And here we are on Monday again, with the dark not yet fading as the sun rises over the horizon. This is an abbreviated work week for me, as I have undoubtedly mentioned (essentially daily for over a week; one would get the impression I like when I don’t to report for the day job or something) before. I was quite pleased with how the weekend turned out; I was a bit pressed going into it because there was so much to do and get done, and while I of course didn’t get everything finished that I wanted to (do I ever?) I managed to get quite a bit done. The proofs of the manuscript and the cover for Bury Me in Shadows are now completed and out of my hair; I got the writing for my friends’ website finished, and if the Lost Apartment isn’t as neat, tidy and organized as perhaps I might want, so be it.
I mean, I am always going to have more things to do, no matter how hard I work to get caught up.
Yesterday I didn’t work on Chlorine–at least there’s no word count to show for the day, at any rate. I was thinking about Chapter Four and how to actually write it, but decided that where my mind was going as far as it was concerned, was the wrong direction–and if I were to follow the direction my mind was going, I’d end up writing a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t be able to use in the long run, so I decided that since my mind was going in a direction I didn’t like nor wanted my story to go, I wasn’t going to waste any time or energy trying to make it work, make it right, or do anything with it. I did type up “A Midnight Train Going Anywhere” and soon realized the amorphous idea I had/have for it, wasn’t really going anywhere–it needs more thought, and it needs more of a plan for a story rather then just keep writing and hope something shakes out there as I write. So off into the drawer it goes, until I have a better idea about how to write a train crime story set in the days before Amtrak and while there was whistle stop service at all those little towns spread across the Kansas prairie. But that opening scene I wrote–the base idea I had for it–is still pretty amazing.
And yes, the tiny little town the train stops in is where my main character in Chlorine is from.
We started watching the second season of Ted Lasso last night and while the first two episodes were, while quite good and entertaining, not quite at the level of heartwarming and funny I’d come to expect, it was in episode three that I got that old Ted Lasso feeling again–the kind where the show makes you laugh but also gets you in the feels, too. As Paul said, “it always makes me tear up, which is weird for a comedy, isn’t it?” and I replied, “That’s why we enjoy it so much–because it touches us while it makes us laugh.” had wanted to wait until there were more episodes to enjoy, but alas, we couldn’t put the show off any longer but now have to wait until every Friday for a new one, more’s the pity. But I will say Apple Plus is going a great job with its shows–this and The Morning Show alone are worth the monthly subscription, as well as Physical and I cannot wait for Foundation to finally drop, either. Yes, we have too many streaming services, most likely–but on almost all of them there’s something we love so much that we can’t really drop it.
My God, I have so much to do it’s not even funny.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a fabulous Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again, as always, tomorrow.
I managed to get the page and cover proofs for Bury Me in Shadows finished yesterday, and yes, I am at the point again where I am so heartily sick of this book I’d rather not ever look at it again. It’s a good book; I like my main character and I enjoy the story and how it all plays out; I even think I got the tone I was going for correct–I just don’t ever want to have to read it ever again; this is par for the course, and frankly, I was a little surprised as I started going through the proofs that I wasn’t already there; I usually am by this point, and so I am taking this as a good sign for the book. Soon it will be up to the reviewers and the readers and there’s nothing I can do about it anymore. Now all I have to do is fill out the forms and turn them in and I can close up the box with all the drafts and notes and thoughts and everything else under the sun for the book and put it away up in the attic with the other accumulated boxes…which I really need to decide to do something with, and sooner rather than later. Tulane’s Louisiana Historical Research Center had shown some interest in them about a decade or so ago; I should probably renew that conversation at some point; maybe the Historic New Orleans Collection would be interested–I honestly don’t know. But the sooner this stuff it out of my attic and my storage the better, frankly. I should set a date to get them donated and if no one does, indeed, want them–toss them out and be done with it once and for all.
I also wrote an outline/synopsis of what I am going to finish writing for my friend’s website this morning, which I will need to flesh out and finish this morning. Over all, yesterday was a very good day–I also wrote notes for Chapter Four of Chlorine, which I hope to get to finish today, around going to the gym, which would also be lovely.
We’re watching the final season of Animal Kingdom on Hulu; the show seems weird without Ellen Barkin’s chilling performance as Smurf at the heart of it–and I don’t think the flashbacks to her as a young mom committing crimes and using/discarding men are necessary; the actress playing her as a young woman is good–but as I said to Paul last night, “but I think of young Ellen Barkin and how she’d be killing this role, and this young actress just isn’t young Ellen Barkin.” The show is still high quality, though–we’re enjoying it and I would recommend it–and I think tonight we may start watching the new season of Ted Lasso. We’ve been holding off on starting because it’s such a joy to binge-watch; but I am getting more and more impatient to get started. Several other shows we’ve enjoyed–Sky Rojo, Control Z, Dark Desires, Titans–have either dropped new seasons or will be at some point this month, so we should be set for viewing for a while.
I also started writing a short story yesterday–yes, I know, I know, but this is the curse of creative ADHD–called “A Midnight Train Going Anywhere.” Yes, the title came to me while I was listening to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” and I thought, she took a midnight train going anywhere was a great image (I’ve always thought so) and as I thought about it some more, I saw a train pulling into a whistle stop station in the middle of Kansas (Kansas has been on my brain a lot lately, because my main character from Chlorine is from there and of course I am about to give the Kansas book it’s final polish from editorial notes) and I just had the image–the lonely platform, the train’s whistle on a cold clear night, the darkness lying on the town at midnight, the only light the station–and a man, sitting on the train, heading west, awakened by the change of the rhythm of the train wheels, getting up to walk around the station platform to work out the kinks in his legs, back and shoulders from riding on the train–but beyond that, I couldn’t really think of anything. I wrote down that entire set-up scene, scribbled away in my new journal (started a new one yesterday!) and didn’t know where to go from there….I have some vague, amorphous ideas, but I also love the idea about writing about a train in a past time–it was also very clear to me this wasn’t an Amtrak train so it had to be set in the distant past (also another nod to Chlorine), but am not sure where it will go or if it will come to anything; I’ll wind up transcribing it today at some point, I am sure. Maybe it will turn into something, maybe it will go into the files with all the others and collect dust there, who knows? What I do know is I have until the end of September to finish Chlorine, so I can spend the final quarter of the year writing Mississippi River Mischief, which will be Scotty IX.
Yikes, right?
The house is also still a hideous mess; I am going to finish the laundry (folding) and empty/refill the dishwasher this morning before i dive into the website writing and the writing of Chapter 4 of Chlorine before heading to the gym this afternoon. I’ve been terrible; I just haven’t had the wherewithal to actually face the heat and walk over there this past week; I don’t think I’ve been since Sunday, to be perfectly honest with you (I had a horrible moment yesterday where I couldn’t remember Thursday–which was a bit terrifying, and then I shrugged and gave up trying, essentially thinking obviously nothing major happened on Thursday if you can’t remember anything), so today’s workout will undoubtedly be exhausting and more than a little painful; but I can hang with it. It’s weird not having the motivation of results anymore–I really don’t care if I look good; that ship has long since sailed and the latest age-related shifts to my body have pretty much let me know I will never be as lean and defined and muscular as I was fifteen years ago, and that’s perfectly fine–but this phase of Greg’s workouts is about feeling better, feeling stretched, maintaining the strength and flexibility of my body, and if the muscles grow and the overall body gets leaner, so be it.
At least I am not obsessively looking at myself in the mirror trying to find trouble spots where fat has accumulated and obsessing about how to get rid of it, thinking that will solve everything. (Helpful hint: it solved nothing.)
I’d also like to spend some time reading this morning; maybe an hour before I get to the writing stuff, after folding the laundry, putting away the clean dishes as well as washing the dirty ones and putting them in the dishwasher. I like Sundays, really; it would be my favorite day of the week if it didn’t end with going to bed and waking up to Monday morning. I seem to always be fairly level on Sundays, focused and relaxed and able to get things done that I want to get done, if you know what I mean. I have a four day weekend next weekend thanks to the office closing to give us all a mini-thank you-vacation for working in a public health clinic during a world-wide pandemic; I am hoping to dive into the revisions of the Kansas book over that weekend and then finishing it during my vacation during the next week (my time off for Bouchercon).
As long as everything goes as planned, by the end of the year I’ll have a great first draft of Chlorine ready to go, as well as a ninth Scotty ready to be turned in; and if I stay motivated maybe even the novellas and short story collections might be ready to go as well.
Fingers crossed as I head back into the spice mines this morning….have a great day, Constant Reader!
Saturday and there’s a lot to get done for me today. What else is new? I slept very well last night, which was as marvelous as I could have hoped; I feel rested and relaxed this morning, despite everything I have to get finished today; it just seems more tiresome than it actually is, if I am going to be completely honest. Time-consuming, more than anything else. Paul has his trainer and then is going to the office for the afternoon, so the coast will be clear around here for me to get as much done as I would like. I replaced my bluetooth speaker system yesterday–it wasn’t playing nice with my new phone for some reason (for that matter, neither is the car’s stereo, but I’ve managed to work around it somehow) and so I can once again listen to music while cleaning the house, which is also very necessary this morning. We also made a Costco trip yesterday after work, and I spent a good portion of my evening rearranging thing so I could get everything put away at long last. I have to run get the mail later, and pick up a few things– a very few things–at the grocery store, so here’s hoping venturing out into the heat won’t strip me of any and all desire to get things done, the way it usually does.
We watched the latest episode of American Horrror Stories–this past week’s episode was a little lower in quality that the preceding ones, but over all, we are enjoying the show. Since each episode is self-contained, they don’t really have the time or opportunity or space to go off the rails the way every episode of American Horror Story inevitably does (not every season, but most of them), and the ones thus far have been pretty enjoyable. Like I said, last night’s didn’t do much for me, but it was an interesting concept and I’ll give them props for it. This series digs into the underlying morality that most horror stories buy into; the moralistic trope that bad people will inevitably punished for their crimes, even if it takes a supernatural force to do it. The show is a throwback to The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents–all of which had a far greater influence on my short story writing than I probably recognize (also, the old horror comics like House of Mystery and The Witching Hour).
I also would like to finish reading The Other Black Girl this weekend, especially now that I have The Turnout by Megan Abbott in my TBR Pile. I am literally itching to get to it; it feels like I’ve been waiting for a new Megan Abbott novel forever–of course, the weird pandemic time thing hasn’t helped in that regard in the least–and there are so many other books I need to get to….*sobs in despair at ever finishing everything*.
And of course, the kitchen and the area around my work-space are a complete disaster area. So I think this morning after I finish this and as I continue to swill coffee, I am going to do some busy work around the kitchen/work space area; and who knows–I may even get organized. PERISH THE THOUGHT. #madness. But I want to get a lot accomplished today so I can get to the gym tomorrow as well as finish writing Chapter Four of Chlorine, and maybe even start writing Chapter Five. I know, crazy, right? I haven’t written hardly anything this past week, which is gnawing at my conscience–but so much was going on this past week I literally felt completely drained when writing time rolled around every day–and I was even too worn down to get to the gym again last week. (So it will be one full week tomorrow when I roll into the gym since the last time I was there–or am I just remembering wrong? My memory is something that simply cannot be trusted anymore…so I am going to say no, I haven’t been to the gym since last Sunday and feel confident that it’s factually true) Shameful. I am going to be doing something new this week; two days of upper body and one day of lower body. Tomorrow will be upper; Tuesday or Wednesday will be lower, and then Thursday or Friday will be upper again. The next step, after a few months of this, is to divide my workouts into even more concentrated body parts: chest and back; arms and shoulders; legs. And if I stick to it–eventually adding the great joy of cardio to it, I should get back into fairly decent shape sooner rather than later.
We shall see, I suppose.
The Olympics conclude this weekend…but I’ve not really been paying much attention to them these last few days; the sports I enjoy watching are already over, and while I enjoy watching track somewhat, at the same time I’m not as vested in it as I am in its water version, swimming. As such, we also watched the Vince Vaughn horror-comedy reboot of Freaky Friday, Freaky, which, while fun, wasn’t as fun as it could have been. I appreciated that Millie’s best friends included an out gay boy–diversity; you can rarely go wrong by including it, and I also am looking forward to the rapidly approaching day where diversity in film and television is so commonplace it doesn’t merit mentioning anymore–and Vince Vaughn was hilarious once their souls had switched bodies (I don’t much care for his politics, but Vaughn is a great comedic actor), but they didn’t lean into it as much as I would have thought–it was one of the movie’s strengths, and there’s a great scene between Vaughn-as-Millie and the boy she has a crush on–but it inevitably ended up being a trifle disappointing and with me thinking about wasted opportunities.
It’s almost like, with all the blockbusters and super-hero movies, Hollywood has forgotten how to make other kinds of pictures.
As I’ve mentioned on social media lately, I am really enjoying writing Chlorine, which is yet another reason having things to do that aren’t writing annoys me so much. I really feel like I’ve found Logan’s voice, and it came to me organically; I wrote my way into his voice rather than trying to determine what it was and trying to write it that way, which of course was a big concern for me. Voice is, to me at any rate, very crucial when it comes to writing; the reader has to feel some connection with the character, and that comes from Voice, really; the reader connects with the character and that starts rooting for him. It’s very important for me to not have Logan bemoan any of the situations he’s in–gay man in a homophobic society, culture, and industry–but rather cynically accept them as his reality, but that reality he accepts is why he doesn’t behave in what could be considered a “moral” way; his life is immoral, so he doesn’t feel bound by the same societal and cultural norms about behavior that others might–as he says in chapter two, “Everything in Hollywood is a lie.” (In fact, just talking and thinking about the book makes me want to finish this and work on it a bit; yes, I actually want to write, can you believe it? That has to be some kind of miracle, and also says something about how committed I am to this book.)
And on that note–if I want to get back to Chlorine, I have all this other stuff I need to get done first, so it’s best that I head into those spice mines and get started. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!
Friday and the cusp of the weekend, which is always nice. I am working at home again today, slept really well last night, and am waiting for my caffeine to kick in, which will be most lovely. I have a lot to do today (besides the condom packing and so forth); I am slowly digging back out from under with most things at long last and recognizing how best to move forward with everything I have to do, how to get it all done without making myself stressed and crazy in the meantime, and trying to keep my moods and everything level in the future.
Although last night I got to write the line I signed an autograph for Big Dick Barney and left, which was fun. I must say, I am enjoying myself with Chlorine–I am loving the main character’s voice, and diving into the mentality of someone who knows the rules and system are stacked against him through no fault of his own, so he has no issues using and twisting the rules and the system to his advantage. He’s an anti-hero, sure, and a bit amoral, but the whole point of telling this story is to show how people like him in his time period had two choices: either be a victim, or do what you have to in order to survive.
My character chooses not to be a victim, which in some ways makes him heroic. I guess we’ll see how it all turns out.
I have some writing to do for my friends’ website this weekend–which I should be able to knock out tomorrow morning–and the proofs for Bury Me in Shadows are due on Monday as well. So, around going to the gym, cleaning and organizing the Lost Apartment, and reading The Other Black Girl, I should be able to get a lot of this all done. I also want to revise my short story “The Sound of Snow Falling” over the weekend as well. Last night I came up with another story idea (I’ve had two new ones this week, actually), inspired by coming across Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” on a playlist yesterday–the lyric she took a midnight train going anywhere has always been one I enjoy, thinking it very evocative; it hit me yesterday that it could make for a great title for a short story (“The Midnight Train Going Anywhere”) and the story began to slowly form in my head–someone escaping a whistle stop, sitting next to to someone on that train, and telling them their story–but I am not sure if it will work or not, but the title! Oh, what a wonderful title. The other story idea I had this week is “Jerry’s Problem”, in which a newly retired gay man is drinking a Margarita in his back yard, hanging out in his hammock and reading a thriller, when a car speeding past his back yard fence tossed a gym bag over the fence–just as he hears the sounds of a pursuing police siren coming. The gym bag is filled with money and cocaine…and now Jerry has a problem: will the crooks come looking for their drugs and money? Should he turn it into the cops? Or….could he keep the money and sell the drugs, without attracting the attention of either the cops or the drug dealers?
It’s one of my stories, so I think the answer to the questions is fairly obvious–the recurrent theme to my short stories is bad decisions.
Write what you know, indeed.
Of course, all I really want to do is curl up with a good book under a blanket and spend the day reading. Ah, well, my new vacation–I’m not canceling the time off I took for Bouchercon–will hopefully give me that kind of relaxing day or two in a few weeks. And of course next weekend we have four days off from the office, which is rather lovely. So perhaps I can also reserve one of those days for just reading…
One can dream, at any rate, can’t one?
And on that note, heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, everyone!
Thursday and we have reached the “work-at-home” portion of my week. Yay! I don’t have to leave my house! (crowd goes wild)
I am feeling good this morning, partly because I overslept (this is becoming a thing with me; how lovely to go from chronic insomnia to oversleeping in a just a month) but regardless of whatever the reason was–the switch from cappuccinos to regular coffee, perhaps–but nevertheless, this morning Gregalicious slept late, and it felt marvelous.
I worked a little bit on Chlorine last night, but it stalled out a bit; not so much from a lack of desire to write or not knowing what to write, but primarily distractions around the Lost Apartment, which were annoying and also unavoidable, alas.
And speaking of anomalies in Gregalicious land, I didn’t finish this entry this morning before it was time for me to start working–which hasn’t happen in so long I cannot remember the last time it happened; usually I’m able to push right through the entry before leaving the house. I didn’t have to leave the house this morning, but I did oversleep, after all–definitely a problem. And now I have spent a lovely day making condom packs while catching up on Real Housewives of New York and watching some history videos on Youtube; I also had a lovely call with my editor about both Bury Me in Shadows but also a highly productive conversation about what I need to do on #shedeservedit to get it ready for publication–edits, sloppy transitions, bad bad Greg writer stuff, really–and some serious tweaks that may actually be easier than I think they’ll be; we’ll just have to see, won’t we? (And now I understand the Chlorine inertia this week; I knew I had this call scheduled and I knew I was going to probably have to put it aside for a while…breaking the chain, as it were. I think I will go ahead and finish Chapter Three and maybe Chapter Four before I dive back into my edits.)
I also had some other interesting developments occur this week, career-wise, but nothing that can be reported just yet; sorry to be so vague, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out. I am feeling better about everything these days–sleep really makes so an extraordinary difference in my life, it really is amazing–and while I am not in Greg can conquer the world mode again just yet, I have a feeling that it’s just around the corner. I am starting to feel energetic again, creative and ambitious, and more like the old Gregalicious than I have in years. Not sure what caused it, to be honest–pandemic, perhaps? I don’t know but I also don’t remember when I last felt this good about myself and everything in my life, to be honest, and it’s a lovely feeling. Now I need to get better organized; I think that is what this weekend is going to be about; me getting my shit together and getting back on top of everything again. I am going to finish reading Razorblade Tears and pick out my next read; I am going to get those chapters written and some short story edits done, and this fucking apartment and my fucking life are going to be organized and ready for the future.
And on THAT note, it’s time to get to work on everything.
Enjoy the rest of your Thursday, Constant Reader! I’m going to make mine count.
And we’ve made it to Wednesday. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day, and I have errands to run this morning before I head into the office. I hate Pay-the-Bills Day, seriously; it’s the worst part of being an adult, I think. I’m self-absorbed enough to think my paycheck should be mine to do with as I please, rather than simply utilized to pay the bills. Heavy heaving sigh. But I do get an enormous sense of satisfaction–primarily because of completion–from paying the bills. It’s lovely to check them off as they are paid, make a new list of how much is owed, etc etc etc. It’s a little shocking how much money I actually do owe–particularly since I hate nothing more than I do owing money–but it’s also nice to see the numbers go down–if not as quickly as I would like them to.
It’s cold in the Lost Apartment and New Orleans this morning; so much so that I’ve got a hat on my head and the space heater going. I slept beautifully again last night–it’s so lovely to be getting used to sleeping well consistently and nightly–and it’s amazing to feel rested every day, rather than tired and cranky. It really does make a difference, a significant one, and I’m glad to be feeling more myself these days. I still haven’t gotten any writing done this week yet–it really is disgraceful, frankly–but we were busy at work yesterday, and my actual day job does, sometimes, drain me emotionally. It did yesterday, but I also provided good counseling services to people who desperately needed a friendly, non-judgmental person to listen, advise, and console. It is a rewarding job–which is why I have it and why I have lasted so long there. I do love helping my clients.
I also had gotten my email inbox under some sort of control yesterday, but I woke up to a ridiculous amount in there again this morning. It may not all need to be answered, but it all needs to be read. Sigh–that’ll teach me to keep being a volunteer.
Today is a half-day at the office as well as being a cold day in New Orleans. Paul will be home later tonight; hopefully we can get caught up on Catherine the Great and American Horror Story: 1984 also airs its season finale this evening. I hope to get the writing done before Paul gets home; I really need to sink my teeth back into the manuscript. It also occurred to me last night that part of the reason the manuscript doesn’t feel quite right is that I may not have the best grasp of my character, and so today, between clients, I am going to start constructing his bio and figuring out who he is, so I can make him seem real. I was trying to make it more of a distant first person point of view, which can be quite effective (see everything written by Lori Roy), but it’s not working for me and so it needs to be overhauled, as does the Kansas book. But week after next is Thanksgiving, I will have the week off, and I am going to do some serious work that week–I know, I know, I always say that, and then it never happens–but I am going to focus on getting this shit together over the course of that week. I’d still like to have Bury Me in Shadows in better condition so I can get it turned in and be done with it once and for all.
And while I am yes, indeed, still walking in the clouds from the LSU win over Alabama this past weekend, I have to say I am a little surprised at how sportswriters and sportscasters have essentially buried the Alabama program and erected a headstone on the grave as a result of the loss. Um, they’re Alabama, and if you think Nick Saban is finished, think again. Alabama was beaten pretty badly by Clemson in last year’s championship game–this is certainly true–but no one wrote Alabama off as dead after that game, and I am not certain why the loss to LSU has had this effect on people. Maybe it was the twenty point deficit going into half-time? I mean, sure, it was the most points scored in the history of the series, it was the most points scored on a Nick Saban team since he went to Alabama, it’s the most points scored on them since a 2003 quadruple overtime loss to Tennessee, and all the rest of that. I guess maybe it’s the combination of last year’s Clemson loss and this year’s LSU loss? I don’t know, but it’s strange, and it’s certainly bulletin board material for the Tide for the rest of this year and for next season, to be sure. Don’t be surprised if the Tide come roaring back–you heard it here first. ANd LSU has to be ready for Ole Miss Saturday; they’d love nothing more than to spoil this amazing, magical season for the Tigers–kind of like we did to them in 2014.
I have to run some errands this morning before I go into the office, so I’d better start getting motivated to get out there into the cold–which I really don’t want to do, but have no choice. So, it’s off to the spice mines with me–have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and stay warm!
Saturday dawns, and I have so much to do I feel like I should just stick my head in an oven and be done with it. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) I have an electric oven so all that would do I burn my skin and melt my hair and–well, you get the point. But I must persevere; it all must get done, and I have no choice but to chomp down hard on the bullet and get to work.
One of my co-workers started reading the Scotty series this week, which is a weird confluence of my two vastly different worlds. On the one hand, it’s kind of lovely to talk to someone who is reading and enjoying my old work; on the other, it’s very strange because I have done a really good job of keeping my two worlds separate and independent of each other. I’ve always felt that doing this–as well as living in New Orleans–has kept my authorial ego in check; I’ve also always been more than a little amused at the dichotomy of going back to the day job from writer’s conferences or events–yes, last night you might have been eating in a really nice restaurant and drinking high end liquor, but today you are back to sticking people’s fingers and testing them for STI’s and talking to them about ways of protecting themselves in the future from getting any STI’s. It’s humbling, for one thing, and for another, it reminds me of what really matters when I need to be reminded every once in a while.
It looks like the massive volunteer project has finally, indeed, reached its inevitable and long-awaited end. I woke up to that news this morning, which means perhaps now I can get back to work on my writing in my free time. I need to finish two stories by Tuesday, and I also want to work on some other things, as I mentioned yesterday. Another project is being delayed at least a month, so I have October free now to finish up other things. I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I do have to run to make groceries at some point today–nothing major, just a quick run to pick up a few things–and I need to get some writing and cleaning done as well. I also want to sit down and reread Bury Me in Shadows at some point. I am thinking I need to decide which to work on this month–whether it’s the Kansas book or Bury Me in Shadows, and I also need to get a lot of reading done this coming month as well.
Time keeps slipping through my fingers.
Last night, Paul and I started watching The Politician on Netflix, and it really is something. It’s the first show of the Ryan Murphy/Brad Falchuk Netflix deal, and it is quite excellent–dark and campy and funny, with stunning performances out of everyone in the cast. I’ve never really been much of a Ben Platt fan–I do admire his singing voice–but he is killing it in the lead role on this show, as are Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Lange. The rest of the young cast, playing the high school students of St. Sebastian’s in Santa Barbara, are also perfectly cast and appealing in their roles. There’s also a lot of incredible eye candy for gay men and women; one of the things I do enjoy about Murphy/Falchuk shows is how they subvert the typical male gaze of most televisions shows and films; by hiring hot gorgeous actors and objectifying them rather than the women in the cast (see the shower scene in Episode 2 of American Horror Story: 1984). The young actor who plays River, David Corenswet, is one of the most beautiful young men I’ve ever seen; as are Trey and Trevor Eason, who play Platt’s brothers–twins who are basically soulless sociopaths but so incredibly beautiful. The show is full of surprising twists and turns, and goes into directions you’d never imagine; Paul and I were enthralled and binged through three episodes. Hopefully, the quality will continue. And Jessica Lange is probably heading for another Emmy win.
And we still haven’t watched Unbelievable yet, either.
It truly is a golden age of television, isn’t it?
There’s no LSU game today; so I am not so sure I’ll waste much time watching college football today. I did check the schedule to see who else is playing today, and may tune into the Ole Miss/Alabama game this afternoon while i clean around the living room; or I might not. We’ll see how the day progresses. But I definitely need to get some work done today–even though my mind is already switching to you can always do it tomorrow and you’re allowed a day off mindset that often results in me getting nothing done–and no small part of it has to do with the lack of deep sleep last night. I’ve not really had a good night’s sleep in over a week at this point, and I am beginning to despair that I ever will again.
All right, it’s time for me to get cleaned up and head down into the spice mines. Happy Saturday to all.
Here it is, Friday morning, and we’ve survived another work week, haven’t we? I can tell that the seasons are changing, as the light isn’t quite so bright in the early morning and it’s getting darker earlier.
The day job has been challenging this week. We’ve been busier than usual–which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong–but being as busy as we’ve been wears me out. By the time I get home I’m drained and exhausted, which isn’t helpful when it comes to getting things done when I get home. I was already behind on things because of the massive volunteer project, and this doesn’t help. The next project, due to begin on October 1, has been pushed back so I have the month of October suddenly free to focus on my writing again, which is lovely. I am trying to decide if I want to revise the Kansas book, or work my way through Bury Me in Shadows for a second draft. Maybe this weekend as I work on the short stories I need to get finished I’ll be able to figure out, by reading through the manuscripts, which one I should get back to work on. I am more leaning toward the Kansas book; I’ve been dickering around with it in one form or another for nearly three decades and it’s probably time to finish it off, once and for all. It does, after all, make the most sense.
It would be lovely to spend all this time getting caught up on other things as well. I think getting those two short stories finished this weekend would be lovely, and perhaps some work on “Never Kiss a Stranger” and “Fireflies.” I’d submitted “Fireflies”–an ancient story I originally wrote in or around 1987–to an anthology that later commissioned me to write a story for them; they liked “Fireflies” but felt it would work better in longer form, perhaps as a novella. I never think about fiction in terms of novellas; novellas are even harder to place than short stories, and so for me it’s always about short story vs. novel when I come up with an idea. Last year I wrote “Quiet Desperation” as a short novella and self-published it on Amazon before adding it into Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, and while it didn’t exactly set the e-novella market on fire, it was kind of nice having it out there. That’s why I decided to do “Never Kiss a Stranger” as a longer form story, so I could make it more layered and explore the complexities of the characters more–I knew I could self-publish it as a novella in a worst case scenario, and then later add it to another short story collection. I’d never considered “Fireflies” as a longer form novella; part of the problem with the story has always been it’s much too short for everything that is happening and going on in the story. (Rereading it recently I saw this very clearly, and another one of its problems is how it jumps around in time; you can tell I had just read Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury when I originally wrote it.) As I reread it recently, I realized just how richer and better the story would be if I expanded on it, so that’s also something I look forward to working on as well.
We started watching Succession last night, and wow. What a bunch of horrifically terrible human beings. We’re going to continue to watch–we also want to watch Unbelievable on Netflix–and of course, other shows we watch are back, like How to Get Away with Murder, and I also want to finish watching Murder on the Bayou, and the second season of Titans, which might call for a rewatch of season one, because I think Paul would enjoy it.
And on that note, I think I need to attempt to clean out my emails again. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.
I went to bed early last night–just watching the Nadal-Medvedev final in the US Open was exhausting, in addition to the emotional rollercoaster of the LSU-Texas game the previous night, and putting finishing touches on the volunteer project (we’ll be tying up loose ends all week, I suspect), and around nine-ish last night I was just worn out, and went to bed. I slept off and on all night–not sure how that’s going to play out today–but I guess we’ll see. I have two long days in a row for the first time in a few weeks, and I fear my body is no longer used to that abuse…but I guess we’ll see. Now that I have a half-day on Wednesday instead, it might make things easier for me in the middle of the week.
Here’s hoping, at any rate.
I printed out the first four chapters of the final rewrite of the Kansas book last night, and it’s better than I thought it would be–the chapters I’ve already done need some work, and I need to seed the rest of the story a bit more. I’m trying something different with it–just as I did in Bury Me in Shadows, which is first person present tense–I am trying to do this in a remote third person point of view in the present tense. I noticed that despite my attempts to keep it in present tense, I slipped into the past tense a number of times out of force of habit, which is one of the reasons why I am writing this in the present tense; I want to not only shake things up for me as a writer, but break the habits of doing things the same way every time. I want to continually push myself as a writer and as a story-teller, and the best way to do that is to expand and try different things, different styles, different methods of storytelling, different ways of presenting the narrative and writing different kinds of crime novels. Laura Lippman is a master of this; her last few novels have all been dramatically different in style, voice, tone, and presentation–After I’m Gone, Wilde Lake, Sunburn, and Lady in the Lake–there’s definitely a Lippman sensibility to them, but the stories and storytelling and construction of the books are all dramatically different. That’s kind of what I want to do with my own stand-alone novels; I’ll probably always come back to Scotty, and as I’ve said recently, there’s another Chanse novel I’m probably going to try to write sometime next year–but the entire point of the stand alones was to do different things and experiment with style as well as story and writing.
But now that all that’s left is wrap-up on the volunteer project–thank the Lord, you have no idea what an enormous venture this was–I can start getting caught up this week on everything else that has slid while I focused all of my prodigious energy on getting it finished. I love doing volunteer work; I often take things on that I shouldn’t, as they interfere with my writing and staying on top of everything else in my life, but I like helping out. One of the primary reasons I love my day job so much is because I feel like I’m helping people make positive changes in their life, and at the very least I am helping people get STI’s cleared up, if nothing else. I need to finish an essay by this weekend, and I have to finish a first draft of a short story that’s due by the end of the month. I’d also like to get some work on the Kansas book done–it may not be finished when I want it to be finished, but that’s also life, and I am certain I can get it finished, at the latest, in December. I also remembered I have a novella a publisher is interested in that I need to get to work on; it’s a long short story but there are any number of places where it can be expanded easily, and so I should be looking at that as well.
This has been, all in all, a pretty good year for me–I had a short story collection come out in the spring and a novel this month–and while I’d like to get both of these novels that are in progress finished and out by next year as well, I don’t think that’s going to happen, which is perfectly okay. Bury Me in Shadows took me a lot longer than I intended to get finished, and that’s perfectly okay; it happens. But I also think I can get a strong revision of it finished this December, and then I can get it turned in for January; a strong push and the Kansas book can be turned in at the end of January, and hopefully by then, doing a chapter a week, I can also have a strong first draft of Chlorine finished as well. I also want to get more short stories written, as I would love nothing more than to have another collection out sooner rather than later. I’m also nominated for an Anthony Award for my short story “Cold Beer No Flies” from Florida Happens, which is pretty awesome; I sold my short story “This Town” to Murder-a-Go-Go’s (and the story was received pretty well by most reviewers; probably the most, and best, feedback after publication I’ve ever had on a short story) and I also sold my story “Moist Money” to Dark Yonder, which I’m pretty pleased about.
I’m still reading both Rob Hart’s The Warehouse, which I hope to have more time to read now that the volunteer project is under some sort of control, and James Gill’s Lords of Misrule, which is giving me a rather pointed history of racism in New Orleans, and it’s not pretty. We New Orleanians know there’s still systemic racism here in the city, as well as individual racism, but the history of slavery and racism in New Orleans is unique to this place and different than everywhere else; we had an entire middle-class of free people of color before the war, who weren’t obviously slaves but had to show deference to white people and were segregated out of places frequented by whites; Barbara Hambly’s brilliant Benjamin January series, beginning with A Free Man of Color, and Anne Rice’s The Feast of All Saints, are excellent fictional representations of that weird second-class citizenship the free people of color of New Orleans and Louisiana experienced. It’s still appalling, though, to read about lynch mobs and murderers never brought to proper justice for their crimes. Stained in blood as it is, New Orleans has a fascinating history, and has always been one of the more interesting places in this country.
And tomorrow is officially my new book’s birthday! Huzzah!
Saturday night I watched a documentary about college football on ESPN, Football is US: The College Game. It was interesting–I didn’t know who Walter Camp was, but I’d heard the name before. I also knew who Amos Alonzo Stagg was–there’s a high school in Chicago named for him, and I also knew that the University of Chicago was an early power in college football, until they disbanded their team and stopped playing. It lightly touched on how college football parity helped desegregate the Southern universities–their football teams were mediocre, once other schools started recruiting, and playing, black players–but there was one line, when talking about the civil rights struggles in the 1960’s, and how Southern people, especially those in Alabama, focused on football as a source of pride for their state, that was particularly true and honest, and I wished they would have followed up on it some more: they didn’t like the way their state was being portrayed on the news, and felt like these representations of Southern states as hotbeds of racism was unfair.
Yes, indeed. It was incredibly unfair how the national news depicted Southern racism as how it actually existed in the real world. This resentment of how they are viewed by outsiders is keenly felt down here, and that sense of resentment is very key to understanding their behavior.
I reread the final few chapters of Bury Me in Shadows yesterday, and then planned out the final three, so I have a good shot at making my deadline of finishing the first draft by September 1. I also revised both “Moist Money” and “This Thing of Darkness” yesterday, so it was a fairly productive day for me on the writing front. Both stories need to be gone over again before sending them out into the world–both are rather dark stories; I sometimes shock myself with how dark I can go if I set my mind to it. (Fully cognizant of the notion that other people’s opinion of what dark is can vary wildly.)
We are still watching the third season of Thirteen Reasons Why, and I have to say, the show is both ridiculous and over the top–last night I said to Paul, “you know, this high school is completely fucked up–I can’t imagine anyone I went to high school with being murdered, let alone that almost everyone I was friends with would have a motive for killing another classmate”–but the show’s true appeal lies in the cast, how good they are in their roles, and the chemistry they have with each other. And let’s be honest–it hasn’t come remotely close to Riverdale when it comes to plots going over the top. While watching last night, it occurred to me that the show is really kind of an Edge of Night type serial, only set in high school; every season’s plot has had something to do with death and crime. There has been at least one suicide, one suicide attempt, an almost-school shooting, several rapes–one particularly brutal one involving a young man and a broom handle–and so I can see why teenagers who’ve been through a trauma of some sort would find the show hard to watch.
I also watched Roll Red Roll, a horrifying documentary of the Steubenville rape case–which also is an exploration of rape culture in small towns–and that case was what initially inspired my own in-progress manuscript about the same thing; rape culture in a small town. Watching the documentary, and remembering how awful the story was as it unfolded–several other cases broke around the same time; there was another in Marysville, Missouri, and another in southern California, which were the subjects of another documentary–also made me see, again, what are the many problems and holes in the plot of the book I wrote on the subject, and what needs to be fixed about it.
And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me.
Queer and Loathing in America 