Tag: Tyrone Power

Do You Hear What I Hear?

It’s hard to believe that Christmas will be all over one week from today, but there it is. It’s been humid and in the eighties here in New Orleans the last few days, which is about as un-Christmas like as one can imagine. I don’t mind the heat, to be honest, but wouldn’t mind a slight temperature dip to recognize the holiday–a slight one. Not even a fan of it going much lower than sixty-five, and will inevitably whine when and if it does.

Yesterday was, all in all, a lovely day. I managed to get my chapters done yesterday, as I had hoped–the book is turning out nicely, and I am most pleased with how it’s going, even if I am behind schedule (as always)–and I managed to not make a complete fool of myself on the ZOOM promotion thing I did last night (well, at least I don’t think so). I slept deeply and well last night, managed to get a lot of cleaning up done around here and some organizing, and hopefully today the writing will go well yet again. I also am hopeful that I’ll have the energy to also get other things done around here today. I wasn’t as tired yesterday as I had been the previous two days, which had a lot, I would imagine, to do with sleeping well the way I have the last two nights. I probably need to run to the grocery store today, but I think I might actually wait and go on the way home from work tomorrow. We shall see, I suppose.

And I still need to figure out when things are due and what all I have agreed to do–which means at some point today I need to make A List, which is never really a bad thing to do at any time, really. I do feel a little overwhelmed with deadlines, and A List is precisely the thing I need for right now. All I want to do right now is actually go sit in my easy chair with my coffee and read Vivien Chien’s book, but that’s undoubtedly the part of my brain that always throws up roadblocks and tries to keep me from succeeding, which is the part of my brain I should also never listen to at any time.

Yet here we are.

I’ve also been abstractedly thinking in the macro sense about next year already, and what I want to get done. I had wanted to do another Scotty book this year (the book I am currently writing supplanted it in the schedule), but with so many odds and ends hanging out in my files…I think that after I get all the short stories that are promised out of the way in January, I am going to spend February writing Chlorine while working on the Bouchercon anthology, which I would love to have finished and out of the way by the end of February (while being aware that I probably won’t get Chlorine finished in that same period of time, most likely), and then I want to get all these novellas and short story collections and potential essays finished and out of the way before I dive into another Scotty book. I know what that Scotty book is going to be–which is a lot more than I usually know going into a Scotty book, other than the title, which this time around is Mississippi River Mischief–but I doubt that’s going to make it any easier to write for me, either.

I also have to bear in mind that Crooked Lane may want another book in this series, too, which I would have to carve out time for.

It never ends–and I hope that it literally never does, frankly; I never want to stop writing and publishing, ever. Even if I stop publishing traditionally, I would probably keep writing and might go the indie route, to be honest. I’ve always written, and will always write as long as I can sit in my desk chair and move my fingers across the keyboard.

There’s also another Corinth County book I want to write, and more Corinth County stories to work on as well.

It’s gray outside this morning, which means clouds and that inevitably means rain at some point. There’s no condensation on my windows so it’s not humid–or not terribly so, at any rate, outside.

Nightmare Alley and the new Spider-Man movie both opened this weekend, and I actually would like to see both films, but am not entirely comfortable going to sit in a movie theater at this point in time. I do love the original Tyrone Power version of Nightmare Alley, and I love the darkness of the book (which was recommended to me by my friend Megan); it’s one of those I would like to have the time to reread at some point. Spider-Man is making bank at the box office, as one would expect it to, and I do love Tom Holland–I think he’s adorable, charismatic, and a good actor–but as much as I think this spectacle probably would work best on a big screen, this current variant situation has me reluctant to go see anything in the theater. I mean, why take chances? And since I am in close contact with people every day I see clients at the office, why push my luck this way? Hopefully both will wind up on a streaming service relatively soon, and I’m not in any huge rush to see either film. There aren’t many films I absolutely have to see immediately right now cannot wait for them to stream these days.

We’re still watching the OG Gossip Girl, which is still fun even if the characters create drama by doing things that have always failed before, which makes it very definitely a soap opera. We’re up to season four now, with only two left once we get through this run, and I suspect our Christmas day is going to be nothing more than a massive Gossip Girl binge watch. There certainly are other shows now piling up on our “must-watch” list, so this lengthy visit with the Gossip Girl gang is certainly allowing us to bank up a lot of shows to watch in reserve–which hopefully means not running out of anything to watch for a good long time.

And on that note, I think I am going to retire to my chair for an hour or so with Vivien Chien before diving into the book for today. Wish me luck, Constant Reader! I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I’ll Meet You Halfway

At least we still have power this morning so I can have coffee to get the day started…although whether I want to be alert today or not is something that remains to be seen or determined.

It’s already starting to look nasty outside. The eye is still going to pass to our west, but we are going to experience hurricane force winds later today, as well as the heavy rains and storm surge into the lakes. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll have power–the strong winds will probably take care of that in a few hours–and it will be coming ashore around noon. Was staying the smartest thing we’ve ever done? Probably not, but all we can do at this point–once the evacuation window had closed yesterday–is hope for the best. I had a lot of mental back-and-forths yesterday about this very thing: was staying a really bad idea? We’re going to regret this, aren’t we? but around two or three in the afternoon I stopped thinking in those terms because self-recrimination at that point was far too late and pointless other than making me feel bad or come close to having a panic attack or freaking out.

And none of those things were productive, or a constructive use of my time and energy. I am really not a big fan over freaking out over something beyond my control.

Yesterday was a weird day, really. I stayed away from social media for the most part, and I also stayed off the weather reports; there were official updates from the national weather service and national hurricane center every three hours, so I just would check those updates when they came rather than the old school methodology of watching every second of every breathless, wide-eyed doom broadcast–not having cable television and using streaming services was a help, of course. I did see that Jim Cantore was in town–never a good sign, under any circumstances–and I follow Margaret Orr, the most experienced meteorologist in the city since Nash Roberts retired, on Twitter, so I just periodically checked in with Aunt Margaret to make sure I wasn’t missing anything I needed to know about.

And seriously, all there is to do now is wait.

It’s eerie and gray outside, with occasional gusts of wind making the crepe myrtles dance and sway. It isn’t raining, but I can tell the wind has been intense as it gusts because the sidewalk is covered in crepe myrtle blossom debris. It’s not raining now; but I am sure that will change relatively soon. I want to get the kitchen cleaned up this morning and take one last shower while we still have power–and then I’ll probably do busy work–straightening things up, putting things away, sorting. I started doing cleaning yesterday but as Paul pointed out, “So, you want the house to be clean in case we lose the roof again?”

Fair point, but I might do some this morning just to keep me occupied.

I watched Nightmare Alley yesterday on the TCM app; it’s one of my all-time favorite novels (Megan Abbott recommended I read it; and it’s haunted me ever since I did) and I’ve always wanted to see the movie. The movie, surprisingly enough, follows the book much more closely than movies usually did during that time period, and Tyrone Power (I’ve never seen one of his films before, if you can believe that) gave a stirring performance in the lead role–and you can also never go wrong with Joan Blondell, who has never gotten the appreciation she truly deserved. The movie is not quite as dark as the book–production code and all–but it also gave me a very strong desire to reread the book again. I also spent some time with Megan Abbott’s The Turnout, which is incredible; but then I put it aside, figuring once the power goes out there will be nothing to do but read, so save it for then. I might go ahead and read it some today–the mind distraction will be lovely–but I don’t know how good my attention span will be for reading until after it’s all over. There’s always that little knot in your stomach and that little alert going off in a corner of the brain–worry worry worry you should be worrying more–so who knows? We also watched everything we are watching–Archer, Titans, Nine Perfect Strangers–before I drank a cup of Sleepytime Tea and heavily medicated myself for a good night’s sleep (which I did, in fact) have.

I also started writing a short story last night in my journal, in long hand; “Parlor Tricks.” I’d had the idea before, of course–I think I may have even briefly started writing it around the time I had the idea for it–and was having a lot of fun with it. The main character I am writing about it in this story–as always with me and my creative ADHD–is someone I find interesting; and I actually had another idea around the same time centering a similar type character (“The Oracle of Orange Street,” to be exact)–and while I was working on this yesterday I realized that my still unnamed main character could easily be in both stories; and really, “Parlor Tricks” would be a great way to introduce the character and then possibly bring her back for a novel, The Oracle of Orange Street….because precisely what I need right now is another book to write.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee, take that shower, and do the dishes (no need for dirty dishes to stay dirty during a loss of power, after all).

Will check in when I can!