Tag: The Sea of Lost Girls

Flowers on the Wall

I love Carol Goodman’s work.

I don’t remember which of her books I read first; I am thinking it was The Sea of Lost Girls, but that may be wrong (probably is; my memory is for shit these days) but I DO know I first met her in person at the HarperCollins cocktail party at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, and she’s just as marvelous as a person as she is a writer. Since then I’ve delved into her canon of brilliant books–have yet to come across one that is even slightly disappointing–and each one makes my fandom flame burn even more brightly.

And then in Minneapolis, over lunch with a few friends at that wonderful Irish pub near the hotel, I discovered the clincher: she is also a Dark Shadows fan. She even joked, “I’ve realized that most of my books are really about Barnabas Collins and Maggie Evans”–which made me think even more deeply about how much of an influence the show was on my own writing (Bury Me in Shadows owes a HUGE debt to the show). She has a new book coming out this summer, which is very exciting–I have that weird thing about never wanting to have read everyone’s entire backlist, so there’s always one more book for them to read without me having to wait to get my hands on it–and during my trip to Alabama for the First Sunday in May I listened to The Ghost Orchid, which was so good that when I got home that Sunday night, I grabbed my headphones and listened to the final thirty minutes of the book while unpacking and doing things around the apartment.

I came to Bosco for the quiet.

That’s what it’s famous for.

The silence reigns each day between the hours of nine and five by order of a hundred0year-old decree made by a woman who lies dead beneath the rosebushes–a silence guarded by four hundred acres of wind sifting through white pines with a sound like a mother saying hush. The silence stretches into the still, warm afternoon until it melts into the darkest spot of the garden where spiders spin their tunnel-shaped webs in the box-hedge maze. Just before dusk the wind, released from the pines, blows into the dry pipes of the marble fountain, swirls into the grotto, and creeps up the hill., into the gaping mouths of the satyrs, caressing the breasts of the sphinxes, snaking up the central fountain allée, and onto the terrace, where it exhales its resin- and copper-tinged breath out onto the glasses and crystal decanters laid out on the balustrade.

Even when we come down to drinks on the terrace there’s always a moment, while the ice settles in the silver bowls and we brush the yellow pine needles off the rattan chairs, when it seems like the silence will never be broken. When it seems that the silence might continue to accumulate–like the golden pine needles that pad the paths through the box-hedge maze and the crumbling marble steps and choke the mouths of the satyrs and fill the pipes of the fountain–and finally be too deep to disturb.

Then someone laughs and clinks his glass against another’s, and says…

“Cheers. Here’s to Aurora Latham and Bosco.”

“Here, here,” we all chime into the evening, sending the echoes of our voices rolling down the terraces lawn like brightly colored croquet balls from some long-ago lawn party.

“God, I’ve never gotten so much work done,” Bethesda Graham says, as if testing the air’s capacity to hold a longer sentence or two.

Carol Goodman’s books are, above and beyond anything else you might want to say about them, incredibly literate and smart. She reminds me of Mary Stewart in that way; Stewart’s novels, often dismissed as “romantic suspense” (don’t even get me started on that misogyny), were smart, clever and incredibly literate, with Shakespearean references and quotes and allusions to classical literature. Goodman’s works are also the same; Goodman’s background in classics scholarship is utilized in every one of her books but not in a way that feels intrusive or showing off. It’s all integrated into the story and not only moves the story forward but deepens and enriches the characters as well as the plot, which is not easy to do. Her books are often built around some sort of academic/intellectual backdrop, from boarding schools to small colleges to actual archaeological digs (The Night Villa is absolutely exquisite; superb in every way), and her heroines, aren’t pushovers (as in most “romantic suspense”) but strong and smart and driven, if haunted by their own insecurities and past failures. Goodman is also not afraid to cross the line over into supernatural occurances, either; the previous one I’d read had a touch of the woo-woo, as does The Ghost Orchid, but it’s not intrusive and it actually plays out so honestly and realistically that you don’t question it.

The main character of the book is a young woman named Ellis Brooks. Ellis is a young author-to-be who is working on a novel based on what is called “the Blackwell Affair.” She had already written and published a short story based on an old pamphlet she found; the book research makes her a natural to be chosen for a residency at Bosco, an old estate in upstate New York that has become an artist’s colony, sort of like Breadloaf, but for a much more extended stay and for fewer artists. “The Blackwell Affair” actually took place at Bosco, when the original mistress of the estate, Aurora Latham, brought an experienced medium named Corinth Blackwell to Bosco to hold seances to try to reach the spirits of her dead children–any number of whom were either stillbirths or died shortly after being born; she had four children who lived but lost three of them to a diphtheria outbreak the year before. Corinth Blackwell and the only surviving Latham child disappeared one night after a seance; hence “the Blackwell Affair.” As Ellis does her research and gets to know her fellow artists better, she becomes more and more aware that the past at Bosco doesn’t rest, and the untold stories of the past must be unearthed before everyone at Bosco can be safe.

Goodman is also a master of the dueling timeline; one in the past and one in the present, and weaves the stories together so intricately that I marveled at the mastery, as the present day characters wonder about something and then we get the answer in the past. There are so many secrets, so many lies, so many spirits; but as always with the best ghost stories, the past is finally laid to rest when the truth is exposed.

I loved this book, and it reminded me not only of Dark Shadows (knowing she’s a fan I’ll always see it in her work now) but also of Barbara Michaels’ best along with Mary Stewart. Can’t wait to dig into another Goodman novel!

Somebody’s Knocking

I love Carol Goodman.

Ever since reading The Sea of Lost Girls several years ago–I think after we met at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg at the Harper Collins party?–I’ve considered her one of our best current novelists in the crime genre. The more of her canon that I read, the more convinced I become (The Lake of Dead Languages, The Night Villa, The Uninvited Guest), and so naturally I was very excited to listen to The Night Visitors on my drive this past weekend. I finished listening somewhere around Satsuma, Alabama (Alabama really has the most interesting town names), and loved every minute of it.

Oren falls asleep at last on the third bus. He’s been fighting it since Newburgh, eyelids heavy as wet laundry, pried up again and again by sheer stubbornness. Finally, I think when he nods off. If I have to answer one more of his questions I might lose it.

Where are we going? he asked on the first bus.

Someplace safe, I answered.

He stared at me, even in the darkened bus his eyes shining with too much smart for his age, and then looked away as if embarrassed for me. An hour later, he’d asked, as if there hadn’t been miles of highway in between, Where’s it safe?

There are places, I’d begun as if telling him a bedtime story, but then I’d had to rack my brain for what came next. All I could picture were candy houses and chicken-legged huts that hid witches. Those weren’t the stories he liked best anyway. He preferred the book of myths from the library (it’s still in his pack, racking up fines with every niles) about heroes who wrestle lions and behead snake-haired monsters.

The Night Visitors has two point of view characters; Alice, an abused mom on the run with her son, Oren, and Mattie, a social worker in a small town in upstate New York. This is an excellent example of differentiation between voice; while the authorial voice never falters and you never doubt you’re reading a Carol Goodman novel, the two voices are clearly that of two very different people. Alice and Oren arrive in the town, where they are greeted by do-gooder Mattie, and then begins the dance of the story. Both women take the other’s measure, and both women are hiding horrific secrets that their close relationship is going to bring out over the course of less than thirty-six hours. Mattie is a social worker who lives in an enormous if crumbling house; that first night–even though it’s against all the rules–Mattie decides to bring Alice and Oren home with her, rather than leaving them at the safe house, Sanctuary. And that’s when the strange things begin to happen.

Thirty four years ago, Mattie’s entire family–early onset Alzheimer’s mother; hanging judge father; change of life baby brother Caleb–all died from carbon monoxide poisoning from their faulty furnace. Mattie found their bodies, and her life–already severely off-course and altered–runs aground against the rocks. She has thrown herself into her work–even though she sometimes thinks her social work training is bunk (which I, as a counselor, sometimes think myself in weary frustration; it’s easy to see how social workers burn out from their jobs)–and has never completely gotten over the loss of her little brother. She sees a lot of her lost brother in young Oren–which alarms and worries both women. Alice is also being chased by her abuser, and everything–the past, the present, the futures–all come crashing together one night during a blizzard and power failure at the crumbling house, as all the secrets from the past slowly start coming out, with both women forced to face not only their own truths but the other woman’s as well, as they fight for their lives in a blizzard in the dark against a killer who wants them both gone.

The book is simply extraordinary. The suspense and tension once the power goes out is almost unbearable and are impossible to turn away from; it was incredibly difficult waiting two days to finish listening to it, and it was hard to get out of the car yesterday at the Civic Center in Wetumpka and stop listening. I highly recommend it, as I do anything by Carol Goodman.

For All We Know

The world shut down in March of 2020, in the face of a deadly new virus that was spreading around the world, and spreading quickly. It was a major paradigm shift; everything changed and the world would never be the same as it was before. As everyone locked down and adapted (or decided it was all a hoax and chafed against the intrusion), the question began being asked of writers: how will you handle the pandemic in your work, or will you address it at all? A lot of authors said that they wouldn’t address it, because they couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read about it, or revisit it again after it was over. I came down firmly on the side of “we have to address it”; pointing out that Hurricane Katrina was a paradigm shift for New Orleans and Louisiana authors, and we all had faced the same issue and question. Some writers chose not to deal with it at all, some stopped writing entirely, and others–like me–addressed it. I found it incredibly cathartic to write about the disaster by viewing it through someone else’s eyes, and of course, much of what Chanse saw and dealt with was taken directly from my own experience. Writing the book in some ways helped me to heal from the emotional trauma and deep depression I was experiencing, and I don’t think I would have possibly gotten over it had I not written it out of my system. I will undoubtedly deal with the pandemic in a Scotty book at some point–I already have the title for it picked out and a folder created to keep my notes and ideas in–but I am not quite there as yet.

Leave it to Carol Goodman to not only do it, but do it incredibly well.

“We’re here.”

Reed’s voice wakes me from the fitful sleep I’d fallen into somewhere north of Portland, the slap of wipers and the sluice of tires accomplishing what bourbon and sleeping pills had failed to do for the past two weeks. I open my eyes to a wall of sodden gray the color of wet cement. I can feel it pressing down my throat–

I cough.

Reed swivels his head toward me, blue eyes feverish in the gloom above his white surgical mask.

“I’m fine.” I reach for the water bottle and swig lukewarm water that tastes like copper. “The others–“

“Behind us. Crosby’s driving like an old woman, trying to protect his precious Volvo’s paint job. Honestly, for a supposed socialist he likes the trappings of the bourgeoisie.” He grins, his bones sharpening under sallow skin. With all the stress of the recent news and preparations to come to the island, neither of us has been eating much for the past few weeks.

“They could have gotten lost.”

I’ve been a huge fan of Carol Goodman’s since my first dip into her canon, The Sea of Lost Girls. I have since been dipping back into at times as a reward to myself; she’s easily moved into my top ten list of current writers and won’t be dislodged anytime soon. She’s won numerous awards–deservedly–and is, to me at least, the modern incarnation of the great Mary Stewart. Goodman’s novels are decidedly Gothic and extremely smart and literate, with strong characters that are sharply defined and well rounded that the reader can easily identify with as well as like or dislike.

The premise of The Disinvited Guest is that another pandemic has descended upon the world after the 2020 COVID-19 one. Wealthy Reed Harper has decided to quarantine on an island his family owns–Fever Island, off the coast of Maine and near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River–since his wife Lucy has residual health problems since the first pandemic. Invited along are his lesbian sister Liz, a painter; Nico, Liz’ partner, a photographer; Ada, an old college friend of both Reed and Lucy who works now as an ER nurse; and her husband, also a medical professional in hospital administration, Crosby–who’s a bit of a dick. The remaining character is Mac, whose mother was a housekeeper for the Harper family working on the island. Mac knew Reed and Liz as children, and now he lives on the island as a caretaker. Reed, who also suffers from OCD, has carefully planned out every last aspect of this quarantine adventure–and while the quarantine and safety is the primary issue at stake here, any reader of crime or suspense knows that having seven people living together on a remote, isolated island is the perfect set-up for personality clashes and battles and intrigues and, of course, for murder. How many horror films or murder mysteries are set in such locales? (Goodman of course is wise enough to make an Agatha Christie/And Then There Were None reference in the text; the geographic elements of the island–the Dead Pool, the bog, Dead Man’s Cove, etc.–also sound like something out of the Hardy Boys, and she acknowledges that several times as well.)

There’s also some excellent backstory. Fever Island is named this because during the Irish immigration period of the late 1840’s–the potato famine and typhus epidemic–the ships with ill passengers were sent to Fever Island to quarantine before being admitted into Canada. A makeshift hospital is set up on the island, nuns come out to operate it along with several doctors–including a Harper ancestor–and so there is also a makeshift cemetery on the island. There’s also another legend, going back even further than the quarantine days; the earliest settlers believed a woman was a witch and essentially buried her alive on the island. The story claims she placed a curse on the island and summoned the devil. This is enough of a horrible backstory to make easily the possibility of supernatural forces at work on the island completely believable, which only adds to the suspense. There’s also the backstory of Reed and Liz’s own experiences spending their summers on the island with their horrible father and alcoholic mother; Reed’s dead former girlfriend, who died on the island during the first pandemic, along with his parents; and of course the diary of Dr. Nathaniel Reed Harper, who details life on the quarantine island and the growing suspicion amongst the superstitious fever victims and a group of sailors stranded their by a shipwreck that the witch’s curse is haunting them and that maybe even one of their party has been possessed by the witch and has summoned the devil.

Ada and Lucy were best friends and roommates in college, with Reed as the third side of their triangle. Lucy has also written one well-received novel, but hasn’t written anything since…and her discovery of the diary begins to inspire her to write about the island. Goodman is quite excellent at weaving the multiple storylines and multiple time-lines–Lucy is flashing back to the original pandemic, which is what brought her and Reed together as a couple; the incidents from the 1840’s as revealed in Dr. Harper’s journal; and of course, what happened on the island during the original pandemic.

Strange things start happening once they are all safely ensconced on Fever Island, and of course there are the inevitable personality clashes, which amp up the tension and then, of course, the deaths begin. At first Lucy can’t help but wonder if the island is indeed cursed–but slowly begins to realize that there is a very clever murderer on the island pursuing a definite agenda, but who?

And I love how Goodman chose to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than setting the book during that shutdown, she instead chose to write about a future quarantine/shutdown, with the COVID-19 one in the distant past (ten years or so) but having a lot of impact on what is happening in the present.

I loved every minute and every word of The Disinvited Guest, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Independence Day

Sunday, and bleary eyed, having woken up at my normal time which is actually an hour earlier than usual. Yes, I set the alarm, so I won’t have trouble sleeping tonight. I fucking hate Daylight Savings Time, and if anyone ran on a ticket of cancelling it once and forever, that candidate would not only have my vote but my support for the rest of my life.

Probably an exaggeration.

Probably.

I slept in until nine o’clock this morning, which is really only eight, but you know how that goes. We stayed up late finishing Harlan Coben’s The Stranger on Netflix, and it was quite good and enjoyable; an extremely complicated plot, but those are always fun–if a little confusing at first when you don’t see how all the various threads are all connect together, but as they begin to come together and you start to see the pattern–it’s pretty cool.

I am still processing Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls, and I imagine I will be for quite some time. It really is an exceptional novel, and I am really looking forward to reading the entire Goodman canon. As I said yesterday, it’s always the best writers who inspire me, give me ideas for new stories and new ways to tell stories, and inspire me to do better.

I also got about a hundred pages into Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One, which is quite entertaining and a lot of fun to read as well. I hope to have some more time to read it today; but naturally yesterday I didn’t get as much writing done as I needed to get done–I did do some cleaning and organizing STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT–but the great irony was I had two story documents open and started working on them…only to write about a thousand words between before realizing neither one of these stories is due at the end of the  month, you fucking moron. Yes, I worked on “Festival of the Redeemer” and “You Won’t See Me” instead of the Sherlock story or the others that are due at the end of the month. Why? Because I am a complete and total moron, that’s why. So, today I am going to probably work on the Sherlock story and revise the one I am submitting to the Sacramento Bouchercon anthology; I doubt it will get picked because of the content, but at least I tried, you know? And I am going to do some work on the Secret Project this morning as well.

I also need to make it to the gym today, and today is a raise-the-weights day. Yay? But the great thing about the gym is I don’t have to go until later today–they are open until five, so I might as well get my work done before i head over there, because usually once I am done with the gym I don’t really seem to have the energy to get anything else done once i get back home. I also need to wade through my emails–not something I particularly want to do, frankly, but I can’t put things off forever, no matter how much I want to.

And sometimes I like to pretend they aren’t there, you know?

But it’s time for me to get on with it, I suppose–heading on into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

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When I Call Your Name

One of the great pleasures I have in life is reading; I’ve always loved to read, always been able to escape whatever ailed me at the time–loneliness, depression, heartbreak, self-loathing–by escaping into the pages of a book; imagining myself to be a part of the story, getting lost in the words and the sentences and paragraphs of an engaging author; finding sanctuary from a far too frequently cold and cruel world. I’ve always found my solace in books–whether it was Hercule Poirot using his little gray cells to outwit a killer or Perry Mason casting a spell in a courtroom or a Gothic heroine fearing she was married to someone who wanted to kill her in a palatial mansion or castle somewhere–books were my safe place. It’s why I’ve always treasured them, why I hoard them, why I am reluctant to part with them once I’ve experienced the world contained between its covers.

I’ve heard great things about Carol Goodman and her novels over the years; I had the great pleasure of meeting her in person at the HarperCollins party at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg when I was a little the worse for wine but she was gracious and friendly and kind to me. She had recently won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for The Widow’s House, and more recently a friend (whose taste is impeccable and I trust implicitly) told me that Goodman was a modern-day Daphne du Maurier.

And for me, there is no higher praise.

So last weekend, when another friend had sent me the ARC for Goodman’s latest, The Sea of Lost Girls, I decided it would be the first of hers that I would read. Last Saturday as I sat in my easy chair, shifting around the stack of books on the end table I picked it up, thinking first ugh another “girl” title and flipped it open to the first page, just to get a taste.

The next thing I knew I was one hundred pages in and reluctantly had to put it aside to do something else. I carried it with me all week, waiting for an opportunity to delve into it again, but such a moment never happened…until this morning, as I tore through the book with my morning coffee.

And may I just say, wow?

Scan

The phone wakes me as if it were sounding an alarm inside my chest. What now, it rings, what now what now what now.

I know it’s Rudy. The phone is set to ring for only two people–Harmon and Rudy (at least I made the short list, Harmon had once joked)–and Harmon is next to me in bed. Besides, what has Harmon ever brought me but comfort and safety? But Rudy…

The phone has stopped ringing by the time I grab it but there is a text on the screen.

Mom?

I’m here, I text back. My thumb hovers over the keypad. If he were here maybe I could slip in baby, like I used to call him when he woke up from nightmares, but you can’t text that to your seventeen-year-old son. What’s up? I thumb instead. Casual. As if it isn’t–I check the number on the top of the screen–2:50 in the freaking morning.

I defy anyone to stop reading after those opening paragraphs.

The Sea of Lost Girls isn’t another one of those “girl” books that have become so prevalent since Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl became a viral sensation; the only commonality is the use of the word “girl” in the title, but Goodman’s tale is as dark and rich and layered and complex as Flynn’s. It’s also incredibly literate, but one supposes that is to be expected, given the setting is an elite boarding school on the Maine coast near Portland (the Maine coast has always held a fascination for me, thanks to Dark Shadows). The main character, a teacher married to another teacher, is a big fan of The Scarlet Letter; her troubled teenaged son is currently playing the lead in a school production of The Crucible. Both of those works have a lot of bearing and similarities to the plot of this incredible novel, but saying any more than that would be a spoiler.

The book’s set-up is that Tess’ troubled son has finally found a girlfriend–an intelligent student who is directing The Crucible–and on this night in question Tess goes to pick up her son at their “safe place”, which has to do with a rock causeway leading out to Maiden Island; legend holds that the stones are Indian maidens who drowned and were turned into rocks. Her son is soaking wet and his sweatshirt has blood on the sleeve; a nervous Tess takes him home, launders the shirt and gives her son her husband’s sweatshirt–exactly the same, drying on a radiator–to wear instead. That simple act has enormous ramifications, particularly when Rudy’s girlfriend Lila’s body is found near the rocks on the causeway.

Does Tess cover for her son? She does…but her husband, because he wore the sweatshirt jogging, now becomes a prime suspect. Husband or son?

If that was the lynchpin of the story it would be another adequate, enjoyable thriller; but there is so much more to the story of what happened to Lila–as well as the secrets Tess has kept hidden about her own past. The school used to be a Home for Wayward Girls, and the school’s own dark history, which Tess is also a part of,  has an important part to play in this riveting story of a wife and mother torn between the husband and son she loves, both suspects in a murder–which maybe her own secrets have something to do with as well.

This exploration of motherhood rates up there, in my opinion, with Laura Lippman’s And When She Was Good and Hush Hush and James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce as a classic.

And, as always when I read something extraordinary, it inspired me and gave me ideas for my own work.

It also made me want to reread both The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter.

It is being released this month. Get it now. You won’t be sorry.

It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

I cannot say I am not happy to see this past week end; for all intents and purposes, it was much more stressful than any week needs to be and equally disappointing. It was both tiresome and tiring; irritating, really, like an itchy rash that just won’t go away, frankly. By Tuesday night I was so exhausted already it felt like a Friday; and yet there were three more days yet to go and it never really got any better.

Begone, foul week! Get thee behind me, Satan!

I am so far behind on my emails now I may never dig my way out; that’s part of the plan for this weekend, at any rate; to try to get caught up on everything and make some progress. I had some stomach issues yesterday so I wound up staying home rather than heading to the office (the bathrooms aren’t close enough to my desk, and yes, I think you get the picture) so I spent most of the day recalibrating and doing some chores around the house and trying to get caught up on everything. But progress was made; I started getting my electronic files in the cloud better organized (which is quite a chore, I might add; one that is sort of mindless yet time-consuming in the worst way), and did some filing and so forth. There’s still quite a bit more to get done today, of course (isn’t there always?)  but I also want to get some writing done before the month slips away through my fingers. Ideally, I’d like to get a first draft of the Sherlock story finished as well as a revision of the one I’m revising for that anthology; and there’s another one I want to revise to send to the Bouchercon anthology. I’d also like to make some progress on the Secret Project, but that’s also predicated on my getting this short story work taken care of. I cannot believe how many stories I’ve started writing recently; it’s more than a little insane, methinks.

But then again, it seems pretty standard for my life–chaos, disorganization, and more chaos.

One would think I’d be used to it by now.

I also want to finish reading Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls today, if I can; so i can get started on Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One. I am moderating a panel with her, Elizabeth Little (Pretty as a Picture) and  Laura Lippman (Lady in the Lake) at the Tennessee Williams Festival at the end of the month, and it’s always better to be prepared to discuss their latest works. Don’t worry, I’ll also be asking Lippman about My Life as a Villainess, her essay collection coming out later this year.

We watched another episode of Harlan Coben’s The Stranger last night. It’s a fun, twisty show, with a rather complicated narrative; I think it’s actually better than his last one, The Five. I am way behind on my Coben reading–so far behind I may never catch up–but I do enjoy that he writes suspense novels built around family/friend structures. I’m behind on everyone, so don’t feel special, Harlan! I am also way behind on my reading of Michael Koryta, Jeff Abbott, Stephen King, and any number of other white males; prioritizing diverse writers and women (and a year judging the Edgars) will do that to one, I suppose. I really wanted to read The Outsider (Stephen King) before watching the show; perhaps once I finish the Goodman and the Rader-Day I can move on to the King and we can finally watch the show. I’ve become rather an enormous fan of Jason Bateman, and really can’t wait for Ozark to come back.

We also lose an hour tonight; the part of Daylight Savings Time that I really hate. But I do like having longer days; I like it still being light when I come home from work, or at least, the light fading into night rather than the velvety darkness of a winter nocturne. It’s a bright, sunny day out there today; I am debating whether I do want to go get the mail–it would be my only adventure out into the world today–and am thinking I might do it. I hate only going once in the week, but on the other hand I’m also not expecting any packages or anything urgent (read: a check) in the mail, either. But it looks like a lovely day outside–and perhaps I can do some scouting after I get the mail. We shall certainly see how I feel.

I think this morning I am going to read some more of the Goodman novel while I have my morning coffee, and then after a few hours of that I’ll decide whether I do, in fact, want to leave the house. (odds are I won’t, quite frankly. I know myself all too well)

And on that note, tis time to get back to the spice mines. May your Saturday be bright and happy and full of cheer.

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Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)

Ah, Tuesday, with all your promise, dawning bright and early.

The weather has been absolutely stunning these past few days–well, it did get overcast yesterday afternoon, but it was still lovely out–even if it’s too early in March for the weather to be this nice; we are having April weather in early March. Maybe it’s just a passing front, or something–but it is peculiar. I, of course, don’t mind; spring and fall are the two times of the year where the weather is so spectacular we’re reminded why we live here; I wish it was like this year round, but I also recognize that summer is the purgatorial price we must pay for these beautiful days in late March thru early May (and those from mid-September thru Thanksgiving).

I started working on the short story that’s due at the end of the month last night, and it started flowing. I know the voice isn’t quite right, but that’s what the revisions and rewrites are for, you know? One of the problems with being a writer, at least for me, is the conflicting desire to always get something done right the first time you do it; which isn’t really how writing works. As opposed to how you generally do almost everything else in life, writing isn’t required to be done correctly the first time; there are always rewrites, there are always revisions, there is always editing. I do strive to get everything as right as possible in the first draft–something I can’t really help, it’s just who I am–but I often struggle with being tied to what I originally wrote and sometimes stubbornly refuse to see what needs to be fixed within my work. (Part of the reason the Kansas Book and Bury Me in Shadows both still are languishing within the electronic file folders, rather than being out there in the world for my readers to <hopefully> enjoy.)

Plus, you also have to add in the added insecurity which makes me question every word choice, every sentence structure, and every plot development.

It really is a wonder I am not in a strait-jacket.

I slept fairly decently last night, which was lovely; I didn’t want to get up this morning, but I did, knowing that I can sleep a little every day the rest of this week. Tomorrow of course is my late day; an early evening shift so I can get stuff done around here during the day and go to the gym in the late morning. I have all kinds of things to do tomorrow–which means rather than having a relaxing morning, I am probably going to have an irritating one; but again, that’s perfectly fine. I need to carve out some time during the morning to write as well; I also want to get back to Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls, which I really shouldn’t have started reading and didn’t really mean to; I just picked it up on Sunday to read the first chapter, to get a sense of it, and the next thing I knew several hours had passed and I was almost to page 100. I need to get it finished, hopefully, maybe, during the rest of this week so I can move on to Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One, and then I need to get back to reading Tracy Clark for the interview I am doing with her for the Sisters quarterly.

I am also still reading Jason Berry’s City of a Million Dreams as my current non-fiction; it’s quite exceptionally good, quite frankly.

Tomorrow an anthology I have a story in is having its cover reveal; I am very pleased to be in this anthology and I am very pleased with the story I wrote for it, as well as incredibly flattered to have been asked to be included. I have another story in another anthology that is dropping next month as well, so it’s turning out to be a fairly decent year for me, short story wise, at any rate. The preliminary Anthony ballots have already gone out, and I won’t lie: I’m really hoping my story “This Town” in Murder-a-Go-Go’s makes the short list. It’s probably my favorite story of my own that I’ve ever written and published; one of those few times when I’ve written something that turned out exactly the way I wanted it to, where everything–story, voice, character, mood–all came together in the way I wanted them to, and created a story that I think is one of my best efforts. I think the story in the anthology whose cover is being revealed tomorrow is another one of those instances; I am very proud of that story too–which began as something else completely, but I basically took the story set-up from a failed story and tacked new characters and a new story on it, and it worked beautifully. (I still have fond hopes for the original version of the story and its title; I just have to give those characters and that story a different set-up, is all. I am thinking a faculty cocktail party of some sort.)

I am also going to try to write something for another anthology that is coming to a close at the end of this month; I think some of the things I’ve recently started could actually work for this anthology’s theme, so I am going to go ahead and look them all over and determine which would work for the theme best and try to get it finished by the end of the month as well. I had a really great time working on the Sherlock story yesterday, and I think it’s beginning to coalesce and gel in my mind, so here’s hoping I can get the rough draft finished this week.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Act Naturally

Monday morning and there’s still dark pressing against my windows this morning. Mondays and Tuesdays are the worst two days of my week; long hours spent at the office and most of the day gone before I can retreat, as quickly as I can, to the safety of the Lost Apartment.

The gym yesterday felt terrific. I upped the weights as it was time (every Sunday) and while I’ve felt the workout before–even with a light, practically nothing weight, you’ll feel three sets of twelve–yesterday I actually felt like I was pushing myself for the first time. I didn’t up the weights on legs–I do that every two weeks instead of every week, because I go up in increments of ninety pounds; whereas with everything else I go in ten pound increments–but it still felt pretty intense on the lower extremities. I also got back on the treadmill–only fifteen minutes after the five minute warm-up because it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done the treadmill–and that also felt good. I watched more of the Anthony Minghella The Talented Mr. Ripley film adaptation because I couldn’t get my Disney Plus app to work for some reason (I want to start watching the Clone Wars series while tread-milling) so I decided to finish watching Ripley. I still have about another forty-two minute to go, so I should finish watching it on the treadmill on Friday.

And hopefully by next Sunday I’ll have this Disney Plus mess straightened out.

I have chosen Charlotte Armstrong’s Mischief as my next reread, for the Reread Project, and started reading Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls yesterday; I didn’t mean to get as far into it as I did, either–but once I started reading, the book was moving like a speeding Maserati and I couldn’t stop until it was time to make dinner. Damn you, Carol Goodman! I’d intended to use that time to write! But now that things are sort of normal again–the first normal, full work week since Carnival’s parade season began–I am hoping to get back into some sort of swing of normalcy and get back into my normal, regular routine.

I didn’t get as much writing done this weekend as I had wanted to; those short stories turned out to be like pulling teeth without novocaine or anesthesia, but some progress is always better than none, as I always like to say. I seem to have not had a really good, long writing day in quite some time; but here’s hoping now that things are back to some sort of normal and I can reestablish a routine, that the words will start flowing again soon. I need to get to work on the story due at the end of the month; I’ve got it vaguely shaped inside my head, and so now I need to get to work on putting the words to paper, preparatory to getting them in the proper sounding voice and so forth. I’m excited about the challenge, to be completely honest, and I am relatively certain I should be able to get it moving relatively soon, if not a good strong first draft completed in no time at all.

One can hope, at any rate.

My goal for March is finishing: finishing that story, finishing the Secret Project, finishing some of these short stories. April I will return to Bury Me in Shadows with a fresh eye, and I am also hopeful I can get it finished that month, so I can move back on to the Kansas book to finish in May, so I can get started on Chlorine in June, spending the summer writing a first draft, before turning to the next Scotty/Chanse or whatever the hell it is I intend to spend the fall writing. It isn’t going to be easy, and I am going to have to fight off the distractions that always seem to be trying to keep me from getting things done–and my own personal laziness; the default always being to go lie in my reclining chair with a book or to watch television.

We streamed the entire series of I Am Not Okay With This last night; which is another teen show oddly rooted in the 1980’s–musically, esthetically, and visually; which is an interesting if weird trend (both It’s The End of the Fucking World and Sex Education also have the same vibe, as does, obviously, Stranger Things; it’s almost like Netflix is targeting those who were kids/teens in the 1980’s…hmmmm). After we finished it–we really liked it–we started watching Harlan Coben’s new series on Netflix, The Stranger, and we are all in on it; the first episode was kind of strange, with all the different concurrent plot threads, but episode two began to seamlessly sew the threads all together, and we are completely hooked. It’s also fun seeing Jennifer Saunders playing someone besides Edina Monsoon. Not sure when we’ll finish it–probably an episode a night until the weekend–but it’s great fun. I recommend it.

And now it’s time to get ready for my work day. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader!

 

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Desperado

Sunday morning, and a restful Saturday was had by everyone, I hope?

Who had Greg won’t get everything done he wanted to get done yesterday on their Bingo cards? Congratulations, you just may be Sunday morning’s big winner!

I did finish reading Ali Brandon’s Double Booked for Death, which was a lot of fun and a nice, fun read. I greatly enjoyed the main character, Darla, and the cast and characters around her Brooklyn bookstore, that she inherited from her great-aunt Dee. I also see that  building a mystery series around a bookstore is a good way to gently make fun of publishing and authors and crazy fans; perhaps that’s something I should think about doing? LOL. But it’s a very well-written, well developed novel, and an excellent start to a series. I will undoubtedly read more of Brandon’s series, as well as the books written by her alter-ego.

I also started reading Carol Goodman’s The Sea of Lost Girls, and got sucked in immediately. I was enormously reluctant to put it aside in order to get back to cleaning, and wish I could devote the entirety of today to reading it; alas, I have to get a lot done today that i didn’t get done yesterday. More writing, more emails, and more cleaning; I also have to get that tire aired up that is low, get gas, and go to the gym. I slept deeply and well again last night–I woke originally at seven, but the bed was entirely too comfortable and since I could, I stayed in for slightly more than an another hour this morning; what can I say? I did walk over to Office Depot to get file folders and a new check register (I use small spiral notebooks; my handwriting is too big and sprawling to use the ones banks provide) and I need to get my checkbook balanced again today. It’s also the first of a new month; how terrifying that it’s already March again. The weather was quite beautiful yesterday–sunny and in the 70’s–and it looks as though that will be the weather again today, which will be nice. I am going to work on my emails this morning and getting organized, then I’ll go take care of the car and go to the gym, and then come home to see if I can get some more writing done. I have a short story due at the end of the month; it finally came to me last night how I can actually write the story and have it make sense (thanks in part to reading the Ali Brandon novel; so thanks, Ali. Seriously, many times the solution to problems with my own writing is solved by reading that of others; the Brandon novel bears no resemblance to my story whatsoever, but reading it made me think about plot and structure, and that led to the breakthrough on my short story; so much of writing is reading, really).

I did write some more on some of the stories I currently have in progress–not very much, mind you, and not nearly enough–but it counts as work, so I am going to take it.

I also finally recognized that the primary problem (again, thank you, Ali Brandon) I was having with the Secret Project was (besides a singular lack of imagination) the old problem I always have with writing: I hadn’t really settled on a name for the main character that I was completely okay with. I went back and forth on several names, first and last, and then yesterday the perfect name for her came to me, and things started clicking into place. Naturally, I made a note of it, and to be honest, writing the short story “Gossip”–which was one of the ones I made some progress on yesterday–also clicked into place how to work on the Secret Project and how to make it work. There are also any number of other reasons this hasn’t worked and clicked into place yet–not the least of which is that I haven’t really done the back work necessary to write. I just started writing, thinking I could make it work as I go…but the thing kept stalling because there were things I didn’t know. My goal for this month now has shifted; now not only do I want to get that one particular story finished by the end of the month (which is when it’s due) but I want to get this finished as well. I am going to spend this week writing that story that is due, while doing the necessary back work on the Secret Project. Next weekend I will revise what I’ve already written, based on the back work, and then I’ll go ahead and get the next two chapters finished while building an outline. That’s a lot of work to get done this month–particularly since the Festivals are at the end of the month–but I think if I stay focused and don’t allow other things to distract me, there’s absolutely no reason why I can’t get this all finished.

Other than the usual Gregalicious reasons, of course.

So, perhaps it’s time for me to get back to it. There’s a load of dishes to put away with another waiting to go in; an enormous pile of stuff in my inbox that needs sorting and filing; and a whole  hell of a lot of emails that need responses. Heavy sigh. Lots of spice to mine today, folks, so enjoy your Sunday and think of me toiling away….

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