Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and I am exhausted again. Yesterday morning I was still a bit on the foggy side mentally, and kind of planned to just hang out all day until it was time to meet people at Lilette for dinner at seven. I settled in with my manuscript, turned the television onto college football, and got started. I had completely forgotten I’d agreed to meet folks for a drink in the afternoon. Once I got the reminder text, I leapt into action and got cleaned up, summoning a Lyft. I wound up also going to the Queer Crime Writers’ cocktail hour at the Ritz Carlton bar, and from there it was on to Lilette for dinner, which was amazing and a lot of fun. I am exhausted again this morning, but it’s not as bad as it was on Friday (thank God) despite getting home late and kind of overdoing it again. But again, I can just retire to my easy chair with the manuscript and my red pen and post-it notes so I can get moving on this damned thing.
LSU won in what was apparently a very sloppy game for the offense, only beating Louisiana Tech 23-7, or something like that. I’m not really sure about the games yesterday and how they all turned out, so I am probably going to have to watch a video about them this morning before I get to work on the manuscript. I also saw that Florida, LSU’s next opponent, lost to USF at home, which is not a good look for them or their hot-seated coach. So, will Florida be fired up to take that loss out on LSU, or will LSU clean up its act and bury Florida? It’s almost always a great game, regardless–rarely does one team blow the other out, no matter what their rankings or records.
There are some great games next weekend, though, so that will be a lot of fun.
I may do some chores later after I’ve read for a bit. This aching-joint thing is not fun, just so you know. In fact, I think I’m going to go rest for a moment before I finish writing this.
Okay, I am back. I am still very fatigued and foggy, but I sat for a while in my chair and watched some news and college football scores, and feel a bit better and more clear headed. My stomach is being a bit weird, but I am also due for my first injection tomorrow so maybe this isn’t the start of a relapse (the fatigue was worrying, despite what my doctor said), which was a relief.
After I do finish and post this, I am going to get a bit cleaned up and dive back into the reading with the USOpen men’s final on in the background–like it is now. I like both players (although I think Carlos Alcaraz is cuter), so just want to listen (and occasionally look up to see) great tennis.
I would also like to shout out to those who won Anthony Awards last night, and especially Curtis Ippolito (Best Short Story), K. T. Nguyen (Best First), Rob Osler (Best Humorous), and all the others I can’t think of right now. I met Ms. Nguyen at Noir at the Bar, and she’s delightful (as was her reading), and of course Curtis and Rob are friends–and Rob is a queer writer of queer mysteries, so huzzah for this groundbreaking win! MORE QUEER WINNERS, please!
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the rest of the day. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.
Monday morning and back to the office with me this morning. I don’t feel fatigued, but I also didn’t want to get out of the warm bed or out from under my pile of blankets. But the coffee is going down easily and tastes marvelous, and the Lost Apartment is mostly clean; I didn’t finish the downstairs yesterday so there’s some touching-up still necessary tonight when I get home. I’m hoping that I won’t be too tired to do that necessary touching up. I certainly don’t want to leave it for the weekend, especially since I don’t have my work-at-home day this week since we’re having an “in-service” day so I have to come in.
Paul had a board retreat so he was out of the house for most of the afternoon and into the early evening. I worked on the kitchen and finishing the living room some, had groceries delivered, and made Greg’s Swedish Meatballs for dinner (they were superb; the alterations I made this time were the right ones). I also did some research when I was taking a break from cleaning–hurricanes, the 1970s, gay Hollywood during the days the studio system started crumbling–and also did some reading. I am pleased to report that The Hunting Wives is very well written and very different (already) from the series, which is kind of exciting. I also dipped into Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages, and it staggers me how her writing style, that unique rhythm and voice she had, easily adapts from quiet horror to family humor.
I also started rereading Hurricane Season Hustle, the long-delayed Scotty book (why does it always seem to be Scotty books that get delayed?), and I have to confess that it’s actually not bad. The writing isn’t terrible and doesn’t need a lot of fixing, which is enormously pleasing. I simply have to write five or six chapters, the epilogue and prologue, and put some shine and sparkle on it. I am not so certain why I am always so down on my writing, especially in its sloppy early stages, because my low regard for it is not shared by most. I am working on not being hard on myself anymore–I certainly don’t need to prove anything anymore to anyone–and while I don’t think it’s wrong to think I can do better (because one always can), I need to be a bit kinder about it. Part of the reason I think I’m able to watch these Hurricane Katrina stories and documentaries now is because I am going to be dealing with, and exploring, Scotty’s memories of Katrina as the current hurricane is battering the Diderot House. I think the plot is kind of clever, and I am an award-winning author, after all. Is that confidence I feel? #madness.
We started watching Smoke on Apple Plus last night. It co-stars Taron Edgerton as an arson inspector, and Jurnee Smollett as a police detective assigned to work with him on two serial arsonist cases. It was created and written by Dennis Lehane (remember him? Mystic River? Of course you do.), and the first episode was interesting; both characters are complex and have a lot of issues, and the acting and writing is top notch. The show appears to be a slow burn (see what I did there?), and we are definitely down for watching more. We had an arsonist in the lower Garden District in the late 1990s; the Coliseum Theater was one of his victims as were several other houses in the neighborhood. Fire and water are the two elements that New Orleans dreads–how many “great fires” have there been here, anyway?–and maybe it is time for a novel about fires in New Orleans?
Then again, I’ve already done the Cabildo Fire. The Upstairs Lounge fire, too.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Or, if you prefer (I do), Happy Native Genocide Eve!
I am spending this one alone, here in the Lost Apartment by myself, and that’s fine. Yesterday was nice. I didn’t feel as bad when I woke, after a good night’s sleep, and by early afternoon my stomach stopped aching even a little bit. It embarrasses me to admit this, but I think I was actually malnourished! I’ve not eaten dinner once this week, and I didn’t really eat much on Sunday, either–so I went into calorie deficit, and whatever I ate wasn’t enough calories to keep my body functioning properly.1My blood sugar drops, I get all post-nasal drippy, the drip makes me feverish and cough, and I feel, overall, like crap. I caught up on my eating yesterday morning and lunch finally made the ache go away. Seriously, not very smart. But it’s fine this morning and I feel like myself again, thank the Lord. So, with my unexpected extra day off, I wound up having a very nice and relaxing day around the house by myself. I’m rarely ever home alone for an entire day, let alone a week, so the novelty is still kind of nice and fun and oh, yes, I can do whatever I want whenever I want, can’t I? I did listen to Orville Peck yesterday while I did some cleaning. The downstairs is pretty much done; I just need to do the floors and move some furniture. I also worked on an essay2 and did some reading yesterday, which was nice. I am taking today off from anything and everything–it is a holiday, after all–and the days when I used to feel guilty for doing nothing all day are in the past. I’d also completely forgotten it was Rivalry Weekend in college football, when anything can happen in a football season that has already been wild and wacky and full of crazy upsets. LSU plays Oklahoma for the first time in the regular season this Saturday night in Baton Rouge, so that should be interesting; Oklahoma just trounced Alabama, who trounced LSU a few weeks ago. Obviously, you can’t tell anything by common opponents (LSU beat Vanderbilt, who beat Alabama. Go figure).
So, Thanksgiving. I’ll have a fancy turkey sandwich later–probably open-faced, with turkey gravy poured over it–and when I finish this, I’ll probably go read some more of Lavender House, which is phenomenal and I am loving. I’m seeing the influence of the masters–Chandler and Hammett–in this, and it is absolutely amazing. I am not going to pressure myself to do anything today or feel guilty about not doing things. Besides, I am not capable of doing nothing all day–I’ll do something, at any rate; whether it’s cleaning or pruning the books or organizing a cabinet; I’m like Mom that way. I still have to edit a manuscript this weekend, and I’d also like to reread what I have done on Scotty, maybe even get back into writing that manuscript. I puzzled out how to finish and revise a novella and another one of my short stories–both need to be harder, colder, more hard-boiled and sly and mean-spirited, frankly. I’ve enjoyed this novella because it’s about a dysfunctional relationship that has a truly sad ending. The problem with both, I realized, is that they are from the point of view of someone who ends up committing a crime, and it’s really about how everything leads up to that moment, so I had the voice completely wrong in both, which is the missing piece I’ve been looking for now for quite some time. So, while I am not actually writing anything fictional at the moment, I am doing some brain work on my fiction, and sorry not sorry, THAT COUNTS.
But the whole point of this day–the “wholesome” America rah-rah-rah version, at any rate–is to remember and be thankful for your blessings in this life, and not focus on the hardships you’ve faced. There’s definitely a bit of Christianity and white supremacy baked into that particular American mythology, which is why some (me) half-jokingly call it Native Genocide Eve, because it was the last time European colonizers were grateful for indigenous help, and before they started slaughtering them–whether it was through out-and-out gunfire or disease. The truth left out of the US creation myth is that it was all about conquest and colonizing. I don’t think learning about that is nearly as disillusioning as being taught one thing as a child and then learning as you get older that it’s all justification and lies. Europeans had no right to the Americas, and they took the two continents with violence, prejudice, and genocide. The foundation of our country was built upon white Christian supremacy.
Why is that so hard for people to accept or admit? The truth is, we have been dealing with “alternative facts” most of our lives. Talk about miseducation!
But back to my thankfulness. Obviously, first and foremost, is that I am grateful every day for Paul. What a remarkable person he is, and how lucky was I, with all the people in the world, that somehow I wound up finding the perfect person for me, like I’d ordered from a menu? I miss him when he’s not here–I’ve kind of been thinking about Dad, living alone after losing Mom, up there in the house they shared together for the last twenty-five years of their lives together, and can really understand and relate. I usually can handle the first few days whenever he goes on a trip anywhere, luxuriating in the novelty of living alone (which I’ve never done). Usually by the third day alone (technically tomorrow) I start feeling the loneliness and realize ah, this is what it’ll be like if he goes first 3, which is “I can do this when I’ll have to (again, no choice).”
I am very thankful to be living in New Orleans, the only place in this country that has ever felt like home to me. I love this city even when I complain about it. It’s a bit hard to explain, but I think it has something to do with having the same mentality about life and death that I’ve always had: enjoy today because you could be gone tomorrow. One thing that always bugs me on a molecular level is putting off joy till later. Um, there are more than enough things in life to make you forget about joy, so why inflict it upon yourself? Katrina emphasized that even further–you could lose everything you have in a day and have to start completely over. I’ve moved around the country enough, starting over, that having to start over again at my current age isn’t desirable, but I’ve done it enough times over the course of sixty-three years that I know if I have to, I can. I am also very thankful for that hard core of resiliency baked into who I am.
I am very thankful for my writing career. It’s what I always wanted to do, for as long as I can remember, and even when I get frustrated with it, or wish I had done something differently…well, there are any number of people who wish they had my career, and despite the fact that my writing career happened because so many things that needed to happen for it to happen, happened. I think part of the reason I never took my career as seriously as I should have from the very beginning is because luck and good fortune made it happen, which also makes me very aware of how it can happen. But…that doesn’t, and shouldn’t undermine, the story of my career trajectory. I’ve been nominated for awards almost thirty times, and have even won on occasion. Some writers never get nominated for anything. Some writers never progress past the dream stage. I’ve gotten incredible reviews, and I have some absolutely devoted readers that I am thankful for every damned day. I also think part of the depressive state of the last year or so has everything to do with me not writing much during that time–I am always happier when I am writing fiction, no matter how much stress and anxiety is involved with the writing of said fiction. I’ve pretty much been able to write whatever I want to write most of my life, too.
I’ve also been blessed to be able to know some amazing people, and to call them friends. They are an amazing support system, and they believe in me as a person, as a friend, and as a writer. It’s kind of sad that I didn’t learn what it was like to be or have a good friend until I met Paul. I always have this deep down feeling that no one actually does like me–the PTSD of growing up in a very homophobic society–but I am getting so much better about that.
I am thankful that I have the life I never knew I truly wanted, or could have imagined, during the rough times.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Enjoy your holiday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, one never can be sure, can one?
One can never go wrong with a shirtless photo of Nyle DeMarco, can one?
Believe it or not, it’s a thing for me; it has a lot to do with fear of gaining weight and the nagging sense that I always need to lose at least ten pounds. I’ll write about that at some point. ↩︎
Not really the first time; there have been any number of times over our almost thirty years (!!!) together (next summer) where I’ve had to face the possibility of losing him and spending the rest of my life alone (I don’t need a companion, and no one will ever be like Paul to me, just like no one could ever replace Mom for Dad) multiple times already. ↩︎
Sunday morning! And LSU Gymnastics won the national championship yesterday! Woo-hoo! That accomplishment is worthy of its own post, so tune in later for that, okay? It was very exciting, I have to say, and the Lost Apartment was filled with excited cheers even as we held our breath as LSU clinched it all with a fantastic final rotation on balance beam. We kind of celebrated this throughout the night by watching replays and highlights before episode two of Sugar, which I am loving. Colin Ferrell, yum.
I was very tired Friday from running all those errands, and so was Paul. I was still fatigued yesterday, the physical and mental kind that I’ve not felt in a while–but sadly more evidence that my stamina is not back and needs to be worked on. The heat is also back; yesterday was pleasant, but Friday was eighty-eight degrees…in April. That doesn’t bode well for the summer, especially for one that’s going to be a more active hurricane season. But while I was so tired yesterday I managed to use what little nervous energy I had to clean and organize, and the apartment actually looks better this morning. It’s still not up to par–I need to do the floors to get there–but it’s nice to walk down to a neater first floor. I do need to run the dishwasher this morning, and finish filing before I read and write for the day. I do feel a little dragged out this morning, but hopefully getting caffeinated and cleaned up will take care of that problem.
I did do some things writing-related yesterday. I found the epigraphs for the next Scotty book, for one, and also wrote the opening of The Crooked Y in my head yesterday as I cleaned and organized. I created some working folders for projects that are forming in my head, and I did write notes down in my journal occasionally. I also did some electronic file cleaning up, which is proving to be an endless, endless process that may never be finished. But as long as I can still search for everything in a finder window, it should be okay. I also thought of how to open The Summer of Lost Boys, too. I’ve been listening to the Billboard Top 100’s for the years I am considering setting the book in, and I think I am settling into 1974, which was when I originally wanted it set in the first place, the summer (in my life) between junior high and high school. It’s kind of fun, if a little painful, to go back to that time and remember it for myself, but I think it’s going to be a really strong book once it’s underway. I also started getting the current book a bit better organized. I feel better about things, if that makes any sense? Hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot of writing done. I want to finish the rewrite of “Passenger to Franklin” and start the revision of “When I Die,” before diving into the book headfirst and trying to get the rest of it plotted.
I think I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately, in all honesty, and I need to get calmed down and focused again. I need to remember how to harness my brain ADHD-driven creativity and focus on one thing the way I used to be able to do so. I have been very pleased with the (sparse) writing I’ve been doing, but I also think that might be partly due to the stamina issues I’ve been having since the surgery. I am trying to rush to get back to “normal” (or what passes for it around here) and getting ahead of myself, and I need to reign in my impatience and take things slower. It’s okay because it’s temporary, and this too shall pass. Take a breath, remember you had a rough go of things last year, and you have to build everything back to the point it was before the injury.
I’ve also been remiss in not congratulating award winners lately in my field; I am very pleased to report that J. M. Redmann won the Hansen Prize for queer crime fiction for Transitory, which is now also a Lambda finalist AND a two category Goldie finalist. Yay Jean! I’ve known Jean for almost twenty-five years now, she was my boss’s boss for about eighteen years, we’ve co-edited anthologies together, and now I am her book editor. Transitory is a terrific book, and being Jean’s editor is pretty easy, actually. Ivy Pochoda recently won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best Crime Novel for Sing Her Down, and Ivy is pretty awesome, too. I am behind on her books (I’m behind on everyone’s books, really) but her Wonder Valley was fan-fucking-tastic. Way to go, Ivy! (That was a loaded category, too–other nominees were S. A. Cosby, Cheryl Head, Jordan Harper, and Lou Berney.)
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines, eat something and get cleaned up and ready to go for this glorious morning. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat at you again later.
I’ve told this story any number of times; how the writing of the book was derailed by two awful things that happened in my life, and how I finally got back to writing again in the spring of 2005, managing to finish this and turn it into literally two or three weeks before Hurricane Katrina came barreling ashore and changed everything in my life, and the long recovery time from that paradigm shift, trying to adjust to the new reality I was facing every day. It felt weird going over the copy edits, weirder still doing the page proofs (I actually had the incredibly sharp-eyed Becky Cochrane and Timothy J. Lambert do it for me while I was visiting the Compound, thanks again, guys!), and even stranger having to tour and promote a book about New Orleans set before Katrina while still dealing with the recovery.
I’ve told those stories before, and that isn’t really what these entries are about; these entries are about the books themselves and how I came up with the stories and so forth, and the writing of the books. The primary problem, of course, is that I wrote this book between and around tragedies; the two year period I call the Time of Troubles that began on Memorial Day weekend in 2004 and ran through about 2008, really; because that’s about how long it took after all those issues for me to feel like my feet were beneath me again and I once again had a grasp on my life. I don’t remember what the original story was about, other than it centered on the Krewe of Iris, Scotty’s Diderot grandmother’s best friend who’d married a much younger muscle-stud Russian, and that’s really about it. The Russian would have something to do with a Colin case–and it would turn out actually be the case that brought him undercover to New Orleans in the first place during Southern Decadence; in Jackson Square Jazz we find out what Colin’s real job is, and that he was in town originally about the Napoleon death mask–but he was also in town to keep an eye on the young muscle-stud Russian who’d married Scotty’s grandmother’s best friend. It wasn’t really working, and I didn’t much care for the story, to be honest; I’d already asked for an extension before Memorial Day weekend in 2004 when all the shit started happening; after Paul was attacked they took it off the schedule and told me not to worry about it. (I appreciated the courtesy greatly at the time, but at the same time had this sinking feeling in the back of my head uh oh, they may not want another one after this–which turned out to be correct. But I dismissed the fear as part of my on-going struggle with Imposter Syndrome. It took me about six months, more or less, to get back to writing. I started my blog right after Christmas that year, and there I was writing every day again, and by January of 2005 I was ready to get going on this book again. I remember rereading everything I’d already done, not liking it, and deciding to scrap it and start over with the same essential premise: rich older society woman in New Orleans has married a much younger Russian boy-toy; Colin is investigating the boy-toy; and it’s Carnival season. Shortly after getting about halfway into a new first draft, the Virginia thing happened and I was derailed again. After that was over and I went back to the book…once again I didn’t like what was happening in the story and I threw it all out and started over again.
But this time, I hit my stride and four months later I turned the book in at long last, along with a proposal for a fourth, Hurricane Party Hustle, which was going to be set during an evacuation and would wrap up the loose ends left at the end of Mardi Gras Mambo.
And of course, three weeks later Katrina changed everything, and Hurricane Party Hustle went into the drawer.
Last night I dreamed it was Mardi Gras again. It seemed to me I was standing inside an iron gate, watching one of the night parades go by. The sidewalks in front of the gate were crowded with people, all shouting, with their grasping eager hands up in the air. Out beyond the edge of the curb, I could see people sitting in lawn chairs. Still others were up on ladders, with coolers and plastic bags of booty piled around them on the ground. Fathers and mothers were holding up babies, while black kids with the crotches of their pants down around their knees walked behind the crowd, weighted down by the ropes of beads around their necks. Beads were flying through the air, some getting caught and tangled in the branches of the towering gnarled oaks lining the avenue. The heavy upper branches of those oaks also blocked out the glow of the ancient street lamps so the night seemed even darker than it should. I could hear a marching band, playing a recent hip-hop hit, and the strange clicking sound of the baton girls’ tap shoes on the pavement. The air was heavy with the heavy fragrance of hot grease, corn dogs and the strange melted yellowish-orangey substance the vendors put on nachos that purports to be cheese—but no one is really sure what it is. A group of flambeaux carriers were passing by, dancing that odd little circular dance they do, their propane tanks popping and hissing, throwing long and twisted shadows that also danced inside the iron fence I was behind. Right behind them a huge float pulled by a tractor was coming and the crowd’s shouts became louder, more desperate, more pleading. On the float’s front was a huge white clown face, its bright red lips parted in what passed for a smile but seemed to me to be a frightening leer. The masks on the float riders glowed supernaturally at the hordes begging them for generosity in the strange light cast by the moon when it cleared the thick clouds in the cold night sky. I stood inside the black iron fence, my arms wrapped around me against the cold as an increased sense of menace and dread built inside me. Something bad was going to happen—
Oh, get real, Scotty!
If I do have bad dreams, I don’t remember them when I wake up. I’ve certainly never been troubled in my sleep, even though crazy things always seem to happen to me. I’m just one of those people, I guess. For whatever reason, the Goddess has decided to throw some wild stuff at me—she always has, even when I was a kid—and what can you do? I just don’t think I am one of those people who were destined to have a nice, normal, quiet life. Maybe it’s because I was named Milton Bradley at birth. Yes, that’s right. Milton Bradley. My older brother started calling me by my middle name, Scotty, before I started school and thank the Goddess, it stuck. Can you imagine how cruel the kids would have been to someone named Milton, let alone Milton Bradley? And then of course there’s the gay thing. I was lucky—my parents are pretty liberal and were delighted to have a gay son—like it somehow proved how truly cool they really are or something. They are pretty cool, actually.
By now, I’d taken to starting all of my New Orleans novels with a Tennessee Williams quote; for this one I chose a line from Vieux Carré: “You’ve got a lot to learn about life in the Quarter.”
I had opened Bourbon Street Blues with a parody of “The name’s Bond, James Bond” and I’d done something similar with Jackson Square Jazz–“Danger is my middle name”, riffing on Trouble is My Business. I decided to open this book with a parody of the opening line of Rebecca: “Last night I dreamed I went to Mardi Gras again.” But that entire opening paragraph of du Maurier’s is so fucking brilliant, I couldn’t help myself and made my entire first paragraph a parody of that opening. I then decided that from then forward, every Scotty book would have a Williams quote and each prologue–where Scotty introduces himself and his cast of characters and gives backstory so I don’t have to do it in the text of the story itself–would parody the opening paragraph of a famous novel, rather than just the first line (I am actually struggling to find the proper opening to parody to start the prologue for this one. I’ve used Rebecca, Peyton Place, The Haunting of Hill House, and Lolita, among others so far already; I’ve tried with this one to use An American Tragedy, Atlas Shrugged and The Great Gatsby thus far, with no luck. I’ve tried Valley of the Dolls several times for other books in the series already, but I can’t ever get it to work for me).
I do remember that the one thing that didn’t come across in those earlier drafts that I had abandoned was the sense of insanity that Carnival always brings with it; that feeling of “controlled anarchy” we experience those two weeks of parades, of knowing you have to schedule your entire life around a parade schedule–true even for those who do not live inside the box, as we say here; the box being the Uptown parade route–I always have to schedule my job, my trips to run errands uptown, everything, predicated around having to get home at least two hours before the parades start, and am incredibly lucky if I can get a parking spot within three blocks of the Lost Apartment. The thing I kept forgetting in those earlier versions was the books are meant to be fun. Granted, I was hardly in a mental space to write something fun…and of course the decision to really take it completely over the top the way I did was something I still think about to this day and wonder, where on earth did you get the idea for identical triplets?
Which, while crazy, made more sense than the cloning story I tried to write the second time.
Maybe those bad things happened for a reason? Because I couldn’t be more pleased with how the story and the book turned out. I also ran out of room to finish the personal story…but I also was operating on the assumption I’d get a contract for a fourth book. If not for Katrina, Kensington might have made another offer and Hurricane Party Hustle might have been the fourth Scotty than something just sitting in the files.
The book was released on Fat Tuesday, 2006. Paul and I had been out of town–the truncated Carnival/parade season seemed almost too sad to handle, so we’d accepted a gig to speak at the South Carolina Book Festival. We flew back to New Orleans the Sunday morning before Fat Tuesday. I’d checked my email that morning before boarding the flight to Atlanta (we changed planes) and then our cab driver couldn’t get closer to St. Charles than Baronne Street. A parade was going as we got out of the car, and we had to cross the parade (it was in the high seventies and sunny) with our luggage–I’ll never forget looking up as we got ready to cross and catching a bag of beads with my hand just before it connected with my face–and got home. I checked my emails and my word! SO MANY EMAILS.
You see, that day’s edition of the Times-Picayune carried Susan Larson’s review of the book, and it was a rave! Everyone emailed me as soon as they saw it–I still bask in the glory of that review–and I was about to embark on probably the most ambitious book tour of my career.
I just didn’t see, though, how I could write another funny, light book about a city still in ruins whose recovery was still questionable.
The series was, for the moment, over–with the personal story not resolved the way I would have wanted, but it could stand as it was, should there never be another Scotty story.
Rereading it, I couldn’t but laugh at some of the outrageous twists and turns the plot took.
Saturday morning and I slept late, and it was indeed marvelous. I have to make groceries and gas up the car (will probably need a bank loan for that), but my primary focus today is going to be reading and writing. I will also probably start going over the edits for one of the two manuscripts sitting in my inbox right now, but that’s also going to depend pretty heavily on how nasty it is outside. It rained off and on most of yesterday–I do love the New Orleans rain, especially if I don’t have to go out into it, of course–but it’s very bright and sunny outside my windows this morning. My morning coffee feels marvelous and tastes even better, and as I glance around the workspace and the rest of the kitchen I see some odds and ends that need straightening and putting away. There’s also some dirty dishes in the sink that need being taken care of at some point. The rugs needs to be straightened, and the entire downstairs needs vacuuming. I would also like to get a box of books down from the attic and start cleaning that out a little bit this weekend as well. An ambitious program to be sure, but one that isn’t impossible…if i stay focused.
Which is always the big if, isn’t it?
We did get caught up on The Boys last night–this third season is the best so far, and there was a great twist in last night’s episode, which doesn’t bode well for the future but I also can’t wait to see how it plays out (although that will probably come in season four). I wasn’t tired when I got home from the office yesterday the way I usually and ordinarily am, but there were things to do, and I immediately set out to get them done once I had reached the safety and respite of the Lost Apartment. But it all got done for the most part, and Scooter got his lap for a goodly portion of the evening while I doom-scrolled social media waiting for Paul to get finished with his work (he worked at home yesterday) so we could watch The Boys. I even fell asleep in my chair a few times while waiting–Scooter’s super-power is the ability to get both of us to fall asleep when he cuddles with us. I did spend a lot of the evening thinking about writing and things I want to write–there’s never enough time for me to write as much as I want to, really, even though I have to force myself to do it.
I also realized last night that I need to get ready for Sleuthfest. I am doing a reading on THursday night and haven’t picked out something to actually, um, you know, read, let alone rehearse. It’s my first-ever Noir at the Bar, and will be in the hotel bar. I’ve published so much stuff that I’ve never gotten the chance to read from, you know? Should I read from one of my recent books? Should I read a short story? Should I perhaps read something in progress–Chlorine, for example? I also am on a panel about MWA’s How to Write a Mystery, in which the other panelists and I are going to talk about our essays…and I really don’t remember much about mine other than it’s about dialogue, so perhaps I should go ahead and reread it at some point before the panel so I don’t sound like an utter blithering idiot.
Then again, maybe people enjoy me being a blithering idiot. I don’t know.
I can’t help but think that is not the case, though. I prefer to believe audiences laugh with me and not at me, but one can never be entirely sure.
Ah, well, there’s plenty of time to get petrified with fear about standing up in front of an audience. But I do have to decide what I am going to read on Thursday. Heavy heaving sigh. I was thinking “Moist Money,” from the Down Yonder anthology–mainly because it’s shorter, but it’s also one of the nastier things I’ve ever written; my short stories tend to be nastier than my actual books (by “nastier” I mean darker, not pornographic, FYI) but there are so many choices…and I need to make up my mind because I am going to need to rehearse before I get there…I can’t just get up and read the way I used to, completely unprepared and stumbling over words and…heavy sigh. There I go again, working myself up into a lather of anxiety about something happening in five days, which will end up being fine in the long run.
And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and head to my easy chair to read some more of The Savage Kind, which I hope to finish today. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
I had intended to get up early and take the car in–oil change and tire repair–but of course I overslept and now it’s too late–I would be at the dealership all day and that’s simply not an option for me today. Sure, it can be put off easily for another week–I just need to re-air the tire at some point this weekend and it should be fine–but it’s annoying because I really wanted to get it over and done with this morning. Instead, I’ll do chores around here until it’s time for my work-at-home duties. At some point tomorrow I’ll need to run to make groceries–which is fine, I’ll need to get the mail tomorrow and I can drop off a box of books at the library sale while I am out and about; and I can also make a grocery list as well as take some time to select some more books to dispose of as well. It’ll be fine, ultimately; I just don’t like when my plans get disrupted by oversleeping and having to recalibrate as a result. I’ll live, really–am just a trifle annoyed, and ultimately, truth be told I must have needed the sleep, right?
I did work pretty hard this week–the last two weeks, really–and I still have things to get done, of course. But the pressure isn’t quite as extreme as it was before, and I just have a lot of tedious housekeeping to do on one project that needs to be finished by the end of the month–and time, as always, is slipping through my fingers the way it always seems to do. But that’s okay; since I cannot get the things done that I had scheduled for this morning I’ll utilize the time productively around here at the Lost Apartment. I think this weekend I am going to begin the “tossing of paper” project in order to clear out the filing cabinets so the filing can start getting under control (a long term goal of the year); every little bit helps, of course, and gets me closer to the end goal of getting rid of significant amounts of clutter.
At least, that’s the theory, at any rate. (I just looked into a file cabinet drawer and wondered if all those files could, in fact, be as easily tossed as I’d like to think; I suspect that won’t be the case because my default instinct to hoard paper will kick into gear–but this file was created over thirty years ago–I am going to have to be absolutely heartless while I do this, I am aware.)
Everything sounds good in theory, right?
But it’s weird to not have a writing deadline looming over my head–oh, there are still some out there, of course, I’m never completely free from deadline-stress–but there’s plenty of time left before any of them become critical and stressful. (I am very happy that I made that to-do list this week, Constant Reader! It’s amazing what a difference such a little thing can make in one’s life and productivity; but as I have always said, getting and staying organized is my goal for this year and every little bit helps.) Another goal is not to wait till the last minute on short story deadlines, to relieve stressors (the over-arching goal of the year is to relieve my own stress levels so I can make it to retirement in five years) so that my psoriasis doesn’t keep making a return (love seeing a patch of crusty, scaly red skin appear somewhere on my body with a smirk and saying I’m baaaaaaaaaack, bitch) and so that the insomnia remains at bay. This week has seen an amazing string of deep restful sleeps for me every night, which has been absolutely lovely, as Constant Reader can probably imagine. I also think my body clock is starting to adjust to getting up early so many days of the week (this morning’s oversleep being an exception to that rule) and I’ve also kind of decided that I should just go ahead and get up when my body wakes me up from a deep sleep rather than lazing in the bed for another couple of hours (I still can’t get over the oversleep this morning), but so far on my work-at-home days and days off that hasn’t really happened…I just manage to stay in the warm comfort of the bed and fall back asleep with the greatest of ease.
But I am hoping to change that and add more hours of productivity to my days. I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.
I also intend to return to the gym (!!!!) this weekend; there will be updates of this momentous occasion to come, of course.
And on that note, time to clean out some files, do some filing and organizing and cleaning; my work at home duties do not officially begin until noon. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader, but for now–it’s off to the spice mines with me.
Thursday, and the last day this week I have to get up so damned early. I was, however, delighted to wake up and find out that Nathan Chen had won the men’s gold in figure skating (YAY!)–I was watching, fell asleep in my chair, and couldn’t stay up to watch it all. (I’ll watch Nathan on Youtube sometime today–probably when I get home from work this afternoon.) Naturally, I am delighted for Nathan after his disappointment at Pyeongchang four years ago.
I am starting the recovery (or rather, further along in the process) from last weekend’s trip and the deadline crunches that nearly wiped me out; I am still trying to get caught up on my emails that have, well, festered in my inbox now for the last month or so–the deadly crunch of trying to get the book done–and I still have some other things that I left pending for quite some time that need to be handled as well. But I think I can get all that finished (or caught up) over the course of the next few days as well as the weekend, and I am looking forward to coming out of the weekend on Monday (four days in the office next week, sob) with a fairly clean slate and ready to get going on everything else. The weekend, with no writing that needs to be done, looms large; I am sure part of my chores this weekend will also include cleaning the Lost Apartment and doing some filing, since that’s also gotten completely out of control over the last few months as well. My primary goal is to get organized again–I’ve felt unorganized and unable to get caught up for several years now–and I feel like once that miracle occurs, I should be able to stay that way, or at least let it slide for a bit before getting back on track on the weekends.
That’s the plan, at any rate.
But I had another great night’s sleep last night, which felt marvelous. I do feel more rested and more together today than I have all week, which is odd–given that usually on my third early morning I am usually more tired than I have been all week–but I’ve been sleeping really well since I got home, and sleeping late on Saturday (I may have some car things to do tomorrow morning, which I am not terribly thrilled about, frankly, but I don’t ever want to buy another car and so I have to make this one last forever, even if it means getting up early on a day when I usually don’t have to) is going to be very appealing. Ah, well, nothing to do but bite the bullet and get up and go and get it over with (oil change, nail in tire). I can, at least, take a book with me tomorrow morning and utilize the time to read–and since I will be on the West Bank, I can make groceries over there and get lunch at Sonic before heading home to make condom packs and data entry. Yay for an exciting Friday!
And it wouldn’t hurt for me to start looking through my Chlorine file, to get a sense of what’s been written and what needs to be written and some of the inspirations–I’ve been snagging photos from old Physique-style magazines, as well as beefcake shots of hunky movie stars from the olden days of Paull Wilson and so forth from that same time period to use for help in creating my own world of marginally talented beautiful men who allowed gay men in positions of power in Hollywood to use their bodies to get ahead in the business–and am actually kind of looking forward to digging into it again, frankly. Writing a historical is, by its very nature, problematic–you have to research things, you have to remember or find out how things worked (could you direct dial a local number in Los Angeles in 1952?)–but I am going to push through the first draft, methinks, and then do the research painstakingly as I edit my way through the bitch once it’s finished. I have another story request for the end of this month (time is running out here) and another one that is due in early April; but both should be easier to put together than this one I just had to desperately finish at the last minute to get in on time. I think this year might be a good short story year for one Gregalicious; I think I have several stories in the pipeline that will be coming out this year–all of them remarkably different in subject matter, voice, and tone–which makes them all the more fun, don’t you think?
I also just got another book idea–seriously, it never ends in my head–and on that note, I think I will head into the spice mines.
I am very exhausted, but very grateful that my air is back and we have power. The Internet is down, but my phone’s hotspot is working–that won’t help with the cable, so no television till Cox restores service again–but that’s okay; I can use the time more productively writing or reading and trying to clean up the utter disastrous condition we left the Lost Apartment in. The refrigerator, while emptied of anything that would rot or spoil, needs a thorough cleaning, and of course there’s still debris outside that needs to be picked up. But I am home, and that’s really all that matters to me at the moment.
And we have power–glorious, glorious electricity.
And my next power bill should be significantly lower, right? It was out for almost a week.
I am running all the clothes we wore on the trip and the towels and clothes we wore during the hellish no-electricity phase of this process; after that, the sheets and bed linens definitely need to be cleaned, and like I said, this whole place is a mess–a thorough thorough mess. But I think I can be forgiven for sitting just a moment and relaxing at my desk, by my windows, and just having a moment to breathe, right? I am exhausted, seriously; I didn’t realize how much so until I got home. We bought some groceries in Greenville just to be on the safe side–nothing much; bread and cheese and so on–and I will probably make an exploratory trip to Rouse’s just to see what they have tomorrow–I don’t really want to get back into the car again, to be honest.
But home again, home again. I really do know what it means to miss New Orleans.
It’s been a while since we’ve evacuated; not quite so long since the last time a tropical storm of one kind or another knocked out power out in the heat of summer for several days. The disruption is inevitably unwelcome–I love New Orleans, but without air conditioning I could not live here, period–and now I have to try to remember where I was at and what I was doing and what I was working on before the Great Derángement (yes, I know, probably inappropriate to call having to leave because of a natural disaster the same name the Cajuns called their expulsion from Acadia by the British after the French and Indian War); and I also have to figure out how to function with my day job duties and how to get work hours in so I don’t have to burn off what’s left of my vacation time. The office still didn’t have power the last time I checked; tomorrow is Labor Day, and sorry–I am not going to worry about any of this until Tuesday, which is a work day. (I have data entry to do, and as long as my hotspot is working, I can work on that at home. I also have to throw away all the condoms I have here at the house; and strip them out of the condom packs here that I’ve made….if the office had power I could go there and start throwing away spoiled test kits and condoms and break down condom packs…but I can only access the building with my badge, which requires electricity to let me in…)
So, I am just kind of going to settle in here at the Lost Apartment today. I am going to get things cleaned and organized, have a few well-earned cocktails later (hello, big bottle of tequila!), and just chill out. The cable might be out, but we can also revisit some old DVD’s for entertainment purposes, if needed; good thing I didn’t throw them away on a purge (or did I?).
But most of all, it’s going to be absolutely marvelous to sleep in my own bed, drink my own coffee, and really…just be grateful this entire situation wasn’t worse. Ida was stronger than Katrina–thank God the levees held–and it’s going to be a hot minute before New Orleans is back to a semblance of normal. But this things, this unforeseen catastrophes, are really good about resetting priorities and recognizing what is important….and as I sip my margarita later this eve, I am going to put some more thought into that.
And thanks, everyone–for the encouragement and support over the last week. It was only a week ago Ida came ashore. Seems like it’s been an eternity, at least to me.
Wednesday and sixty has crept yet another day closer. In fact, today is Sixty Eve Eve! All About Sixty Eve Eve?
Honestly, I can barely stand myself sometimes!
Yesterday I started the long process of the revisions/edits/tweaks the Kansas book needs; God, I am so heartily sick of those opening chapters I don’t even know how to begin to describe just HOW sick I am of those chapters. This book has had more drafts than any other one I’ve written since maybe Murder in the Rue Dauphine–which I’ve always thought had an excessive amount of draft versions–but in fairness, I’ve told and retold and made up my mind how to tell this story and then changed my mind yet again and so…draft after draft after draft after draft. So many changes, so many corrections, so many characters had their names changed, and then whole thing is really just a big old mess. The manuscript I sent my editor was probably so bad it counted as creating an abusive workplace environment. But as I started going through it all again last night–I couldn’t help but feel the excitement I did have about this project at one time; and I look forward to its release when I can share everything with you, Constant Reader.
But oy–cleaning up this manuscript mess is going to be a challenge and a half. But I CAN DO IT. I know I can.
I also want to go over “The Sound of Snow Falling” one more time. I think it needs yet another tweak I missed the last time around–I was actually rather pleasantly surprised by how well it played out in the original draft–my original drafts are inevitably messy, sloppy, and too embarrassing for me to let anyone else see. (Another issue with donating my papers somewhere–the last thing I want to do is have people reading my horribly patchy and sketchy initial drafts of anything–although for someone who finds that sort of thing interesting, I suppose the journey from horrifyingly sloppy first draft to final, polished draft might be their cup of tea.
I mean, as an intellectual exercise to see how a book or story might come together, sure. But I would tend to think it would get tedious rather quickly.
Then again, maybe that’s just me.
I was tired yesterday when I got off work; I was definitely out of the habit of waking up early over the last few days–not that I ever really get used to getting up early. I could have this schedule for the rest of my life, five days per week, and I would still grumble and be sleepy and tired and slightly crabby all day every single time I have to get up early. I had planned on going to the gym after work, but I was so tired by the time I was done for the day I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice; just the thought of the walk in the heavy humidity-it rained off and on all afternoon–also would have curled up my hair if I had any. Instead, when I got home I took a quick shower to wash the day off me and curled up in my easy chair with purr-kitty and The Other Black Girl. (I am going to read Megan Abbott’s latest, The Turnout, next; I’ve been itching to get it started) Yesterday was a definite low-energy day; hopefully I’ll have a bit more energy today to get things done. It also started pouring down rain when I got home, which wasn’t exactly encouraging me to go outside and walk for ten minutes to get there, either. I read about another fifty or sixty pages of the book, enjoying it tremendously still–perhaps I can finish it tonight–and then watched the A&E bio of MTV before going to bed last night. I slept really well again last night–it goes without saying that I really didn’t want to get up this morning, but I am not as sleepy/still tired the way I was yesterday, which is also fine; perhaps I won’t be too tired to get things done today the way I was yesterday. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day (hurray for pay day?), so I will definitely be having to spend some time doing exactly that this morning.
Huzzah?
At least I can pay them; that’s probably the best way to look at the situation.
I still haven’t made that crucial to-do list, either. Maybe today? But at least tomorrow is the work-at-home day this week, and then of course Friday is the big birthday. What am I going to do for turning sixty? Going to drive out to Metairie and get a deep-dish pizza from That’s Amore, for one thing; which is most likely going to be all I do for the day. I’m not a big let’s do something major for my birthday person; haven’t been that in quite some time, and frankly, just being able to laze around the house without guilt–a day off where I don’t feel like I am wasting the day, or like I should be doing something other than being lazy–is actually sufficient. If I don’t have The Other Black Girl finished by then, I will most likely get it finished on Friday, and then will curl up with Megan Abbott. I really need to dig into my reading more–I am getting further and further behind in my reading, as the TBR Pile continues to grow larger at an increasingly terrifying rate–and I am most likely going to go back to placing a moratorium on buying books for a little while again; at least until I make some more progress on the reading.
The dishwasher started leaking last night–it’s always something around the Lost Apartment, seriously–and so I am going to have to start doing the dishes by hand again. At least this time I have the dishwasher to load them into to dry, which is something I didn’t have the last time the dishwasher conked on for a while–so they’ll be, at the very least, out of the way until they dry–but it’s still a pain in the ass. I don’t recall how old this dishwasher is–my sense of time is so fucked up and skewed I don’t remember how old anything is; I still can’t get over how old my old desktop was by the time I finally replaced it–but it should have definitely lasted a while longer, methinks; the failure of appliances to last for decades is something that still catches me off guard and by surprise.
Obviously, in some ways I am still stuck in my childhood, remembering things like how my mother’s first washer and dryer lasted for over twenty years….
And on that note, tis time to head back into the spice mines.
Queer and Loathing in America 