Tag: Saints and Sinners

If You Love Somebody Set Them Free

I have to panel today and tomorrow at Saints and Sinners; one is a genre panel and the other is an on-stage interview with Jewelle Gomez; we are being interviewed by Eric Andrews-Katz. I can’t seem to get it into my head which is which day; old age is not pretty for anyone. The irony is the primary topic has to do with being prolific and/or maintaining a career over a long period of time; considering I haven’t published a novel under my own name since 2016 and the last Todd Gregory was January last year (I think), it seems kind of weird to be talking about being prolific. But I suppose all the stuff I’ve published since 2002 kind of makes up for the last year or so of slacking off.

I guess I can talk about how I used to be prolific.

I’m also supposed to read from my work. Sigh. Not sure what I’m going to read. I can always fall back on Timothy, I suppose; that always goes over pretty well. Or I could read from this story that is eventually going to be available on Kindle as an ebook. (It IS up, but I keep finding mistakes, and having to upload a corrected file; and I am not going to try to start selling it until I have it right. My fabulous friend Erin also put together a better cover for me AND made sure the formatting and everything was done in a new file, but since I had already corrected something on the page–adding a tag line about A new story of suspense from award-winning author Greg Herren–I have to wait until the page corrects before I can put the new file up AND the new cover; and trust me, the next time I do this I am going to make sure I do everything right the first fucking time.)

I have downloaded a copy of the story from Kindle, so I do have an electronic file, so I could just read from my iPad, I suppose. And since I’ve read it out loud a few times already the last few days in order to catch mistakes…I’ve kind of practiced. It’s a thought.

Heavy sigh.

I’ve also been playing around with the short story collection. I realized I was including stories in it that are out for submission, operating on the assumption that if my publisher wants it, it wouldn’t come out until sometime next year, so the stories would either have been accepted or rejected by then; but by including them in the collection I was assuming they would be rejected, and why would I put that kind of energy out into the universe? I know one is going to be used; I’ve already gotten corrections from the editor of the anthology, but the others–well, it will be a while before I hear back from them; and one is notorious for how long it takes to respond; they still have a story I submitted last summer so still keeping my fingers crossed on that one. But again, gay characters in this one, so the odds against me are even stronger than they were for the other story.

It’s funny, but I am so damned stubborn, you know? Twenty-odd years ago when I decided to finally make my dream a reality and started taking writing seriously, I deliberately chose to write about gay characters and gay themes and tell our stories. I knew it was going to limit my success; making them crime novels limited the success still further. I said the other day I never tried writing crime short stories for the longest time because I knew gay crime stories wouldn’t get published in the limited markets for crime stories, and the limited markets for gay fiction wouldn’t publish crime stories. “Annunciation Shotgun” was the first time I wrote a crime story with gay characters, but I also knew it was going to be published; New Orleans Noir’s editor had requested the story, and had requested specifically I write about a gay character. And now that I’m going through this burst of writing short stories, some of these could have been about straight people, sure…but in some instances the story requires the characters to be gay. “The Weight of a Feather,” which I just revised this week, was written years ago for the MWA Ice Cold anthology; stories about the Cold War. It didn’t get used, and I recently took the plunge and sent it somewhere else. It was rejected, but not because of the characters; the story moved too slow, and I immediately saw the value of that critique from the editor, which I used in the revision. (I had always seen, stubbornly, the opening of the story being the image of a man, in winter, in a trenchcoat, standing on a bridge over a creek as snow starts to fall; then he throws a gun into the water and as he walks back home, the story is told in a sort of flashback. I now have rewritten the story to open with the actual commission of the crime, the middle with him walking tells the why; and I am probably just going to use it for the collection. I fucking love that title, too; it comes from the Egyptian Book of the Dead; the goddess Ma’at weighed the heart of the dead against the weight of the feather of truth to determine whether the soul was admitted to the afterlife; my story basically illustrates a situation where, despite the crime, I’d be curious to see how the scales of Ma’at would balance….)

Need to get ready. Later!

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You Give Good Love

It’s a gorgeous morning here in New Orleans; glorious because I had a deep and restful sleep overnight; relaxing because I am going to run some errands and do a favor for a friend a little later on. I was exhausted yesterday when I got home; I did some laundry, the dishes and some light cleaning, then settled down into the easy chair to watch this week’s Riverdale, and then ran a few episodes of Versailles on Netflix; as the Affair of the Poisons kicks into higher gear the show is becoming more interesting. We have also been introduced to the Duc d’Orleans’ second wife, Elisabeth Charlotte (Liselotte), the Princess Palatine; whose gossipy letters and diaries about life at Versailles are a treasure trove. Madame Scarron has also shown up as governess to the bastard children of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan; those familiar with Louis’ story will know precisely who she is, and how important she is going to be.

I also watched Peggy Scott Laborde’s WYES show, Steppin’ Out, last night, because Paul made his debut on it talking about Saints and Sinners, alongside Susan Larson, who talked about the Tennessee Williams Festival. It’s hard to believe the events begin in just a few days; I’ve been so wrapped up in my short story writing that the time has simply flown and I was unaware that they were looming so near until some time this past week.

I also read some short stories last night.

Speaking of short stories, I’m trying to develop a plan and a working schedule for myself over the next few months. I was talking to a friend yesterday over lunch–the same friend I am doing a favor for this afternoon–which was more thinking out loud than anything else. The market for short stories has really dried up so much; there are very few paying markets for short stories out there any more–at least ones that pay decently–so that writing them has to be primarily for the love of the form; and of course, crime stories, being genre, have an even more limited marketability; crime stories about gay men even less so. When I started writing these stories back in January I purposely wasn’t writing about gay characters, themes or tropes for precisely this very reason. But the Chanse stories…well, Chanse is gay, even if the stories I am writing aren’t about gay themed; I will be curious to see how that plays out, as I intend to , once they are finished and polished, submit them to mainstream markets. Two of the other stories also have a gay male main character; so we shall see how that plays out. My story in the Bouchercon anthology is also about a gay character and the sexuality plays a factor in the story. Will it be as well received as “Survivor’s Guilt” was two years ago? We shall see; but that is what makes the writer so crazy, you know; maybe the story simply isn’t as good. There’s no way of ever knowing for sure, which, of course, is the path to madness.

So, anyway, the plan is to wrap up all of these stories by the end of this month, which will require focus and work; April I am devoting to the two novels, before diving back into something else for May. I’d love to start writing this noir novel that’s brewing in my head for years; perhaps with focus and hard work I can get it done in May. This does sound terribly ambitious, and I am very much aware of that. And see–if my under-caffeinated fog this morning I forgot all about the y/a manuscript I need to get revised; that was my original plan for May. Heavy sigh.

I also have read two more of the Lew Archer stories by Ross Macdonald collected in The Archer Files. First up was “The Sinister Habit.”

A man in a conservative dark gray suit entered my doorway sideways, carrying a dark gray Homburg in his hand. His face was long and pale. He has black eyes and eyebrows and black nostrils. Across the summit of his high forehead, long black ribbons of hair were brushed demurely. Only his tie had color: it lay on his narrow chest like a slumbering purple passion.

The sharp black glance darted around my office, then back into the corridor. The hairy nostrils sniffed the air as if he suspected escaping gas.

“Is somebody following you?” I said.

“I have no reason to think so.”

“The Sinister Habit” is the more than slightly sordid tale of the Harlans, brother and sister, who have some money and run a private school in Chicago. It is the brother who engages the services of one Lew Archer. His sister has eloped with a man he feels is going to rob her blind and steal all of their money; the sense is given that the brother–who is fussy and prim– is probably gay but it’s never addressed or talked about; it’s that casual homophobia thing I’ve mentioned before. Their mother ran out on them when they were children with another man as well; the mother lives in Los Angeles. The story becomes twisty and turny after that; the man the sister has run off with is one Leonard Lister, who may or not be a four-flusher, as they used to say. People switch sides, Archer keeps digging, there’s a murder and then a gunfight at the conclusion when the true murderer is finally revealed.

This not the strongest story, not one of Macdonald’s best,  but still a pleasant read; while the characters may not always work and the plot itself gets resolved far too neatly at the end, it is a fun read due to Macdonald’s writing style; there are excellent word choices and incredibly clever phrases.

Next came “The Suicide.”

I picked her up on the Daylight. Or maybe she picked me up. With some of the nicest girls, you never seem to know.

She seemed to be very nice, and very young. She had a flippant nose and wide blue eyes, the kind that most men liked to call innocent. Her hair bubbled like boiling gold around her small blue hat. When she turned from the window to hear my deathless comments on the weather, she wafted spring odors towards me.

She laughed in the right places, a little hectically. But in between, when the conversation lagged, I could see a certain somberness in her eyes, a pinched look around her mouth like the effects of an early frost. When I asked her into the buffet car for a drink, she said: 

“Oh, no. Thank you. I couldn’t possibly.”

The vast majority of the Archer short stories begin with someone walking into his office and engaging his services. “The Suicide” is one of those rare cases when a chance encounter somewhere draws Archer into a complicated investigation; in this case, it’s on a train from San Francisco back to Los Angeles where Archer meets a very beautiful young woman who appears to be in some distress. She doesn’t accept the drink offer because she’s not old enough to drink; but when he offers her food, she is more easily persuaded. She winds up eating two sandwiches and pouring out her tale of woe to Archer; she’s worried about her older sister. She is a student at Berkeley, and her weekly check from her sister hasn’t arrived; she has also called and called to no avail. No one seems to know where her sister is, or what has happened to her. Archer decides to help out this damsel-in-distress, and thus begins a wickedly twisting tale that includes a brutal ass of an ex-husband; Las Vegas mobsters; a fortune in missing money; and a horrific, disfiguring beating of a woman. It’s a clever tale; it works better than “The Sinister Habit,” and all of Macdonald’s writing strengths are here; great brief staccato sentences, whip-like descriptions, the world-weary cynicism. Perfection,

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Never Surrender

’tis Wednesday already; the week is already half over. Next week is the combination Tennessee Williams Festival/Saints and Sinners weekend (AIEEEEE!), which is going to be, literally, insane. But I can hang; it’ll be lovely seeing everyone, but I can’t believe it has come up upon us all again so suddenly. It’s like I wasn’t paying any attention and the next thing you know, BOOM, there it is.

As I continue to work on this plethora of short stories (I started ANOTHER fucking one yesterday), I am, however, pleased to announce that one of the ones I’ve done since the beginning of the year will be appearing in the anthology Murder-a-Go-Go’s. The book’s theme is crime stories inspired by songs of the Go-Go’s, and will be edited by the amazing Holly West, and published by the crew at Down and Out Books. My story was inspired by the song “This Town” and is also, coincidentally enough, titled “This Town.”

Our IDs were fake, but no one seemed to care. Even when a burly bouncer asked to see them, bare meaty arms adorned with tattoos, bored eyes flicking over the laminate before waving us inside. Celia was right about that, like she was right about everything. She could always find someone with coke to share or sell, or who was happy to share their blunt with us. She was a golden girl, the kind I used to think only existed in books or movies, the girl that’s too perfect to exist, the one every other girl wants to be friends with, wants to be. The one all the guys notice first, their eyes wide open and their jaws gone slack.

 She always had the trendiest new make-up, the first to try out a daring new look we were too cowardly to try but quick to copy, always the first, the one everyone else imitated. She seemed to glow from inside, drawing everyone’s eyes to her effortlessly, and she somehow managed to always look perfect, even when she was drunk, even after dancing for hours when our make-up was running down our cheeks and perspiration dampened our armpits. Her skirts were just the tiniest bit shorter than everyone else’s, her tops seemed to fit her in a way they didn’t fit anyone else, her hair thicker and shinier and bouncier. She pulled in guys like night insects to a white light, caught up in her magic, wanting her. They only noticed the rest of us once she’d turned her attention elsewhere. We didn’t mind taking second place to her because it seemed like the natural order of things. She always knew the right thing to say—whether kind or insulting—and we all gravitated to her, wanting to be her friends, to be her. She was our pledge class president, organized, efficient, determined we be the best pledge class our Omega Psi chapter had ever seen. Even the sisters seemed to be a little in awe of her, grateful she’d picked Omega Psi out of all the offers she’d had—every sorority had offered her a bid, I’d overheard one sister telling another at Monday night dinner, her voice awed as she went on to say that had never happened in the history of the Greek system at Tulane.

And she made us all feel special, whispering “Sisters” to us as we hooked our pinkie fingers and whispered the word back to her, committing to a lifelong bond with her.

I am so glad they liked this story, because I loved it. It’s soooo dark. When I was going through Go-Go’s lyrics to choose a song, I was really surprised; I knew all the songs by heart–if I heard one I can sing every word–and danced like crazy to them, always thought they were these upbeat cheerful songs…and then yikes! Reading the lyrics without hearing the music? JFC, are these songs dark. I mean, check out this verse from “This Town”:

Change the lines that were said before 
We’re all dreamers – we’re all whores 
Discarded stars 
Like worn out cars 
Litter the streets of this town 
Litter the streets of this town

I mean, we’re all dreamers – we’re all whores? As soon as I read that line, the story just jumped into my head; a group of girlfriends, on Fat Tuesday,  wandering around in the Quarter getting wasted…and then the first line of the story popped into my head: Our ID’s were fake but no one seemed to care. That was how it started, and the next thing I knew I had over four thousand words and a very rough first draft.

I love when that happens. And the editor liked it! YAY! Huzzah for good news! It gives me hope for these other short stories I’m writing.

And I also have read some more stories for the Short Story Project. First up is “Damage Control” by Thomas H. Cook, from the MWA anthology Manhattan Mayhem.

She’d been found in the dilapidated Bronx apartment where she’d lived for the past seventeen months. It was a basement apartment and had only a couple small windows, but she’d make it darker still by drawing the curtains. It was so dim inside that the first cop to arrive had stumbled about, looking for a light switch. He’d finally found one only to discover that she’d unscrewed all the light bulbs, even the ones in the ceiling and the fluorescent ones on either side of the bathroom mirror. Neighbors later told police that they hadn’t seen a single sliver of light coming from her apartment for well over a month. It was as if the terrible capacity for destruction that I’d glimpsed in her so many years before had at last grown strong enough to consume her entirely.

This is a truly sad story; in which a man is forced to look back on a painful decision made years earlier, when his family took in a foster child to give their only child a sister. The two girls got along well at first, but the foster child became a problem child, possibly even dangerous, and for the sake of their blood daughter they gave the foster child back to the system. Now an adult, she has died, and he is having to reflect, remember, what happened all those years ago, wonder if things could have been different, if maybe he had tried a little harder maybe things wouldn’t have ended so badly for her. There’s a horrible twist at the end as well, which makes the story all the more poignant and sad; about how a life can be so easily wasted and thrown away, based on a perception that ma or may not be correct.

I then moved on to a Shirley Jackson story, from the recent collection Let Me Tell You. The story is titled “Paranoia.”

Mr. Halloran Beresford, pleasantly tired after a good day in the office, still almost clean-shaven after eight hours, his pants still neatly pressed, pleased with himself particularly for remembering, stepped out of the candy shop with a great box under his arm and started briskly for the corner. There were twenty small-size gray suits like Mr. Beresford’s on every New York block, fifty men still clean-shaven and pressed after a day in an air-cooled office, a hundred small men, perhaps, pleased with themselves for remembering their wives’ birthdays. Mr. Beresford was going to take his wife out to dinner, he decided, going to see if he could get last-minute tickets to a show, taking his wife candy. It had been an exceptionally good day, altogether, and Mr. Beresford walked along swiftly, humming musically to himself.

I absolutely, positively love love LOVE Shirley Jackson. The other night, as I was trying to decide which story to read next, I suddenly realized that I have three short story collections by one of my favorite authors and haven’t read any of them. I immediately grabbed Let Me Tell You and sat down with it. “Paranoia” is brilliant, positively brilliant; to tell you why would spoil it, and if its spoiled the effect is ruined, but it is, with every word and sentence, the perfect fictional story representation of defining the word paranoia. It reminded me, as I kept reading, of precisely why I love Jackson so much. God, what a great story!

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

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Little Green Apples

well, that’s over for another year.

The combination Festival weekend (Tennessee Williams and Saints & Sinners) was, as always, a lot of fun and inspiring. It’s always lovely to see friends I don’t get to see very often (if at all), it’s always fun to talk about writing, and listening to writers and readers talking about books and stories and so forth always rejiggers my creativity (which, granted, has been working overtime lately but hasn’t had the requisite ‘park ass in chair and type’ drive that is necessary to get anything done.

I didn’t sleep well either Thursday or Friday nights, so Friday and Saturday were slogs for me. After my reading Saturday I came home, and just basically sat around the house, too tired to write or clean or even read. I went to bed early, and FINALLY slept well, so I felt rested and was raring to go on Sunday…until the closing reception was over and once again I hit a wall. So I took the streetcar home and watched Rogue One, which I’d bought on iTunes on Friday morning (release day), and then Feud, before going to bed. I slept in again, and I don’t have to be at the office until later today…I have a short day which is absolutely lovely.

It’s always lovely to go to events where you get to mix with other writers. It doesn’t happen very often–I’m luckier than most writers in that I get to do so more regularly than others–and there’s always that, I don’t know, sense of BELONGING you get when you’re around other writers, that is so terrific to feel.

I also bought some new books this weekend: a new copy of A Confederacy of Dunces, due for a reread; Kristen-Paige Madonia’s Fingerprints of You (we were on the y/a panel together–the second time, and I had meant to get her first book the first time and remembered to get it this time); All Over But The Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg (whom I’ve never read): and Long Shot, by Tyler Bridges and Jeremy Alford, about the Louisiana gubernatorial election in which Senator David Vitter, the overwhelming favorite, was defeated by a relatively unknown state representative. (I had kind of wanted to write a book about the rise and fall of both Vitter and former governor Bobby Jindal, titled Implosion…but I am not a journalist nor do I know enough about Louisiana politics….so I am glad someone wrote a book about Vitter’s fall.)

So, this morning and this evening I am going to try to wade through my emails and get caught up on that and everything that went on in the world while I was safely inside my Festival Bubble. I also have some writing to do this week!

So, to launch the new week, here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I worked late last night, and despite being tired, I wasn’t able to sleep until much later than I’d have liked, and as such I overslept this morning. Which, of course, has now thoroughly screwed up my sleep schedule. This is frustrating, because I’d reset my body clock to go to bed early and wake up early; this was in preparation to start going to the gym in the mornings before work starting next week.

Well, I suppose it’s okay; this weekend was going to screw it up anyway.

I have some errands to do today before heading down to the Quarter; some neatening and straightening of the Lost Apartment (the work being done on the upstairs is finally finished, so things can be put back the way they are supposed to be). I also am going to the Riverwalk Outlet mall to buy a new outfit for tonight’s parties (a little treat to myself), but I don’t feel awake and energetic the way I did when I was waking up early this week. Very annoying.

But last night I did start writing my story “Quiet Desperation” in my head, which is a good thing. It’s a great idea, and now having the right tone for it…well, that’s just perfect, you know? Finding the right voice for a story is everything. (I think I actually got the voice for “The Terrortorium” right yesterday, as well. Whew. Such a relief.)

I also have to got to Costco at some point; maybe Sunday morning, maybe Monday before work. We shall see.

All right I need to get a move on, take my vitamins, eat some breakfast, get cleaned up, pack some shit for the weekend. I doubt I’ll be checking in much over the weekend, everyone, so if not…see you on the other side.

Here’s a pair of hunks to slip you into the weekend.