Tag: reading

Break It To Me Gently

It’s cold this morning in the Lost Apartment, and I didn’t want to get out of bed. The new meds are marvelous for sleeping–I can’t remember the last time I went to bed and was so damned comfortable and relaxed that it was a real struggle to force myself up out of the depths of Morpheus and into the world of the living again. I only have to go into the office twice this week–tomorrow I have PT first, which means waking up even earlier–but there’s another three-day weekend on the horizon and I really like the idea of all the rest and relaxation I’ll be able to get this weekend.

I did manage to get the apartment back into some semblance of order yesterday, with Sparky being absolutely zero help in that regard. He’s a bit rambunctious, to say the least, and still has that Big Kitten Energy thing going for him. The neighbors dropped off some toys for him for Christmas, and these were the first toys he’s actually shown any interest in for longer than a few moments. We watched some more War of the Worlds last night, which is a really interesting take on the old H. G. Wells novel; I don’t really remember the book anymore, which I read as a teen. I know the 1950’s version of the story was shown to me in elementary school; it terrified me and gave me nightmares for weeks. In retrospect, with all the fuss about education and all the right-wing bullshit attempts to take down and out public education, why the hell were elementary school children shown War of the Worlds in our classroom?

I couldn’t decide what to read next yesterday as I worked on the apartment, so I still haven’t started my next book. I’d intended to just read cozies for the rest of the year, but I am rethinking that, and thinking I need to mix it up more. I have a first novel by a Lafayette writer, who is a Black woman–I know, right? A Louisiana crime novel by a Black woman? I’ve been waiting for this forever–now if only we could find a gay Black crime writer in New Orleans….the book is Glory Be by Danielle Arsenault, and it comes highly recommended…and I’ve not read an “Own Voices” book in a while, which is entirely on me. Outside of James Lee Burke, there aren’t many crime writers who write about Louisiana but not New Orleans, and the book is highly recommended by a couple of friends, so I am really looking forward to breaking into it tonight or this weekend. I do have to run by the post office on my way home, and there are definitely chores that need doing around the house, so I’m pretty sure that’s how my evening will go. I also have PT at seven tomorrow, so I’ll be getting up early, too. Yay.

I’ve also been thinking about goals for the new year, and what I need to do in order to achieve those goals, and come up with a plan. I’m trying to remember what my favorite reads and watches of the year were–I did read a lot, somehow–and think about a writting schedule for the year. I’d like to do another Scotty book this year, a short story collection, and maybe something with those damned novellas-in-progress that I never seem to be able to finish. I definitely want to be better organized in the new year, and hopefully getting into that position before the new year rolls around, too. Maybe I can get all these “drafts” finished and posted at some point as well; wouldn’t that be nice?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Not a great Wednesday blog–I’ve really not been doing a great job with these entries, lately, have I? Ah, well, maybe tomorrow’s will be better. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and will check in with you again later.

(It’s Going to Be a) Lonely Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boogie Woogie Santa Claus

I also am hearing today’s title to the tune of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.”

It’s Tuesday morning and I survived Monday’s early morning PT. It went extremely well, so I am hoping that my surgeon will release me from it until February, when I can start strength PT. The wounds have healed, and cleanly, which is super nice. The bicep is also starting to look like a bicep again and not like a flat tire.

I also got back to writing yesterday and it flowed extremely well. I am very excited to be back on that horse again, and now that I know the plot for the book it’ll be a lot easier to get it finished. The middle (or Act II) will be a struggle as it always is, but at least I know how to end it, and I also know what the primary plot is going to be, and I do think it’s going to be really funny. I rewrote with a mind to the new plot, and everything just kind of was clicking into place and easy, which is AWESOME. I’m itching to finish this and get back to what I was working on before this project fell into my lap*. And I am having fun writing again. Maybe the surgery and the new meds served as a hard reset, like I unplugged my brain and then plugged it back in? I also slept well again last night, showing that Sunday’s restless night’s sleep was an aberration.

It’s very cold here this morning–it’s 44 outside–and thus did not want to get out from under my pile of warm blankets this morning as the alarm started its horrendously annoying beeping sound. This of course brought Sparky out from his fort under the bed, and he cuddled with me until it was time for me to stop hitting snooze and get up, which made it even harder for me to get up. (The affection is merely to make sure that he knows the exact moment when I get up, so I can feed him–he doesn’t fool me! He was nowhere to be found last night once I sat in my chair and edited what I wrote yesterday.) But the good news is I feel very rested and have some energy, so here’s hoping this carries me through the day. I have to go shopping for my secret Santa gifts, and I also have to pick up the mail and figure out when to make the red velvet cheesecake for Thursday’s potluck. I may go ahead and make the red velvet layers tonight, and then do the cheesecake tomorrow night, putting it all together on Thursday morning before work. That sounds like a plan.

I also went a little overboard preparing food for the week. There’s way too much of it, and I’ll need to eat dinner every night when I get home to get rid of it all. I also hadn’t calculated on the potluck Thursday (denial that Christmas is this weekend, no doubt), and one of my co-workers wants to get lunch with me tomorrow, so that’s two days I won’t need to bring lunch. Heavy sigh. I also think I will take Christmas day off from everything; no emails, no writing, no social media–I wonder if I can do it? I’d like to finish reading the Tamara Berry to move on to the next cozy in the TBR pile; there are so many ones with diverse voices and characters I am having a very difficult time choosing one. I am trying not to buy new books until I’ve made a significant dent in the TBR pile (with exceptions, of course–my always must-reads like Laura Lippman, Lou Berney, Megan Abbott, etc.) or donated more books to the library sale. We went to Costco over the weekend, and I had some stuff delivered; so another goal for the week is to do something about the box congestion in the living room; one of the reasons I’m not big into box stores as much as I could be is I don’t have enough storage space in the house to accommodate the things I could get; I’d be in real trouble if I did have the space. I am going to clear out the cabinets in the kitchen; there’s a lot of stuff we don’t need that has just been collecting dust for years.

And the cabinets and laundry room are seriously in need of organizing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

*Perhaps my goal for 2024 should be to finish everything unfinished in my files…

Reindeer Boogie

Up ungodly early on a Saturday because I have to cross the river to the West Bank to get my oil changed. One of the most interesting things about this surgery recovery is it seems to have wiped my memory banks or something–kind of like an Apple OS update. Yesterday on my way to PT I checked the car’s systems and was stunned to see that I was due for an oil change. It seemed like I’d just had it done, but now that I think about it, it may have been as far back as June, when I went to Alabama and Kentucky and back. I’ve done a lot of driving since then, including a weekend drive over to Panama City Beach in October, and so it’s not really surprising that it’s due again–and thank God I checked, right?

But I continue to sleep well, and I am really looking forward to sleeping late tomorrow and just lazing around until I feel like getting up. Monday morning I have PT early, and then have to head into the office for my paperwork day. It’ll be a great and interesting week of trying to get everything caught up so I can take my four day Christmas break with a clear conscience–at least as far as work is concerned. My PT visits continue to go well, and I like both therapists I’ve worked with so far. (If you’re local to New Orleans and need physical therapy, I highly recommend Physiofit in Uptown on Magazine Street.) I am hoping I won’t need the brace after I see my surgeon again next Friday, and what a lovely Christmas gift that would be, wouldn’t it? It’s just cumbersome and awkward now, and the greater dexterity I get with my hand the more annoying it is to have to type around having it on. I also have noticed how easily I tire now, too–but I also know my body had a major trauma that it hasn’t completely recovered from just yet, and three weeks of being sedentary wasn’t a huge help; I have to build my stamina back up.

We watched the final episode of Fellow Travelers last night and while it was terribly sad, there was a kind of release at the end as well. It’s an incredible show, and both Matt Bohmer and Jonathan Bailey deserve to be nominated for Emmys next time around. I doubt that it will get a lot of Emmy nods–It’s a Sin, which was also brilliantly done and brilliantly acted, was completely snubbed by the Emmys. Twenty years ago it would have not only gotten a lot of nominations, it would have probably run a clean sweep on award night, but sadly, the history of AIDS and gay suffering simply doesn’t have the cachet it did when everyone wore red ribbons to awards shows and red carpets. I do recommend the show, and I want to move the book up in my TBR pile. (I am taking Raquel’s Calypso, Corpses and Cooking with me this morning and I am hoping I’ll be able to finish it while I wait to get the car back.)

We also started watching the second season of Reacher, which is very fun. Alan Ritchson, who was already huge in the first season, used the time between filming to bulk up even more. He certainly embodies the character physically far better than Tom Cruise could ever hope to, with no offense to Cruise; he’s just not the right physical type, and since one of the best known facts about the character is his enormous size, well…he was never going to please fans of the books. I stopped reading the series about ten or so years ago–I have no grasp of the passage of time, so you’ll have to give me some grace on that, nor do I recall why I stopped reading it. Obviously, Lee Child isn’t missing my money, but I was a big fan of the series and still remember it fondly; there were some terrific books in that series, and The Killing Floor may be one of the best series-launch novels of all time.

I have to work today when I get home from the oil change and other errands this morning; I really need to spend some time with the book today and I also need to work on the house a lot more. The apartment has really slid, and allowing Sparky free range to do as he pleases has resulted in a lot of debris on the floor–and all of my good pens are missing. Paul’s cigarette lighters, highlighters, scissors, spoons, plastic wrap, plastic bags, dryer sheets, and a lot of other miscellaneous stuff is scattered all over the floors both up and downstairs…and he’s also wreaked havoc in the laundry room and the bathroom. The kitchen floor has never really been completely cleaned up since the ceiling collapse, either. I have decided, though, that this year’s Christmas present to myself is going to be a new microwave. My current one is well over ten years old, and it works fine…but I never read the manual and so am never sure how to use for anything than reheating something. Paul uses it more than I do, and he also never cleans it, so it’s always a filthy mess. Since I never really use it, I tend to not pay attention and then I always notice it when I don’t have time to clean it, and then forget. They had a great one on-line at Costco, so I think next weekend I’ll go pick it up, and then donate the old one (after a thorough cleaning) to work so we have one in our department.

And that’s how I know I am officially old: appliances are my preferred gift.

I Know There’s Something Going On

I love cozy mysteries.

I do, and while they may not make up the majority of my reading pile, it’s always a joy to find a new cozy series I enjoy. One of my favorite mysteries of all time, James Anderson’s The Affair of the Blood-Stained Egg Cosy, is definitely a cozy mystery–a house party murder, with secret passages and international espionage and a jewel thief–and is LONG overdue for a prestige mini-series, preferably by either Acorn or Britbox. (I should reread that book; it’s been a hot minute) I don’t think cozies and their writers are given the respect they deserve, ever–rarely do you see a cozy on a Best of the Year list or making the short-list for awards (besides the Agathas), and I’ve heard crime writers slag off the sub-genre, way more times than I would prefer. Anyone who thinks a cozy is lesser or somehow “easier” to write than any other kind of crime novel is more than welcome to give writing one a try. It’s always amusing to me to see the hypocrisy of crime writers whining that literary writers don’t take them seriously…and then in their next breath go on to mock cozy writers. (I did have a wonderful “gotcha” moment with a straight white male mystery writer once; he was complaining about how crime fiction isn’t considered literature, and later on in the same conversation he made a snide remark about cozy writers…and boy did he stumble for words when I replied, “So when lit writers treat you like a cozy writer you don’t like it?” He won’t talk smack about cozies in MY presence again…)

Anyway, I digress. One of my favorite series of all time is the Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews, and we are on book thirty-three now, with thirty-four on my chair sidetable, halfway finished reading, and Book 35 available for preorder already.

That is a pretty impressive track record, and career. If I wrote a Scotty per year from now on, it would take me until I am eighty-eight to get to book 35. YIKES.

“This is the life,” I said, as I wriggled into an even more comfortable position in the hammock.

I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. As far as I knew, there was no one within earshot. But just in case there was, I was going to do my best to look–and sound–like someone who was deeply contented and should not be disturbed for anything short of an actual emergency. Although the people most apt to – me were safely occupied elsewhere–Michael, my husband, was teaching his Friday classes at Caerphilly College, and my twin sons, Jamie and Josh, were at school until three.

My-notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I called my comprehensive to-do list and calendar, was nearby, but I’d already checked, and nothing in its pages had to be done right now. For the next hour I was on hammock time. I could read. I could put on my headphones and listen to some music. Or I could just lie here and enjoy the balmy May weather, the masses of blooms in our flower beds, and the fascinating aerial ballet of hummingbirds darting to and from the nearby feeder.

The hummingbirds. I sat up with a frown. The last time I’d found the time to watch them, there had been half a doxen of them, impossibly small, their iridescent jewel-toned bodies sparking in the sunshine as they paused, sipped, and darted away. Now there was onlyone, flitting around the feeder. And he didn’t seem to be feeding–just darting about.

And that title is a gem.

The entire series has bird-puns for titles, which is amazingly hard to do, and if you don’t think so–try coming up with thirty-three bird pun titles for crime novels without looking at Donna’s backlist. I suggested one to her many years ago that I keep hoping she’ll use–but she hasn’t yet, and I despair my bird pun title will ever make it into her canon.

I do feel that I also should, in the interest of full disclosure, let you know that Donna Andrews is not only one of my favorite writers but one of my favorite people in this business. We first met years ago when we were both on the MWA board (she was on The Good, the Bad, and the Emus back then), and I found her to be intelligent, kind, charming and funny. That was when I started reading her, and what a joy this series has been for me all these years. Donna’s books, to me, are the perfect example of why this sub-genre (amateur sleuth, no blood or sex or violence–at least not much, and little to no swearing) is called “cozy”–because that’s how reading one of her books makes me feel, cozy. Honestly, there’s nothing better than curling in my easy chair with a blanket, a purring kitty in my lap, as I revisit my friends in Caerphilly again.

Because she writes so well it seems like a real place, one that I am happy to escape my life into twice a year.

I could talk about this series all day, I love it and the characters so much. Caerphilly reminds me a lot of Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso–ensemble casts in places where everyone is kind and looks out for one another, but also doesn’t interfere and lets you make and learn from your own mistakes. This time out, Donna has added a new McMansion style neighborhood to the town, Westlake, with people retiring from major cities to the “rustic” charms of Caerphilly–only to complain incessantly about those very rustic charms to begin with–and beekeeper Edgar is square in their sites, his hives just across a small stream from their backyards. Meg calls them the NIMBYs (not in my backyard), and I think we’ve all encountered these types (which is why dumps and toxic waste always ends up around poorer communities). Someone has poisoned all of Edgar’s bees–and Meg agrees to look into who could have done something so heinous. But while looking for an old African American cemetery, Meg and her friends not only find the cemetery deep in the woods, but they also find the dead body of one of the worst of the NIMBYs, and the game is afoot.

The sadness at finishing the book was derailed by knowing this year’s Christmas Meg murder mystery was already in my TBR pile, which I immediately started reading when I finished Birder She Wrote. Don’t be daunted by the massive backlist, either–if you’ve not read any of these books, you can start anywhere and then work your way through the series; there are never any spoilers other than those from Meg’s personal life–and frankly, I don’t mind those kinds of spoilers, because its fun to go back and see how she met her husband, when they got married, the twins, etc.

Hey Apple TV–this series is a natural for y’all.

Does It Make You Remember

It is impossible for me to express how much books have always meant to me, and how grateful I am, to this day, to my parents and grandmother for encouraging me to read. We’ve always been a reading family–but no one ever has read as much, or as often, as I did. One of my aunts called me “the readingest child I’ve ever seen”–and she was a librarian. Books made sense to me; the worlds I escaped into whenever I opened a book made sense to me, and none of the worries or cares of my childhood bothered me when I was lost in a book. I also loved history, and thus read a lot of it when I was a kid; the basic overview history classes I had were pretty easy for me because I already knew the history in greater depth than the textbook provided.

The Scholastic Book Fairs were always my favorite day every month, and I was always so delighted when my mom would let me order a few–never all the ones I wanted, because I really wanted them all–and it was even more exciting when I found one that was also set in a period of American history. Johnny Tremain remains, to this day, one of my all-time favorites, and when I was a kid, I wanted to write both a mystery series (like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew) as well as historical fiction.

One such book that stuck with me over the years–and didn’t have as big an impact on culture as Johnny Tremain, which won awards and was filmed by Disney–was Margaret Goff Clark’s Danger at Niagara, which was set on the US/Canadian border during the War of 1812 (which few people write about and is mostly forgotten today). A few years ago I was looking for the original hardcover of Johnny Tremain I had read as a child, when a copy of Danger at Niagara was recommended to me by the eBay algorithm. It wasn’t expensive, it was a library remainder, and I thought, what the hell and shelled out the less than five dollars including postage, and the other day while they worked on the ceiling, I reread its 120 pages.

Sorry for the not-clear cover image; my copy is a library discard and there are no clear images of this cover on-line; at least not that I can find.

Exhausted from a day of fruitless hunting, Homan Reed ate a cold supper of cornbread and milk. Hastily he banked the fire and then fell into bed, forgetting his loneliness and the ever-present danger from across the river.

He awoke at dawn, shivering under the heavy quilts, awakened as much by the silence as the cold. He lay still, listening. Gray morning light had come through the small panes of glass Uncle Oliver had carried all the way from Connecticut. A sound that usually penetrated the log walls of the cabin was missing–a sound that was part of the background of his life in this lonely frontier clearing in western New York State.

His hear began to beat too fast, and he sat up in bed, reaching for the buckskin breeches he had laid on top of the quilts. Homan was a good-looking boy, rather small for his almost fifteen years.

There really isn’t much to the story, really. Homan wakes up to realize he has slept through a raid on his little family farm, and their livestock is gone. His uncle brought Homan and his brother up here after their parents died, and his brother is off fighting in the American army in the War of 1812. The Reed place is right across the river from Canada–and of course, at that time Canada was the enemy. Putting myself into Homan’s place was exciting; trying to imagine what it was like to know that not only was the British army capable of crossing the river at any time, their Mohawk allies were also out and about and a constant threat. Shortly after the opening of the book, the American army burns a Canadian town and turns out women, children, the sick and the elderly out into the cold with no shelter or food; to the author’s credit, she makes it clear this is horrible and a war crime; Homan, who witnesses this from inside Fort Niagara (he’s gone looking for his brother and to try to enlist), is horrified and ashamed Americans could do something so heinous–and everyone on the American side of the river knows there will be retaliation and retribution.

As I reread this short book, I paid very close attention to what we now would call propaganda for American supremacy–and there was some, but not as much as I would have thought, and there was less problematic language than I would have expected for the time (it was published in 1967 originally). Yes, Clark refers to the Tuscarora and Mohawk peoples as “Indians,” as do the characters (which is what they would have said at the time, so historically accurate, if offensive) but she treats the natives with respect–no references to them not being human beings, or being savages or uncivilized or anything like that; Homan even has a friend his age from the Tuscarora people. The Mohawks are referred to as the enemy, but in the same way the British are. There are a few mentions of pro-American exceptionalism propaganda–things like “we are a growing power the world needs to respect”, that sort of thing that Americans have always believed and never questioned until the last few decades or so. But Homan is likable enough, and the story itself, of worrying about your safety and losing your home and so forth, resonates still, even if technically Homan and his family were colonizers.

I really do need to reread Johnny Tremain…

All I Want for Christmas Is You

All evidence to the contrary, I do love Christmas. I love the decorations, I love the mentality behind it, I love the festive spirit that people try to keep up during the season, and I even like the music for the most part. (I also find many things wrong with American Christmas, but that’s for another time.) I detest cheap sentimentality, or melodrama for the sake of a cheap emotional response from the audience/reader. I don’t enjoy Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movies as a genre–predictable, sickly sweet, cloyingly sentimental like cheap perfume–but I don’t care that other people do; my preference is never to yuck someone else’s yum. Obviously, there’s a big market for those films and books, but they generally aren’t for me. I just don’t buy into them when I watch, I suppose, is the best way to put it?

This is also partly why I don’t read a lot of romance novels. But when I saw that David Valdes had written a young adult Christmas romance novel, I thought, you know what? I bet this is really good, so I procured a copy and spent a lovely afternoon reading it.

I loved it.

No one can accuse my dad of being subtle. He loves Christmas the way most guys in the Pioneer Valley love the Patriots. Instead of team jerseys, he has a collection of ugly holiday sweaters that would be kind of impressive if it wasn’t so embarrassing. (Seriously, the llama ones lights up. I can’t.) So I shouldn’t be surprised that when I arrive home for my first, or maybe last, winter break from college, the house looks like, I don’t know, Frosty Con. Snowmen everywhere.

I’m so not in the mood.

Don’t get me wrong: I like Christmas well enough. Even though Halloween is my favorite holiday because of the costumes, I love all the twinkling lights, and you can’t really overplay “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” But’s it been a long day on the bus from NYC, and before it was a long day, it was a long week in a long semester. Not that I’m ready to admit that to my dad.

I purposely chose a bus that would get me home to Lindell while he was working. Yes, it’s, like, almost two miles from the bus stop in front of the old town hall to our place, but dragging my bag for forty minutes was worth it for the chance to come home to an empty house. I need some time alone in the privacy of my own room before Dad gets here and I become the grinch, the carol killer, the fly in the eggnog.

I have to tell him that I’m failing out of school.

And so we meet Cam, first semester Theater major from the small town of Lindell, Massachusetts, coming home with his head bowed and thinking he’s failed at making it in the big city. He was THE theater kid at his high school, but once he’s made it to the city and school of his dreams, he’s just another face in the crowd–and doesn’t feel like he fits in. He’s doing fine in his required courses…it’s the theater ones he’s having trouble with, and his father is working two jobs and he may lose his scholarship. He doesn’t have the heart to disappoint his father and ruin Christmas, so he bides his time with the terrible news–like everyone teen, avoiding the bad news or put it off till later. A chance trip to the new mall in town winds up with him getting a job as an elf in Santaland, where he meets his fellow elves–an older retired military man; a blonde good two-shoes, a Goth girl, and perpetually happy, cheerful and annoying Marco. He also runs into his ex, LeRoy, and isn’t sure if he wants to start up with him again or not; he dumped LeRoy the summer before he left for college, thinking it was better to not try the long-distance thing.

The best part of the job? The elves are in a competition to win a five thousand dollar prize–which will make up for the scholarship he’s losing–by winning a popular on-line vote. As the days pass and he gets to know his fellow elves better, he starts opening up a little bit himself and seeing things from perspectives other than his own. All the other elves help with this process, but especially Marco–who seems to be the embodiment of the Christmas spirit and just a genuinely kind, empathetic soul.

The book is a romantic comedy, so there are funny moments as well as the ones that make you sigh and warm your heart–all of it earned, mind you, and not there for story purposes–but it’s also about Cam growing up into a better, less self-absorbed person who maybe doesn’t project his impressions onto other people and sees them with a kinder eye. Valdes nails the teen voice perfectly; Cam is at heart a good person, if a bit too wrapped up inside his own head with his own issues and problems, but he is deftly drawn and fully conceived, so you root for him even as you groan at his poor choices; you want him to do better, be better, because he really is a good person.

I loved this story from first word to last, and I really wish these kinds of books had been available when I was a teenager. Something like Finding My Elf could be a lifeline for a kid in a bleak rural area who feels so alone and lonely and hopeless.

Perfect Christmas gift for any queer teen you may know, and frankly, it’s a strong enough read for adults, too.

Slow Hand

I slept very strangely last night–for the first time in a very long time I had what I call “stress dreams”; they’re really not quite nightmares, in that they aren’t scary, but rather me dreaming about something that causes me stress. It’s been years since I’ve had one of these–I guess you could say that the ‘test I didn’t study for’ or ‘went to class naked’ fall into that category; I’ve never had either of those–but this was one in which I was going to have to go on stage and perform for something to do with work; but for some reason I needed to have a cricket and as the time for me to go on stage drew nearer, the cricket I was given got away and I couldn’t find it; finally had to go outside and try to catch a new, untrained (it was a dream; of course none of it made the slightest bit of sense) and of course, for some reason my parents were in the audience and I couldn’t find a cricket. I woke up around six and thought, do I want to go back to sleep and into that dream again? But I closed my eyes again, figuring the dream was interrupted, but no–back into this weird dream where I had to have a cricket and go on stage and perform in something vaguely Dickensian.

At seven thirty I woke up again and thought, fuck it, I’d rather be tired than go back into that dream. So I got up and came downstairs to make coffee. And here I am.

I bit the bullet and bought a more expensive (and dependable) vacuum cleaner yesterday–the same model we bought like nine years ago that I didn’t really maintain properly but still managed to work well for nearly seven years; I am going to maintain this one properly–I read the manual, believe it or not–and so part of my day today will include working on the floors. I’m also going to make watermelon gazpacho–I may have to run to the grocery because I need both lemon and lime juice, and I also want to get a bag of ice so I can make a proper dirty martini this evening–still working on getting the taste right–and I also want to work on my writing some as well as get to the gym. I also recognize this is a rather ambitious program for the day; there’s reading I need to get done as well–I really want to finish Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow, which I was enjoying before I got distracted from it; a great debut by a trans author (which we need more of, by the way), and I’m not really sure what distracted me from it, to be honest…but I’ve not really been doing much reading for a while–but I am enjoying Robert Caro’s The Power Broker.

I guess I should say I am not reading anything new to me, because that is more accurate. I think I mentioned yesterday that I got a lovely tweet from a reader about Mardi Gras Mambo the other night, and then I tried reading it again–I have the ebook on my iPad–but for some reason there was an issue I couldn’t resolve to get it open, and it kept freezing my Kindle app (don’t come for me, I also have iBooks and Kobo and generally try to buy ebooks through platforms that allow percentages to go to either non-profits or independent bookstores; and I also take advantage of deeply discounted sales and I especially love when the books are offered free); yesterday I deleted the app and redownloaded it and voila! Problem solved. I haven’t reread the book in a really long time–I’ve not reread any of the Scottys in a really long time–and as I was reading (skimming mostly) I was remembering things from the time I was writing the book: that the original idea was vastly different from the final iteration; I actually stopped writing it and then trashed everything I had written and started over; the second iteration was also significantly different from the final, and something else happened that kept me finishing; and when I finally went back to finish it I trashed the entire thing for yet a second time and started over completely. It took me–because of the stops and starts–much longer to write than anything else I’ve ever written (that was published); I remember often referring to the book as my own personal Vietnam (although now Afghanistan would be more indicative of endless quagmire) and–now that I think back on it–the inability to finish this book was why I started blogging in the first place. I needed to get back into the habit of writing every day, so I could kickstart my creativity and finish the damned book.

I digress.

But as I was rereading/reskimming, I was amazed at how fucking complicated the plot was, and how much juggling was required to not leave loose ends, to not contradict things that had happened, and I remember that last summer before Katrina (the book was turned in three weeks before that bitch came ashore) how much work I had to do on that manuscript; how I had to keep checking and double-checking to make sure it made sense and I had the right people in the right place and that it was possible for characters to move around the way they did; and how I wanted the pacing to be completely frenetic and crazy because it was taking place over that final weekend of Carnival, and how badly I didn’t want to the book to end the way it did. It was also during the writing that I discovered that the original way I’d planned the trilogy (once I knew it was going to be more than a standalone) couldn’t be completed in this volume and that the personal story–always intended to be resolved by book three–was going to have to roll over into a fourth book….which I eventually (thanks to Katrina) began to think would never happen. I hated leaving it as a trilogy…but how do you write a funny book set in New Orleans after Katrina? I couldn’t think of any way to do it, and when I finally did start Vieux Carré Voodoo, I just jumped ahead a few years. (Although now I am thinking I can go back and do that very thing; maybe I could do a couple of post-Katrina Scottys, to give me some breathing space away from the pandemic and go back to him being younger?) It also made me realize, again, that a lot of the post-Katrina Scotty books I’ve done didn’t have very complex or complicated plots; they were always very straightforward and simple until Royal Street Reveillon. I have several ideas of what to do next with Scotty, and rereading/reskimming Mardi Gras Mambo made me realize–instead of deciding which plot to do next, why not do them all in one? Why NOT write another complicated, complex, all over the map plot with subplots galore? It’ll be hard work, of course, but why am I shying away from hard work?

I’ve also been researching more about folk tales and legends of Louisiana; I saw that someone is doing a graphic novel built around one of them–the Grunch–and as I started digging around into that particular myth/legend, a Grunch story started forming in my mind, and I soon realized Monsters of Louisiana could happen very easily; again, it’s a matter of time to write and time to research.

I did manage, around groceries and getting the mail and trying to get organized and relaxed and everything, to put about another 1200 words into “Festival of the Redeemer.” I also remembered that I had made, years ago, a Pinterest board for Venice, and so I visited it yesterday to look at the pictures to help me with a dream sequence I am writing into the story–I needed to see Venetian Carnival costumes, and oh, did my Pinterest board ever have some fantastic images pinned to it! I had completely forgotten that I’d made a Pinterest board when I was writing Timothy to help out, with images of the house I was basing Spindrift on, and images of rooms to use for descriptions, and so forth…and as I scrolled through these amazing images on my Venice board, I kept thinking to myself, why the fuck don’t you use this website for images for works in progress? This would have come so in handy for the two you’ve just turned in, you fucking moron.

And seriously, it really is a wonder I have a career anymore. I have all these wonderful tools at my disposal to make it easier to write things and then never use them.

And on that note, this floor isn’t going to vacuum itself. Catch you tomorrow, Constant Reader.

Blue Christmas

And a Merry Christmas Eve Eve to you all!

I cannot believe that Christmas Eve is tomorrow. But I have three more days of my holiday weekend, and I am going to try to get some writing done around other things. The apartment is a mess–something I need to focus on today–and I need to do some writing today as well. The Saints game comes on at noon; I think I may actually cook out today–it doesn’t seem that cold outside (granted, I have my fabulous space heater on in the kitchen and it was worth every penny), and even if it is, I won’t be out there in it that much, after all.

It is incredibly tempting, though, to blow it all off and not do a damned thing, as it is every damned day. I know tomorrow and Christmas I will undoubtedly do one of those but it’s a holiday! justifications to not do a fucking thing, kind of like I do on weekends–everyone else gets a weekend! 

This, as you can see, is why nothing ever gets done.

I mean, even now as I glance around the kitchen at the piles of paper than need to be filed and the dishes that need to be washed and the clothes that need to be folded, I just think fuck this I’m going to go read for a while.

I said the other day I needed to diversify my reading in the new year, which means moving all those books I’ve bought by minority writers to the top of the pile. I also think I need to read some non-crime genre novels in the new year; I think reading a lot outside of the genre in which you write helps you as a writer, just as reading the best in your own genre will inspire you. Obviously, reading outside my own experience as a white person should also broaden my mind. And you know, I am really looking forward to this, as well as continuing the Short Story Project going into the new year.

So, I think I am going to spend the rest of 2018 rereading some Stephen King (The Shining and Pet Sematary, to be exact) and then I might give The Other by Thomas Tryon a quick reread as well. And then moving into 2019, I’ll finish the novel I started reading this past week and then move into some minority writers interspersed with some of the non-crime novels I have in the pile.

And we’ll see what happens.

GEAUX SAINTS!

And now, ’tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Real Love

Thursday morning feeling fine. How’s about you and your’n?

I wrote another chapter of Bury Me in Satin last night, and it’s….rough. But it’s a first draft, and usually I use the first draft as more of an extended outline rather than anything else; to get the story out, get a feel for the characters, and work out subplots and whether they work or not. The story, which has swirled amorphously in my mind for years now, is starting to emerge from those shadows and take shape, which is kind of cool (even after however many books it is I’ve written, this still amazes me every time it happens).

The day job move continues apace; yesterday I worked at the main office, helping to pack up stuff and clear things out–as with any move, it’s startling to see how much has accumulated over the years, and stuff that needed to be either shredded or thrown away years ago somehow just got put in a box and filed away somewhere. We all do this, I know; there’s nothing like moving to force you to purge.

I managed to borrow a copy of Alecia Long’s The Great Southern Babylon from my friend Susan yesterday, and I am really looking forward to reading it. I can’t believe, as I have said many times recently, how little actual New Orleans history I’ve read; the only actual history I’ve read is the delightful Frenchmen Desire Goodchildren, John Churchill Chase’s brilliant history of the city, told through how the streets were named; and given the unique and strange street names we have here, it makes for a fun read. I highly recommend it; I may even need to take another read through its pages at some point. One of the most interesting things–to me at any rate–is how little mention there is of queer New Orleans history in so many of these books. It’s hinted at obliquely, or in passing–veiled references to “sodomy shows” and the occasional side reference to male prostitutes in Storyville in Empire of Sin–and even looking through the indexes of some of these books you find no mention of sodomy, homosexuality, or any of the other key secret words you would expect to find–which means my research is going to be difficult if not nigh impossible. But the best news about this is I have so many friends and connections in the city with research–I have a lot of friends at the Historic New Orleans Collection; I have friends who are local historians; and of course there are enormous archives at the UNO library, the public library, and at Tulane.

The only question is when will I have the time to do this research?

Time for me is always the question. And while I self-deprecate and self-lacerate a lot about my laziness, the truth is I just don’t have a lot of spare time–and I can’t work non-stop. You have to be able to recharge, relax, and rest, otherwise the work you do isn’t going to be much good.

But once the day-job move is over and I settle into yet another new weekly schedule and adapt, I think I’ll be able to get things going. And I am really looking forward to spending more time in the library.

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