Well, we survived Monday, and it was in doubt there for a moment. I had some serious trouble getting motivated yesterday morning in order to leave the house for work, but I did eventually get out and on my way to work, and I had a pretty decent day there, too. It rained almost all day; it was hot and humid in the morning when I left for the office, but by mid-morning the city was being soaked by an almost constant stream of clouds throughout the day. Sigh. All I wanted to do was go back home and get under my blankets, but no such luck on that score, alas.
The most exciting news is yes, I did start writing my new book yesterday. Clocked in three thousand words on Chapter One, and it all flowed really easily. Granted, this project has been in my head for years–I think I wrote the first draft of the novella somewhere in the last ten years or so–but I am excited. I’ve been working on it for about a week now, doing the structural work behind the scenes of the story while also chopping up what was in the novella back into chapters. I am very excited to be working on this book for any number of reasons (not the least of which being that I’ve not worked on a book in a very long time) and it’s a departure from my usual. Sure, there’s crimes and stuff and New Orleans sweltering in a very hot summer, but it’s more ambitious of a story than I’ve tried in a while and I also am going to use dance songs as chapter titles, which is kind of cool. I am pleased with the work I’ve gotten done yesterday, and the direction the book is shaping up to take. It’s so lovely to be excited about writing again, you know?
I slept well last night–it rained all night, which meant the air was cool and damp and it felt amazing under my blankets. I am waking up now, which is nice–I feel very rested, even if my lower back is still a bit tight and sore–and my coffee is going down smoothly. It’s weird to have tomorrow off, and it’s even weirder that today is Pay-the-Bills Day, since tomorrow is a holiday. Such a weird week this is turning out to be on that score. And in a few weeks, I believe the 4th is a Thursday, so I might take that Friday off as well.
We did watch House of the Dragon last night, which was fun. I like how they’ve changed the opening credits to not be so similar to Game of Thrones, separating the show from the original but still connected. I don’t love this show the way we did the original, but it’s entertaining enough, and of course, dragons. I also suppose it’s not quite as compelling because we know the Targaryens eventually lose the Iron Throne and this civil war was the beginning of their end, and the end of the dragons until Danaerys.
Tonight after work I have to run some errands: a quick grocery run and a stop at the post office. I am planning on writing tonight–I really am excited about the this book, and it’s nice to be excited to be working again, you have no idea–and I also need to figure out some more pride posts. I’ve drafted a few ideas here, but am not really certain if some of the ideas I have are worth pursuing, so I need to think about them some more. It would also be nice to do some reading tonight after writing, too. (Tomorrow I will read, write, clean and go to the gym.) I’m actually looking forward to this day off, you know? Very strange and peculiar, but this week was going to be weird and feel off anyway, and a trip to Florida over the weekend. I checked the weather and it’s going to be rainy and overcast the entire weekend over there, but sunny and hot in New Orleans. Go figure. I should also probably check the tropical weather tracker; yesterday the system in the Bay of Campeche was moved from possible to potential cyclone status, and check the path as well. It was predicted for east Texas coast/Mexico yesterday….and that’s what it’s going to do. There’s one off the coast of Florida heading towards land, but it has very low chances of developing into anything before landfall. Christ, it’s so early in the season already to be worrying about storm tracks and so forth, and I hate the entire idea of evacuating again. Heavy sigh.
And I took a moment to check my email, and there was one from Dad, cancelling this weekend because my aunt is having some health issues. Ah, well, I’ll keep Monday off and treat myself to a nice three day weekend.
Which is a good time to bring this to a close. Happy Juneteenth Eve, everyone, and I’ll probably be later.
Here it is Tuesday, and I am feeling okay this morning–awake and rested, if a little creaky (which is every morning these days)–and my coffee is really tasty this morning, which is lovely. I slept pretty well, other than the occasional sniffing/clawing/biting from Sparky, and I could have easily stayed in bed for another hour or so, but that’s okay. Functionality is perfectly fine.
We watched more Euphoria last night, and I have to say, we are really enjoying it. Nate is a monster, played beautifully (see what I did there?) by Jacob Elordi; but as wild and over-the-top as the show is, it’s also marvelously queer–and also shows the difference between a miserable existence that is completely a lie (Nate’s dad) to Rue’s unabashed, unquestioned bisexuality, and of course there’s a marvelous trans character as well, who is just as developed and three-dimensional and has an interior life as much as the others, which is terrific. Represent, HBO! I’m also a bit surprised that this show hasn’t been targeted by the right–drugs and sex and drinking and teenagers, oh my! But they never came after Gossip Girl either; selective outrage is never consistent, after all.
I did write some last night; it was all garbage, but at least it was something, right? Even as I was typing the words as they came to me, I knew it wasn’t any good. I had the voice completely wrong, and the words, which I’d intended to create a dream-like kind of mood (the way Megan Abbott does, so effortlessly), weren’t good either. It’s just a prologue, and it’s not the actual book I want to write quite yet, but at least it was something–and it was in my mind so much I couldn’t really do much of anything else until I got it out of my system. It’s only about 1500 words or so, and needs to be redone, but I can work on that while I work on these other stories I need to get taken care of. There’s a lot that has to go into this book, which is probably going to wind up being shorter than I had really ever thought about–it kind of needs to be, kind of quick and nasty and dreamy.
Now that I’ve finished Where They Wait (more on that later), I am going to go back to something I’d started before my trip, and then I have some others I’d like to get through relatively quickly; but I do have a three day weekend to look forward to; so hopefully I can get some other reading done, too. I know we are going to Costco this weekend–I need to make a list–and I also need to make groceries, but I’ll probably swing by the grocery store on my way home from work tomorrow since it’s Pay-the-Bills Day. I also want to get a lot of the apartment taken care of, so I can take books to the library on Saturday and I can also drop off the dry cleaning, which will be a lovely start towards making the living room look like a living room and not a fraternity dorm room.
I do continue to keep tabs on the Noah Presgrove case in Oklahoma; his autopsy report was finally released last week (why did it take eight months is another good question), and it’s brutal. I knew it was bad, but Jesus. He literally was beaten to death, and the injuries are horrific. I also became aware of another case yesterday–Tom Brown in Canadian, Texas–which is also weird, is also small town stuff, and Canadian isn’t very far from Comanche, Oklahoma…although I doubt the cases are connected, despite the proximity; poor Tom disappeared on Thanksgiving, and his remains weren’t found for almost two years. Skin Hollandsworth had done an eight-part series on Tom for Texas Monthly, which I will probably read over the course of the weekend. It also occurred to me last night that I have become obsessed with the murders of teenaged boys in rural America lately. But how many cases like this are there, where a teenaged boy (granted, Noah was nineteen, but that still counts) is murdered in a small town where everyone knows everyone, but no one knows who the killer/killers is/are? Come on, now. I’m not buying that for a second.
There’s no corruption quite like small town corruption, is there? That’s also uniquely American, I think, and tells quite a different story than all the “real America/Joe Sixpack” right wing bullshit they try to sell us, where every small town is Mayberry and good American values are still appreciated. Well, in my experience every small town is either Twin Peaks or Peyton Place, and if that defines America….well, we need to rethink that.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.
It’s always weird for me to talk about my writing and my books and so forth on here; I always worry that I am either contradicting and/or repeating myself. When you’re as self-obsessed as I am, that can be a problem; talking about myself is probably my favorite thing to do–on here, at least. And I feel like I’ve told the story of where Chanse came from and how the series developed from the very beginning many, many times.
It was when I was living in Houston that I rediscovered crime fiction, and the old love was even deeper once it was rediscovered. This was the period when I read most of the Perry Mason novels, discovered Paretsky and Grafton and Muller, and decided to give Travis McGee and John D. MacDonald another try. (I had read The Dreadful Lemon Sky when I was a teenager, but I hadn’t liked it; I was more into the classic detective mystery, with lots of suspects and a denouement with everyone gathered in a drawing room as the identity of the killer was unveiled–the McGee series was definitely not that. But MacDonald had written a superb introduction to Stephen King’s first short story collection, Night Shift, and I had always wanted to give him another chance–pun fully intended.) I devoured the McGee series this time around; and I really admired the character and how fully rounded and developed he was (I should give the series a reread; I’d be curious to see how they hold up now)…and armed with all these new private eye novels and Perry Mason puzzles, so I started coming up with my own version. Even the name was a shout out to McGee. My character was also tall with sandy/dirty blond hair, a former college football player, and he lived in Houston, with an office downtown and a secretary named Clara. The title of the first book was going to be The Body in the Bayou, and I started basing the case on the tragic Joan Robinson Hill case, immortalized in Tommy Thompson’s Blood and Money (the premise of the story was that the character representing Joan’s father hires Chanse after Joan’s death to find dirt on John–and then John is murdered; fictionalized, of course.) I wrote about six or seven really bad chapters long hand before giving up. I didn’t know how to write a novel then nor did I understand the concept of rewrites and revisions and drafts. (My ignorance was truly astounding.) The hurdle I couldn’t clear was typing. I was a terrible typist. I’d had a job in California working for an insurance brokerage that was computerized, and had a word processing program that I used to write short stories on; it made such an incredible difference that I knew I would have a much better shot at actually making my dreams come true if I only had a word processor…
In 1991, after I moved to Tampa, I managed to get a word processor, and that was what I wrote my first two and a half young adult novels on–the original drafts of Sara, Sorceress, and Sleeping Angel–and used it happily for several years until it finally died on me. But by then, I was living with Paul and had swung back around to wanting to write adult crime fiction again, and I wanted to write the Chanse character that I’d already created…so I picked back up on The Body in the Bayou, moved it from Houston to New Orleans, got rid of the office and the secretary, and made Chanse gay. I kept the title, but threw away the story; I wanted it to be a gay story, too. I don’t really remember the plot, but it had to do with the murder of a beautiful boy-toy for a wealthy closeted gay man in New Orleans…and Chanse knew the boy-toy from his days working as an escort before he landed the rich man, I wrote about six or seven chapters of this before we moved to New Orleans….and I realized I’d have to throw it all out again because it was all wrong; I’d made the classic mistake so many writers make when writing about New Orleans: writing about it having never lived here, I only had tourist experiences–which are vastly and dramatically different from the actually “living here” experiences. So, once again, I threw it all out and started over, this time calling it Tricks instead of The Body in the Bayou.
The title morphed again to the less saleable Faggots Die after the first draft; and I remember talking to Felice Picano–he was coming into town for the Tennessee Williams Festival, and I picked him up at the airport. As we drove back into the city from Kenner, we talked about my book and the series, and he nixed the new title as well as the old one. “No one, ” he wisely said, “will pick up a book called Faggots Die, and Tricks sounds like a pornographic memoir of your sex life.” Felice was actually the one who suggested I mimic titles for the series from a classic writer…and we were throwing titles around in the car when I said, “You know, the streets in the Quarter are technically rues–Rue Bourbon, Rue Royale, Rue Dumaine–and the murder happens on Dauphine. Maybe Murder in the Rue Dauphine?”
“That’s perfect,” Felice said, and then we played with Poe titles the rest of the way into the city–incidentally, one of them was The Purloined Rentboy, which became my short story “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy”, so never throw anything away.
And thus was Murder in the Rue Dauphine titled; and the plan for the series titles was also devised–the branding was changed by the publisher, but I can honestly say my first book was titled by Felice Picano.
Murder in the Rue Dauhoine has had three covers in its 21 years of existence. This center one is the current.
Never come to New Orleans in the summer. It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s sticky. It’s damp. It’s hot. Air conditioners blow on high. Ceiling fans rotate. Nothing helps. The air is thick as syrup. Sweat becomes a given. No antiperspirant works. Aerosols, sticks, powders, and creams all fail. The thick air just hangs there, brooding. The sun shows no mercy. The vegetation grows out of control. Everything’s wet. The buildings perspire. Even a simple task becomes a chore. Taking the garbage out becomes an ordeal. The heat makes the garbage rot faster. The city starts to smell sour. The locals try to mask the smell of sweat with more perfume. Hair spray sales go up. Women turn their hair into lacquered helmets that start to sag after an hour or so.
Even the flies get lazy.
My sinuses were giving me fits as I left the airport and headed into the city. It was only 7 o’clock in the morning but already hotter than hell. The air was thick. I reached for the box of tissue under my seat and blew my nose. The pressure in my ears popped. Blessed relief.
As I drove alongside the runways I could see a Transco Airlines 737 taxiing into takeoff position. I saluted as I drove past, thinking it might be the flight that my current lover was working. Paul looked good in the uniform. It takes a great body to look sexy in polyester. He does.
He’d be gone for four days on this trip. I was at loose ends. I’d wrapped up a security job for Crown Enterprises the previous Wednesday. The big check that I’d banked guaranteed I wouldn’t have to worry about money for a while. I like when money’s not a concern.
And so began a series that lasted for seven titles and about twelve years or so; I don’t remember what year the last book in the series was published. I never expected anyone would publish it; it was intended to be a “practice novel” so I would get used to rejections and learn. It was also the first manuscript I ever wrote that went through multiple drafts before I thought it was finished enough to send out on query. It was supposed to be an exercise in learning humility and getting experience with the business while I wrote the book I did expect to get an agent with and sell–which was what I’d always called “the Kansas book” for over a decade at this point. (It eventually morphed into #shedeservedit.) But you never really learn what you’re supposed to when you’re stubborn, thin-skinned, and used to being demeaned and talked over and not taken seriously, for any number of reasons. I sent the manuscript to three agents: two sent me lovely but form rejections, which was disappointed but not surprising. I took this well, put the manuscripts away to send to three more once the final rejection came.
It came on a Friday, if I recall correctly. I went to pick-up the mail and my manuscript was there. Not a surprise, of course, but still a little disappointing. I went out to my car and opened the package…and paper-clipped to the title page of the rubber-band bound manuscript was a torn piece of used paper, with a note in ink reading I find this manuscriptand characters neither interesting or compelling with the agent’s initials at the bottom.
It was like being slapped in the face.
By the time I got home I was in a raging fury. I was literally shaking with rage when I came inside. How fucking unprofessional, I thought as I sat down at my computer to check my emails, trying to decide how I would enact my vengeance on this rude piece of shit.1 There was an email there from the editor I was working with on an anthology which had taken my first-ever fiction short story and thus would be my first publication. I had never read the signature line–mainly because I was so excited for my first fiction sale (NARRATOR VOICE: it was porn). This day, he concluded his email with Please send us more work. We definitely want to see more from you and as my ego preened, slightly soothed from the insulting agent note from earlier in the day2, I also looked down at the signature line and realized I was communicating with the senior editor at Alyson Books! I immediately wrote him back a very short note: I’ve written a novel with a gay private eye set in New Orleans, would you be interested in that? and before I could talk myself out of it, hit send.
He wrote back immediately and said please send it to me ASAP!
I put the same manuscript back in a new envelope, and drove back to the postal service to get it in the mail before I changed my mind, and breathed a sigh of relief once I got back to the car–and immediately forgot all about it.
Six weeks later I came home to a phone message from the editor. I called him back, he made me an offer, and my career leapt forward much faster than I expected…and it started a roll of good luck and “being in the right place at the right time” that has kept me publishing almost non-stop since Murder in the Rue Dauphine was released in 2002.
It sold really well, got mostly favorable reviews, and scored me my first Lambda Literary Award nomination.
Not bad for a manuscript and characters who were neither interesting or compelling, right?3
It also took me a long time to realize–or rationalize–that the note wasn’t meant for me. (I was most offended that I wasn’t even worthy of an actual form rejection letter; that was the truly insulting part for me.) I realized when telling this story on a panel somewhere, that the note was probably meant for an intern or a secretary or an assistant, who just shoved the whole thing in an envelope to do the rejection and through some wild Lucy-and-Ethel office shenanigans, it went out without the rejection letter and with the note intended for internal eyes only…and made me wonder, how different would my career and life be had that fuck-up not happened?
We’ll never know, I guess.
Not really proud of this reaction, but I did get the last laugh. ↩︎
Said agent died a few years later. I may have smiled and said good, a la Bette Davis vis a vis Joan Crawford’s death. ↩︎
I may be more forgiving about a lot of things these days, but I will always be petty about that hateful agent. ↩︎
Up ridiculously early for PT this morning, but it’s fine, I suppose. I am awake, not foggy headed, nor does my body feel tired, so that’s a win of sorts. I’m glad I survived my first full week of work this year, only to have another three day weekend on deck. I’m falling behind; Sparky was feeling especially needy last night and was in need of cuddles. I started a load of laundry before I sat down to let him get comfortable and reassure him he wasn’t abandoned–a nightly occurrence lately–and then I started getting caught up on Real Housewives and this week’s Percy Jackson and before I knew it, it was time for bed and I didn’t finish the laundry, empty the dishwasher, or do much of anything last night, which felt terribly wrong on every level. But it was okay, I suppose. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself for not getting more done in the evenings–trying to be not so hard on myself in general in this new year.
Nick Saban retired yesterday, as probably the most successful college football coach of all time. It’s going to be weird going into the next season without him at the helm at Alabama. I hated that he came back to college football by going there–it was such a massive betrayal of LSU, where he was from 2000-2004, rebuilding the program and bringing it back to glory, along with a national title–which made Alabama a big hurdle to get past every year. It was frustrating to lose to them almost every year, but I also got over my anger at him and he won back my respect. He seems like a good guy for the most part, and his players loved him and performed for him in a way few coaches ever accomplish. He won seven national titles (including his first, at LSU in 2003), and there were only a few seasons (2007, 2010, 2013, 2019) that Alabama was out of the national picture at the end of the regular season, which is pretty impressive. They won two national titles without winning the conference! I wonder who will take his place? Alabama is a brand, and their fans don’t tolerate not winning, so there’s a lot of pressure that comes with the gig; kind of like when Bear Bryant retired back in 1982. Between the Bear and Saban the Tide only won the national title once. I appreciate Saban’s legacy, and can’t help but wonder if Alabama will remain at the top of the SEC, or whether it’s time for a run by another school–LSU, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma–to have a strong run like Florida’s from 2005-2012.
My guess is he didn’t want to deal with the new play-off system and really didn’t like some of the other changes happening in the sport, and realized he didn’t have to.
It’s also cold here this morning, and next week it’s apparently going to be even colder. Huzzah, he typed sarcastically. But it’s much better in the apartment now than it used to be; it’s amazing how life-changing the new system (which isn’t all that new anymore) has made in the winter months around here. It’s also been great being able to wear my Fitbit again now that the brace is gone, and now I can track just how well I’ve been sleeping every night; I used to be lucky to get a sleep score over 75 more than once a week; now my lowest sleep score since strapping it back to my wrist was 78, and the others were all over 80, which used to be a very rare happenstance. It’s so nice to sleep deeply and well on a regular basis; it’s amazing what a difference it makes in quality of life, but I’ve got to stop being so focused on Sparky time when I get home from work and need to do some things first, because if I give in to him I’m down for the night.
I also hope to be productive this weekend. I have a lot of shit to get done, and lots of housework to do. But I am starting to feel creative again, which is terrific, and my mind feels clearer than it has in years; maybe that means I’ll do better work? But then again, the work I’ve been producing over the last six years has been my best, I think, and I would like to keep getting better. I really need to get that copy edit of Jackson Square Jazz done so I can get it back in print, and I want to get this short story collection finished, and…and…and…there’s so much that I have on hand that is unfinished! But I think I’ve finally figured out the problem with one short story, figured out how to do another that I’ve been stuck on, and so yeah, these are all good things, right?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Perhaps will be back later, or else it won’t be until tomorrow. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader!
Monday morning in the Lost Apartment after another terrific night’s sleep. I am really going to miss not getting up with an alarm when I go back to work next week. I’m not going to lie–sometimes this enforced rest has been annoying and frustrating and kind of unpleasant, but on the other hand, I haven’t felt this rested in years. This is nice, as is how refreshed I feel every morning, along with the knowledge that I don’t need to shower as part of the waking-up ritual every morning as well. I think as the week goes on I will start trying to get up earlier and go through the usual morning ritual, to get back into practice with it.
Yesterday was a relatively mild and relaxing one. I literally forgot that the Saints were playing–I’d lost track of what day of the week it was–which is just as well; it seems like the game was an exercise in enormous frustration for Saints fans. Granted, we had a better day than Florida State fans, who were seriously robbed. I figured that maybe they’d get screwed, but the Georgia loss made it seem unlikely; and the final spot in the play-offs was up for grabs between Georgia, Alabama, and Texas–and much as I hated to see the SEC left out, it made sense to me. Georgia lost to Alabama who lost to Texas; but Texas’ loss was to Oklahoma, who didn’t have a great year, and that was after Texas beat Alabama, while the Tide was running the table. I figured that would be the committee’s justification for screwin Texas in favor of Alabama; it never occurred to me they’d screw Florida State over and take both Texas and the Tide. This was an odd year, with a surplus of undefeated and one-loss teams, along with any number of two and three loss teams who only lost to undefeated or one-loss teams (LSU lost three games–undefeated Florida State, one loss Alabama, and two loss Mississippi–whose two losses were Alabama and Georgia). It is, I suppose, a good year for the four-team play-off to go out on; but if people think there aren’t going to be controversies and angry fan bases once it goes to a twelve team play-off next year, think again. LSU’s schedule is insane for 2024 (USC, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas A&M); the only traditional annual games no longer on the schedule are Auburn and Mississippi State. I think people are already mad about next season, based on the final rankings by the committee? There seemed to be a lot of vitriol on the social media apps last night. So, yes, football fan bases can even get up in arms over projections.
I did read David Valdes’ marvelous Finding My Elf yesterday, which was absolutely delightful, and really left me feeling a bit warm inside when I did finish it, and am really looking forward to when his You Spin Me Round comes up in the TBR pile. I think my next read will be Donna Andrews; and I’ll just read her latest two Megs back-to-back. One of course is the annual Christmas mystery–which I want to read for the season–but my brain won’t let me read them out of order, so I have to read Birder She Wrote first before Let It Crow!Let It Crow!Let It Crow! which is also a great title. I also want to do some writing of my own today; the days are slipping through my fingers and I need to prioritize writing more than anything else with the energy I have on reserve. I also watched Joy Ride, which was quite fun, and then we started watching Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which is extremely well done, and for a television show about monsters–we don’t see a lot of monsters. The story primarily focuses on a young woman who survived the Godzilla rampage through San Francisco, and the whole concept of a world and a humanity that has adapted to enormous monsters, like Godzilla and others (the Godzilla evacuation route and directions in Tokyo was startling) is interesting. Monster movies like this, and the various others about giant creatures from the depths of the ocean or the bowels of the earth terrified me as a child and gave me nightmares. (I’ve never watched any iteration of King Kong, for example, and I think I’ve only seen the original Godzilla, which was a huge mistake as it really did haunt my dreams for years. There was one film about a giant octopus who would unfurl his tentacles to crush a seaside city that I can still see sometimes in my mind.) But I am enjoying this show, and am interested in seeing where it goes; it seems like its primary purpose is to expose some corporation (Monarch) who has something to do with the monsters. There’s also a dual time-line, which you know I love.
The workers just checked in to see if the kitchen ceiling leaked over the weekend, and so they are about to come in and take down the rest of the ruined ceiling in preparation for making it look pretty tomorrow. Yay! I also have my first PT appointment tomorrow morning, so I am curious to see what that’s going to look like. I am going to run my errands tomorrow morning after my therapy, since I’ll already be uptown (it’s near the corner of Magazine and Napoleon), so I might as well head over and get the mail and do whatever brief grocery run needs to be done.
I also started getting better organized yesterday; I got my bills all mapped out for the month (I generally do this after every pay day, after I’ve paid the bills so I know how much debt is still outstanding; it also helps keep me from forgetting to make payments). The desk area looks much better than it did, but I still have some filing and organizing to get done. I’m hoping they won’t be in here for very long this morning; I am going to repair to my chair as soon as they come in and try to read until they are finished, and maybe do some writing once they’ve left. I am terribly behind on everything (hey, I’m starting to sound like myself again!), and so one of my tasks for today is to make a to-do list, as well as a “upcoming submissions date” list so I can try to get some stories back out there.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.
Friday, but I am not working at home this morning. We have a department meeting, and then I am going to stay at the office until around two this afternoon to get things done. I am taking Monday off because all my pre-surgery appointments are that morning, and I don’t know how long that is going to take. As Monday is a paperwork and not-in-the-clinic day, it’s not a big deal as long as I get all of the work I would ordinarily do on Monday to get the clinic ready for the rest of the week done today. I am going to run a couple of errands on the way home, and then I am in for the rest of the day. I will have to run some errands tomorrow–post office, mostly–but hope to spend most of the weekend inside the apartment. I slept well last night, mainly because I had the “Thursday exhaustion” that hits me every Thursday since I started working this schedule, but that’s okay. I came straight home from work yesterday, and didn’t do much of anything once I was there. Oh, sure, I watched another episode of Moonlighting–and their lesser episodes are still charming–and later Paul and I watched the season finale of The Morning Show, which was a lot of fun. I did watch some Youtube documentaries about the Knights Templar and the Fall of Constantinople in 1204–which I never get tired of learning about, and will turn up in one of my books one day, just you wait and see.
I’m also looking forward to this weekend. I am going to get some books pruned to take to the library sale on Saturday, and I think I am also going to get the car washed. I do kind of want to see the Georgia-Mississippi game, and of course I’ll watch LSU play Florida, but that game worries me a bit; there’s always a let-down after losing to Alabama and having the pipe dreams of the season dashed finally, and LSU has beaten Florida four straight years, which is tied for the longest LSU winning streak in the rivalry. I also just remembered that this is the last season of the SEC as it has been since the initial expansion into two divisions thirty years ago; sure other teams have joined since, but the East-West divisions remained intact all this time. I don’t know how I feel about the expansion into a super-conference and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, and the rotating schedule seems like a pain in the ass, but we’ll see how it works out. I suspect in about another decade realignment will be revisited and some teams may break off from their super-conferences and form a new smaller more manageable one…who knows?
I also want to read Lou Berney’s Dark Ride this weekend, and maybe start reading my next book, which I think is going to be Zig Zag by J. D. O’Brien, who was on my Humor panel at Bouchercon (that was probably one of the best panels I’ve ever moderated, and I want to read all of their books), because both have to do with stoners–Lou’s main character is a stoner, and J. D.’s book is about a dispensary heist, so they’re both what I call stoner noir–so they kind of go together. I also want to get to the new Angie Kim sooner than later, I am volumes behind on Laurie King’s marvelous Mary Russell series, have two Donna Andrews novels on deck as well, and then I want to really start making progress through the stacks and get things read.
I also need to do some writing this weekend. I’ve been really terrible this week about being organized, so there’s more of that to be done this weekend. I think I’ve started working on what submissions will go where, and I’d love to get a stronger handle on all of that by the end of the weekend. I know I want to get one of my stories submitted out again somewhere, not entirely sure where, but the worst thing they can do is reject it, right? And that just means my story isn’t right for them, that’s all, and that is fine. I need to get more zen about rejection, you know? And I also need to be easier on myself emotionally about the whole writing thing. Sure, it would have been great to get a lot more writing done before my surgery. No, I don’t know what the aftermath and recovery is going to look like–I am finding that out Monday at my pre-surgery meeting–so I won’t know for sure until Monday what I am going to be capable of doing in December. I think I’ll probably be back to work right before Christmas, but I also don’t know what I am going to be able to do once I go back. Will I be able to test people? How mobile will the next cast be? (I think I am going from rigid to flexible after the first three weeks.)
Uncertainty is not the friend of anxiety, but I think I am doing a pretty good job of not letting my anxiety take control of my conscious brain, at any rate. And this morning I’ve managed to unload the dishwasher already and start another load–and when I get home from my partial day at the office I’ll get started on the bed linens. I am running an errand on the way home, and then I intend to spend the afternoon mostly reading the new Lou Berney while doing some light picking up and pruning of the books, and maybe even get some writing done. Stranger things have happened.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later with some blatant self-promotion. Tuesday is the official release date for the new Scotty, which is very cool, and then the next week we go into surgery. WHEE.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we don’t really have a Louisiana crime writer who explores and illuminates the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and environmentalism of the state the way John D. Macdonald infused many of his Florida novels with so frequently. Condominium, published in the 1980’s, is a stinging indictment of crooked developers and corrupt politicians putting up massive condominium buildings along the coastline of Florida, despite the damage they do to the environment, all in the name of a quick buck. I have been thinking about this because I spent a lot of time in the panhandle in the 1970s, back before Panama City Beach developed into what it is now. I’ve not been back there since 1980, at the latest; but just looking at Google Earth images it’s horrifying how different and over-developed that whole area has become. (I was looking at the images because I was thinking about setting a book along the Redneck Riviera/Baja Alabama/Emerald Coast/Miracle Strip, whichever name you use for the region.) Louisiana, nicknamed “Sportsmen’s Paradise” because of the abundant fish and game and the stunning natural beauty of the state, has pretty much spent the last hundred or so years (at least) destroying and despoiling the natural resources of the state of Louisiana, killing off wildlife species while introducing new invasive ones–and don’t even get me started on Cancer Alley, that stretch of the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge lined with petrochemical plants parked next to poor, mostly Black communities that have, surprisingly enough, large instances of cancers in the residents. Now the level of the river is so low that it can’t keep the Gulf water pushed down, and the salty water is making its way up the river and intruding into our drinking water supply here in southeastern Louisiana. I’m sure the loss of so much of the wetlands to ensure oil company profits hasn’t affected this in any way, shape or form. There’s a really good environmental thriller to be written about Louisiana (if not more), and I think maybe part of the problem in writing about the destruction of Louisiana in the name of unfettered greed is that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to tackle it, nor do I have the time to spend on the research necessary.
It’s really disappointing to me that James Michener never wrote one of his two thousand page plus books about Louisiana. Louisiana history, no offense, is a lot more interesting than Texas’.
And Sportsmen’s Paradise is a great title for a book about Louisiana’s environmental disasters.
I suppose I should just go ahead and do it, regardless of how difficult and long and tedious the process may be. I also think part of the reason I’ve resisted this aspect of writing about Louisiana is because no matter how dark my books may get, I always want justice to be done in some way and to end the book with some sort of hope; there literally is no hope for the future of Louisiana because our politicians are all too greedy and corrupt and only focused on the now rather than the future, no matter how much they beat the “but the children!” drum publicly to fool those incapable of deeper thought. There have been so many environmental disasters in Louisiana over the nearly three decades I’ve lived here I can’t remember them all; and yes, I definitely count boil water advisories in that, too. There was the sinkhole at Bayou Corne (anyone remember that?) and of course Deepwater Horizon, whose true impact and the damage it wrought on the Gulf and the coastline will not be fully known for generations.
The one consistent thing throughout Louisiana’s history has been the entrenched systemic political corruption. I have written about that.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about Jackson Square Jazz, as I get into this revision, and remembering why I wrote it and what I was trying to say within the book; there was a thread in it that ties directly into the new one, and there are also some thematic commonalities with S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am really enjoying reading. Shawn is such an extraordinary writer, with a gift not only for language but character, dialogue, setting and story; the complete deal, as it were, and definitely is going to be considered one of the definitive crime writers of this new generation of exceptional talent that has risen over the last few years. I am going to spend some more time with Shawn’s book this morning, too; I am really enjoying it and wanting to see where it goes and how it all ends. I also have the new Lou Berney on deck, and Lou’s books are always high-quality, clever, and engaging.
College football was interesting yesterday. My Tigers prevailed in a three-point nail-biter against Arkansas in Tiger Stadium 34-31, running the clock out and kicking the winning field goal on the last play of the game. Paul and I were stunned, as was the crowd in the stadium..,and then I laughed. “LSU fans aren’t used to smart clock management in tight games,” I observed, and Paul started laughing with me because the crowd in the stadium didn’t know how to react to the end of the game either. It almost seemed ant-climactic rather than exciting…how many games have we lost this century because of poor clock management skills displayed by the coaching staff? So it was lovely, for once, to see the Tigers play smart at the end of a game for a change. Alabama finally looked like Alabama for the first time this season–but only in the second half as they iced Mississippi. LSU now has to play Mississippi in Oxford next weekend; it’ll be interesting to see how LSU stacks up against our old Magnolia Bowl foe. Colorado finally lost, which brought out all the racist college football fans on social media. The Texas A&M-Auburn game was just sloppy, ugly and unimpressive, while Mississippi State fell to South Carolina. But the big game of the day lived up to its billing–Ohio State v. Notre Dame in South Bend, with the Buckeyes scoring the winning touchdown on the literal last play of the game, 17-14. I literally only saw the closing minutes of the game, switching over once the LSU game concluded. The Saints play at noon today at Green Bay, so the grocery run I need to make will happen around that time–no fool me; everyone knows the best time to make groceries is during a Saints game here.
Yesterday was pretty relaxing, over all; a lovely day for the weekend and a restful and nice one, despite the stress of the LSU game. I’ll probably have the Saints game on in the background because it’s too anxiety-making to watch the games. (I have yet to learn how to control the anxiety during a game; it was certainly there last night and while I tried very hard not to get negative during the game, I could feel the adrenaline spiking and my heart rate going up, but I managed to keep my mind from spiraling and going super-dark as well not getting overly emotional It is, after all, just a football game and LSU football success isn’t necessary for my mental well-being.)
My goals for today are to read Shawn’s book for a few hours, get cleaned up and make a grocery run; while finishing the first chapters of the new Valerie and Jem books (tentatively titled, thus far, The House of the Seven Grables and You Gone, Girl) and also wanting to do some short story work as well, which is always fun. This Friday I am getting fitted for my new teeth (hurray!) and I have also reached the point where I can eat and enjoy noodles, so yesterday I made box mac’n’cheese (not Kraft, but one that came from the refrigerated section and simply needed microwaving and stirring; it wasn’t bad, either). Tonight I am going to make ravioli for dinner; we’ll see how that goes, although I am sure I won’t be able to eat any garlic bread. (I am able to eat Cheese Puffs, though.) I really want a burger, more than anything else. We are also making a trip to the SPCA to adopt a cat this coming Friday, which is perhaps the most exciting thing of all! I’ve really missed having a cat; they are such darling animals, and of course we want to get another ginger boy.
And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back–if not later, than tomorrow.
I’ve been toying with an idea for an essay for a while. It began as a blog post, but as I worked on it I realized it might be too long for a blog entry, were I to cover the entire scope of the issue even in abstract form. I moved it from here into a Word document yesterday, which may or may not mean something bigger in store for it than simply a blog entry. I don’t know. It will probably wind up here at some point as one of those long rambling things I do from time to time when I feel passionately about something. Consider that your warning. I’ve been thinking about masculinity a lot lately–it’s been an albatross hung around my neck since I was a child (“Boys don’t play with dolls! Boys don’t read Nancy Drew!”) and after reading so many bad takes about how “men are in crisis”–which basically boil down to an inability to adapt to cultural and societal change that is so intense that they resist such adaptation violently–I started thinking about masculinity and what it means to be a man; if it means anything, really. It’s probably too important an issue for me to take on in a personal essay, but personal essays are supposed to be revealing, and no one expects me to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything ever written about American masculinity, and to discuss it; thinking I can’t write something for whatever reason is self-sabotage of the worst kind, and something I am guilty of, over and over, throughout my life and career.
And yes, self-sabotage is 100% a by-product of my anxiety.
I also have Justin Baldoni’s book about masculinity, Man Enough, which is also an exploration of masculinity. Baldoni played the incredibly hot and sexy father of Jane the Virgin’s baby, and so as a gorgeous male actor/sex symbol, he has some gravitas to speak on the subject. I’m looking forward to cycling around to his book, once I finish my reread of a Charlemagne biography I really enjoy. I also spent some more time with Shawn’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am liking and savoring as I go–and can’t wait to spend some more time with it today. When I finish, Lou Berney’s Dark Ride has preempted everyone and been moved to the top of the TBR pile. It’s so lovely having so many great options of what to read next. I also think once October rolls around I am going to read only horror that month, in honor of the season–so I need to finish Shawn and Lou’s books before the month turns.
It also occurs to me that many of my books–unbeknownst to me–have explored the topic of masculinity in great detail already.
I slept really well last night, and only got up once. Ironically once I did wake up, I thought wow you really slept late and then saw it was quarter past seven on my alarm. I guess how it feels matters more than how long it actually was, and what truly matters is that I woke up feeling rested and relaxed and ready for my coffee this morning. I am debating right now whether I want to take the books to the library sale and the beads to the donor bins as well s make a slight grocery run–but am leaning towards not making the trip outside the house. I don’t really need anything from the store until Monday at the earliest, and the boxes of books and beads are out of the way and not bothering anyone, let alone my need for order and open space in the living room. I also want to work on some writing today before the games, so maybe leaving the house today isn’t in the cards–or am I just being lazy? It’s definitely possible that laziness and procrastination and my tendency to self-sabotage is what is really going on here. It’s possible. I do tend to put things off I consider unpleasant (and by unpleasant, I mean have to put some effort into it)…
LSU plays Arkansas tonight in Death Valley, and tonight we’ll find out two things: basically, how good either time is. It’s hard to say this early in the season how much quality your wins and losses have; the Florida State-Clemson game today will impact how good the LSU loss to the Seminoles was, and of course we aren’t sure how good Mississippi State is, so we don’t know if that was a quality win yet or not. Arkansas lost to BYU last weekend, so there’s also no telling how good they may or may not be, either. The whole conference seems to be down this year, but a tight win for Georgia can be shaken off as meaningless this early, and Alabama may bounce back; a Nick Saban coached Alabama team has never lost more than three games in a season since 2010 and only twice overall; sure, they looked unimpressive against USF and lost badly to Texas in Tuscaloosa, but does that mean Alabama isn’t going to rebound and is destined for a bad season? No, I don’t think so. Love them or hate them, Alabama consistently wins, and an early season loss means nothing to their program. Sure, LSU could run the table, win the West and potentially even the conference title game and make it to the play-offs; but they have to run the table on a schedule filled with landmines, including both Alabama and a rebuilding Auburn as well as the always hated Florida Gators. There are some great games today, which is why I want to spend some time reading Shawn’s book this morning before the games start, and I plan on rereading and revising Jackson Square Jazz during the games today.
And of course, there’s always filing and organizing to be done. I have seriously messed up my filing system so thoroughly and completely that it’s going to require a major overhaul to begin with, but I also have to think about putting together a new and workable system that will be easier to maintain than this haphazard way I’ve been doing things–and of course the computer files are an utter disaster as well. Heavy sigh.
I’ve been doing a lot more research (or rather, falling into research black holes on the web) about New Orleans during the decade of the 1910’s. I am definitely going to write a Sherlock pastiche for the Bouchercon anthology–which of course means I will most likely be rejected. Perhaps a Sherlockian-type character, and if they turn it down I can simply turn him into Sherlock and toss the story into my short story collection? I need to finish the revisions of “Whim of the Wind” and finish a draft of “Parlor Tricks,” which will probably go into that collection as well. What particularly interests me now is “Manila Village,” a settlement of Filipinos on Barataria Bay, settled by native Filipinos who were forced to serve in the Spanish navy and escaped to Louisiana. There’s still a strong Filipino-American community here (which I actually didn’t know before falling into this wormhole of research), and I do feel that Holmes, living in New Orleans in that decade, would probably embrace them and their culture. (I also need to research the Isleños; descendants of the Canary Islanders who settled here.) New Orleans was also dramatically different geographically back then; the New Basin Canal was still there, for one thing, and I am not entirely sure when the Carondelet Canal (also called the Old Basin Canal) was filled in, but it came right up next to Congo Square; the streets in the Quarter were either dirt or cobblestone, and the lower part of the neighborhood had been almost entirely taken over by Italian immigrants.
I’ve also got strong starts of first chapters for another Jem book (sequel to Death Drop) and another Valerie (sequel to A Streetcar Named Murder); so there’s plenty of writing to be done this weekend as well. I’m not feeling overwhelmed by any or all of this writing that must be worked on and done; this morning I literally feel like all I need to do is roll up my sleeves and dive into the word documents head first, which is a great way to feel.
And on that note, it’s spice mine time this morning. Have a great Saturday and I’ll probably check in with you again later.
This marvelous interview with the amazing Margot Douaihy dropped while I was in the midst of Bouchercon or preparing for it, so I always intended to share it around on social media (what a thrill to be name-checked by such an amazing new star in the world of crime fiction). Her debut crime novel Scorched Grace was so phenomenal that I still think about it from time to time; her New Orleans was so exquisitely and artistically rendered that it gave me pause–and also made me wonder if I’ve been coasting and not working as hard as I should. (I always think that when I read a work that blows me away–I should try harder.)
Yesterday was spent in my chair watching college football and making notes in my journal on projects that are upcoming or are currently in progress. Despite all the sleep (I slept for eleven hours Friday night, and again last night) I still feel a bit out of it and drained and tired; but I am going to take a shower in a little bit and I am sure that will perk me right up. I did read some more of Shawn Cosby’s newest book but those opening few chapters hit me right in the soul and it’s going to take me a minute to process it. I also posted like three or four entries yesterday, too–I finished turning John Copenhaver’s questions for the Outwrite DC panel into a Greg interview (I plan on doing the same with the questions from the Bouchercon panels because I can, mwa-ha-ha!), also finished my entry announcing Death Drop, and another one about how The Children’s Bible was one of my first sources for images of hot muscular men (thanks again, Golden Press, for those sexy illustrations! I didn’t even mention Samson), so I am making progress on getting these drafted blogs finished and posted.
I feel a little pain in my mouth this morning, so I rinsed with salt water and took my pain pills. Pain is draining and exhausting, even if you take something for it, so that’s why I think I was so behind the eight ball with everything yesterday–it’s certainly why I am sleeping so much and so deeply, for which I am eternally grateful. There’s no more bleeding, which is great, and I am trying out hot coffee this morning (caffeine deficiency may have played a huge part in the tired thing yesterday). All I ate yesterday was protein shakes and ice cream (Haagen-Dasz strawberry; today is vanilla bean) which was weird and not very filling; I am going to have to go buy yogurt and more ice cream tomorrow, methinks, and explore some other soft food options, like oatmeal. I am going to have oatmeal for breakfast this morning–I actually like oatmeal and am not sure why I stopped having it in the mornings–and then see if I can figure out some other things. I bought some soups, so maybe I can soften crackers in the soup too. I remember moving back onto solid foods was an issue the first time around, so I have to keep that in mind as I slowly start reintroducing solids back. I know I will miss this unashamed and unabashed deep dive back into ice cream. My face also never swelled up, which is another indication of how good my dental surgeon was. Well done and bravo, sir!
The highlight of the day yesterday for me was watching Coco Gauff win the US Open. How absolutely delightful, and how delightful to have a young American star again to root for. I love tennis, but there really hasn’t been anyone on the women’s side with a larger than life personality like Serena Williams, or just flat out charismatic and likable (like Kim Clijsters) to watch and root for in a very long time. I think the guard is also gradually changing on the men’s side, with the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic triume slowly retiring as they get older, and it’s fun to see rising young stars like Carlos Alcazar play, too.
As for football, well…the Alabama-Texas game was exciting to watch, if strange; I’ve not seen Alabama play that sloppy or poorly very often in the seventeen years or so since Nick Saban came to Tuscaloosa. I also can’t remember the last time Alabama lost so early in the year–which means a second loss ends any play-off hopes they may have unless they go on to win the SEC. To see Alabama lose in Tuscaloosa by ten points to a non-SEC team early in the season? Unthinkable. The conference is not off to a great start this year; Miami roasted Jimbo and A&M yesterday; LSU’s horrific loss last weekend to Florida State; Mississippi got super-lucky to beat Tulane yesterday; and the rest of the conference isn’t exactly off to a great start either–even Georgia hasn’t looked invincible in their two wins, despite the margin of victory. The SEC is due for an off-year anyway; we’ve literally won four national championships in a row (2019 LSU, 2020 Alabama, 2021-22 Georgia) with three different teams, which is something no other conference can say this century, and also doesn’t include Florida, who won two in the aughts (as did LSU: LSU was the first team to win two titles since championship games were implemented). The only teams not from the south to win national titles this century are Oklahoma and Ohio State, and Oklahoma might as well be a Southern state as it’s not really in the Midwest either. In fact, the only two Big Twelve team to win national titles this century–Oklahoma and Texas–are joining the SEC next year. I’m still not sure how I feel about the realignments and conferences being killed off, but…the sport has changed dramatically since I was a child and ABC held the exclusive right to air games. LSU blew out Grambling State last night 72-10, and looked much better than they had the week before in that embarrassing loss to Florida State; but there’s also a big difference between FSU and GSU. I guess we’ll get a better idea of what LSU is like once we play at Mississippi State next week, and we’ll see how well Alabama bounces back from this disappointment for them. Auburn did manage to hold off California last night (I went to bed), but I also think Florida lost their opener to Utah? Yes, they did, or maybe it was Oregon? Regardless, they lost. Pity. (I despise Florida, and will only root for them when they play someone I hate even more, like Tennessee.)
So, today I am going to take it easy one more time without feeling guilty for not doing anything productive. I am going to do some chores–emptying the dishwasher, maybe some filing to clean up the mess that is currently my desk situation, and the refrigerator needs cleaning up too–and repair to the chair to read Shawn’s book for a bit. I also am going to make another cup of coffee and perhaps some oatmeal, washed down by a protein shake. I don’t know if my heart and blood pressure can take watching a Saints game, but Paul will want to watch and there’s also the men’s final for the US Open today. And maybe I will finish some other blog posts. One never knows, really.
Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader–and if I’m not back later, be sure I’ll be back in the morning.
Monday and back to the office with me this morning, woo-hoo! Yesterday was kind of nice. It rained overnight and we had a couple of amazing thunderstorms in the morning which cooled everything off (for a quick moment) so I was able to cuddle up under my blankets with a cup of coffee and finished reading Megan Abbott’s amazing Beware the Woman (get a copy now and you can thank me later–I prefer cash), before doing some chores around the house and getting a handle on the kitchen/office mess situation. Yesterday afternoon around one I checked the temperature and it was a mere 78 degrees here. In July, in the afternoon. Madness, am I right? But it gradually started climbing again, as always, but it was a lovely respite from the brutality that has been this summer.
I also read a short story from one of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Lady’s Man” by Ruth Chatterton, which I found interesting as it was nothing more than a little ghost story, set at a country home of none other than Noel Coward! I’m sure this must be the same Ruth Chatterton who’d been a film star in the 20s and 30s; a quick Google search answers the question that yes, the film star also was a writer! How delightful. The tale was told in a conversational style, as though Ms. Chatterton was making interesting conversation at a formal dinner, which made it really fun to read, even though the chills weren’t quite as pronounced as they were in some of the other stories I’ve read in these books. I do love revisiting these old anthologies and stories from another time.
I also spent some time going through my recent journals and marking pages with sticky notes that are applicable to things I am currently working on or thinking about going to work on. I usually brainstorm and think in my journals. It used to be just the act of writing something down was necessary for me to remember it later–which is why I never needed to really consult my notes in the Olden Days–but that is clearly no longer the case. Even writing stuff here in blog posts is no guarantee I will remember it later. It was also interesting because so much of my journal is just me scribbling, free associating names and titles then who the people are who got with both, quotes I like with attribution, and then the most bizarre things that literally make no sense at all; where did this thought come from? Is it original or did I see it somewhere and wrote it down? It’s always fun to see just how schizophrenic my creativity is when I don’t try to harness it. I actually wrote longhand in my journal last night while watching a documentary–I sometimes takes notes in case I want to blog about it later–and wound up writing several pages of a personal essay about my own experience going to Boys’ State in Kansas the summer I turned sixteen. (Yes, I was watching Boys’ State on Apple Plus, which was filmed at the Texas Boys’ State, which was interesting and well done, and a lot like I remembered it being all those years ago in a different state.) That evolved into me writing about always feeling like an outsider, observing from a slight remove, and went on for quite some time, rather indulgently, and I kind of was amused. There I was, feeling like I was creatively stifled and not able to write, yet writing in longhand in a journal, no less. It wasn’t fiction, of course, but it was still a creative expression, a free form exercise in stream of consciousness writing to see where my mind went–and inevitably, as always, I had to take the piss out of myself.
And that led to another page about my difficulties in taking myself seriously, and thus self-sabotaging myself and my career.
It truly is a wonder I have a career, or for that matter, even had one to begin with.
One thing that did come from that free form writing was a reiteration of something I think I may have posted here recently, that I should take just as much pride in my novels as I do in my published short stories. Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it, but my inner editor always wants to find and fix things in the novels, which inevitably leads to me wishing I could have another pass at it, and the reality is I will always feel like I should have taken another pass at a novel manuscript before it went to print. I need to get over that, or to at least keep it to myself and my journals rather than dragging my own work on my blog. I AM proud of my books, every single one of them, and every single one of them was the best book I was capable of writing at the time I wrote it. As I believe I continue to learn and grow as a writer the more I write, I will always think of my past work as something done when I wasn’t as mature a writer and was still learning because I am always learning. And hope to always continue learning and get better, not just as an author but as a person.
The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know, and how much I will never know. It’s kind of humbling, really.
I did decide what the next book I am going to write is going to be, and that’s a good thing. I was pretty sure of what it was going to be, because it’s in my head and needs to come out more than anything else at the moment–but there’s always something else nagging at the back of my mind saying write me write me! It has the potential to be very good, but I still need to figure some things out. I know how it starts and I know how it ends and I know the back story; I just don’t know the middle and how to get from Act One to the start of Act Three; I always struggle with the second act. I started writing it for a friend who was an acquiring editor, it was something I had been wanting to do for a while and he was interested in acquiring it once it was finished, or at least a first draft completed. So, while I was working on two other books at the same time, I was also taking one day every week and writing a three thousand word chapter and emailing it to him. I had completed Chapter Four and needed a transitional chapter that wasn’t boring or expository, so I had to put more thought into it than I had the previous four. This was last fall, when things started to get out of control in my personal life and with everything else, when I started falling behind on everything and my anxiety was out of control and I just didn’t have the headspace or creative energy to spare to figure out that chapter, so I stopped working on it.
But I never stopped thinking about it.
So, now I have to write it. I may continue to send it to him although he is no longer an acquiring editor, but he’s also a friend and I respect his opinion (he is remaining unnamed because I cannot say kind things about him publicly), so maybe I will. He was very encouraging, and sometimes I need a little bit of a push every now and then. I’ve also mentally worked out some of the kinks in those first chapters, too. I think it will be fun to write; I know I was enjoying it when I was working on it before, and it wasn’t like fuck, I don’t want to work on the structure and plot and meaning of this fucking thing, it was yeah, let’s figure this shit out.
That’s a good sign, methinks.
I’ve also decided my next read is going to be Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt. I love Kelly and I love Kelly’s work, so I can’t wait to see what this is about. She has a truly masterful grasp of the rural South, and that voice! Oh, that authorial voice! She takes me back to my childhood summers in rural Alabama, shows those folks with a clear and unblinking eye, and then writes with language so beautifully and magnificently constructed that it makes me feel seen, home, and alive. I have some more fabulous books coming–what a summer for releases! New books to come from Laura Lippman and Angie Kim and Michael Koryta on top of all the treasures that have already been released this year? I’ve got Eryk Pruitt’s latest and Scott Von Doviak’s latest on their way, with a new Donna Andrews right on their heels. I need to stop slacking and get back to reading on top of everything else! Mon Dieu, how am I ever supposed to keep up?
There simply isn’t enough time in every day, is there?
There were also short stories in my journals–either the idea or the openings or an outline–that I’ve never transferred out or transcribed, which also needs to be done. God, there are so many short stories in progress…it’s daunting just thinking about it.
But it was a good weekend. I got some rest and I accomplished some things. I got better organized, with a short way to go, and am proceeding with plans to get everything back together again and start writing again, clearly and clear-headedly moving forward on something I’m really interested in writing, something I’ve wanted to write for a very long time–and it’s enormously satisfying knowing I am finally going to be working on it for real.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. I tend to turn up like a bad penny here and there, now and again.
Queer and Loathing in America 