Sunday! It started raining last evening before I went to bed, and it lasted through this morning. I slept well and stayed in bed for another hour after I woke up because it was so nice and comfortable and because, well, because I could. I can’t tomorrow, after all. I feel rested and good this morning, too. I think the reading went well, and the panel…well, I’ve done a better job moderating before, but my panelists were amazing–Karis Walsh, MJ Williamz, and Marie Incontrera. Their new books sound amazing; Marie is actually a debut author with a romance set in the world of Manhattan theater, which sounds like a absolute winner. I enjoyed talking with them, at any rate, and hope the viewers enjoyed listening to us. I think I rambled a lot, like I always do, forgetting its about the panelists and not the moderater. I hate when I do that, you know.
LSU came within a tiger’s whisker of winning the national championships in gymnastics, and they didn’t have the best meet, either. Kailin Chio got a 10 on vault (the only one of the competition) and I was very proud of the young ladies. Congratulations to Oklahoma for winning again, and to Minnesota and Florida for making the finals. LSU didn’t make it past the semi-finals last year, but they had a great season this year and rebounding to finish second nationally this year was a great season. Brava, ladies!
I didn’t read much yesterday, sadly, but plan to rectify that a bit this morning. I am ordering groceries for delivery, and I am going to make my “famous” meatballs (the recipe that was in the Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, but has evolved and is much better than it was then) in the slow cooker for dinner and lunches this week. I have a panel this afternoon which I am not moderating for the Bold Strokes Bookathon, which is about reading reviews (I don’t) and if reviews have anything to offer the reader (no, they don’t). I do have the interview questions from the moderator, which I may use to explore the topic more on my own for the newsletter (I love doing self-interviews when someone else thinks up the questions). I do want to do some reading today, and I would also like to write some. I think I’m itching to get back to work on fiction, and I know that once I start, the dam will break and a torrent of words will come flowing out of me. At least, I hope that will be the case.
I also opened up the new version of Chapter One of Chlorine that I had started a while back, when I realized my revisions had not truly improved it and I was losing the character’s voice and truth and desires. The original idea was a young actor-on-the-make, willing to do whatever he needed to do to keep his career alive and progressing, despite being a closet case for obvious reasons. The 1950s were a very paranoid era in Hollywood–all the Commie-hunts, the Hays Code, a connected and queer underground beneath the glittering surface, the threat of television to film attendance–and I also came up with a better stage name for him: Wade Rivers, which fits into that whole Adonis Factory machine Henry Willson drove–Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue, Guy Madison–that I am fictionalizing. I have to say, there may have been only about seven hundred words or so that I wrote on this new version, but it really is good, he typed modestly.
I’m a much better writer than I have ever given myself credit for. It’s also nice to be able to recognize that–and my long career–without feeling the need to belittle myself or make some caveats.
I also want to get a newsletter finished and completed and sent out today.
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. I also want to get some cleaning done today, too. Cleaning, reading and writing on a cloudy, rainy Sunday; does like ever get any better than this? Have an awesome rest of your day, and I will check back in tomorrow morning before I head into the office.
Queer and Loathing in America 