My first attempts at writing were always some kind of kids’ mystery series, a la The Hardy Boys and The Three Investigators (I’d still like to do this, frankly), and when I became a teenager, I started writing about teenagers. I wrote a bunch of short stories while in high school about the same group of kids going to the same high school. Those stories slowly but surely grew into a sprawling, handwritten novel about the county with plots and subplots and main characters and minor characters and all of this history; a “Peyton Place in Kansas kind of thing”. I worked on it for like five years, and eventually had this enormous sprawling mess that needed to be revised and rewritten and typed…and since I didn’t know how to type, made that part of it a problem. So I shoved it into a drawer and started pulling from it rather than revising it; taking out plots and characters and using them in other books and other stories.
After I finished that, I spent the next five years mostly working on short stories. I started another book, more horror than anything else, but never got further than the third chapter. I finally decided to write a horror novel built from my old manuscript and those short stories from high school. I was about three chapters into it when I discovered two things: there was a big market in y/a horror at the time (Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine were HUGE during this period) and so I bought some of them. When I finished, I thought, “You know, I should turn Sara into a y/a novel” (because I thought somehow that would be easier? Foolish, foolish rookie) and so… I did. I was right in that thinking of it in those terms made it possible for me to finish a draft, but I wasn’t very happy with it so I put it aside and started writing another one, Sorceress, which was also horror but also had some strong Gothic moments in it. When I finished that one, again I wasn’t pleased with it so I started another–Sleeping Angel–which was the one I thought really had potential. I never finished that draft–by this time I’d discovered that gay fiction and nonfiction existed, so I started reading that and trying to write about gay characters instead.
Those manuscripts remained in my drawer for well over a decade, until a friend of mine took a job as a young adult acquisitions editor, and she wanted to work with me. I told her I’d written three (although it was technically two and a half), and gave her a brief synopsis of them. She liked Sorceress the best, so I started revising and editing it and turning it into something publishable. Once it was all done, she’d left that publisher, but started her own small press for y/a books for underrepresented teens, and she wanted to launch the press with Sorceress. I said “okay” and we were off. I eventually realized I needed to let Bold Strokes know, and when I did, I got an email back saying you know we do y/a, too? And so I sold the other two to them, and have never looked back since then.
Are there specific rules for writing YA (things you can’t do)? Does Bold Strokes add on or impose specific or additional rules?
I don’t pay too much attention to rules, frankly. There’s no graphic sex in my books, but it’s hinted at. I also try to swear less in young adult books than I do in adult fiction, which is probably not as big of a deal as I think it is? The society I grew up in was a lot more puritanical–believe it or not–that the one we live in today. So I always default to that setting, and then have to shake it off. Swearing isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be. No one thinks they’re marrying a virgin anymore, and on and on. And having been attacked for daring to accept an invitation to speak to queer high school students, I tend to tread softly. There have been a couple of times where I’ve had to change language, or how a scene went, because my editor thought it might be problematic; and frankly, I never want to be offensive, so I have no problem with it. I don’t see it as a free speech issue the way so many intentionally offensive writers claim it is. I shouldn’t take offense to someone calling me a faggot? Grow the fuck up. The so-called free speech “crusaders” are always defending hate speech as well as trying to shut up the people who find it objectionable. You do not have a constitutional freedom from consequences or getting a negative response to things you say and do, period. It’s really not hard to understand unless you want to be passive/aggressive and childish and a moron.
How do you remember back to these days, specifically how it felt or feels? (this is coming from your moderator who is much older than you are)
Well, for one thing, I’ve always kept a journal and I still have them all. (I was insufferable when I was younger, seriously.)
My sister has a theory that we forget a lot of the pleasant memories from our childhoods, but remember the traumas in great detail. I believe the truth of that, because school was a nightmare for me from the day we moved to the suburbs until I was done with it. I remember how it felt to read Greg Herren sucks cock on a desk at school. I remember how it felt to be mocked, laughed at, and bullied by assholes. I do remember the good things, though I tend to always focus on the bad.
The first thing I always do is abandon whatever “wisdom” about life I’ve theoretically learned since leaving high school, and put myself into the teenager mindset: they think they are the main characters in everyone they know’s story, and everything is the end of the world or their life is ruined and you are the most horrible parent ever! I’m not entirely sure I’ve escaped thinking that way, to be brutally honest: I am horribly selfish.
How do you come up with your characters? Your stories?
I am weird in that I inevitably always start with a title. I hear something or read something and think, that would make a good title. The next question is what story would fit that title? And it kind of goes from there. The title may change, the character names and story might change and evolve, but I can’t write anything that doesn’t have a title. Bizarre, I know. Usually with my young adult stuff it’s an idea I’ve had for a number of years and finally decide to explore whether it’s a novel or a short story, and go from there.
Dark Tide was originally called Mermaid Inn, Bury Me in Shadows was originally Ruins, but the others pretty much stayed the same from beginning to end.
I wrote #shedeservedit because I was angry about the Steubenville/Maryville rape cases, and remembered stories and gossip from when I was in high school and college…and rethinking them through a more evolved brain about women and misogyny… well, it made me angrier. I had already planned on writing a story set in the same town with the same characters and opening with the same murder (I always referred to it as “the Kansas book” for years), but the motive was something I always had trouble grounding in reality. After those cases…it clicked in my head. You need to write this story about small town misogyny, protecting the star jocks from the girls at all cost, and make that the plot. It was easy to write because I was angry. Making it a compelling read was harder, because the subject matter was sickening to me.
I needed to write that book, and I don’t regret doing it, either…but it’s not exactly a feel good story people can escape into, either.
Why do you think YA is so popular?
It’s more accessible, I think. I mentioned reading ability before, and I do think that most readers aren’t into the Great Literary Tomes, hundreds of pages of beautiful writing with no real point or story. People kind of want to escape their cares and worries, and y/a books tend to be really entertaining. We’re competing with phones and tablets and streaming, so we need to write entertaining and engaging books.
Any specific must do-s or must-haves to get your writing each day?
I’m not nearly as anal about that as I used to be, before I returned to work full-time. I am very aware that I have little time to waste when I write, and thus must seize whatever opportunities to write show up. But if pressed, coffee. I can’t write unless I’ve had coffee when I got up.
I think this is all of them, but I could be wrong.
One of the things I had listed on goals for 2023 was to be better at marketing myself and my work. This also requires a complete reboot of my brain and how it functions; I have always been embarrassed to praise myself or talk about myself in non-negative ways, and this year I realized, with shock and horror and not a little bit of awe, that whenever I demeaned or belittled myself and my work publicly, I was undermining myself. What I saw as “charming humble self-deprecation” or “eccentric author doesn’t take himself seriously in a charming manner” might not be coming across the way it was intended. But shaking the habit of a lifetime of religious and family training to always be humble, never brag or boast, and to always remember to simply be satisfied with having done the best I could and let the praise come from outside, isn’t easy. I had always intended, for example, to join Canva and start producing my own graphics (because I am horrible with technology and learning new things, and I have so little time to learn things); I finally did that yesterday morning AND created my own first graphic for my Facebook home page image–the covers of both new books, my author photo, and the message Out This Month! –and it wasn’t terribly hard to do, and it was a kind of fun creative exercise that is easily manageable and another fun thing for me to do on Saturday mornings: make a new graphic for social media!
It’s a start. I also need to work on my website.
I am also doing Blatant Self-Promotional posts every day for each book–or at least I am trying. Three blog posts a day is a lot, frankly, and my brain is already so fried and overburdened with the upcoming surgery that there’s not a lot of space up there for much more than I am already doing, and it’s been a struggle trying to come up with promotional topics about each book every day. I also worry in promoting Death Drop and talking about drag that I am exposing my own ignorance on the topic on a daily basis, chasing potential readers away. Sigh. You see the trap anxiety sets for me on a regular basis? The fucking anxiety makes me second-guess myself all the time, which isn’t great, especially for someone it also gives self-esteem issues to.
Yesterday was an interesting day for college football. It was lovely watching Missouri destroy, dismantle, and all around just humiliate Tennessee. Missouri is one of those teams I don’t dislike; I sometimes forget they’re in the SEC but there’s some residual distaste for them from when we lived in Kansas–one thing KU and K-State fans can agree on is pure hatred for Missouri–but in the SEC, they’ve never bothered me much; probably because LSU plays them so infrequently. Georgia embarrassed Mississippi last night, which means the Tide is peaking at the right time and remember back when everyone was wondering if the Alabama dynasty was over? Yeah, it’s Georgia and Alabama playing for the SEC title again in Atlanta this year, same is it ever was. And of course, last night LSU took Florida apart in Tiger Stadium. Can we talk about Jayden Daniels for a moment? Even with a slightly more average defense, LSU would be in the national title conversation and without Daniels, we’d probably not have a single SEC win, other than maybe Mississippi State. He was phenomenal last night, setting all kinds of records and basically looking the best player in college football all year. His consistency has been insanely off the charts, and so have the numbers he’s been putting up, and if it weren’t for the 2019 team, this would be the greatest offense in LSU history–which makes the shitty defense all the more painful, really.
And now LSU has beaten Florida five times in a row. That’s the longest LSU winning streak in the series, and this was the last time the rivalry game will be played every year. If that doesn’t have Billy Napier’s job in trouble, remember–they still have a rivalry game left with a Florida State team that beat LSU in the opener and has only gotten better ever since. Paul and I were at the 2019 Florida game, which was a 42-28 thriller with Burrow torching the Gators the whole time. LSU wasn’t even supposed to be able to stay on the field with Florida during the next two seasons–and won both games, including the Shoe Game in 2020, which ended Florida’s play-off hopes. (They also honored the national championship baseball team during the game last night–the team that defeated Florida 2 out of 3 for the championship, which was some epic shade.) This year’s loss to Alabama was disappointing, especially since if Daniels hadn’t been hurt we might have been able to hang with them a bit more, but LSU is still further ahead in the rebuilding process than we should be, and that’s a credit to Coach Kelly and his staff–excluding the entire defensive coaching staff. The Tigers can get to 9-3, and ten wins if they win out–with Georgia State and Texas A&M the only games left, and both are winnable. The Saints play today at noon, but I am not sure I have the emotional stability to watch! (And USC lost, too–always a joy when Lincoln “too good for LSU” Riley gets his ass handed to him.)
I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I wanted to, because I did get distracted and sucked into football games, and Tug just wanted to cuddle all day, pretty much, so I spent the day in my easy chair with the games on while playing with my phone and iPad. I can have a day off every once in a while, can’t I? I think I am also going to slow down on the BSP, at least for a bit–and then I think yeah but you might disappear off-line after the surgery so you should do as much as you can before hand. This is also a valid point. I made shrimp creole last night, which turned out amazing, and it also felt nice to be cooking again, you know: It’s been a hot minute since the last time I cooked anything for real, and it was kind of a warm-up for me because I want to make mac-n-cheese tomorrow as well as a red velvet cheesecake for work. Ambitious, wouldn’t you say? I also bought cake pans yesterday while making groceries, because I don’t have a cake pan anymore, apparently; I’ve also lost my cake carrier–which I suspect was a casualty of a declutter during the pandemic, so I’ll have to buy another. Sigh.
And I just KNOW that after a buy a new one, the old one will turn up someplace where I put it where I wouldn’t forget that I put it. I outsmart myself on a fairly regular basis. But tomorrow morning are all my pre-surgery appointments, which is when I am going to find out exactly what the hell my recovery process is going to look like. And maybe this week my dentures will finally be ready; we can only hope.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again probably later–because the call of the Blatant Self-Promotion will undoubtedly prove too strong to resist.
The state’s nickname is “sportsmen’s paradise,” because all of the macho male outdoor sports–hunting, boating, fishing–are available here in abundance. We’re also called the Pelican State (most prevalent) and several other nicknames, not all of which are complimentary.
Louisiana has always been a conservative state, despite the existence of New Orleans. Originally French then Spanish before becoming American, Louisiana also was a part of the Confederacy and had an economy based on enslavement. We weren’t that far removed from David Duke’s gubernatorial bid (which came all too close to succeeding), and I remember Paul had gone on site visits with his boss at the Arts Council south of the city, and came home saying, completely in disbelief, that “people had yard signs saying ‘this is Duke country’–and me replying, sadly, “in the South they don’t bother to hide the racism–they see it as a positive.” But you cannot really go anywhere in Louisiana without being awed by the natural beauty on display here. I love Madisonville, and the Tchefuncte River area. It’s always a lovely drive to take 90 east when you head north (yes, I am aware I am saying you take an east-west highway to go north; welcome to New Orleans), and head out through the Venetian Isles area and drive along that narrow strip of land separating the lakes, crossing the Rigolets bridge and heading into Slidell.
A while ago, I was following a Twitter conversation about Burt Reynolds movies from the 1970s. Mind you, when I was living in Kansas our movie options were limited. There was a drive-in movie theater on the way from our little town Americus to the county seat of Emporia, and there was a small twin cinema on Commercial Street. The summer before my senior year Smokey and the Bandit opened on a Friday, and the following Friday Star Wars opened in the other theater. Both movies ran for about three months….so I saw them both repeatedly as there was very little else to do. The 1970’s were an interesting time for depictions of rural Southern sheriffs; Jackie Gleason hamming it up and going completely over the top. This was also the same time period that gave us corrupt politician Boss Hogg and the inept sheriff and deputies he controlled. These were always played for laughs, but the thing is–there really wasn’t anything funny about these types of characters in real life. Political and police corruption have always gone hand-in-hand in the Southern states; the police merely existing to enforce and enable the existing power structure. That Twitter conversation, along with reading Ethan Brown’s Murder on the Bayou and the various true crime documentaries about the Jeff Davis 8, put me in mind of writing about that kind of corruption. But I also kept wondering, but is this still true in the South? Do these kind of corrupt power structures still exist in the South? Would this read like a period piece?
And then the Murtaugh scandal broke.
Guess what? It IS still like this in the rural South. Thanks, Murtaughs!
I already had an idea for the next Scotty, and was pulling it all together, using a relatively minor political scandal here locally as the starting point for the story–which involved a conservative politician getting involved with a teenaged boy who worked at the food court at a mall, mostly buying him presents–clothes, underwear, swimsuits–and having the kid send him pictures wearing it. The age of consent in Louisiana is seventeen, and the kid was over seventeen, but while still being an icky thing, it wasn’t illegal–and they never did anything beyond that. It was mostly a harmless flirtation, until the kid, who was gay, realized that the nice man buying him gifts was actually a hardcore far right family values politician, so he went public. I still needed a murder, but I thought it would be simple to come up with one–the politician would have every reason in the world to kill to protect his secret, and he had his parish sheriff’s department to help commit and/or cover up the crime.
I did borrow two of the Murtaugh crimes for the book, but as starting points more than anything else, and came up with my own theories of said crimes for my own story–I wasn’t writing true crime, after all, and I wasn’t interested in proving the guilt of the Murtaughs. What I was interested in was exploring the decline and fall of a politically powerful family that had controlled a parish in Louisiana for well over a hundred years, almost like an absolute monarchy with primogeniture. I had also originally started the story with the kid coming to Scotty and Frank (through Scotty’s old buddy and former workout partner, David, who now teaches at NOCCA) because he gets a text from an unknown number which contains one of the pictures he has sent his older male friend (that he doesn’t know is a family values politician), and is worried about his own future if the information comes out. I wrote an entire draft of this story, but it didn’t work and I didn’t care for it…which was when it clicked into place: use two of the Murtaugh crimes to start with, and built it out from there. I decided that the kid at the mall wasn’t the original target of the politician, and that the original target was killed in a hit-and-run accident the year before; I also used the boat crash, turning it from a boat hitting a bridge to a pick-up truck hitting a bridge and pitching the passengers in the back into the bayou.
I also liked the teenager/older man dynamic, because it had played out with Taylor in the previous book–and Scotty had his own past with an older man when he was a teenager, which I was finally able to circle back around to.
I also invented the parish–surprisingly enough, there is no St. Jeanne d’Arc Parish in Louisiana–but it’s based loosely on what are known as the bayou and river parishes (Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist). I already had a fictional parish on that side of the river (Redemption), but I decided Redemption wouldn’t work for this book, so I made it a neighboring parish.
As Constant Reader is aware–because I am nothing if not repetitious–I spent ages two to nineteen in the midwest, and the last five of those in rural Kansas. I’ve blogged endlessly about it, have written several books set there, and often blame (some of) my emotional scarring on the experience. It’s one of the reasons that stupid fucking song from earlier this year (“Try That in a Small Town”) was so ridiculous and offensive; yet another tired round of ammunition from people who equate cities with evil and rural life with purity and goodness–to which I always say “Someone’s never read Peyton Place, let alone lived in a small fucking town.” Big cities certainly don’t corner the market on crime and sin and lawlessness; small rural communities can be just as vile and horrible as any metropolis.
Shirley Jackson didn’t set “The Lottery” in Times Square for a reason.
There’s an entire essay to be written about the moral rot of the Bible Belt and rural America–and make no mistake, rural America is every bit as corrupt, sinfully evil, and dangerous as the worst neighborhood in any big city–but this is not the time, as I am here to talk about this marvelous novel I read very quickly last night.
“Can you see me?” Cole yelled over to them. He was standing on the south shore of the reservoir, barefoot and facing the water. He looked like he was thinking, but Janet knew better. The scrunch in Cole’s expression came from trying to keep his belly in a six-pack.
“I’ve got you,” Victoria yelled back as she framed her brother. She was using his phone and struggling with the device. “How do you zoom on this thing?” she asked as she shuffled to the edge, not looking at her feet and focusing on Cole. Janet could see a pink stamp of tongue at the corner of Victoria’s mouth as she tried her best to get the shot her brother wanted.
“You’ve got to be in portrait mode when you go live.”
Janet meant it as a polite pointer, but as the words came out of her mouth, they sounded like a dig. SHe didn’t mean it to be a dig, but she couldn’t help it, either. Her tone was why people thought she was such a bitch. Her tone and that she kind of was. Whatever–it was fun to watch the sheep quiver.
I don’t remember how Adam Cesare and his y/a horror thriller Clown in a Cornfield first came to my attention; if it was a suggestion from a website or if I saw someone talking about it on social media or I don’t know where, but I am very glad it did. The book is absolutely right up my alley–young adults, horror, small town Midwestern America (you know, “the REAL America,” right, Sarah Palin?), and terrifying clowns. I’ve never been afraid of clowns–although many people are, and I can respect that. The white greasepaint, the garish hair and eye make-up, the clothes–it’s not hard to see how something intended to entertain children (remember, fairy tales in their original form are horrifying) can easily become something that is absolutely terrifying. John Wayne Gacy, notorious serial killer who preyed on children, worked as a clown for kids’ parties–which is very unsettling, and of course, who can ever forget Stephen King’s masterclass of clown horror, It? Killer clowns have become kind of a cliché…but they still work.
Clown in a Cornfield works on its basic surface level–it’s a scary story that reads quickly and raises the adrenaline and is chockfull of surprises and twists; like the novel version of a slasher movie. (Something I’ve always wanted to do, frankly.) It takes place over the course of a couple of days, and is set in the small dying town of Kettle Springs, Missouri, where main character Quinn Maybrook and her father have just moved from Philadelphia; it’s hinted early on that the tragic death of her mother is why they moved during her senior year: a fresh start in a wholesome rural small town in the REAL America…which turns out to be all too real. The town is dying because the corn syrup processing plant shut down, and the town is losing population. The above few paragraphs are from the prologue–which sets up the rest of the book. There’s a tragic death at the reservoir that day, which changes the kids and changes the town–as though they’ve finally crossed a line they were dancing very close to the edge of and there isn’t any turning back.
The willful and wild teens of the town have planned a surprise during the Founders’ Day parade which Quinn witnesses when the prank goes haywire, and she learns there’s a lot of anger directed at the town’s teenagers–the kids from above who have a Youtube channel where they film themselves playing pranks on people around town–and the idea is that the pranks have become dangerous and the kids are out of control. The next night there’s a party out in a cornfield, and that’s when the corn syrup company’s mascot, Frendo the Clown, shows up with a crossbow and the body count starts to rise.
I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and works very well on all of its multiple layers, from the basic story which is well paced and exciting, to the layers of social critique, satire, and politics that it also manages to be. I found myself caring about the main characters and rooting for them, and while I saw one major surprise coming way ahead of time, there were a lot of other shocks and surprises along the way that made up for the telegraphing.
There’s also a sequel now, and I am looking forward to the second installment. I think you’ll like it, too, Constant Reader, so give it a whirl–thank me later.
We have a new refrigerator, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The delivery was actually two hours early and went incredibly smoothly. I did have to take the kitchen apart and rearrange a lot of things, which triggered the old your filing system is completely out of control and has been for quite time, and the duplicates, dear God, the duplicates. But having a new, working refrigerator (we really put up with the malfunctioning old one, which was never the same after whatever evacuation that was in 2008–Ike? Isaac? who knows. So, this kind of was the impetus for me to reorganize the cabinets, throw out a lot of stuff I didn’t even know I had (forcing me to recognize that I still have food hoarding issues), and do something constructive with the filing. This morning I am going to move the rest of the food over from the carriage house refrigerator, and make notes on what I need to get at the grocery store. My hope is to get that all done this morning, spend some time reading the Elizabeth Hand (which I am greatly enjoying), and then tackle the filing and get this under control once and for all.
And this is just a small step forward in a big journey I am taking–in which I need to organize and/or discard things I no longer need. I have more ideas than I will ever write about, or have the time to write; I get more ideas every fricking day. Do I really need to hold onto old file folders crammed full of ideas I don’t even remember that I have? And if I do remember it, and it turns into something–I will just create a new file rather than go look for the old. I should scan old contracts, shred tax returns, and who knows what kinds of treasures I may find in the files as they come together at long last? I’m still unsure of the system I am going to use, but I need to get all the things that are like each other together–files about Alabama, files about New Orleans and Louisiana, files about Kansas and California and Chicago and its suburbs and Houston and Florida and crime stories and all kinds of things; research versus actual fiction–book ideas v, short story ideas; fiction vs nonfiction–and so forth.
I also worked on the laundry room some, and also managed to watch a lot of football games–Alabama against Arkansas, Tennessee-Texas A&M, and finally Auburn-LSU. I still don’t know what to think about the conference race this year, other than both divisions go through Georgia and Alabama again this year, and I don’t see anyone beating Georgia during the regular season. Texas A&M’s loss at Tennessee is their second in conference and third overall; no division title or shot at the play-offs for them; yet they are a good team and can still play spoiler. Tennessee still has Alabama and Georgia and Kentucky. The West is pretty much still up for grabs, with Alabama in the catbird seat; still tied for first even if they somehow lose to LSU. I don’t know what happened to Auburn after the Georgia game–which they had a shot at winning–because that team didn’t show up in Tiger Stadium last night. LSU’s defense, which finally started playing at a higher level in the second half of last week’s Missouri game, looked really good…or was Auburn’s offense really that bad? I thought their defense was for real–but how good were they really, because they didn’t look like an elite SEC West defense last night. LSU does have an incredible offense, no mistake or question, but are they really forty-eight points on Auburn good? After Georgia escaped them with a 27-20 win on the plains? That’s why you play the games, people–anyone can win on any given Saturday.
I slept very well last night, which was awesome. I feel quite well rested this morning, and so today’s chores do not sound either ominous or terrible. The filing is indeed going to be a chore, as is moving the food back over and making two grocery runs, but better to get it all over with today, wouldn’t you think, so I can go home straight from work tomorrow? We’re having a “professional development day” that starts at City Park at ten in the morning, after which we go to Dillard for a presentation and then back to Ralph’s on the Park for another. Lunch and dinner are being provided, which means I am not going to be able to eat anything, most likely, which will be very unpleasant for me, I think, but I’ll deal with it. Tug is also settling in more–it’s very obvious that he knows he is home, and this is where he belongs. So bold, so curious, so playful, so adorable. He sleeps completely relaxed and sprawled out on whichever laps he chooses, and he’s started doing to Scooter thing where he’ll go back and forth between us for naps, which is adorable.
And he does love chasing the red dot.
He’s having particularly big kitten energy this morning, too.
And on that note, I am going to go start moving the food back over and making the grocery list. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; if not, then tomorrow.
Queer and Loathing in America 