Hurricane mornings are always weird and a bit off-putting. It looks right now like we’ll be getting close to a direct hit later today. Yesterday it looked like the eye would come through around seven tonight; it may be later than that now. It started raining yesterday afternoon, but it wasn’t difficult getting home because there was very little traffic and very little standing water. I was able to fill the tank on the way home (just in case), and I was able to get a loaf of bread when I stopped at CVS, needing something else so I thought I’d look, and lo and behold, they had bread! Ida was bigger than this and more powerful, but the thing about hurricanes is every one is different and so is their impact. The summer before Katrina, for example, Hurricane Dennis (a category 1) came ashore before Tropical Storm Cindy, which did more damage and knocked power out for half the city, while Dennis was a big nothing despite being a stronger storm. Go figure.
We’re in a lull, where everything is quiet and peaceful and even the rain has stopped. There are a couple of things outside that I need to secure this morning. The office did close today, so we’re all working at home for a few hours; I may take the day off, frankly. I overslept this morning because I stayed up watching the debate last night, which was far better than I ever could have dreamed, with the Vice-President demonstrating why I have been a fan for over a decade. Then social media exploded with the perfectly timed Taylor Swift endorsement, and all in all, it wasn’t a very good night for the Republicans. Thoughts and prayers.
I am choosing, however, to see the positive side of this disruption (even at their best, tropical weather like this is always an interruption of day to day life). I am writing a book set during a Category 1 hurricane, so it’s almost like I spoke this into being, but I am now remembering how they actually work when you don’t evacuate, and so that is enormously helpful; I want the book to take place over the course of a hurricane–from the outer bands to the final bands, and I wasn’t really sure how they work because my memories inevitable block this sort of thing out. But I do have the timeframe now that I need (thank you for something, Francine), and I just need to make notes throughout the day on conditions and how it looks outside and what the wind and torrential rain sounds like. So, turning this into a positive is how I am looking at it. Doesn’t mean I am looking forward to it or anything like that, but at least make use of it. Everything in life is material for a writer, after all.
So, I am going to try to do things around here today. I decided to use paid time off today and not have to do any work stuff–there is some, but I just am not up for it, really. And so I am most likely going to focus on picking things up and getting organized, maybe going through another Scotty volume for information for the Bible (my biggest fear is catching discrepancies and mistakes in the overall series), and going back into what is already done and adding corrections–names and so forth that I couldn’t remember. I had forgotten that I’d already named one of Scotty’s Mom’s siblings, and that he was her only brother. It’s really odd how amorphous Scotty’s family is outside of the immediate family, isn’t it? We don’t really know a whole lot about either side of the family, although we did explore the Bradleys a bit in Who Dat Whodunnit.
Despite the imminent threat of potential destruction, I’m still feeling good about writing still, which is awesome.
It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day, which feels superfluous, but needs to be done today for sure in case we lose power.
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close so I can eat something and get cleaned up and get my day going. It’s getting dark again outside, so another band will be here soon. Have a great day wherever you are–and oh yes, heavy thoughts about today too because it’s 9/11. A hurricane on 9/11. Sheesh.
Well, here we are in the cone of uncertainty for a tropical storm that should be forming due south of Louisiana in the Gulf, which should make for an interesting week, don’t you think? How things have changed since I posted my blog yesterday morning… I imagine we’ll be hearing about contingency plans today at the office.
Sigh. Wednesday is also Pay the Bills Day, which should make everything all the more interesting. According to the hurricane center, landfall should be around seven pm on Wednesday, so who knows? It might impact work on Thursday, too. And of course, I am writing about experiencing a Category 1 with this new Scotty, and this one will be a Category 1, too, if not stronger. Yay. Needless to say, we won’t be evacuating as this has come up a little too quickly; we’d have to get packing and on the road today, tomorrow morning at the latest. There’s no call for evacuation, so we should be okay. But…we may lose power, and that truly sucks. If the weather is going to be cool…it might be kind of nice, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Guess I’ll be getting that case of water down from the attic and tossing a few of them into the freezer. But there doesn’t seem to be much concern in the news or on the weather channels, so I am assuming it’s nothing to be terribly concerned or worried about. It’s 3’s and up that are the real problem…and of course, now that I’ve said that…
Since it’s a Monday, it’s back to the office with me this morning. I had a lovely, restful weekend, how about you? Yesterday was a really lovely day here. I overslept so was a bit off for the rest of the day, but the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything, but one thing I did was start the Scotty Bible, going through the already post-it noted copy of Mardi Gras Mambo and getting some interesting (and necessary) information out of it (the first names of his grandparents and his dad; the street the Diderot mansion is on) that I needed, and I felt very accomplished getting that part of it done and it’s off to a start. It was also kind of nice revisiting the old book, something I wrote almost twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how insane the plot of this book actually was, and I’m kind of impressed that I managed to pull it off, especially given how many aborted starts I made on it. But I certainly picked the right back-list book to start compiling the Bible with; it had all the answers I needed for this one in it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, mind you; I am planning on getting through one book per day (I already marked the places I need to get information from in the entire series, many years ago); today is Who Dat Whodunnit when I get home tonight. I’m also going to correct the chapters I’ve already written with the right names and places and so forth.
I ran an errand and the weather was stunningly beautiful–the 70s and cool; the breeze was nice and cool, a lovely change from it feeling like the air coming out of a floor vent in Minneapolis in January. I watched the Saints win, which was also lovely, and then I had a ZOOM call with some friends before settling in for the evening, where we got caught up with Bad Monkey and Only Murders in the Building.
So, all in all, a pleasant if lazy weekend here in the Lost Apartment, if not a particularly productive one. Which is also fine, you know. Weekends don’t have to be productive anymore.
It’ll be interesting to see how this storm–which is now projected to be a Category 2 when the eye comes ashore–is going to interrupt the week and my work. If we lose power, we have plenty of candles and things to drink, and I can catch up on my reading. Now that I’ve broken through my “reader’s block” and binged an entire novel in one sitting (Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, available now for preorders and being released in January), reading isn’t going to be as big an issue as it was. I am also making progress on getting through Rival Queens, and am revisiting some Ira Levin classics, preparatory to a longer essay for Substack about one of my favorite writers that I sadly forget about when asked about influences; Levin’s work had an influence on mine in some ways, but he was definitely a master. He wrote one of the greatest crime novels of all time (A Kiss Before Dying, which still amazes with its twists and turns and surprises), and three others that became part of the zeitgeist and had a lasting impact on our culture: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil. (I also want to reread “A Rose for Emily” this week, too.) I also haven’t reread Rebecca in quite some time, nor The Haunting of Hill House, either. I am going to be trying to read horror all month for Halloween again; I have some terrific horror novels collecting dust that I need to get around to, and Halloween Horror Month sounds like a great idea to me.
I also want to watch The Deliverance this week.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. It’ll be an interesting day, for sure, and maybe I’ll be back later. Stranger things have occurred.
Good morning to you, Constant Reader. Here we are on Saturday, after another rainy day and work-at-home duties. It is still raining this morning. I can see why it starts to get on people after a few days, but not me. I love it. I am up super early this morning again–I got up at six thirty (!!)–for the second day in a row that I didn’t have to, but I find I like getting up early when I don’t have to so I can get more stuff done, you know? It was great getting all my work stuff done early yesterday so I could run my errands and work on the house and so on, which I did go ahead and do. My eye appointment isn’t today, but I rescheduled it anyway for the first weekend in October.
I did start working on the Scotty Bible yesterday, which was very cool. I feel like progress is being made, you know? Paul was at the office for meetings and to finish a grant, so Sparky and I had a lovely time hanging out. I also started pulling together a cast list for the new book, and started working on the outline. I also figured out how to do the prologue, which I usually do when the book is done, and I have a great opening line to parody. As I was moving stuff around on my desk while cleaning, I pulled out my copy of Collected Stories of William Faulkner, and of course there was a place-holder marking the page where “A Rose for Emily” begins. I know, it’s not very original, but “A Rose for Emily” is one of my favorite short stories of all time, but its brilliant macabre twists and turns are absolute genius, and of course, Faulkner was a genius. Hard to navigate sometimes, but a genius none-the-less. I may reread it to dissect it again, but every small Southern town had a Miss Emily, back in the day. “I have no taxes in Jefferson” is such a great line.
I did read some non-fiction yesterday. I received a book called The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos by Armen Keteyian and John Talty and it’s interesting. It covers the 2023 football season, with all the conference realignments, NIL deals and money, and so on. The nice thing about it is every chapter is about a different coach or team or aspect of the “chaos”, so it doesn’t have to be read in order. I read the chapters about Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh yesterday, as well as the one about the collapse of Jimbo Fisher’s career at Texas A&M. I’m keeping an open mind–my mantra being “change isn’t bad’–about it, but I’m watching college football with a wary eye this year; all the changes and this multi team play-off (the irony that the team that’s royal screwing last year emphasized the need for this has now lost two games already this early doesn’t escape me. They could of course run the table–look at what happened to Clemson already, too–the two powerhouses of the ACC.) But it’s a long season, and everyone counted Alabama out early last year after they lost to Texas, and they did just that–ran the table and went to the play-offs.
When I was running my errands yesterday, I had my first “understand the assignment” experience with a total stranger! I had stopped to get the mail, and of course, it was raining. So I dashed through the rain into the postal service, grabbed my mail, and ran back across the street to where I was parked. As I got into the car, I noticed Harris/Walz signs all over the iron gate of the house next door. I smiled, and decided to take a picture of it once I was safely in my car. I rolled down the window, but the gate started to open and a car pulled in. The woman got out, saw me taking a picture of her gate, and I yelled “love your signs” and gave her a thumbs-up (she also had them on her car) and we yelled it together at the same time: “I understand the assignment!” and we both laughed. As I drove off, I noticed the entire block had Harris/Walz signs, and I started noticing them on cars around the city yesterday, too. Usually all I’ve seen has been Trump decals and stickers all over those “I have a small penis so I need a massive truck” vehicles, but I also know those people aren’t from New Orleans. I mean it when I say I live in a blue dot in a red sea–New Orleans doesn’t play with that sort of thing. New Orleans is so fucking blue it’s almost black, kind of like the dark blue velvet of a cloudless midnight sky on the full moon. Think I’m kidding? Did Hillary get 81% and Biden 83% of the vote in your blue city? WHen we had more population, combining with the other blue dots in the state, New Orleans could swing a statewide election to the Democratic Party; it’s how Mary Landrieu was elected to the Senate twice here,…until she committed the colossal sin of agreeing with and backing our first Black president. The racists replaced her with Bill Cassidy1, that mental giant, because New Orleans didn’t have the electoral power in the state it enjoyed before Katrina–and don’t tell me that part of the response to Katrina wasn’t what it was because Karl Rove wanted to break the Democratic Party in Louisiana, and what better way than to traumatize and break up a solid block of voters? It’s never really recovered, either. That’s why we have those morons Cassidy and Kennedy in the Senate embarrassing us on a daily basis, and why we have a Project 2025 governor now.
The city will turn out for the Vice-President. The rest of the state may be as red as the old USSR flag2, but New Orleans thumbs its nose at their politics of division, hate, and Christian white supremacy. It’s why the rest of the state hates us, that plus we’re a majority Black city. It’s why the racists in the rest of the state are always whining about the crime in New Orleans and how ‘scary’ and ‘dangerous’ the city is; dog whistles, of course. I am white and I have lived here for almost thirty years, and yes, while we have been the victims of a violent crime committed by homophobes from outside of New Orleans, neither one of us ever feels fear here.
And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and I am going to read for a little while before I get cleaned up and going on my day. Hope you have a great Saturday, Constant Reader; I’ll have the television on in the background during games today. I don’t think LSU’s game tonight is even televised? No big deal, really.
Work at home Friday! I have a meeting at ten and then I get to do work-at-home duties for a few hours before I can end my work day and dive back into working on the book. I am having to be a bit more careful this time, as my memory isn’t as good as it used to be and I have been making this up as I go so far, so there are no notes for me to look at and think ah yes, the nurse’s name was this or Aunt Del’s second husband’s last name was NOT Alencon, so last night I reread the first four chapters of this masterpiece in progress and wasn’t disgusted, appalled and/or embarrassed at the terrible writing. (It is excruciatingly awful.) But I was writing down the names of the characters and who they are so I can start constructing back stories as well as who they are, and that will lead to more story and more characters. I also have to synopsize and outline those chapters as well…which also made me realize I have to look up the names of Scotty’s parents and grandparents, which means going through the books, which means…I should just start rereading them and pulling together the Scotty Bible at long last. That is my plan for this weekend; to work on pulling together information that is necessary out of the previous volumes and revising the current chapters. I am also really proud of myself for recognizing this work is necessary to make writing the rest easier and fix the mistakes in these early chapters.
I am also up way earlier than I need to be, but I woke up at six. Sparky actually was sleeping with me this morning when I woke up, which is progress on the cuddling front. I woke up at six, and was awake so figured might as well stay up if I am already, you know? My coffee is good and I am a little groggy, but taking a shower once I finish writing this will help with that, and I can get started on my work-at-home duties and be free earlier, which is really nice,..and I can use this afternoon to catch up on chores and get started on the Scotty Bible, which is cool and exciting. Should I be this excited to be writing another Scotty? I don’t know if it’s the writing Scotty that has me so high or if it’s just writing in general? I also don’t have a contract yet, so they may not even want it. But that’s not anything to worry about right now, either. I am just going to stay laser-focused on writing. The apartment isn’t that bad this morning, really. Tomorrow I have an eye appointment to get a new prescription so I can order new glasses, but other than that and college football, there’s really not much going on for us around here. I do want to watch The Deliverance this weekend. So many possibilities!
Our wretched governor this week asked LSU to start bringing Mike the Tiger back into the stadium for football games this season. I do love that tiger (I even made him the focal point of one of my Scotty books), he is stunningly beautiful, and I remember the year they decided to stop bringing Mike into the stadium. (This was the previous Mike.) The rule always was they wouldn’t sedate him and if he refused to get in the trailer, they wouldn’t try to make him. Previous Mike that entire year refused, and so…no Mike. It was disappointing to me the few games I went to that year–Mike’s entrance into the stadium was always one of my favorite parts of the game. The next year, they decided not to try, and I also think the veterinary school also realized that bringing him into the stadium is probably not the best thing for a tiger. There’s a lot of people, a lot of noise, and if he gets upset or irritated or anxious during a game, there’s no getting him out of the stadium again until half-time or the game ends–and what if the fans rush the field? He’s secure in his trailer, of course, but why upset a big animal who was rescued from a bad situation who’s finally getting used to being taken care of and spoiled? I myself began to realize, the longer more time passed and there was no tiger in the stadium, I rethought the whole thing. Whether there should be a wild animal habitat on campus or not is an entirely different argument, and one I am undecided about the right answer, and know that my reluctance to say its not good has a lot to do with my affection for that tiger.
I’ve also begun to really understand two things about college football (and life for that matter) is that when someone talks about tradition, they’re just saying “we’ve always done it this way” and change is scary; and a lot of the time tradition is what keeps problems festering for decades.
I also think the Governor making demands of our flagship university is not good for the school or the state. If you want to interfere with LSU, Governor Landry, why don’t you pump some more money into the school? Cut tuition? Repair or replace some of the crumbling buildings on campus? No, his only interest in LSU is the athletic teams and showing how powerful he is. He clearly doesn’t give a shit about education in Louisiana, especially if he actually believes having the Ten Commandments displayed in every classroom in the state will improve somehow our educational system…when what it actually is another form of the right’s “thoughts and prayers” bullshit they trot out whenever they try to force us to believe their corrupted faith and think that holy bandage they stick on the problem will make things better somehow.
Leaving things to God’s will is an abdication of morality and responsibility; the proverbial “Pilate washing his hands”. And is that what we need leading the state?
I am beginning to remember that the reason I try not to follow state politics more closely than I do is because it leads to fucking despair.
Right-wing media (which is apparently bought and paid for by the Kremlin) have been trying to hide their overt racism lately by using code, what is more commonly known as “dog whistles.” The latest is this “the Vice-President is a phony because she talks differently to different people”, which basically means “straight white people don’t do this so there must be some nefariously horrible reason for this.” No, douchebags, it’s more of a protective coloring, like chameleons, that marginalized people all develop because straight white people can be so fucking awful. One example of this is my parents had very pronounced rural Alabama accents, which began to fade over the years after they left, but it’s still there. Paul used to always love when I talked to my parents on the phone because my own accent comes out, and it would usually take about an hour or so for me to get back to the way I normally talk. I learned how to speak with an accent, which I also quickly learned to disguise in elementary school because it was very clear to me that the way I spoke made people assume I was stupid. It’s not just my family, either, that triggers my accent; whenever I speak to anyone who has one mine comes back out–my brain is coded that other people with Southern accents are safe. Likewise, hard as it is to believe but I also tone myself down when I’m around a majority of straight people I don’t know. This is why gay bars were so important for so long–after a week of coding myself as either “less gay” or “blend in don’t bring attention to yourself”, going to a gay bar where I could completely be myself without worry of losing either my job or being attacked was an enormous release, and I know I’m not the only gay man who saw the bars as a conduit to community and safety. That’s why it kind of bothers me that straight people come to gay bars and hang out because the vibe is so different than straight bars; their presence makes the safe space not as safe, and sometimes it makes them uncomfortable to be a minority and they act out. I suppose it’s kinder to say “straight people need to be more respectful of queer safe spaces.” That’s always been a problem, and really–bachelorette bridal parties need to stay out of gay bars because drunk straight white girls can be the absolute fucking worst.
And don’t come to our bars for entertainment if you don’t support our equality.
Yes, ladies, you’re super-cool for making asses out of yourself in queer bars, and oh so tolerant for gifting us and our spaces with your presence. I know that things have changed since I was younger, and the younger queer generations aren’t so rigid about separating their lives because they don’t have to, and I am all for that. Straight kids and queer kids absolutely should be friends, should hang out, and the sexuality thing shouldn’t make a difference, which is what we’ve always said. Younger generations don’t need that safe space as much, at least in the cities, the way we used to need it. I haven’t set foot in a gay bar in years, so maybe the entire culture has changed, and again, this is how things used to be is not a compelling argument against change. Maybe I’m just that old man who’s out of step with the young ones these days, and I do catch myself all the time questioning things I’ve always thought and believed and are reflexive; I’ve spent a lot of time the last few years sorting things out in my head, and seeing things with the clarity distance provides.
I was wrong about so many things. I blame public education, for teaching me American Mythology instead of US History.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later. Thanks for checking in!
Work at home Friday, and the eve of the three day Labor Day weekend. It’s Bouchercon in Nashville and Southern Decadence in New Orleans, and I am not leaving my house today. It’s going to rain all day, for one, and I am a little worn down from the week. That’s normal, thank God, and maybe I am getting the point where my routine is becoming, well, routine. I’ve commented endlessly here how weird it is that I’d start the week tired, and get more rested and energetic the deeper into the week I’d get; so it bears commenting that this week was kind of normal, getting more tired rather than energetic as the week wore on. I managed to get home from work yesterday between storms, and alas, it looks as those it’s going to rain all weekend, which sucks if you came to New Orleans to hang out in the streets of the Fruit Loop to have a good time. But we gays are nothing if not a problem-solving make-the-best-of-everything people, and I know folks will have a great time while they are here. I was too tired to write anything last night, which I figured would happen, and it was fine. Paul and I mostly watched the US Open, then I watched the CNN interview with the Democratic nominees before going to bed relatively early; I did some things around the kitchen last night before going to bed. I definitely need to clean it/straighten it up today before doing my work-at-home duties.
I was tired.
I am glad that I am about to have a three day weekend; I’m even more delighted that it’s going to rain all day–with thunderstorms, which are my absolute favorite. I do love the rain here, and I probably write about about rain far too much in my books, but rain is definitely one of the things that you can’t ignore if you’re writing about New Orleans. This entire book I am writing now is around a tropical storm that I’ve invented (Clothilde) and I am torn between making it a tropical storm or a Category 1. I also want to try something different with this book, making it more of a challenge to write, but we’ll see how that goes. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader! Huzzah indeed! Now if I can get my brain rejiggered to start reading again, all will be well in my world. Paul also is going to be out of the house all day–meetings and so forth–so it’ll just be me and the Demon Cat Sparky. I can live with that, I think. Paul’s also going to bring pizza from Midway on Freret, which is amazing. Huzzah! No worries about making dinner tonight!
As you can tell, I woke up in a pretty good mood this morning, which is always a lovely thing. I feel rested and awake this morning, my coffee tastes amazing, and Sparky is galloping around playing with a bottle cap (no need to buy His Majesty any toys when he’s fine with either an empty box or a bottle cap). I have a meeting at ten to start my work day, and I am just going to take it easy, answer some emails, and pick up around here before that rolls around. I am hoping to finish Chapter Three of the book today–I’m at a transition, and I did start moving on from where I’d left off on Wednesday, but only a paragraph before I petered out. I want to finish Three and possibly start 4 today, and then tomorrow before I write I’ll go ahead and review what is already done and add some things and probably take some out. I also need to start rereading the backlist, and this weekend might be a good time to tackle that Scotty Bible I’ve been wanting to, and maybe make some progress on the copy edit of Jackson Square Jazz so I can get that back into availability. Next year Scotty turns 22, Jackson Square Jazz turns 21, and maybe I can celebrate the longevity of the series around its original publication date. I have the time now to promote myself more, and that’s kind of what I need to be doing. I’m also having to get used to having free time that’s not just blowing things off for a day or two, and that means getting used to not feeling guilty for taking a day off from my writing career to let my brain rest.
It’s weird not having all that outside pressure on me anymore. I mean, I’m still grieving, of course, but it’s nothing I can’t handle anymore, and of course I’m still not entirely recovered physically from the surgery yet (my own fault, for not pushing myself to do my rehab exercises the way I should have–see? There’s always something I can beat myself up over). But it’s also incredibly freeing, and of course last year was one of those awful years that happen in my life from time to time. Yet I’m always reminded that I’m still overall pretty lucky. How can anyone complain when their dreams have all come true?
I also concluded yesterday (Katrina anniversary–which may have accounted for being tired yesterday; there’s still residual PTSD around that date) that I am going to start paying more attention to Louisiana’s horrific policies and our monstrous governor and his rubber-stamp legislature, and perhaps addressing them? I’ve never written much on here about how horrible living in the Project 2025 testing ground can be–but at least I live in the big blue dot of New Orleans, so I am spared the worst of it. There has yet to be a stare-down between the city and the state but I do know our city council is very defiant and anti-Landry’s fascistic tendencies, which makes me love this city all the more.
And no one has yet explained to me how having the Ten Commandments displayed in public school classrooms will fix the roads and the levees while reducing poverty and illiteracy in Louisiana. I suspect I’ll be waiting a really long time…interestingly enough, of all things, LSU is defying the governor, who issued a ridiculous executive order demanding college and university sports teams cancel scholarships for athletes who are not present during the playing of the national anthem before the game. LSU’s football team would all lose their scholarships because of this; the tradition in Tiger Stadium is the band goes out and plays the Pregame, then the National Anthem, and then the band makes a tunnel for the team to run out on the field while the band plays another one of LSU’s fight songs (there are quite a few, and several were written by Huey Long). Decades of tradition and pregame hype vs. expelling the entire team?
Yeah, Landry’s not going to mess with the football team–or any of the LSU teams, really.
And on that note, here comes today’s first storm, and I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later!
Okay, that’s technically not true. I don’t write fiction every day, and I don’t work on a book every day. I generally don’t count the blog as actual writing, but it is writing, I suppose, so I do write that pretty much every day. But I’ve never included the blog in daily word counts or anything; just as I wouldn’t (and didn’t) consider emails, text messages, and social media posts as being part of the daily production output (although I suppose I should; I estimated how many words of blog I’ve done since starting this nineteen years ago–twenty in December–and it was a staggering amount, especially since it was probably dramatically under-counted), and never will.
I do think about writing fiction every day, even the days when I am so exhausted and brain dead I don’t think I’m capable of much of anything creative. I am always thinking, and it’s very rare that the brain turns off, unless I go to sleep (thank you, sleeping pills!); as long as part of my mind is awake and alert my mind will eventually wander into creative thinking. It’s just how my mind works.
During the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon last month, I was on a couple of panels, and as usual have decided to turn the questions sent by the moderators as the basis for self-promotional posts. It has been a hot minute–I’ve not done a hell of a lot of promotion since the surgery knocked me off my tracks for a few months–and while I know many other books have come out since and the Greg has a new book excitement amongst my readers has already died down long since, but what the hell, right? I’m nothing if not a narcissist (or have, at best, some narcissistic traits at any rate), and let’s face it, one of my favorite subjects is ME, so why not? No one has to read these self-promotional posts, either. Just scroll on by, if that’s how you feel; my feelings will not be hurt in the slightest, and I no longer have the anxiety of oh my god no one likes me how can I make everyone like me?
How do you ensure that your latest work is not similar to something you have written before? Can you even remember everything you have written before?
After the eighth (?) Scotty book, someone on social media commented on one of my posts asking how many car accidents has Scotty been in? I’d never really thought much about it, but in that moment I realized quite a fucking lot, and that doesn’t include my other, non-Scotty books, either. I realized that I had been in a car accident in 2008 (the first in decades, and I wasn’t at fault) and my car was totaled. It was so weird, and so different from anything I’d ever imagined being in a serious accident like that would be; it took me days to get the taste of chemicals from the airbag out of my throat and my voice was scratchy and husky for about a week or so after. So, of course, I wrote about it in my next book…and then I think I started having a car accident in a lot more of my books. There was also a car accident in one of the earlier Scotty books–Jackson Square Jazz–and so…I didn’t put one in Mississippi River Mischief.
I had never truly worried about repeating myself until that moment of oh my God do I have a car accident in every book? And so now, I try to be really careful. Am I just rewriting a scene I’ve written before? Scotty is on book nine now; I don’t think it’s feasible for me to sit down and reread the entire series every time I am about to write another one. I have always intended to make a Scotty Bible–what all the regular characters look like, their relationships to each other, where they live, little tidbits I’ve dropped over the years that are clues to their personalities–so that I could verify the information in the series and not have to go looking for it (because I am nothing if not lazy, so I’d put it off and forget it and then realize it’s too late to change that now! FUCK!). I also should go back and outline the books, too–just to have something easy to reference when writing another one.
Since I write more than one series and I also write stand-alone novels, I just realized I should probably do this with all of my books…but I am way too lazy to ever get that done. So I will go on trusting my brain and my memory…which is clearly a mistake!
When naming your characters, do you completely avoid names which you have used in the past or do you feel that the characterization alone is enough to differentiate?
I have names I always fall back on–I also tend to like names that start with L’s and J’s for some reason–so I have to be careful with that. I don’t keep track of all character names I’ve used, and I suppose it’s possible that I could “recreate” a character with a name I’ve used before, and even make them the same…but I also re-use characters; they cross over from series to series and back and then to the stand alones. When I was writing Death Drop, I was originally going to have Blaine and Venus be the cops; they were the cops in both of my previous series with a gay male protagonist, so why not keep expanding my New Orleans universe? I eventually changed my mind–I don’t know why, really, or remember, which is probably a more accurate statement–and changed the names; I think I wanted to differentiate the Killer Queen series and make it more distinct from Chanse and Scotty.
I’m worried more about creating characters that are similar to others I’ve written about more so than the name. I was thinking about starting another series–one with a true crime writer as the main character, and he’s already appeared in both the Scotty and Chanse series; I even had an idea for the story. But when I started creating him, I began to realize he was like a mash-up of Chanse and Scotty, so I abandoned the idea. Now that I am thinking about it again, so what if their backgrounds are similar? He’s nothing like either one of them, and it was a good story idea, so…you never know. I try not to ever conclusively rule anything out. I even think about bringing Chanse back every once in a while.
A question I’m sure most of you have received—do you ever worry that you will run out of ideas?
That’s the least of my concerns. I am more worried I won’t live long enough to write everything I want to.
After all these books, do you still enjoy the writing process?
The primary goal of my life has always been to try to surgically remove anything I don’t enjoy from my existence. I am very blessed in that not only do I get to write and tell my stories and people want to read them but I also have a day job that I enjoy and can feel good about the work I do there. So, the only way I would ever stop writing if I stopped enjoying it, and I can’t ever see that happening. Sure, I’ve had times where I had to step away because of burn out or exhaustion, but I always knew it was a break and I would come back to it again. It’s been difficult for me since my surgery in November to get back into it, but I am making progress. I love writing, and am so grateful this childhood dream came true.
I used to bristle a bit when people called me prolific; I just love to write. But I finally stopped that nonsense and accepted the descriptor when I hit my tenth book…which was over thirty books ago. If that’s not prolific, I don’t know what is. ↩︎
Tuesday morning and back to work tomorrow. I had thought about canceling my sick time and going back into the office today; but I got so easily tired yesterday that I changed my mind. I’m pretty sure a lot of it has to do with the starvation–liquid and/or soft food just isn’t satisfying, and I am hungry all the time (one would think a diet that includes ice cream would be awesome, but I am so sick of it all I think I may never eat it again once this is all over). Well, not all the time, but I do feel hungry here and there before it, as usual, goes away. I think the low calorie intake is also affecting my energy levels. I’m a bit sore this morning (was hoping to not get loopy from taking pain pills today, but I’m going to have to) and I’m still a few days away from chewing noodles or anything soft like that, so it’s more baby food, oatmeal, and protein shakes for me today. Woo-hoo.
One thing I absolutely need to do before going back to work tomorrow is clean out my inbox, at least for today. There’s a couple of little things I need to definitely get done, or get started, today while I have the leisure of not being at the office. It’s going to feel weird waking up at six tomorrow morning, but…no other choice. It would be great to stay out until my mouth is healed completely and no longer aches, but I don’t have that kind of sick time left from everything that went on earlier in the year and so forth–and I have a surgery to be scheduled yet. I guess I’ll worry about that when it comes to it, and when I know when the surgery is going to be. I also need to get a grip on my finances again and make sure all my due dates are on the calendar. I also have spent money with the debit card that’s not recorded so I don’t know my bank balance for sure, either. All things that can be easily remedied, of course, but tend to be a bit tedious and so I dislike doing them.
We are currently watching Painkiller, which is yet another mini-series built around the evil corrupt Sacklers and the opioid epidemic they started in order to make billions by convincing doctors that their version of heroin wasn’t addicting. The Sacklers were undoubtedly be studied by future historians as an example of the worst kind of horror capitalism and its ethos of greed is capable of creating; the paralysis of the FDA and the corruption inherent by bribing (er donating) money to politicians to advance the gutting of what little power the FDA had to monitor and control this sort of thing, and so on (looking at you, paragon of corruption and enemy of the people Marsha Blackburn!). The suffering and destruction and death and havoc wreaked on families and communities while these monsters and their agents of addiction and death made money is incalculable…and they don’t care. Even after all the lawsuits, after losing the company, all the deaths, the Sacklers are still sitting on a mountain of money. They are pariahs, rightfully shunned, but dollars-to-donuts they’re back manufacturing medicine in twenty years when most Americans have forgotten their heinous crimes.
I seem to have let yesterday slip through my fingers in a painkiller fog–super strong ibuprofen also messes with your head the way Vicodin and oxycodone do–but it’s more of a losing track of time sort of thing. I did get the sink cleaned out and did a load of laundry (waiting to be folded) and there’s all sorts of filing and organizing to get done this morning. I want to read more of Shawn’s book today, and I’d like to get prepared for going to work tomorrow with a clear conscience. The great heat wave has finally broken. It’s still humid but not as bad, and it’s not getting as hot as it had been during the course of the summer–it actually feels pleasant when I go outside.
My tests for COVID are still coming back negative so I am going to assume I missed the Bouchercon spread. I hope everyone who did catch it at (or around) the convention are on the road to recovery and all had very mild cases. I’m seeing my new primary care doctor a week from Friday, so I am hoping to get the new booster and a flu shot when I see her. I am also hoping to get some feedback from her on the big toe on my right foot situation; you probably don’t remember but it’s been sore since Mom went into hospice and was swollen so badly I had to wear house shoes to her funeral? He gave me anti-inflammatory cream and that was it. Well, it’s eight months later, it still hurts when I bend it, and it still swells up periodically–not as bad as originally, but I can’t help but think it might be something more than what he rather pointedly dismissed? He was wrong about my arm, after all. And now the other big toe is starting to do the same thing.
But I’m sure it’s nothing.
Uh huh.
Forgive me if I don’t believe anything that hack said to me about anything.
But that’s a story for another time.
I do feel more like myself than I have since the surgery on Friday, so that’s something…but then I also just took my pain meds, so I don’t know for sure how long that feeling will last. But I have to do something about this mess around here, and maybe I can even do some writing today. I have already started working on the plan for the sequel to Death Drop, and I also need to plan out the sequel to A Streetcar Named Murder. I already know what the story is behind that one; I just don’t have a title yet but I do know what the first chapter is going to be. Maybe I should just go ahead and write that, get it under way and see how it goes? I also want to start working on the edit of Jackson Square Jazz, and maybe even revise it some. I resisted the temptation to revise and re-edit the Chanse books for their ebooks, and did the same for Bourbon Street Blues, but Jackson Square Jazz is actually the book that sets the backstory for Mississippi River Mischief, so I need to be certain everything lines up the way it’s supposed to–and I can also change some things predicated on what has happened in the series since, because I know what is coming (which I didn’t know when I wrote the book originally). This might also be a good time to finally put together the Scotty Bible (I’m only nine books in now) which should make writing the next one even easier. It’s a lot of work, but with my memory getting shittier and shittier with every passing day, it’s something that really needs to be done. If I write another Chanse (it’s possible; I never say never), I would definitely have to do the same because I really don’t remember much about any of those books.
And I have some short stories that need to be finished for anthologies.
So on that note, I am calling this entry for the day and heading into the spice mines. I may be back later; there are still unfinished blog posts in my drafts (I’ve managed to get some of them out there over this past weekend, even though I don’t count blog posts as writing, it really is and I really should), and of course, laundry to fold and dishes to put away and a refrigerator to clean out. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!
Sunday morning and there’s an LSU game tonight (GEAUX TIGERS!). There’s no way of knowing how good LSU is going to be this year, so I guess tonight’s the night we find out. I watched some of the games yesterday–Georgia certainly looked impressive, and good for Florida and Ohio State winning their big games yesterday, but again, it’s also too early to know anything for sure. Were the two top-ranked teams from the PAC-12 (Oregon and Utah) overrated, or will they rebound (although that shellacking the Ducks got from Georgia had to sting) to make a play-off run after all? The only thing you can ever be sure of in college football is Alabama will be a contender.
Yesterday was a very good day. We had a downpour and flash flood warning for most of the afternoon, but fortunately I had already run the errand I had to run; this morning I have an errand to run as well, and then i am going to come home and order Costco for delivery (just a few things we need) and I intend to spend the day writing. I spent the day organizing and cleaning (which is always an incredibly pleasant way for me to spend the day) and cleaned out kitchen cabinets in order to throw away a lot of items that I had purchased for single, one-time use and had never used again. My cake carrier, for example; I bought that to carry birthday cakes I’d made to work. I used to make our nurse a red velvet cheesecake for his birthday every year–but he’s left the agency and it is highly unlikely I’ll ever make another cake that needs to be transported; if I do, I guess I can just get another one. I also was throwing away things I don’t use but take up space in the kitchen–the big metal salad mixing bowl, the big plastic salad container, muffin tins, etc.–and then reorganized the shelves and made more room for things. I also cleaned things off the tops of the cabinets. It now looks a lot less cluttered in the kitchen and when I open the cabinets.
There’s still some work to be done on the cabinets, but I feel very good about the progress made yesterday. I also did the floors.
I also spent some time revisiting Bourbon Street Blues yesterday. I didn’t give it a thorough read, more of a skim, but it had been a hot minute since I last read the book and…Constant Reader, it wasn’t bad. The book came out nineteen years ago, and I of course wrote it twenty years ago. It’s had to believe it’s been that long, isn’t it? I wrote it when we lived in the apartment on Sophie Wright Place after we moved back to New Orleans in 2001; it’s the only book I wrote there, because I wrote the next two after we moved onto this property and were living in the carriage house. I also realized that the reason I am so hard on myself when I read my own work is primarily because I have trained my mind over the years to read my stuff critically and editorially, with an eye to revision–and that doesn’t change once the book is actually in print. Bourbon Street Blues is not a bad book at all–there’s even some really clever lines in it. Someone had actually responded to one of my blog posts about the stand alone books that they’d like to see me do the same for the series book; I feel like I may have done that already, but it’s not a bad idea. I need to revisit the Scotty series anyway in order to write the new one (which was part of the reason I picked up Bourbon Street Blues yesterday) and since I have trouble focusing enough to read other people’s work at the moment, why not reread the entire series from start to finish? It certainly can’t hurt.
I have been bemoaning how bad the writing is for this new Scotty book I am writing and yesterday, as I cleaned and organized and reread Bourbon Street Blues, I began to see why precisely the work I’ve already done isn’t good and what precisely was/is wrong with what I’ve already done. The bones are there, of course, and it can be saved, which is what I am going to do today. I know precisely know how to make this book work, how to structure it, how to introduce the new characters and the plots for the book, and it’s a marvelous feeling. After I finish this–and then write my entry on Bourbon Street Blues–I am going to go run that errand, come home and get cleaned up, place the Costco order for delivery, and then dig into redoing the initial three chapters of the book and maybe even dive into another. I also am going to spend some time today with Jackson Square Jazz; I may bring the iPad with me so I can keep reading the Scotty series during Bouchercon–but then again, I have other things I am taking with me to read, too. But those are for the airport and the flights primarily; I can lug my iPad around in my backpack and then between panels or when I am sitting alone in the lobby I can pull it out and scan through another Scotty book quickly. It’s also not a bad idea for me to start working on (at last) pulling together the Scotty Bible I’ve always said I needed to pull together. (I also kind of need to pull together all the information on the Gregiverse; the world in which all of my books are actually set, from Alabama to New Orleans to California to Kansas to Chicago’s suburbs…)
I also have a short story submission I need to look over before sending it in for the blind read–next year’s Bouchercon anthology is the market–but I am not sure I’ll have the time or if I know precisely how to fix it.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I’d like to have another productive day today, so…lots to do before the LSU game tonight.
Saturday in the Lost Apartment and all is well–at least so far.
I ran errands last night on my way home from work so I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything today involving leaving the house, and I think I’ll go ahead and make groceries on-line today to pick up tomorrow; we don’t really need a lot of stuff but it must be done. There’s a part of me that feels incredibly lazy doing this for some reason–perhaps the more I do it, the less guilt I’ll feel about having someone else make my groceries for me. I guess that’s really what it is; getting used to a new service. I mean, even the Fresh Market will do this, too–but one of the things I like about the Fresh Market is, well, everything seems fresher than at the other groceries, and picking out fruit and vegetables isn’t something I am willing to trust to another person just yet. I like to see the fresh stuff I am buying and pick it (although I am still regretting not stopping at that roadside stand when I was on the North Shore last weekend and picking up some Creole tomatoes fresh from the field, especially since I’ve not seen any in stores since then).
It rained again most of the day, and of course we’re still under a flood warning through sometime tonight. There are two systems out there I’ve yet to check but probably will momentarily. It’s that time of year when we seem to be getting hit with a higher degree of frequency since Katrina–just before Labor Day–and I know there have been at least three more storms around this time that I can think of right off the top of my head (2008, 2012, and last year for sure). Well, I took a look and yes, there is still a system in the Caribbean near the Yucatan, and there’s another one developing in the eastern Atlantic (meaning there are now two out there) but at least we’re okay for now. Labor Day weekend, on the other hand, could be something else entirely. Last year’s Ida was more of a Labor Day thing, if I am remembering correctly, or at least its impact and aftermath lasted through Labor Day. (2021 is still kind of blurry for me.)
The sun is shining right now, and I rested really well last night. A good night’s sleep is always a pleasure on the weekends, of course, and I even allowed myself the indulgence of sleeping in a little later. I have some laundry to finish and a sink to clear in the kitchen, and some other casual cleaning up and household maintenance to take care of this morning before I dive back into the wonderful world of work. I did get Chapter One rewritten Thursday–still leaves something to be desired, but isn’t completely the shitty mess it was before–and I did get started revising Chapter Two, which is going to be trickier–and then I have to springboard into Chapter Three, which I still have to figure out. I also want to do some work on some other things I am working on (as always) and I want to dedicate some time to reading Gabino’s marvelous novel The Devil Takes You Home today and tomorrow. I’ve actually been better these last couple of weeks at not being completely exhausted when I get home, which has also enabled me to try, at some level, to keep up with the housework so I don’t have to spend the entire day today cleaning and organizing and filing–there will be some of that, of course, and I also have to spend some time revisiting older Scotty books; maybe one of the things I could do today is start working on the Scotty Bible? That would help me remember everything that’s going on in the family and refresh my brain about some other things (did I ever give Rain’s doctor husband a name, for one really strong example of bad memory) and of course it would never hurt to have all of that assembled in one place that is easily accessible. Heavy sigh.
We also are watching Bad Sisters on Apple TV, and am really enjoying it. It’s rather dark; it’s about five extremely close Irish sisters who lost their parents young and were all raised by the oldest sister, who now lives in the family home, is single and apparently unable to have children. One of the sisters is married to an emotionally abusive asshole named John Paul who apparently takes delight in torturing and being cruel not only to his wife but to her sisters. One decides he needs to die, and recruits the oldest to help her kill him…and then each episode details how another sister got involved in the plan. The show opens with his funeral, so we know they succeed at some point, but the story alternates between the past (the sisters slowly coming together to decide to kill The Prick, which is what they all call him) and the team of brothers who work for the insurance company who have to pay out the death claim. The brothers (half-brothers, actually; one is played by the same hot actor who played the escort Emma Thompson hires for sex in her most recent film, which we enjoyed and I can’t recall the name of now) don’t really get along either. The oldest is convinced John Paul was murdered, but the younger brother is really attracted to the youngest sister and they are starting to develop a romantic relationship. It’s quite cleverly written and plotted–and even before I was completely sold on the show, I realized I wanted to keep watching because I hated John Paul so much I wanted to see how they decided to kill him and how. But well into the second episode I had to confess to being hooked. I loved the dueling timelines (I have always been a sucker for stories that are told this way, both the past and the present, flashing back and forth; I’ve always wanted to do one that way, but it seems really hard. A good example of a crime novel using this technique is Alison Gaylin’s What Remains of Me), the writing is sharp, and the acting top notch. It also takes place in Ireland, with gorgeous cinematography. I’ll keep you posted as we continue to watch.
We also watched the latest episode of Five Days at Memorial, which was truly painful to watch. The first episodes didn’t really get to me, but episode five–the fifth day, when the decision was made that everyone had to be out of the hospital and whoever couldn’t get out would be left behind regardless of the consequences, was absolutely wrenching in a way the previous episodes had not been. My Katrina scars are as nothing compared to what a lot of other people experienced: I survived, I was able to get out before the storm arrived, and my scars, while still from loss, are from bearing witness by watching television and witnessing what I saw when I finally came home in October, as well as living in a nearly-empty, 90% destroyed city after my return. (Last year, when we trapped here as Ida came in, was bad enough; I cannot imagine how horrible it would have been to have been stuck here praying for someone to come rescue us. At least we were able, and had the means, to finally get out when we ran out of food and water.)
I’ve also found myself thinking a lot about my Katrina writing these last couple of days–my essay “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet”; my short stories “Disaster Relief” and “Annunciation Shotgun” and “Survivor’s Guilt”; and of course, Murder in the Rue Chartres. I was thinking about this book last night–partly because of watching Five Days at Memorial, because it reminded me that Rue Chartres wasn’t supposed to be the third Chanse book at all. The third Chanse book was supposed to be something else altogether, but obviously in the wake of Hurricane Katrina my plans for both the Chanse and Scotty series had to dramatically shift and change. Seventeen years ago was a Saturday, the Saturday we nervously watched the storm, having now crossed south Florida and entered the Gulf, intensifying and growing and taking aim directly at New Orleans. We decided to not leave just yet; every other time a hurricane had threatened the city after we moved here we watched and waited patiently, and were rewarded with the storm turning east before coming ashore and the city avoiding a direct hit. We never lost phone, cable or power during those other instances–we were nervous, still reassuring ourselves of the turn to the east before landfall but the reality that we would have to leave was becoming more and more real. It’s odd that this year the dates all on the same day they fell back in 2005, so it’s a reflective anniversary that mirrors the actual weekend it happened. I’m debating whether I want to watch the new documentary on HBO MAX, Katrina Babies–that might be definitely too much for me to handle. (I’m still surprised that we’re able to–and were willing to–watch Five Days at Memorial, to be honest.)
At least I know Paul won’t be shaking me awake tomorrow morning at eight saying, Honey, we need to go.
OH! I didn’t tell you. Yesterday my other glasses I ordered from Zenni arrived–the red frames and the purple frames, and I absolutely love them. I don’t think I need to order any more pairs, to be honest, but it’s so cool to have them! And to have options now. I never ever thought of glasses as anything other than utilitarian, to be honest; I needed them to work and that was all I cared about, and I also thought they were too expensive to treat as part of a “look” or to be more style conscious…but Zenni is so inexpensive; the three pairs I got are all cheaper than the pair I got with my eye exam, and using my insurance. Had I saved my insurance for use on Zenni, they would have been even cheaper.
Life. CHANGED.
And on that note, I am going to make some more coffee and dive back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.
Well, yesterday was actually quite lovely. I slept extremely well Thursday night and of course, the Anthony Award nominations turned my week around when the news broke that night (I still can’t believe Bury Me in Shadows is nominated TWICE), and I did spend a lot of yesterday trying to thank everyone for their congratulatory tweets, posts, comments and emails–I can’t think of anything lovelier than having to say thank you to people for their kindness–AND then Netflix renewed Heartstopper for an additional two seasons, which warmed the cockles of my cold, dark little heart. I wasn’t able to get as much done as I would have liked–but I did get some important thinking done, and today I am really going to start working on my edits. When I got home from work yesterday I did a lot of cleaning and organizing in order to get it out of the way before the weekend, precisely so I could focus on my edits. We spent the evening, once I’d made dinner (Swedish meatballs over egg noodles, if you were wondering) watching this week’s Under the Banner of Heaven and then one of the two new episodes of Hacks before we turned in early for the evening. I slept marvelously again last night, and feel very rested and a-rarin’ to go this morning. I do have some errands to run–nothing major that will take me away for long; I need to get the mail and put gas in the car–and then I can settle in for a day of editing and writing, which I am strangely looking forward to doing.
It was a rollercoaster of a week, ending withe incredibly pleasant high of having two Anthony Award nominations for the same book–still having trouble wrapping my mind around this, to be honest; I don’t know if it’s ever happened before–but I am not the only person with more than one nomination. Tracy Clark is nominated for Best Novel for Runner and for Best Short Story; S. A. Cosby is nominated for Best Novel (Razorblade Tears), Best Short Story, and Best Anthology for Under the Thumb. I feel confident no one’s ever been nominated for three Anthonys in the same year, as well; Shawn just keeps breaking down barriers with his extraordinary work. The nominations list is also one of the most diverse I’ve seen in all my years in this business, which certainly also bears remarking on.
As always, I still have a ridiculous amount of work to get done; but now that I am all rested this morning and feeling great about things, I am not so worried or stressed about it as I was yesterday or earlier in the week (being tired is so unpleasant, and just opens to the door to stress and anxiety and depression); we will see, of course, how long that will last very shortly, won’t we? I have hopes–although I know going out into the blisteringly hot and humid day to run errands will suck the energy right out of me, sending me quite literally to my easy chair; but I can work in the easy chair–if I make myself do it, which I feel like I can do today. I don’t think I am going to make the deadline for that short story–its fine, really; I was thinking about it last night and realized working on it has been a way of pushing off getting the edits on my book finished because I just can’t face working on it again, but I am over it already. I still don’t know the middle of the story, and I can always finish it some other time and get it done and try to sell it somewhere. It’s a pretty good story–I just need to figure out the middle of it.
Sigh. I hate the middle.
But looking around the desk this morning, there’s things I need to put away and filing that needs to be done; I also got down my Scotty books (with the pages marked with sticky notes for each character’s history and background; this was the initial step to creating a Scotty Bible to make continuity easier for me) and have them stacked neatly on the right corner of the desk underneath some others I’ll be using for Chlorine research (should I ever get around to that, I am beginning to sense the slippage of time through my hot little fingers). This is always the first step of writing a Scotty book; gathering the copies of the old for references. I have the prologue-opening spoof of a more famous book’s opening selected and even written somewhat (A START!) and I am doing some research–I am going to pay homage with the book to two Nancy Drew mysteries (The Ghost of Blackwood Hall and The Haunted Showboat) in this plot/story, so I actually had to sit down and reread both books (another blog post there, but you’ll have to be patient, Constant Reader) this past week–more of a skim, really; just to get some feel for them again since I didn’t really remember as much of them as I would have liked–and yes, I have thoughts (hence the blog post which I’ve already started).
But as I said, I have edits to dig into today, and some filing to do before I run the errands, so it’s perhaps best that I bring this to a close this morning and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you again tomorrow morning.
Queer and Loathing in America 