Tag: Scotty Bradley

Maneater

Is there a male version of the term maneater? I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of what it could be; which indicates that the answer to that question is obviously, no. I also would imagine maneater and femme fatale are interchangeable; Phyllis from Double Indemnity is one of the best fictional representations of the type. I’ve always wondered what Phyllis was thinking, and how much more interesting the book would be told from her point of view. There has been a so-called trend in crime fiction lately, where the stories are told from the point of view of the maneater, which has also led to lots of opinion pieces about the rise of unlikable women characters in crime fiction, which strikes me as kind of odd, as those types of characters have been around (male or female) since the very beginning of crime fiction. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is often credited as the book that started the trend, but I think it’s more accurate to say that Flynn’s book was the first major break out bestseller to have an unlikable woman as the focal point of the story.

I made some great progress on reading The Gods of Gotham  last night, and what a marvelous read it is! This is historical crime fiction done right–the last historical crime fiction novel I read that I enjoyed this much was Louis Bayard’s The Black Tower. Lyndsay has somehow managed to weave a tale involving the founding of the New York police department, Irish immigration, religious/ethnic bigotry, racism, politics, and child prostitution; and this world is alive and breathes. It’s really quite an accomplishment, and it’s written with wit and style and compassion; it’s also written in the style of nineteenth century novels but she has also managed to update the style and make it modern; Dickens, as it were, without the cloying over-sentimentality. Faye’s characters are also developed so strongly they all live and breathe and seem absolutely real; the maneater of the book is a madam named Silkie, who is delightful in her scheming and corruption. I intend to read more of the book later today, after I get the errands and chores done, and more of the goddamned line edit. My to-do list for the weekend is rather ambitious, I do confess; perhaps too ambitious to get everything done, but I’d rather overestimate what I can get done than underestimate.

The kitchen is a mess, the apartment is a disaster area, and of course, laundry laundry laundry. Heavy heaving sigh. Paul’s off playing tennis this morning, and I actually woke up feeling rested this morning. So, getting everything done seems like it’s something that’s actually possible. It’s supposed to rain off and on all day; we’ll see. I also made some progress on the Scotty book yesterday. My goal is to try to get a chapter done every day for the next twenty days–which will be, of course, a complete first draft. By that time, the line edit of the WIP should be finished and input–I can only do line edits on hard copies, which is not eco-friendly, but doing it on the computer has proven to not be as effective over the years. I do think this line edit is going well, and making the book even stronger, which is the entire point, right?

I also had a terrific conversation with the moderator of one of my two panels at Bouchercon, and I am very excited about the panel; this is also the first time I’ve been on two panels at Bouchercon–so probably I’ll be lucky to get one on St. Petersburg next year. I am looking forward to the Toronto trip this year; Bouchercon is always one of the highlights of my year.

I am going to read, I think, The Fixes by Owen Matthews (aka Owen Laukkanen) next, once I’ve finished Gods of Gotham.

And on that night, I should probably get back to the spice mines.

Here’s a Saturday hunk for you, Constant Reader:

fitness-male-model-photo-men-71-1124x803

MUSIC: Losing My Religion by REM

MOOD: Cheerful

Down Under

So, I started writing a new Scotty book yesterday.

It was, I have to confess, simply so I wouldn’t feel guilty about not working on the line edit, but it also felt good to be back in familiar waters again. There’s something comforting, at least to me as a writer, to going back to a series; I know this world intimately, the characters and the relationships and, of course, the city. And of course, this Scotty isn’t completely new; it’s a reboot of something I’d already written, published, and then withdrawn from sale: the second Paige novel, Dead Housewives of New Orleans. I never felt like that book did what I wanted it to do; I wrote it very quickly, and never believed afterwards that I’d had the time to say what I wanted to about reality television and the types of people that are drawn to appearing on it. I thought, at first, when I decided to reboot it as a Scotty novel that I’d be able to just switch the point of view and add some more things to it…but a reread of the original quickly made me realize the best thing to do was keep the original framework–the reality show itself, and the characters I’d created for it–and just completely start over from scratch. So, it’s not the same book.

I am pretty confident that it will be, actually, a much better one.

The good news is I woke up this morning without any back pain. It’s still a bit stiff–I’m aware something went wrong back there–but it’s clearly muscular, not spinal, which is an enormous relief. My hips–which also ached yesterday–also seem to be fine this morning. Of course, I am staring down a long day of office and then bar testing; twelve hours, woo-hoo! So I imagine tomorrow I will also be waking up sore and achy and tired. Yay! Can’t wait.

I also worked on the line edit yesterday; I guilted myself into it. I actually was enjoying writing the Scotty book, frankly, and I thought, see, writing is fun, remember? and then realized that I really need to stop procrastinating on the line edit. And this morning, waking up feeling rested and not in pain? I am going to tear through that bitch as much as I can today, and  see how much Scotty progress I can make at the same time. Huzzah! Maybe I can even get a first draft of Scotty finished in a month. Stranger things have happened.

I did not, unfortunately, have time for any reading of the brilliant Gods of Gotham. It is, without question, one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read. Clever and sly, witty, with some incredibly strong social commentary that certainly can be applied to today’s world, it is also strongly written and the main character, Timothy Wilde–well, it’s kind of hard not to love him; he’s such a good guy, and even his character flaws only serve to enhance his character. Lyndsay Faye is a towering talent–and she has at least another six books for me to read! HUZZAH!

And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines with me. Here’s a Tuesday hunk for you:

10530766_1482285545372886_1026166097407250699_n

 

Magic Carpet Ride

We had the most marvelous electrical storm last night, which helped me sleep deeply and well. I don’t have to be at work until later–more bar testing tonight–and even as I sit here at my desk, it’s getting dark and gloomy outside, which clearly means another storm is on its way. I also had a weird dream about the Outdoor Kitties last night–I went outside to feed them and Scooter was outside, so I picked him up and brought him in…only another Scooter was inside, along with some gorgeously colored Maine coons and some beautiful kittens. This is when I woke up, confused that Scooter had somehow cloned himself, only to find him sleeping on me. Very weird, right? That’s the first dream I’ve had in years that I could remember when I woke up.

Figures it involves cats.

I still haven’t finished Cleopatra’s Shadows, but since I’m not going in until later today, I might be able to get through it today. It’s irritating, because there isn’t much left, and I really want to get to Universal Harvester. Ah, well. We watched another episode of The Handmaid’s Tale last night, and seriously, with everything else going on in the country today, it’s even more alarming and depressing in its realism. I also want to start watching American Gods; maybe this weekend. I have some appointments on Saturday, and some things to do–I definitely want to start working on the stored books sooner rather than later–and I want to get some work done on the book.

I’ve put the new Scotty aside for now, as I mentioned before. I was talking to a writer friend over lunch the other day–he’s in town for a conference, and very graciously treated me to lunch at Willa Jean in the CBD–and I was able to put my finger on precisely why I wasn’t feeling the new Scotty book. I had a similar problem with Garden District Gothic when I started writing it, and what I really think I need to do before I move forward with the new Scotty is go back and binge-read the first seven (!) books in the series. I kind of think something intrinsic to the series somehow might have gotten lost along the way in the books.

Garden District Gothic wasn’t supposed to be a Scotty book initially; it was intended to be another Paige book. (Just as Murder in the Rue Ursulines was originally intended to be a Scotty, and I turned it into a Chanse.) I won’t get into why the Paige series came to a premature end, but I will say that I love Paige, I loved writing about her, but I will say that I was being pressured to make that series something I wasn’t feeling, and I think it came across in the writing. I had created the character of Jerry Manning for one of the Paige books, with the intent of making him a focal point of the third. But I liked the character so much I also used him in The Orion Mask, and when I decided not to do another Paige, I didn’t want to lose the character in the process. I also liked the idea behind the book, the plot I came up with for it, and so I decided to simply turn it into a Scotty book and rejigger the story somewhat. Jerry was fun–I’ve debated giving him his own solo book, or series; a white trash boy who ran away from his repressive small town in Mississippi where he grew up, and had kind of a hardscrabble life when he got to New Orleans as a sixteen-year-old runaway with not much money. His backstory fascinated me. He worked days as a busboy in a French Quarter restaurant, lived in a crappy, run down roach-infested apartment in the Marigny, and then started dancing at the Brass Rail (my fictional version of the Corner Pocket). But Jerry was ambitious, refused to get caught up in the unfortunate world of the dancers there–although he did things for money he maybe shouldn’t have, while putting aside money with an eye to going to the University of New Orleans and getting a degree in creative writing, which he eventually was able to do. He also became a personal trainer and started working in Uptown, eventually becoming the personal trainer for wealthy women. (Aside: I’ve also always wanted to do a series about a personal trainer. The amazing thing about personal trainers is–at least, in my experience being one and having one–is that they are similar to hairdressers and bartenders, in that there’s a forced intimacy between the trainer and client; I learned a LOT about my clients, things they probably didn’t share with their close friends or in some cases, even their partners. That’s something I’ve always wanted to explore…) Because of this, Jerry was told a lot of insider gossip about New Orleans society, and when a big, shocking murder happened in the Garden District, one that exploded in the national consciousness, Jerry was privy to a lot of insider gossip, which he started recording, and eventually turned into a book he called Garden District Gothic. The book made him rich and gave him a perennial income (sort of like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), and as a well-liked gay man who used pseudonyms for the real life people he wrote about, he wasn’t shunned but was actually welcomed into New Orleans society.

I love that character, and I wanted to tell that story.

Of course, I based the murder loosely on the Jon-Benet Ramsey case, and since it was fictionalized, I was able to make up all sorts of things and follow my own (disproved) original theories on the case. The family was the Metoyers, old New Orleans society/money; the mother in this case was a former runner-up to Miss Louisiana who was the second wife and stepmother to the father’s twin sons from his first marriage; and the daughter was Delilah Metoyer, murdered and found in the carriage house on the grounds of the Metoyer mansion in the Garden District. By timing it the way I did, I also made it possible for the Metoyer twins to be classmates of Scotty’s at Jesuit High School, and also to give them a history together–one of the twins bullied Scotty for being gay, until Scotty went out for the wrestling team and kicked his ass one day. I also added a new element: the twins’ mother, after leaving their father, disappeared, and the bully now wants Scotty and the boys to find his mother, and maybe figure out what really happened to Delilah all those years ago. I also re-utilized a character from one of the Paige books, Serena Castlemaine, and had her buy the old Metoyer house, and throw a housewarming party. It’s at this party that Scotty runs into Jerry–they slept together a million years ago–and also meets Paige, who I decided to move into the Scotty series as well, since her series was dead in the water and I’d ended the Chanse series (I didn’t want to lose her character). This book also, because of the introduction of Serena, Jerry and Paige, was going to serve as the launching point for the next Scotty, in which I rebooted the second Paige novel about a Real Housewives of New Orleans type show and turned it into a Scotty, and wrote the story the way I saw it.

garden district gothic

Writing the book was really a lot of fun, despite the deadline stress, and I liked what I did with it. I liked being able to open it with the Red Dress Run, I liked bringing back the character of Frank’s nephew, Taylor, and showing how he was adapting to life in the Quarter without any worries about being openly gay after being thrown out by his parents. (I still think about giving Taylor his own book someday.)

I also love this opening:

You know you live in New Orleans when you leave your house on a hot Saturday morning in August for drinks wearing a red dress.

It was well over ninety degrees, and the humidity had tipped the heat index up to about 110, maybe 105 in the shade. The hordes of men and women in red dresses were waving handheld fans furiously as sweat ran down their bodies. Everywhere you looked, there were crowds of people in red, sweating but somehow, despite the ridiculous heat, having a good time. I could feel the heat from the pavement through my red-and-white saddle shoes, and was glad I’d decided against wearing hose. The thick red socks I was wearing were hot enough, thank you, and were soaked through, probably dyeing my ankles, calves and feet pink. But it was for charity, I kept reminding myself as I greeted friends and people-whose-names-I-couldn’t-remember-but-whose-faces-looked-familiar, as we worked our way up and down and around the Quarter.

Finally, I had enough and called it a day.

 “I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot in my life,” my sort-of-nephew, Taylor Wheeler, said, wiping sweat from his forehead as we trudged down Governor Nicholls Street on our way home.

“It is hot,” I replied, trying really hard not to laugh. I’d been forcing down giggles pretty much all day since he came galloping down the back steps the way he always does and I got my first look at his outfit. “The last few summers have been mild—this is what our summers are normally like.” It was true—everyone was complaining about the heat because it had been several years since we’d had a normal summer. It hadn’t even rained much the year before, which was really unusual.

“I don’t even want to think about how much sweat is in my butt crack,” he complained, waving the fan he picked up somewhere furiously, trying to create a breeze.

I gave up fighting it and laughed.

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

Turn Around, Look At Me

Well, in perhaps the most exciting news (at least for me) of the week thus far, I actually wrote fiction yesterday.

Hurray!

I think writing that essay finally on Monday flexed the atrophying writing muscles, because yesterday I opened my document of “Quiet Desperation” and wrote well over fifteen hundred words in a very short period of time, until I was interrupted. Of course, once interrupted the flow stopped–which is why interruptions annoy me so very much. I might have even finished the story had I not gotten interrupted…but the great thing is that in writing so much on it today, I also was able to figure out how to finish it and what the core of the story is; what I am trying to say. Whether I will succeed or not remains to be seen–but it’s yet another one of those stories about a writer. I’m not sure why I keep writing these stories about writers, but it’s also what I suppose I know the best. But I like the direction “Quiet Desperation” is taking, and I’m also enjoying working on Scotty again–I also managed over a thousand words on the new book yesterday, which made me feel terrific. Even after all the writing I’ve done over the years, when you hit a fallow stretch or period, when you don’t feel like writing, or you do and you can’t, there’s always this terror that the well has, indeed, finally run dry; followed by constant self-reassurances that always ring hollow–because the only thing that can make that terror go away is actually writing something.

So, thank you, Sisters in Crime, for kicking me in the ass and getting me to write that overdue essay. I think I’m over the hump now–and I am really looking forward to writing today.

I am tired, though. Wacky Russian basically made me do legs today, the bitch, and so even though my legs are usually fried from the small leg workout I get every time, today they are particularly tired and sore, the bastard. That’s okay, though. I think I am going to go in on Saturday and do legs on my own, some cardio and maybe some stretching. I need to get in better physical condition.

And since it’s Wednesday, here’s a Hump Day Hunk for you as I head back into the spice mines.

I’m Your Man

It rained all night, and I was awakened a couple of times by the sounds of the deluge. The sun appears to be out, but there are still clouds. I think it’s supposed to rain all day; I’m not really sure. (In checking, we are in a Flash Flood Watch until midnight tomorrow night.) I stayed in bed far too late; I should have gotten up early. And no, I didn’t get up yesterday to go to the grocery store, either. I forgot to set my alarm and slept until ten again, just like I did this morning.

Sigh.

I basically took yesterday off; I was more than a little tipsy when we got back from our annual lunch at Commander’s Palace to see you the old year–I had a dirty vodka martini before eating and two Bloody Marys during the meal–and so the rest of the day was kind of a waste.

Dirty martini:

Shrimp and tasso appetizer:

Bloody Mary:

Beef tournedos, main course:

Strawberry shortcake, dessert:

As you can see, I was overloaded and definitely needed a day of rest afterwards.

We watched the LSU game before we went to Commanders, and then recorded it to watch when we got home, lackadaisically watched Alabama and Clemson win, and then finally watched the last two episodes of The Exorcist, which was a lot better than I thought it would be, and then went to bed. I have to write today, and all day tomorrow (plus go to the grocery store in the morning; I have already set the alarm for tomorrow morning so there won’t be any more of that oversleeping shit), but I do feel a bit out of it this morning. Definitely need some more coffee before I clean/organize the kitchen, start the laundry, and by then I should be awake enough to write.

Here’s hoping, any way.

2016 was a pretty shitty year, overall. Beyond everything awful that happened last year on a macro level, there was also a lot of shit I, and people I know and care about, had to deal with on a micro level. I don’t know if 2017 is going to be better, but you never know. But some good things definitely happened for me in 2016, so I am choosing to view those things.

Here are some of my highlights of 2016:

Publication of Garden District Gothic

Hard as it is to believe, I’ve now published seven books in the Scotty series. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since Baton Rouge Bingo, and I had kind of wanted to do a Scotty per year once I renewed and revived the series. That didn’t happen because time always seems to slip through my fingers, no matter how hard I try to stay on top of things. Retyping Bourbon Street Blues (I eventually had to hire someone to do it for me) also reconnected me to Scotty and how I originally envisioned him and his family; which made writing this one a joy, even as I groused and bitched about it while I was doing it. I want to do at least ten of this series in total; I am hoping to get Crescent City Charade finished in 2017 for a hopeful 2018 pub date. I know of at least two more books in the series I want to do, and there’s also the possibility of doing some spin-offs–a Colin stand-alone is definitely something I want to try–and maybe even a new adult with Taylor. We’ll see–but I am not ruling anything out for Scotty and the gang.

Editing Bouchercon anthology

I hadn’t edited an anthology in a while, and had also pretty much decided I wasn’t going to do anymore. My heart wasn’t really in them anymore, and while I was still producing some high quality anthologies, I wasn’t really interested in doing any more of them. The opportunity to do the Bouchercon anthology was something, though, I didn’t want to pass up–it was my first non-queer anthology, and it was a lot of fun to do, and different. I think Blood on the Bayou turned out really well, and I was quite pleased with it. Whether I will do another anthology remains to be seen.

Bouchercon in New Orleans

I served on the host committee for Bouchercon in New Orleans as well this past year, and as always, it was a pleasure to work with the incomparable Heather Graham and Connie Perry. The event itself was one of the best times I’ve had at a conference. It was so delightful to see so many people I absolutely adore in my home town, and it was also fun meeting other colleagues and making new friends. I also think I drank more those five days than I had the preceding five years.

Two short stories published, “Housecleaning” and “Survivor’s Guilt”

It was both a thrill and an honor to have two short stories published in mainstream anthologies: “Housecleaning” was in the wonderful Sunshine Noir, and “Survivor’s Guilt” was in Blood on the Bayou. The reception to both stories from readers after the books were published was also lovely. I am not confident about my short story writing, and this was a tremendous boost, as was another sale I made in the latter part of the year that I am not allowed to talk about publicly as of yet. Great Jones Street, a new phone app for short stories, also republished my story “The Email Always Pings Twice,” which was also lovely.

Getting my finances in order

My finances had kind of gotten out of control over the last few years; unexpected expenses combined with a very deliberate cutback in my writing/editing work (read: income) had made money worries a major hassle. This past year, I focused and made a plan, with the end result I wound up paying off over half my debt with a clear plan to finish the rest of it off this year. The good news is this has done wonders for my credit, and that, combined with an unexpected windfall and some other financial planning, has me prepping for new car purchase this month, which is terribly exciting.

Personal and professional growth

I feel that, over this past year, through some of the work I did and a lot of the reading I did, I grew as a writer. I figured out why I was having so much trouble with the writing of short stories, and also determined some steps I can take to make sure the novels I write are better.

So, I bid thee adieu, 2016, and promise to try to remember the good you provided as opposed to the bad.

Isn’t It Midnight

So this is Christmas.

I overslept this morning, which was a pleasant surprise. I’d intended to get up so I could get going on everything i need to do today, but it simply wasn’t in the cards for me to wake up early (the way I did yesterday). Ah, well, it is what it is, and while I do have a lot of work to do today, if I buckle down I can get it done.

I know, working on Christmas? Deadlines, alas, don’t get adjusted for holidays, and this is my punishment for allowing myself to get so behind in the first place. A few hours of good, solid work though, and I can take the rest of the day off. I also have tomorrow off (Paul’s going into the office) and this is my week of late nights (both Tuesday AND Thursday) so if I can get back on track with some good work today–I can still make the deadline.

We opened our gifts yesterday; I got some lovely things from Paul that I am very happy with, and he also seemed to like his gifts also. So, that was lovely. He went out during the day and got a massage while I worked, and got shrimp po’boys for us on his way home and then we watched the Saints beat Tampa Bay (GEAUX SAINTS!) and then relaxed while watching two movies–Hail Caesar!, which could have been better; and Deadpool, which was a lot of fun. I’m not sure what we’re going to do later–I am sure we’ll find something to watch on the many, various streaming options that we now have. (We were going to get caught up on The Exorcist, but Paul decided it was inappropriate to watch on Christmas Eve. “But it’s about good and evil,” I replied, to no avail.)

I will also do some reading. Yesterday evening I reread an old thriller originally published in 1975; that I think I read sometime in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, when I was going through my first thriller reading phase: Valley of the Assassins by a long-forgotten novelist named Ian MacAlister, and it was set in the Middle East; more precisely, Iran, Iraq, Oman and then Saudi Arabia. It’s an Indiana Jones-type tale (which I always love) about the search for the tomb of the Old Man of the Mountain, and all the treasure buried with him somewhere in the Arab deserts. It begins with the appearance of a strange map, lots of intrigue and adventure and double crosses, and it had some basis in history–the Old Man of the Mountain really existed (I first learned about him reading Thomas B. Costain’s The Three Edwards, and more in The Conquering Family; an interesting historical figure; he founded the Society of Assassins, and was greatly feared). It was also interesting to reread to see how much the Middle East has changed since the time this book was written, making it very dated.

My thriller/intrigue period of this time was triggered by reading Alistair MacLean’s Circus and Helen MacInnes’ The Salzburg Connection back to back; I went through a very long period where I read many books by those two authors and books by others as well; eventually discovering Robert Ludlum, whom I really loved and read everything by until his death (I’ve not read any of the ‘co-written’ books published yearly since he died).

Reading this, and thinking about these thrillers, has reminded me of something I periodically remember but then it slips away: an idea I had years and years and years ago that I wanted to write about as a stand-alone type book, which then evolved into a stand-alone novel with Colin from the Scotty series as the main character. This is an idea I’ve always loved and wanted to try. The Scotty series, if you will recall, began as a stand-alone and then evolved, because of the contracts, into a trilogy. The final volume of the trilogy was effectively split into two books: Mardi Gras Mambo and Vieux Carre Voodoo (and by this, I don’t mean the mysteries themselves; I mean the personal story of the guys). No one really knows much about Colin other than what he chooses to share with them, and there’s also no way of knowing if what he chooses to share is the truth, part of the truth, or not true at all. The fun thing about having a character who’s a secret agent for hire of sorts is just that: the mystery of who he really is. I thought it would be fun to write a stand alone adventure for Colin himself, so the readers could get to know him better–and know him better than Scotty and Frank do. The idea for the thriller I wanted to write, a thriller based in a treasure hunt based in history in the Middle East, easily melded with the thought of writing a stand alone thriller for Colin; in fact, using that idea for a Colin book makes the most sense.

So rereading this book made me think of that book; and while it never really had a title, nor a definitive answer for what treasure he was looking for in addition to being involved in some international espionage, obviously, I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last day or so.

I’ve also, for that matter, thought about writing a book from Frank’s point of view as well. But the Colin one makes the most sense to me.

Anyway, I digress, and need to get back to the spice mines.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Watching Scotty Grow

As I work to revise Bourbon Street Blues for its ebook debut, and plan out yet another Scotty book (tentatively titled Reality Show Rumba, but that may change to St. Charles Second Line or something else, I’m not completely sold on that as a title), yes, I’ve got Scotty on the brain, what can I say? I’m in that weird mode where ideas are bouncing around inside of my head, and can’t seem to focus enough to get any one thing worked on and finished.

It ain’t easy being a Gregalicious.

As I said when I rode the streetcar to and from the NO/AIDS Walk last weekend, the ride felt wonderful because I felt reconnected to New Orleans. I’ve felt some disconnect over the past few years; partly because I was so damned busy doing so damned much, and partly because the city has changed somewhat over the years as well that have followed Katrina. It was inevitable; the city was going to change even had Katrina not happened, and the question remains, were these good changes for the city? The so-called ‘sharing economy,’ with the coming of AirBNB and Uber and Lyft, are good things but can also be bad things; AirBNB had resulted in private homes being turned into rental properties–but is that what has driven up property costs and rentals in New Orleans, or was that a result of the rising property costs? I signed up for a realtor’s daily emails about properties for sale–mainly because I saw a sign on a house I’ve always loved and wanted to set a book in, so I wanted to be able to see the inside and the yard–and I am daily astounded at the costs of the properties she has listed. I have yet to see one for less than 1.2 million; when I was writing Murder in the Rue Dauphine, I mentioned in passing ‘the million dollar homes in the Garden District’ only to be corrected by my first reader: “There are no homes in New Orleans that cost a million dollars or more, not even in the Garden District.” As I said, every featured property in the daily emails I get from this realtor are a minimum of 1.2 million; then again, I am certain people from other cities would think them bargains, as they also are a minimum of 4000 square feet or more.

The only way Paul and I could ever own property here would be to hit the Powerball.

One of the things I know I am going to do with the next Scotty book–one of the many things I am going to do with the next Scotty book–is determine whether or not Scotty and the boys are going to stay in the Quarter. GASP, right? But one penultimate New Orleans thing that I’ve never written about–although I’ve endured it numerous times–is the joy of renovation. The house the boys all live in on Decatur Street was, of course, rebuilt after the fire in Bourbon Street Blues–I did write about Scotty having to live in the Marigny while the house was being rebuilt in Jackson Square Jazz–but about eleven years have passed since then; the house survived Katrina and everything that followed, but eleven years of heat and humidity, of wood swelling and shrinking, of termites…well, it’s about time the house on Decatur Street got renovated again–and of course, treated for termites and so forth to begin with. And so the boys have to go live elsewhere while the place is gutted and rebuilt yet again…and now, the question is whether or not they want to move back into the Quarter or not, or maybe buy a place. Scotty has come into his trust funds, after all, and so there is plenty of money…but it should also make for an interesting subplot. And the plot of this one…I think this could possibly be the best Scotty of them all.

At least, I certainly hope so.

I’m very excited about it. Now I just have to write two other books first.

Here’s the cover for the work-in-progress I am primarily focusing on:

wicked-frat-boy-ways_final

 

On the Dark Side

Someone recently pointed out to me that on my website, I described my Chanse MacLeod series as more nourish, but a hilarious typo—which either no one noticed previously or had but were too polite to mention to me— made the sentence read as the Chanse series is more nourish. Yes, it made me laugh for a few moments before I went in and corrected it, but it also made me start thinking about the sentence itself. Is the Chanse series, in fact, more noir than the Scotty series?

 

The Chanse series is darker than the Scotty series, and yes, that was a deliberate choice, but calling the Chanse series noir is probably incorrect; what I should have said was the Chanse series was more hardboiled. That would be factually correct. So, what precisely is the difference between hardboiled and noir?

 

Hardboiled crime fiction is a bit easier to define than noir, and it is possible for a novel or story to be both. Wikipedia says this:

 

Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especiallydetective stories). Derived from the romantic tradition which emphasized the emotions of apprehension, awe, horror and terror, hardboiled fiction deviates from that tradition in the detective’s cynical attitude towards those emotions. The attitude is conveyed through the detective’s inner monologue describing to the audience what he is doing and feeling.

The genre’s typical protagonist is a detective who witnesses daily the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition(1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that had become as corrupt as the organized crime itself.[1]Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are classic antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, and The Continental Op.

 

Interesting that Wikipedia doesn’t define it as a subgenre of crime fiction, but defines it as its own genre, separate but sharing characteristics with crime fiction. It also claims that the notion of hardboiled fiction is limited to a specific time period. I don’t think that’s true; I would go so far as to say that there are many authors who are publishing hardboiled crime fiction today. It’s only my opinion, but I do think one could consider Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Ace Atkins, Reed Farrel Coleman, and many others as practitioners of the form.

 

Noir, on the other hand, is a more slippery kind of fish to define. Film noir and literary noir, for example, are completely different things; the classic movie is considered film noir, but the novel itself, to me, is hardboiled; Spade is a cynic but he is not a bad guy. When I was asked to write a story for New Orleans Noir, the assignment, as defined by the editor, was to come up with a description for noir and write a story that fit that definition. My definition was the endless nightmare; for me, noir was about an everyday Joe who makes a bad decision—something amoral or immoral, maybe against the law—and that bad decision sets he/she on a path where things get worse, and the only choices presented from that point on sink the character deeper and deeper into the quagmire of an amoral abyss. To that end, I wrote the story “Annunciation Shotgun”.

I never really felt, though, that my definition was adequate; it scratched the surface, but it didn’t go deep enough to truly define noir. Of course, Laura Lippman defined noir on a panel I was on perfectly: dreamers become schemers. As always, the woman who is often the smartest person in the room nailed it, and I have since stolen that as my definition.

I love noir, both the film and literary versions of it. James M. Cain is one of my favorite writers, and I have always wanted to write a noir novel. I have a couple of ideas, and as always, it’s simply a matter of being able to find the time to sit down and actually write one. I want to read more noir writers; modern day genius Megan Abbott is one of our best writers and her novels are extraordinary. The closest I’ve come to a noir with my novels are Timothy and Dark Tide;

I have a couple of other ideas, as I said, that I may explore. I know how both start, but there’s that slight issue of the plot yet to work out. Once I have a better grasp of the plots, I’ll start writing them.

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

The Morning After

I got up early this morning (well, early for a Saturday) to take a streetcar named St. Charles down to Audubon Park for the NO/AIDS Walk. I was scheduled to work in the Carevan, our mobile testing unit–and had to wonder, why has it taken me this many years to figure out that clearly the Carevan is the place to work other than the Prevention table? The Carevan is air conditioned. 

It is sad how many years it has taken me to figure this out.

I also took the streetcar home, taking pictures of the beautiful homes on the way home–I don’t know why I didn’t do so on the way there, other than it was early and I’d only had two cups of coffee so my mind wasn’t exactly thinking very clearly–but on both trips, plus the walk through Audubon Park (on the way there, I made a wrong turn at the first lagoon and wound up having to walk all the way around the park–I’d forgotten there was a golf course in the middle of Audubon Park–but didn’t make that mistake on the way back to the streetcar stop) I felt connected to New Orleans again in a way that I haven’t in a while; as ‘touristy’ and ‘cliched’ as the St. Charles streetcar line may be, there’s nothing like taking a leisurely ride on it to make you feel connected to the city again. St. Charles Avenue, and all the houses on it, are so beautiful, and scenic–and all the hidden beauty in Audubon Park, along with the beautiful and massive live oaks everywhere…well, it’s been a while, you know? I love New Orleans so much, but I get so wrapped up in my day-to-day life and existence that I forget sometimes how much I love it here and how grateful I am that I get to live here.

There was, for example, a wedding party having their pictures taken in the park among the live oaks that I stumbled on as I walked back to St. Charles. I didn’t photobomb them–though I thought about it–but they were done and walked back to the Avenue by the time I reached them. There was a portable snowball stand set up on the Avenue, and I took a couple of pictures of the bridal party getting snowballs. It was such a uniquely New Orleans moment.

 

And riding the streetcar, wandering through the park–despite the heat and the heavy air, I couldn’t help but think about the next Scotty book, and how I need to make it more about New Orleans, how I can add layers and more depth to it as a book, about how to connect the characters in the case itself to the city and make it more New Orleans somehow. I feel like that’s been missing somehow in my work lately, at least in the last few books: that sense of New Orleans that was always there before.  I think I managed to get some of that into Garden District Gothic, but I am never sure. I know that the Chanse books were starting to feel like the setting was generic; they could have been in any city, they just happened to be set in New Orleans. That was, I think, why the series was starting to feel stale to me, and partly why I decided to end it.

I’m worn out now, exhausted from the heat and the humidity and the heavy thoughts. I am going to repair to my easy chair for a lovely relaxing day of college football (GEAUX TIGERS!) and reading Leslie Budewitz’ Assault and Pepper, in preparation for spending the day tomorrow in the spice mines.