Tag: Royal Street Reveillon

I Wanna Love You

Ah, it’s Tuesday, an Election Day in the republic, and I certainly hope everyone is voting today. We kind of take that for granted–the right to vote–and it’s more than a little bit on the shameful side, all due respect.

I’ve also not worked on Bury Me in Satin since Sunday; Monday was a bit of a crazy day, but I am hoping that tonight I can get back into the book.

On the other hand, I am so anxious about this election I don’t know if I can sufficiently focus or not. Heavy sigh. But then again, going deep into the manuscript might also be just the ticket to keep my mind off everything; it’s going to be a late night and I don’t know how much of it I can take. So there’s also that. I hate that every election now is so stressful, and there’s so much urgency!

I voted, of course, as I always do; I’ve voted in every election since I turned eighteen. I vote in midterms. I vote in local elections. I vote in all national elections. Hell, I’ve worked on campaigns and I’ve knocked on doors and I’ve donated money. There wasn’t a lot of terribly important things on our Louisiana ballot today; some ballot initiatives–one of which was incredibly important; requiring a unanimous verdict in criminal trials; the old law, requiring merely a majority, is a horrific Jim Crow holdover which was put into place precisely to send people of color to prison; I very proudly voted to require verdicts to be unanimous. Our local House rep was, of course, up for reelection; there were some judgeships on the ballot, and of course, secretary of state. I walked over to the International School on Camp Street and voted; the ladies who always work the elections told me this was the busiest election with the highest turnout that they can remember. I found that interesting,  particularly because there was so little on our ballots.

I finished reading Empire of Sin this weekend during the Saints game; I really enjoyed it, and I’ve now requested an inter-library loan of Alecia Long’s The Great Southern Babylon. We have a copy of it somewhere; she and Paula are friends, and she has been at the Tennessee William Festival numerous times. I also started reading Herbert Asbury’s The French Quarter, while I wait for the Latter Library to get the Long book in. One of the things I love most about New Orleans history is that the city has always been rough-and-tumble; so many of the original settlers the French sent over were criminals and/or shady people. It was actually kind of interesting to read how, in Empire of Sin for example, even back then–the 1890’s through the 1920’s–the locals shook their heads and lamented the crime rate in the city, and the corruption/incompetence at City Hall.

Some things never change.

But I got the contract for Royal Street Reveillon today in the e-mailbox; signed that sucker and sent it back. So a release date will be forthcoming shortly, and sooner rather than later there will be a cover reveal. (I also played around with potential Scotty titles for the next book in the series; came up with some really good ones, but am not sure what the plot should be…Scotty went to Jesuit High School, which has been roiled in some sex abuse scandals lately; along with, of course, the Archdiocese of New Orleans…it’s something I’ve always wanted to write about, but I don’t know if Scotty is the vessel for such a story. I am also thinking about something voodoo-ish; but then I think well, yeah, there’s SOME woo-woo in the series but for the most part the series is fairly reality based so would that even work? There’s also the whole Jean Lafitte thing I’ve always wanted to do. Heavy heaving sigh. It never ends…and I really need to focus on the book I’m writing, don’t I?)

FOCUS.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Justified and Ancient

GEAUX SAINTS!

Well, that  was certainly fun. Although I did get a bit concerned as the Saints blew their 21 point lead and the Rams tied everything up at 35-35; but the boys got it together and scored ten more points to seal the win in the Dome.

GEAUX SAINTS!

My Italian lessons continue, five minutes at a time every day, and while I am not certain I am actually learning how to speak Italian, I am learning something. (When I think about it, I don’t think I know any Italian words or phrases; but boy, once I start one of the lessons it’s almost automatic how quickly it comes out: oh, yes, this means water and read and book and newspaper and woman and man and girl…you get the idea. So maybe it is indeed working.)

I turned in Royal Street Reveillon yesterday, and hopefully my publisher will want it. I like it, but am heartily sick of it and desperately need a break from it. I do look forward to editorial notes and the inevitable clean-up process it will need, but I think it’s pretty good and I am pleased with it. It’s always lovely to dip back into Scotty’s world a little, and now I can move forward with Bury Me in Satin. I somehow managed to get almost three thousand words done on Chapter One’s first draft, which is a BIG WIN. And so I am moving on to Chapter Two.

And I actually feel pretty good about Bury Me in Satin, frankly; I think this might come along rather nicely, if I do say so myself. There’s somet

I got quite a bit done yesterday, didn’t I? That extra hour of sleep really came in handy. I actually woke before six, but stayed in bed until just past seven, and woke up feeling rested and refreshed; the four day weekend really came in handy, methinks. I need to remember that every now and again; I need to occasionally take these mini-vacations, otherwise it is very easy to get sidetracked, easily distracted, and lose my focus. Yesterday I feel like I can conquer the world, which is a feeling I’ve not had in like, forever. I also didn’t spend the afternoon during the Saints game fighting off the feeling that I needed a nap and trying to stay awake, which was incredibly lovely; I’d kind of dozed off in my easy chair the previous three afternoons.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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When I Look Into Your Eyes

GEAUX SAINTS!

Friday, while running my errands, I decided to finally stop at the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue and get my goddamned library card. Yes, I have lived in New Orleans for over twenty-two years and had never gotten my library card. I had tried once before but that was when you had to fill out an application. Mine was denied because I used my mailing address rather than my actual home address; I got the denial in the mail and was highly annoyed. Instead of being an adult and thinking, oh, I’ll just swing by another time I never did; even though I have actually been to the Latter Library a gazillion times in the meantime. So Friday I finally did it; and amazingly enough, it’s all automated now. She entered my information into the computer and activated my card and voila, I walked out of there the proud owner of a New Orleans Public Library card.

I am really pleased with myself, which is kind of interesting. As I’ve said before, I’m reading Empire of Sin, and am wanting to do even more research into New Orleans history–and of course, the library card is an important first step for me. Part of this is my desire to write a short story collection called Monsters of New Orleans, which would be my foray into horror; I have some things already written that would work for it, but the majority of the stories would be original and new, and I want to base them in actual New Orleans history. Empire of Sin has been a veritable treasure trove of ideas for me; I am also looking at writing a historical mystery novel set here sometime between 1900 and the 1920’s. Maybe it will end up just being my short story “The Blues Before Dawn,” or maybe it will be a novel called The Blues Before Dawn.

Maybe both. Who knows?

The Saints are playing the unbeaten Rams today; this has not been a good football weekend for me; kudos to Alabama. I don’t see anyone even staying close to them in a game this year; other than possibly Clemson. The lovely thing about LSU being out of contention now means that I don’t really have to commit so thoroughly to watching college football games all day on Saturdays anymore; I’ll only need to watch the Tigers so my Saturdays have suddenly become more free. Ultimately, not a bad thing.

So, GEAUX SAINTS indeed.

One of the funny things about being a football fan is how committed one can become to one’s own superstitions; there are certain LSU shirts I won’t wear during games anymore, and the same with a pair of sweatpants, pictures to use on Facebook, and so forth. I realized how silly this was yesterday–like anything I could possibly do has any effect on the outcome of a game, as opposed to the other hundreds of thousands of fans–and wrote down some notes for an essay about how weird being a fan can be; more fodder for The Fictions of My Life.

And yet…I wouldn’t wear my yellow LSU sweatshirt yesterday. I just couldn’t make myself do it.

I realized yesterday as I watched the Georgia-Kentucky game that we are several days into November and I haven’t yet started my unofficial Nanowrimo project, Bury Me in Satin; I intend to rectify that this morning. That extra hour of sleep has me up before eight this morning and feeling rested and inspired; it only took three days to get to this point. I did manage to clean yesterday during football games; I wasn’t terribly committed to watching Georgia-Kentucky, and during the stretches when Auburn was stinking up the field against Texas A&M I also organized and vacuumed and washed clothes, etc. So this morning, the Lost Apartment is relatively–relatively being the operative word–clean and looks nice. But not feeling fatigued this morning is quite lovely, to be honest; I worried I’d have one of my patented lazy moods today, and that is most definitely not the case. I want to get the chapter headings put in for the Scotty so I can get it turned in at long last; I want to get those tweaks done to Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories done; and of course, I simply have to get started on Bury Me in Satin. I also spent a lot of time reading Empire of Sin yesterday; I am now up to the part about the Axeman, and it’s absolutely riveting, particularly since I want to write a Venus Casanova story called “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman,” which I’ve already started, honestly. I also made some notes in my journal yesterday. Progress comes in all shapes and sizes, and I will embrace any and all of them that I actually experience.

And now, on that note, it is back to the spice mines. I should take full advantage of being wide awake so early in the morning; if I can get all of this stuff finished and done and out of the way before the Saints game, well, more power to me indeed.

And I may even be able to finally finish reading Empire of Sin today at long last–something to help keep my mind off the Saints game.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven

Thursday, and the first day of a four-day weekend that just kind of dropped into my lap. The office move and so forth has had some complications; I’d planned on taking today off anyway, and then it occurred to me yesterday that I should just go ahead and take Friday as well; what was, after all, the point in taking Thursday off, working on Friday, and then having the weekend off? I’ve been very tired lately, badly in need of recharging the batteries, and the two-day weekends just haven’t been cutting it; so why not take a mini-vacation?

So, here I sit at my desk, looking outside at a gray day. Shadow is watching birds atop the stone fence outside my windows, there’s no sign of the sun anywhere, and it rained pretty heavily at some point in the early morning as everything is wet and shiny and dripping out there. I have a load of dishes and a load of laundry to put away; another load is running in the dishwasher, and the kitchen/office is completely out of control. Yes, indeed, there are plenty of things for me to do today, when the spirit so moves me.

We finished packing up the office Tuesday, and the movers came yesterday. I worked at the main office yesterday; a long ten hour day mostly doing paperwork, making condom packs, and then doing testing last night.  Apparently we’re waiting for some final clearances from the city before the new office building is up and operational. It was a little poignant saying good night and good luck to the office on Frenchmen Street when I left Tuesday night, and there were a couple of times  during that day when I felt a wave of sadness coming…but I made it. Yay, me.

Also Tuesday morning, the ebook of Bourbon Street Blues, aka Scotty I, went up for sale at long last. I’m very excited about this; it’s been unavailable for far, far too long, and people have been asking about it for years. But it’s finally a thing, and eventually a print version will also be available. If  you’re interested in getting the first Scotty ebook, you can get it right here. This makes me really happy; you’ve got no idea, Constant Reader. Especially since I am in such a Scotty state of mind with my writing these days.

Hopefully, Jackson Square Jazz (aka Scotty II) will be up by the end of the year as well, and all Scotty books will thus be available for anyone who wants to buy and read them.

I also finished writing Royal Street Reveillon  (aka Scotty VIII) Monday night. I am going to go ahead and get that turned in this week. I just need to add the chapter headings, which is always a fun part of the wrap-up process. I also have to do the afterward, but that’s going to have to be short–the book is clocked in at 101,000 (and some change) words. This is the longest book I’ve written in years. I guess I am writing longer these days. Not sure what that’s about, but there you have it. I feel relatively confident I can get these finishing touches on the book done today.

The rest of this week I am going to focus on replacing “Don’t Look Down” with two other stories for the collection Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. I’ll probably start working on Bury Me in Satin, my Nanowrimo project, on November 1 and hopefully will have a healthy first draft finished by the end of the month, after which I will spend December revising it and tearing apart/restructuring the WIP, which is what I plan on doing in the first two months of the new year; I’ll then have to spend another month or so writing a new ending for it, and then another month or so revising and polishing. Hopefully, come April, it’ll be in good enough shape to try to lure in an agent. One can hope, at any rate. And then I want to spend the summer writing Muscles, and then I am going to spend the fall trying to write something historical about New Orleans; I am just not quite sure yet what that project will be.

I didn’t sleep well Sunday night, so Monday I was tired all day. Monday night I slept deeply, but had to get up earlier than I wanted to; I felt rested but still slightly sleepy. Sleepy is better than tired; there’s a difference, and that distinction is important–kind of like the difference, from working out, between sore and tired. Since this is the week of the office move, my work schedule was disrupted; I had to get up early every day until today, which made me cranky and tired every night. I’m not really sure what my schedule is going to be next week. Alas, uncertainty is not one of my stronger suits. But I did sleep very well last night, getting up just around nine this morning and I feel rested and alert. This is a very good sign for the rest of the day, and the potential for productivity.

I also started gathering my essays over the last couple of evenings, which was interesting and fun, yet weird at the same time. There were essays I’d published that I’d forgotten about writing and publishing–seriously, who else forgets work they’ve done and been paid for? This mook, that’s who. (MOOK? This is what comes from following David Simon on Twitter.) So yes, that is definitely going to take a while to get in order. It’s always interesting–at least to me–to come across old things I’ve written, whether I remember them or not. If I do remember writing them or what they’re about, I almost always discover my memory is wrong when I start rereading them. I don’t mind it; it’s just odd. That’s kind of where The Fictions of My Life comes from; my memories aren’t correct so frequently because of the interpretive personal filter I view everything through that I often suspect my memories differ so much from the reality that they are closer to lies than truth.

And on that note, I think I shall head back into the spice mines.

Have a lovely day, everyone.

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Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad?

Well, it’s Sunday morning and there’s a Saints game today; I will probably ignore it, as my blood pressure and heart can’t really take it, and spend the day continuing to keep my head down and try to plough through all this work I have to get done today.

I got very little done yesterday. I had, despite the good night’s sleep and the good rest I got Friday night, it turned out my batteries were still too low for me to get anything requiring a great deal of thinking and thought done. It’s a shame, and I may not have been wise to spend the day resting and watching television and reading, but it was what my brain and my soul needed. I also refuse to beat myself up for taking me time anymore; I am too old and no longer have the energy and/or wherewithal to work constantly without taking time to refresh and recharge and revisit.

The news of course doesn’t help; the constant sense of outrage and anger at events transpiring in the world every day drains me of a lot of energy. Social media, which used to be a fun way of recharging and seeing what people are up to, has turned into a cesspool of lies, ignorance and weaponized hatred. I refuse to engage with trolls or trollish behavior; my rule of social media has always been if I won’t say it to your face I won’t say it on-line. This, of course, can be intensely problematic because I will say it right to your face. But my energies are best spent elsewhere; hearts and minds cannot be changed or altered through nasty social media battling, and I have neither the patience or energy to waste on lost souls with no capacity for reason or logic or compassion for other human beings.

So, today I am going to get cleaned up, do some chores, and I am going to focus on getting some writing/revising/editing done. I had hoped to be finished with the Scotty revision today, but the end goal of being able to turn it in by November 1 is still a distinct possibility, even by not doing any work on it yesterday. One of my primary concerns, as I may have mentioned, was the fear that I am rushing the revisions on these final chapters in an attempt to get it finished on my self-imposed deadline, and yesterday I also realized that I still have an additional three to four days to get this done by the 1st. There’s no need, absolutely no none, to revise three chapters today when I can actually manage one per day and still finish on time. Stop adding stress and pressure to your life, Gregalicious–it will be done when it is time for it to be done.

I got a copy of Joan Didion’s essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and dived into it some yesterday while football games played in the background (I have to admit I enjoyed watching Georgia do to Florida what LSU did to them; and that untimed play touchdown for the win by Kentucky over Missouri was amazing–definitely going down in Kentucky lore, which is usually about near-misses and coming close. As it happened, I thought to myself, you know, these are situations where Kentucky used to always lose. Maybe there has been a sea-change in the Bluegrass State; we will see what happens when they host Georgia next weekend). Didion is a great stylist; the way she uses words and creates sentences and paragraphs with an eye for a very telling detail is extraordinary. (I have some issues with Didion and the lens through which she sees things, but despite that lens the way she writes is exceptional. If I ever sit down and write about Alice Bolin’s Dead Girls, I will probably address them at that time.) And as with any writer who is truly terrific, reading her words made me think about my own, and gave me some thoughts.

As I said at the time, reading Bolin’s Dead Girls made me start thinking about my own essays; I’ve written quite a few over the years, and of course, as my friend Laura points out to me, my blog is essentially me writing a daily personal essay. I don’t know if I ever say anything truly earth-shattering or profound; I don’t think of myself as a great thinker, or being particularly perceptive and incisive in my points of view on many subjects. My intellect–and my ability to write essays–are still things I don’t have a lot of confidence in; thank you, public education and land grant colleges for making me insecure about these things. One of the myriad of reasons I started writing this blog back in December of 2004 on Livejournal was because I wanted to write about things no one would pay me to write about; to share my observations of the world, society, politics, and culture through the lens of a gay man in a highly homophobic world; it was also why I wrote about gay characters and themes in my fiction. My writing, by virtue of my lavender lens, is always going to be somewhat political; despite my privilege as a white man I still didn’t hit the privilege trifecta of straight white male, and while the privilege of being white male is still much better than any other variation of that, gay also negates a great deal of that.

I had originally, and always thought, that if I ever wrote about the Virginia experience, it would be an entire book, which I always jokingly called, to myself, Gay Porn Writer, because that was the way I amused myself throughout the entire banning experience–laughing about me being described in so many newspapers and angry emails and complaints as “gay porn writer Greg Herren.” Over the years since all that nonsense, and over the last few years in particular, I realized that isn’t enough material to write an entire book around, and realized I needed, if I was ever going to write about that experience, another hook. I thought about extrapolating that happening to me in 2004 with the changes in publishing and society since then; but it was always kind of amorphous. I thought maybe using that experience as a jumping off spot to talking about race, gender, and sex might be a great idea. Realizing that the Virginia experience was the basis for a personal essay, a long one, to be added to a collection of other essays I’ve written as well as others I could write, that I could write about my life and my experience and call the collection Gay Porn Writer: The Fictions of My Life was probably the best way to do this, and more workable than simply trying to piece together a non-fiction narrative about how gay work is seen as porn by so many homophobic people because the very word gay makes them think about sucking cock or butt fucking.

And I’ve written so much! I had no idea how much non-fiction I’ve actually done in my career; how many author interviews, how many book reviews and fitness columns and whatever else may have you I’ve written and published over the years.

One of the things I did do yesterday around the laziness was start writing down essay titles I remember having written in my journal, in order to start searching through files and computer drives for them, to put them all into one easily accessible folder for me in the future…which also startled me; I remembered so many, and there are probably many more that I don’t remember. But that’s one of the chores I’ve assigned myself today; start pulling those together. I know my essay from Love, Bourbon Street, about Katrina and the evacuation, is rather lengthy and would have to be the anchor to the book.

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

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Rhythm is a Dancer

Christ, it’s the Friday before Halloween. The Quarter is going to be full of gays from all over the country all weekend, most of them costumed for at least part of the time.

And 90% of them will have costumes that include either sexy or slutty in the official name: “Sexy Sailor,” “Slutty Nurse,” etc etc.

Boy, do I feel old–because even as recently as ten years ago I would be chomping at the bit to get down there, have a good time, ogle some pretty boys, and have a good time. Instead, I’ll be hunkered down here in the Lost Apartment all weekend, proofing and editing and revising and copy-editing. I also have some reading to do, and there’s this week’s Riverdale–I seriously don’t know why I still watch, other than the really attractive and charismatic cast, because the plots do not make any sense–so yeah, I probably won’t be setting foot outside the house until Monday.

Ah, my first New Orleans Halloween.

It was 1994, and I hadn’t met Paul yet. I had just started my new exercise and diet regimen in late August, and I had never been to anything like the New Orleans Halloween weekend before. I have always had a contentious relationship with my body, and this Halloween was going to be the first time I ever dared to wear a slutty Halloween costume; granted, I was simply going as an ancient Egyptian, which meant, of course, being shirtless. This was a big step for me–I was going to go out in public without a shirt on; and it was a big gay Halloween costume ball. I even bought a headdress to go with the little skirt I had made for the event, and did my eyes with mascara and drew a thick line around my eyes and out to the side with eyeliner. My eyes looked huge. 

I also stupidly wore gold glitter. I never made the glitter mistake again.

I had such a lovely time that weekend. It was, I think, one of the first and best times I ever had as an out gay man–how sad that it took to age thirty-three for that to happen; but it did take me a very long time to deprogram myself from everything I learned growing up. (I’m still finding, from time to time, that I’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked, or hoped, to have made by now) But it was one of the first times that I felt like I was actually a part of the gay community; and I’ve tried, over the years, to write about the sense of belonging one gets when one in is in a sea of gay men dancing to great music and everyone just wants to have a good time; a blessed respite from the dangers and horrors of the every day world. I also distinctly remember being out on the dance floor in the midst of all these happy men dancing (the song was “Go West” by the Pet Shop Boys) and thinking, we are finding joy behind locked doors, forgetting everything that goes on outside and creating an oasis, kind of like in “The Masque of the Red Death.”

I wrote a story in my journal the next morning–while recovering over coffee–that was basically that; a gay adaptation of the Poe story. I’ve never revisited that story, but I just might, now that I am thinking about pulling together a collection of personal essays called Gay Porn Writer: The Fictions of My Life. So, yes, that’s yet another book I am currently working on. I have Bourbon Street Blues to proof, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories to go over, Royal Street Reveillon to finish, and my second short story collection, Once a Tiger and Other Stories, also in progress.

And I am also planning yet another collection, Monsters of New Orleans.

And there’s also the WIP.

This. Is. Fucking. INSANE.

Nothing like some creative ADHD, is there?

I have so much writing work to get done this weekend. And once again, I am having an attack of the lazies this morning. I even did laundry and some cleaning last night to free myself up for today’s work…and yet here I sit, lingering over coffee and social media and not really feeling particularly interested in getting to work.

And on that note, I should probably return to the spice mines.

Have a lovely Saturday, everyone.

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Missing You Now

Friday! Friday! Friday!

I have a very busy weekend looming in front of me. I need to proof the new edition of Bourbon Street Blues, copy edit Royal Street Reveillon (assuming I finish revising it today), and also need to do some editing work on Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. I’m frankly trying to decide whether to pull a longer story (“Don’t Look Down”, which I may do as a Kindle single) and add some others in its place. I am leaning that way, quite frankly; I’d like to get these other stories out there, and “Don’t Look Down” could easily wind up being five to ten thousand words longer than it is; I feel that I kind of rushed it, and there are other things that I need to put into it to make the story more cohesive and work better.

Royal Street Reveillon is being revised apace; I only have three chapters left to revise, and an afterward to write. There is no conceivable way this won’t be finished by the end of the weekend, even given my enormous talent for procrastination. So, I can end October by turning this book in, taking a few days to myself to recuperate, and then dive directly into Bury Me In Satin. My goal is to have that particular first draft finished by the end of November–my first ever Nanowrimo (I am not signing up for anything, just planning on using that as my go-to for motivation) and then I intend to spend December tearing apart the WIP. The restructuring is going to require me to probably write another 40 to 50 thousand words; the 98 thousand or so I already have will have to be pared down to about 40. That means a shit ton of writing I will have to store away and hopefully use again for something else. I can always find a way of using that material.

Recycle, recycle, recycle.

But at the same time, despite the wearying thought of all this work in front of me, I am also very excited. I am excited to be finishing yet another Scotty, for the first time in over two years; I am excited to be finishing another novel; I am excited to start writing another; and I am excited to have solved the mystery of the WIP, which has been languishing in my head now for nearly three years.

The most important thing, though, is to not rush; I suspect I was rushing with the last few chapters, so this weekend I am going to go over the ones I finished last night as well as work on the remaining ones.

And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines.

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Everything Changes

Tuesday, and this week progresses. Time is running out on my deadline for Royal Street Reveillon, so I really need to buckle down and get to work. No more excuses. I finished the revision of Chapter 16 yesterday and started Chapter 17; there are eight chapters to go, and nine days left in the month. This is utterly and completely do-able, of course; it’s a matter of making myself do it, quite frankly, and not allowing laziness or some other shiny object get in the way.

And trust me, Constant Reader, there are plenty of shiny objects in the life of one Gregalicious.

It’s gray and raining this morning in New Orleans; naturally, I didn’t want to get out of bed. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to work at home again, or to simply go back to having an out-of-the-house part time job, like I used to have. It’s funny how I never seemed to have enough time during the day to get all the things done I needed to get done; but I suspect the truth was I always put things off because, since I didn’t particularly or especially need to budget my time, it seemed like I had all the time in the world to get the things done that I needed to get done….until I started running out of time; I do remember horrifying mornings when I glanced at the wall calendar and realized, oh no, the book is due next month and I’m not even half-way finished.

Obviously, for me, the ideal would be to get back to that place; where the at-most time spent away from the apartment during the day would be a maximum of twenty hours per week, not including errands or the gym. I like to dream that when and if I ever get into that position financially again, that’s when I’ll start working on ambitious writing projects that might take months or years to research; that I’ll continue writing the things I love to write and creating stories and characters that I enjoy, and the big and exciting books I want to write will get written.

Hope springs eternal.

But I also have to get past my tendency towards procrastination, which is exacerbated by my own laziness.

Ah, well.

I suppose I should get back to the spice mines.

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Friday I’m in Love

Well, Constant Reader, we did it. We’ve made it through yet another week of work, and the weekend looms, with big games on deck for both the Saints and LSU.

The weather change has come at long last; with cooler temperatures, and now when I wake up early in the morning, it’s still dark outside. I dislike immensely rising when it’s still dark–or at least murky–outside; it feels like I am getting up in the middle of the night, and rightly or wrongly, my body rebels against that. One has to hate that.

Last night I finished revising Chapter 15, which puts me at three-fifths of the way finished with the revision. Once you’re over that midway hump, it always seems to go much faster. I do think I’ll be able to get this finished by the end of the month and turned in, which is lovely, after which I can focus on Bury Me in Satin as well as deconstructing the WIP. I am itching to get back to that as well as get started on the new y/a, so that makes the revising of Royal Street Reveillon even more tedious for me. I’m also gathering all kinds of research materials I’m going to need to get through relatively soon, so I can get started on those projects as soon as I finish with Scotty.

I am really liking the idea of putting together a collection called Monsters of New Orleans. I’ve done very little horror; and a lot of what I do write probably wouldn’t be considered true horror, but like mystery there are many shades of horror. I do have some stories already that would fit into this collection, but the point is also to fictionalize true stories as well–and there are many murderers and ghosts and horrible people in the city’s history to write about…and putting a modern, fictional spin on them would be all kinds of awesome.

So much to write, so much to read, so little time.

I’m still working my way through Empire of Sin, which is really terrific.  I am now at the part of the book where jazz is being born in New Orleans; and in all honesty, it’s really interesting to me. This surprises me. I like jazz, but I don’t love jazz; and I’ve never written about the New Orleans music scene primarily because I don’t know much about it and it’s a kind of music–jazz–that’s never resonated with me. I also fully accept that this probably makes me seem like a barbarian or a philistine to some; this is also perfectly fine with me. But if I am going to write about a gay prostitute in the days of Storyville, this is stuff I need to know…and I should probably start listening to the music, so I can get a grasp of how it sounds and how it makes people feel.

I am also almost finished with The Man in the High Castle; I’ll probably finish watching Season 3 tonight. It brings up a lot of interesting questions.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Have a lovely Friday.

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When a Man Loves a Woman

I am still basking in the afterglow of last night’s breakthrough on the WIP.

I also managed to get another couple of chapters of the Scotty revised; I may even be back on schedule by this weekend at this pace. Huzzah!

When the writing goes well, when things fall into place, writing is probably the most wonderful and magical thing. This is, frankly, when I remember why I love doing this, why I identify so strongly as a writer more so than anything else. I get so much pleasure out of writing, out of creating characters and telling stories that I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do anything else. I can’t imagine not writing; even if my publishing career should crash and burn and come to a complete halt, I would always keep writing.

Always.

I continue to watch The Man in the High Castle, which kind of drags in places but overall is extremely well done. The murky and messy second season–which I may need to rewatch, if I ever have the time—notwithstanding, this third season is quite excellent…although I suddenly saw, as I watched last night, striking similarities between this season and Dean Koontz’ novel Lightning, which is one of my favorites of his.

I’m also finding, as I write and read and research, that I am going to probably have two other books that I can slowly piece together–collections of personal essays for one; Monsters of New Orleans being the other.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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