Tag: Wars of the Roses

Downtown

Sunday morning has rolled around again, and I am feeling pretty good. I slept well again before Sparky decided it was time for me to get up, and he let me sleep later (after he started) without much of a quibble. (I like to pretend he cuddles with me in the mornings before I get up because it’s nice; I know it’s because he wants to know the minute I get up so he can start meowing at me to come downstairs with him.) The closing ceremonies for the Olympics are today, which is a shame, as I always love the Olympics. There really is nothing more patriotic-feeling like rooting for young athletic Americans on the wolrd stage, is there? The fact that this was going on while the tides of our election have seemingly all turned to the positive has really been something. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what patriotism is and what it means to be patriotic–and not in the least little bit because the Right has made patriotism so distasteful and embarrassing. I am seeing the crowds at the Vice-President’s rallies moving to take patriotism back from the Christian Nationalists (the flag, the USA chant, etc.) because what they call patriotism is actually anything but. But the Democratic National Convention is going to be pretty thrilling this year, methinks, reminiscent of another dark period coming to an end–the 2008 election ending the nightmare of the eight years of right-wing control and endless wars and lies. I know I am actually excited about the election now, and while the fear and dread are still there, there’s a lot of joy and optimism.

And what an amazing Olympiad this has been, the haters and agents of darkness aside1! so many great stories, so many redemptions, and so much fun to watch and enjoy as always. It also felt different; maybe the fucked up 2020 Tokyo Olympics caused a reset; it didn’t feel like an Olympics and now, all I did was (besides root for our athletes) be happy for the all the competitors and medalists–I finally developed the proper Olympic spirit that doesn’t villainize great athletes from other countries. I never liked that whole xenophobic need for the US to win the most medals to prove our superiority as a nation; I do not want to be anything like the Nat C’s. Probably twenty years ago I might have hated, for example, Rebeca Andrade as Simone’s biggest competition–but this time around I simply enjoyed her skills and abilities and applauded for her just as I did for our gymnasts. I think I have finally unpacked and emptied the last of my conditioning as an American.2

I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday. Paul and I watched Challengers, which was interesting, and then caught up on House of the Dragon, The Serpent Queen, and started watching the second season of the show with Rob Lowe and his son on Netflix, which is cute and funny. I can’t think of the name of the show, but the first season was pretty pleasant and fun, so I hope the second season isn’t a disappointment. Watching these shows about royals struggling over the throne and power put me to thinking, again, about actual history, and of course the Catherine de Medici story, which I’ve always enjoyed. The banker’s daughter who became queen of France and mother herself of three kings and two queens. The show jumped from actual history to nonsense toward the end of the first season, and this second season is diverging dramatically from what actually happened; Queen Elizabeth never visited the French court, nor did Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (who actually abdicated and died before Catherine’s husband, Henri II) and likewise, his son Philip II did actually marry Elisabeth de Valois, but it was at her wedding celebration that Henri was killed. And they are starting to set up her daughter Margot’s story, which is also endlessly interesting to me. I’m still reading Rival Queens, the story of the mother-daughter relationship during one of the most treacherous periods of French history. I was also thinking about how people always say George R. R. Martin based A Song of Fire and Ice on the Wars of the Roses; but there’s another series of French histories called The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon, focusing on the years 1310-1337, about the end of the main branch of the Capetian dynasty and the rise of the Valois branch–and the Hundred Years’ War. This aspect of French history–the lead up to that epic war–isn’t as well known, and I tore through that series when I discovered it at the Emporia Library as a teenager. It’s a great series, a fascinating time in French history (there are many fascinating periods in French history), and you can probably see why I love French history (and France) so much.

I’ve also been thinking, not only about the book I’m writing now but the next Scotty, too. I’ve renamed it Hurricane Season Hustle (saying party instead of season seems like asking for it, frankly), and started coming up with ideas for the plot. I have also been thinking about my short stories in progress, and I think I’ve come up with any number of ways to fix the ones I want to get fixed. My goal is to finish the short story collection this month and get it out of the way while working on the new book. Football season will be here before you know it, which will start taking up my weekends, so I need to be starting to get back to the grind of everything. I did do some cleaning yesterday around the house, too, and plan to do some more this morning before I go make groceries at Rouse’s. I can’t decide if I want to make steak fajitas for dinner, or pepper steak.

I did read a short story yesterday, “The Amateur of Crime,” by Stephen Vincent Benet. It’s an old story, Benet is a famous writer not known for his crime stories, and it was interesting, if a bit…I don’t know, unrealistic? I have found that non-crime writers who write crime short stories for whatever reason always seem to go for the “huh?” solution to crimes. In this case, the amateur detective on the spot is helped by any number of coincidences that also happen to give him the knowledge to solve the crime (there was a Faulkner crime short story that’s solution had to do with cigarette smoke trapped beneath a radiator…again, not realistic), which seemed contrived to me. But it was an interesting story, and again, reading it gave me some ideas how to fix some of my own in-progress drafts, or the ones that are finished but need revision.

There’s always so much writing to do.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I do need to make a grocery list before running over to Rouse’s today; nothing major, a little run to get stuff for lunch and to make dinner a few nights this week. But for now, I am going to get cleaned up and do some filing and so forth, so I bid you adieu for now, Constant Reader, and I hope you have a marvelous Sunday.

  1. Hilariously, a while back when I did one of my Pride posts about how white women have always been the worst homophobes, a friend asked me why I didn’t mention the Chatelaine of Castle TERF, and I replied “she gets her own.’ But she is so evil and awful and horrible so regularly that before I can finish writing about her, she’ll do something even worse. Her behavior during these Olympics, along with the haters she’s embraced, was especially egregious and awful. ↩︎
  2. I sometime want to write about this, and the American mythology I was raised to believe that wasn’t the truth but something taught to justify white supremacy. ↩︎

One More Time

I”m up earlier than usual on a Friday because I have to go to the dentist’s office this morning to get fitted for my new dentures. I don’t know when they’re going to be ready, and I know it’s too much to hope for that I would get temporary ones today so I can start eating normally again, but an old gay man can dream, can’t he? I left work yesterday to go meet with the cardiologist, to be cleared for my surgery as well as to check and see if i also have the same congenital heart issue that eventually killed Mom (her father died in his sleep in his forties; there’s a concern that it’s not only congenital but genetic); good news is my heart is strong and functioning completely the way it’s supposed to; no concerns there, with a sonogram scheduled to see if my arteries are normal or I have the same issue Mom had. He also changed my cholesterol medicine (giving me something stronger), and i need to have another blood draw done. Yay? My schedule between now and the surgery looks to be filled with appointments for tests and things. Heavy heaving sigh.

I slept really well last night. Paul was late getting home–we watched Only Murders in the Building–and I did some chores. I took the evening off from writing and tried to do chores mostly. I watched a documentary on Youtube about Charles VI of France–aka Charles the Mad, the king who lost France to Henry V of England–and the “glass delusion,” which the King suffered from as did many others during the time period; the belief that he was made of glass and would shatter. I had wanted at one point to write a story about the glass delusion (because it absolutely fascinates me), but am not sure how to do it or whether Iwant to write about the king himself or come up with someone new to have the delusion. He was an interesting person, had an interesting and tumultuous reign–whichof course indirectly led to the rise of Joan of Arc, which really is fascinating. St. Joan and her voices have always struck my curiosity–more on that at another time, anyway. So, yes, I went down a wormhole on Youtube on the Hundred Years’ War, the madness of King Charles, and the fifteenth century. The fifteenth was also a calamitous century, to use the language Barbara Tuchman used to describe the fourteenth in her book A Distant Mirror (which may be my favorite history book of all time). I don’t want to write about the fifteenth the same way I want to write about the sixteenth, because it would have to cover the Hundred Years’ War but also the Wars of the Roses, and those have been written about already endlessly so I have no desire to write about either of them.

But my sixteenth century and women ruling Europe book is something I would still like to do.

Okay, so now I am home again and irritated. I stopped to make a few groceries on the way home from the dentist, and apparently left one of my bags in the shopping cart, which is super annoying–especially since that was the bag that had the stuff I specifically stopped for; all the rest was just lagniappe I picked up because I was there already. Heavy sigh. Ah well, I can go back later on–probably will, because I do need those things–but still irritating to just throw money away like that. Ah, well. I’ll be getting my new temporaries in about a week or so; which is the best news, really, and I also have to get my checkbook register caught up and all my new follow-up appointments put onto my calendar.

And of course, this afternoon we’re going to the SPCA on the west bank to get a cat. YAY! (Maybe I can pick up the stuff I need on the West Bank before we go look at the kitties.) I am not going to stress about it, nor am I going to get anxious about it, either.

So I have some work-at-home duties to take care of this morning before we head across the river to adopt a cat (I’m a little excited but trying really hard to contain myself). I also have laundry and dishes and other tedious chores around here to get done over the weekend. Tomorrow I’m going to take the books to the library sale and see if I can get my vaccinations that I need at CVS; worst case scenario I can’t get it there and will have to wait some more. I’d like to have it before I see my elderly relative next weekend in Panama City Beach, for obvious reasons; I’d feel terrible if I gave any of them COVID at their ages. (Dad is the youngest at nearly eighty-two.) It’s just a quick trip, over on Saturday and back on Sunday, but since I won’t be able to head up north for the holidays I don’t want to miss a chance of seeing Dad when he’s that close, and I can finish Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Drowning Tree in the car.

And on that note, I should probably head into the spice mines and take care of my work-at-home duties before Paul gets up. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I am sure there will be a picture of my new kitty to post later on.

She’s Got You

Work at home Friday, after I run some errands and take care of some things this morning. I have to go to the OMV to get a real ID (driver’s license expires Sunday), and since I am going over there, I am going to swing by the West Bank Petco to look at kitties (the SPCA has some they’ve farmed out to Petcos). That’s an exciting morning, isn’t it? I am taking Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt with me, so I won’t be bored and since I have to sit around and wait, I might as well read. It’s been bothering me lately that my attention span just hasn’t been there for novels since the heat wave broke me several weeks ago–which is when I switched over to short stories in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies–and I’d like to get this book read before I leave for Bouchercon, primarily so I can hopelessly fanboy over her all weekend (I’ll also be fanboying over Margot Douaihy all weekend, too, among many others as I always do at Bouchercon). I’ve already picked out my books to take with me on the trip (the latest S. A. Cosby, Alison Gaylin, and Laura Lippman will be going to San Diego with me, with Donna Andrews batting clean up), and also already know I will probably get no writing done while I am there. I don’t really have anything due–there will be page proofs for Mississippi River Mischief to go over at some point–but everything else is up in the air for now.

I did manage to get the edits taken care of on Mississippi River Mischief and turned it in last night, so other than the afore-mentioned page proofing, it’s effectively finished. Since the other book–I’ll post about it this weekend, no worries–is also finished and now out of my hair, I have nothing pressing at the moment. Woo-hoo! I also picked up the mail and stopped at Fresh Market to lay in supplies for a weekend of not getting into the car at all. I wrote for a while, and came to a realization about this short story I could never get to work that I’ve been revising, so I am going to go into author mode and talk about writing, so bear with me.

This particular story, “Whim of the Wind.” was the story I wrote when I took creative writing again after switching universities after my first horrendous creative writing experience (if I haven’t said it enough, the professor told me I’d never be a published writer). This story was beloved by my class and my professor, who told me I should submit it to literary magazines. I did a few times, it was always rejected, and there was a slight flaw in the story–but no one who read it could ever give me any insight into how to fix the story. It was also my first Alabama story, my first visit to my fictional Corinth county, and so it’s always kind of been precious to me. I never could figure out how to revise it or what to do with it…but as I’ve been revising it (it’s now twice as long as it was, and I’ve not finished), it’s been changing some. I think what everyone was responding to was the voice–I’ve used it again since, and people always respond to that aspect–and really, as long as the voice is intact and preserved, that’s all that really matters. I also realized last night something else–I was having to change the climactic scene in the story, and as such had to come up with a different Civil War legend to build it around–and I realized this story, along with two other, had been written using the same trope, that I have since learned was apocryphal–the evil Yankee deserter. I wrote this story using it, I wrote “Ruins” using it, and I wrote another, “Lilacs in the Rain,” also using it (that story has morphed into a novella renamed “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”); so yes, I wrote three short stories based on the same, apocryphal, Civil War urban (rural?) legend. Bury Me in Shadows evolved out of “Ruins,” and I blew up the trope in that book; that was the “Yankee deserter” story I was meant to write. So, the other two need different legends, and I found a good one for “Whim of the Wind”–but again, a delicate subject I’ll need to be very careful with–and now maybe I can make “The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain” actually work, now that I know what I need to do with it. I am also having a lot of fun looking into Alabama history and finding these great legends and stories and folk tales that I should be able to find something to use.

I slept really well last night, and feel pretty good this morning. Don’t feel so great about having to go to the West Bank, but that’s okay; it’s a routine change I can live with, and I can actually do my weekend grocery shopping over there as well–and I can get Five Guys to bring home for lunch. I think after that I will have laid in enough supplies to not have to leave the house for the rest of the weekend–I may go get the mail tomorrow–and I want to clean, organize, read, and write all weekend. Paul got home late last night (another grant) so we didn’t get a chance to watch anything last night–he walked in while I was watching a Youtube documentary about the usurpation of the English throne by the House of Lancaster that set the dangerous precedent (for kings) that incompetent ones could be overthrown and replaced…and eventually led to the Wars of the Roses. I also was watching some videos–someone did a series of the greatest plays in LSU football history, which was very fun to watch and relive (I really should do an in-depth post about my love of LSU football; not that everyone who’s paying attention doesn’t already know about it, of course, but I love football and it’s fun for me to write/talk about it. I also find the fandom interesting, too.)..and they were grouped by stretches of time, eras, if you will (2007 season got its own video)–and also guided by the scarcity of available digitized video from the far distant past. (I was also thinking “don’t the networks that originally aired the games have tape? Can’t it be digitally remastered? I know the SEC Network has done this with some classic games from the past; it’s a project the NCAA should back fully, as it’s the history of the sport.) It’s very fun to revisit past games and my memories–LSU is never boring to watch, ever–and I am very excited about the upcoming season, both for LSU and the Saints. I worry that everyone is over-hyping LSU (something I always worry about) but given the over-performance from last year, it’s kind of understandable, really. LSU came out of nowhere to win ten games, beat Alabama, and beat both Florida and Auburn on the road in the same season for the first time in program history. So, yeah, understandable. I was thinking before last season that it was going to have to be a wash–new coach, rebuilding after two down years, etc.–and that this year would be the one where the Tigers would make a run. I am excited for our new quarterback for the Saints, too–he, like me, also went to Fresno State, so I have even more reason to root for him and like him–and they seem to be doing well in the preseason. GEAUX SAINTS!

I did work on the revision of “Whim of the Wind” yesterday–it’s amazing to me that I’ve taken a story that barely over two thousand words and added another almost three thousand to it, and it still isn’t done–but I am feeling good about the story, now that I’ve recognized my attachment to it that actually was hindering me from revising it. It’ll always exist in that original version, after all, and nothing I do to it in current or future versions are ruining that precious first version that meant so much to me as an aspiring writer. Sentimentality–the very thing I am always trying to guard against when it comes to almost everything in my life–got the best of me with this story. The other story I turned it at the same time, which I’ve also never been able to correct, perhaps now I can fix it, too. I had thought about expanding the other one (which is actually incredibly problematic on many levels by modern standards) into a novel, and perhaps I still will; I’ve started slowly world-building around the panhandle of Florida the same way I have with Corinth County in Alabama, but there’s no crime or mystery or supernatural thing going on in that story; so it would be a coming-of-age romance….but I may know a way (that just came to me) and there were some other ideas about it, too. You never know, right? Why not riff for a while and see what comes up?

I’m kind of getting excited about writing again, can you tell?

And on that note, I should start getting ready for the OMV and get that hellish experience over with once and for all. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader and you never know–I may be back later.

Under the Boardwalk

My last work-at-home day for 2022, and technically my last day of work for the year at the day job. It still freaks me out a little, or doesn’t feel right, to write 2022 on my clinical testing forms; 2023 is going to be even stranger to write. Where the hell has this decade gone already? It’s almost 2023. I certainly didn’t think I’d make it this far, yet here I am.

It got up into the seventies again yesterday–we literally went from the mid-sixties to a hard freeze back to the seventies in about a week–which is why you can never write about New Orleans without writing about the weather. Our weather affects everything here, and can change everything happening and going on in a matter of hours. It also messes with your moods and how you feel–how can your sinuses adapt to such dramatic weather changes in such a short period of time? And that’s not even taking into consideration the humidity and rain. You always have to plan your day and your life around the weather here, and you ignore it at your own peril (he said, having been caught unawares in enough flash-flooding events to know whereof he speaks). With a great HVAC system I didn’t find myself minding the cold quite as much this past weekend, but don’t get me wrong–I’m not sorry to see it gone, and good riddance to it.

I also had a ridiculous amount of chores to do last night when I finished work. Two loads of dishes, two loads of laundry, and of course I had to do something about the refrigerator, and since I was already doing chores I decided to go ahead and launder the living room comfort blankets and do something about the floors (a chore I’ve been avoiding for far longer than I dare to admit publicly, given my reputation as a housekeeper). I decided not to try for my quota for the day, which of course increased today’s quota, but thought it best to go ahead and reread everything I’ve been doing and get a better sense of things so I can figure out how to get to the end of the book from where I’m at now. Sometimes it’s best to relax and let the muscles rest when you’ve been pushing them for a while; burn out is always a fear, and I suspected yesterday that I was reaching that point and should probably rest from it for at least the night, while planning what to do next. I do have a lovely three day weekend looming, and if I ignore college football bowl games–which shouldn’t be difficult to do–I should be able to leisurely get this done and sent off Monday.

Whew.

I’m still a little tired this morning, and it’s gray outside. Ah, yes, a quick glance at the weather (I seem obsessed this morning with the weather, I know) and it appears that we’ll be having thunderstorms for most of the day. I do have to go out into the outer world at some point today–the postal service is closed tomorrow through Monday–so I won’t be able to get the mail again until after work on Tuesday. I should also spend a little time figuring out what, if anything, I need from the grocery store so I don’t have to leave the house again until Tuesday morning. That’s really turning into my biggest contest–how long can I go without leaving the house? (Along with “how few showers can I take this weekend? ” and “How long can I go without cleaning the house?” These do not speak well of me, I am well aware.) I also am going back to reading Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side, after my break from it to read Donna Andrews for Christmas; it’s slow going because it’s an old book written in twentieth century cis-white male literary style, which is something I don’t really care for as a general rule. But I do want to read the parts where the main character (whose backstory is currently being explored) gets to New Orleans and experiences the demimonde; I’d also like to see the film, which I haven’t ever viewed. (I know, right? Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Fonda and I’ve never seen it? Bad gay, bad gay.)

After getting the chores done–Paul didn’t come home until late again–I spent some time read Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, which takes a look at some gay men in history who weren’t exactly role models for gay men or behavior–some of whom I had heard of, others I had not– which is an interesting approach (usually writers and historians are always looking for positive role models, or take normal human beings and idealize them into heroes). I was a little disappointed to see that my favorite historical homo wasn’t included–Philippe d’Orleans, younger brother of Louis XIV and known as Monsieur (I’ve always wanted to write about Monsieur, he fascinates me to this day)–but the authors did include James I of England and Frederick the Great, so no complaints on royal representation in the book. (But if you’re looking for bad examples of gay men in history, choosing James I over Richard the Lion-Hearted or Edward II was an interesting decision.) I read the sections on Oscar Wilde and Bosie, Frederick the Great, and James I (primarily because the most ambitious book idea I’ve ever had involved James I’s successor as well as his last love, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham); and I enjoyed them. They weren’t very in depth, as they were only given a chapter, so they were at best slightly superficial, but it was interesting to read. I really do need to read a biography of Frederick the Great, who has fascinated me since I was a kid (again, interesting that even as a child I was fascinated by a king who turned out to be gay in the long run); I’ve read histories of Prussia and Europe and other monarchs of the period, but biographies of Frederick aren’t as easy to come by as say, biographies of any Tudor, the Wars of the Roses, or Louis XIV. (Try finding a biography of Louis XIII or said George Villiers, for that matter. There are quite a few of Cardinal Richelieu–but not as many as one would think. Americans seem to be more interested in British history than anything else, and not many of them at that.)

Lightning just flashed, and it’s getting grayer outside, never a good sign for the weather in New Orleans. Then again, spending a little time reading this morning during a thunderstorm while drinking my coffee before starting my work-at-home duties could be just the ticket for kick-starting this day into high gear, so on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

Silver Springs

My back still hurts today, and while at the moment it’s better than it was yesterday…it’s always best when I get up in the morning, so I don’t know how the rest of today is going to go. I have to go pick-up the groceries I ordered yesterday–which has me nervous–and I’ve even decided to wait on ordering Costco until tomorrow or Work-At-Home Monday. I was hoping it would be okay enough for me to be able to at least spend a few hours at the computer this morning writing; but taking yesterday off to just lie flat while alternating heat and cold (thank you, Eric Andrews-Katz, for reminding me to do that yesterday and not just use heating pads and generic Ben-Gay; I will be doing that today as well)was enormously helpful in the healing process. I was also taking pain killers yesterday to make myself more comfortable, and by the end of the day yesterday I felt–I really don’t know how to describe it, but I felt like all of my muscles and joints needed to be stretched, so I started doing that in my chair and it felt ever so much better before I went to bed last night. I didn’t read much of anything because the pain killers were fogging up my brain something terrible; but I did get my three-ring binders containing everything I am currently working on out to reread where I am at on everything. Scotty’s Chapter Three needs a revision (or a re-ordering of its scenes) to match up to the changes I made on the first two chapters; I know where this story is going now and I really like the decisions I made before Bouchercon to turn this into something worthy of a Scotty novel. Today, other than the making of the grocieries, is going to be mostly me doing the same as I did yesterday–lying prone in my easy chair unfolded out, alternating between heat and cold, while hopefully reading the new Donna Andrews while managing my pain with Aleve while college football plays on the screen. LSU plays Mississippi State tonight in Death Valley, so we’ll get some sort of idea of how well the Tigers have regrouped since that opening loss (last week’s blowout of Southern doesn’t really count–no offense, Southern). And tomorrow is Saints-Buccaneers, so I can swear at Tom Brady some more, which is always an enjoyable experience.

So, looks like today–other than the groceries, getting the mail, and getting as–is going to be another enforced day off. I am afraid of doing my usual “oh it feels better so I can do more things only to make it worse and last longer” thing, so much as I am loathe to fall even further behind on everything, I really don’t have much choice. Your back is not something you want to fuck with a whole lot, and the last thing I need at my age–at any age–is to continue having chronic issues with my back. I hurt it at the gym years and years ago, always assumed it was safe to go back before it actually was, and then consistently made things worse. This was when my serious 3 to 4 times per week workout routine was finally and completely disrupted, and I’ve never really been able to consistently attend the gym to workout ever since.

The Lost Apartment is also a disaster area, but…don’t push it, Gregalicious. Just relax and allow yourself the time to let whatever-the-fuck-it-is you did to your back to heal. You’ve got college football games to watch and a Donna Andrews novel to read, and in a worst case scenario you can lay back in your easy chair and use the laptop to do things like write or something…until of course Scooter wants to go to sleep in my lap.

I also overslept a bit this morning, but the benefit of that is I no longer feel exhausted, which is yet another step on the needed path for me to feel like Gregalicious again. I got the Bouchercon email this morning in which sixteen (!!!!) attendees have tested positive this far, but so far I’ve dodged that bullet again. I have wondered, with the exhaustion, but that second line keeps on not showing up on my tests so as far as I can tell, everything else is fine. (Excuse me for a moment while I stick a swab up my nose; seriously, at this point I’d rather stick my finger and use blood to run the test. Why can’t this be an oral swab like the HIV tests used to be like?)

We did get caught up on Bad Sisters last night, and then moved on to the series premiere of The Serpent Queen, with Samantha Morton as Catherine de Medici. The show is actually–at least so far–seems historically accurate (other than she married Henri duc d’Orleans in 1533 rather than 1536; that year is fixed in my head because that is also the year Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn and had her crowned), and of course, Catherine is one of my favorite historical characters of all time. She is often depicted in history as evil and cruel and malignant–but imagine loving your husband so much and enduring the humiliation of his disinterest in you while being utterly devoted to a woman twenty years older…and this goes on for 26 years before he dies. Wouldn’t you be a little warped? Ignored, dismissed, laughed at…and then with her husband’s death she becomes one of the most powerful women in Europe, trying to preserve the crown and an intact France for her sons during a time of almost constant religious and political strife. She fascinates me, much as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Anne Boleyn, Blanche of Castile, and several other great queens of history do…which again leads me to my idea of writing a history of the sixteenth century in Europe through the tales of the great and powerful women of that century, A Monstrous Regiment of Women. There was also a time when I wanted to write historical novels of political intrigue, and what better place to set such a series than during the second half of the sixteenth century in France, which was a time more akin to Game of Thrones than most periods (the Wars of the Roses is another; the dying out of the Capetian dynasty in France in the early fourteenth is another).

Yes, a series centered around one of Catherine’s Flying Squadron (beautiful women trained in the arts of seduction and eroticism, who took lovers strategically so they could spy on them for the Crown) during the period of 1570-1589 would be a lot of fun to write, and the research! What fun would all that reading be? Perhaps someday when I have more time and energy…ha ha ha, I somehow managed to type that with a straight face.

I’ve also always wanted to write a sixteenth century murder mystery where Robert Cecil hires someone to investigate the death of Amy Robsart in 1560–which jeopardized Queen Elizabeth’s throne within the first two years of her reign.

And that’s not even taking into consideration my retelling of The Three Musketeers from Milady de Winter’s point of view.

Yeah, I will probably never write anything more historical any further back than my lifetime.

And on that note, I am retiring to my easy chair with Donna Andrews and some ice packs. Have a happy Saturday, Constant Reader.

Winter Wonderland

I overslept this morning–which I don’t mind, I was extremely tired last night, as well as completely over it–and it’s dismal and gray and cold outside the windows. I didn’t get as much done as I had wanted last night because I was dealing with yet another Mac problem; my computer wanted to update it’s operating system so stupidly I agreed and clicked yes….and when the computer restarted it again didn’t recognize my phone, so I had to go through that entire nonsensical process yet again. Fortunately I had just backed the damned thing up again, so the “restore from most recent back-up” was at least current this time. But once the phone was finished “restoring” my computer started acting wonky again; the desktop icons never showed up and I tried restarting it again, only to come back and find it was still acting wonky. I restarted again, then collapsed into my easy chair, where I watched a BBC series, The Plantagenets. There wasn’t anything really new in it, other than the idea that the deposition of Richard II “cursed” the family–that deposition/usurpation led to the Wars of the Roses, and also made the sacred person of the King no longer so sacred–which meant deposing kings and crowning new ones was now an established precedent, and this mentality eventually led England down the path of constitutional monarchy. Which is true, and not something I’d read or thought about before, which is always fun when reading or watching history.

Although I probably should have read a book instead.

Today I have some errands to run, and I also need to get the revisions/edits in those stories I did this week entered into the documents so I can also get that finished manuscript turned over to my editor. I should also do some cleaning (there’s never an end to it, really) and work on revising the Scotty. And there’s other stories to write and finish, and I also want to work a bit on Bury Me in Satin this weekend. I’d also like to get to read The Shining again; I’ve been thinking about rereading it for quite some time now and it’s been a very long time. I think I am going to close out this year by rereading some Stephen King novels and reading short stories for the Short Story Project. Next weekend I have a four day weekend–two weeks in a row, woo-hoo!–and I have a lot of cleaning up/tying up of loose ends to get done before the end of the year.

And while I’ve written a lot this year, I’ve also started a shit ton of projects and short stories that I’ve not finished; which is quite despairing to think about. I’m also really annoyed at how out of it the Great Data Disaster of 2018 has made me; I am trying hard to recover the momentum I had before it happened. I am still feeling excited and positive about writing, but discombobulated about where I am and what I am doing and what I should be doing and what the next step should be.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

8888