Tag: You’re No Good

When Will I Be Loved

I have always been a huge fan of Linda Ronstadt’s. That voice.

My God, that voice.

So, a couple of weekends ago I was looking for documentaries to put on while Paul went in and out of sleep on the couch, I was stunned to realize I’d never seen the documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, as a life-long fan–I’d always intended to, but had just never gotten around to it, plus the loss of her voice to Parkinson’s was an enormous tragedy I didn’t want to revisit (just as Julie Andrews losing her instrument was also a tragedy). But Ronstadt is indelibly a part of my adolescence in the 1970s. The first time I became aware of her was “You’re No Good,” which blew my socks off. I couldn’t get over the nasty blues guitar and that voice! So effortless, so powerful, so beautiful. This was also around the time I started appreciating vocal talents, and women in particular who could sing beautifully. Women were also slowly starting to make their presence felt in a field (rock) that was traditionally male dominated, and Ronstadt was a leader in that way; filling stadiums and arenas all over the country.

Ronstadt’s voice was incredible. Over the course of her lengthy career she basically proved she could sing anything; from country to pop to rock to Spanish language traditional Mexican music to operettas to big band music. She didn’t write her own music but was what was considered a “stylist”; she would take someone else’s song, and sing it her way, which was almost always better than the original. Not many people can cover Smokey Robinson, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, and the Eagles (she also was inadvertently responsible for the formation of the Eagles). She was a huge star, and once she was filling stadiums and filthy rich, she wanted to try other things as a singer despite everyone thinking it would be a career-ending disaster only to continue racking up awards, critical raves, and big big sales. Her album with Aaron Neville, Howl Like a Rainstorm Cry Like the Wind is one of my favorites of all time; the way those two beautiful voices harmonize and wrap around each other is exceptional.

She was also the original woman rock star who never married, either–she chose career and music over marriage and children (Stevie Nicks did, too). The film, which traces her career and features clips of her singing live or recording in the studio makes you realize just how potent and powerful her instrument was. SHe never listened to her own recordings because she was hyper-critical of herself; when she said “when I listen to my own singing I just hear the things I could have done better”–which is also what I used to say about rereading my own work. I still tend to see the things I could have done better when I reread my own work but it doesn’t shame me the way it used to. I eventually had to realize that if I am indeed continuing to grow as a writer, obviously my old work would be written differently today because I am a different writer.

But I do strongly recommend this documentary if you haven’t seen it. If you’re a fan, it’s amazing; if you’re not, you’ll probably become one after watching–her catalogue is truly astonishing.

I used to have this poster of her hanging in my bedroom when I was in high school.

Face Up

Wednesday has rolled around again, as it always does, and last night was another restful sleep of the same sort I had on Monday; restful but awake or half-awake the majority of the time. I am beginning to wonder, quite frankly, if this is just another affect of getting older; the inability to sleep deeply every night. Yesterday I wasn’t as tired as I feared I would be, which actually was kind of nice, and I do think this will be the case this morning too. I intend to go to the gym this evening for a workout with weights after work–so being tired will not be helpful in the least. Maybe that will put me into a deep sleep tonight.

Maybe it won’t–which is more likely.

We watched two more episodes of The Capture last night on Peacock, which is incredibly good. I still have absolutely no clue what’s going on, but the suspense is so ratcheted up that I cannot wait to get home tonight so we can finish watching it. I want to start reading Laurie R. King’s A Monstrous Regiment of Women, the second in her Mary Russell series, but focus is so important when reading and what little focus I have these days really needs to be spend on the revision of Bury Me in Shadows, which needs to be finished by the end of the month–so time is running out on me, as always. I was thinking about how I reacted to rereading the manuscript with an eye to edits last weekend, and how I always am enormously dissatisfied with the final product when it is released. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of every book I’ve written, as each represents surmounting a struggle of some sort in some way, and finishing and publishing a novel is always an accomplishment, regardless of how it turned out in the end. I was dissecting this in my head last night while I was making tacos for dinner (nachos for Paul); my strengths are premises, titles, and character–but inevitably whenever I start writing a book most of the time I don’t know how it’s going to end. I try to figure out how to end a book before I start writing it–but on the rare occasions when I have figured out the end beforehand, I question that as I write and inevitably change my mind at least once, if not twice, and as a result, I never am completely confident in my endings. Adding to the neuroses in my brain, the last few chapters of a book generally don’t get as much attention as earlier chapters, either, which makes my insecurity even worse.

I really do wish I could slap my first creative writing teacher across the face for doing such a number on me that it has lasted all these years. FUCKER.

Then again, he typed smugly, I’m about thirty-six novels, five novellas, and fifty short stories into my career; he’s still unpublished, forty years later. So, there’s that…and the fact I never forget a grudge.

I’ve also been toying with some 1970’s research in my spare moments–looking up things and trying to remember things from my tween years–like “sissy bars” (and no, it’s not a bar for effeminate gay men, though it is a great name for a gay bar). I remembered “sissy bars” as being the high bar on boys’ bicycles that girls’ bikes didn’t have back then; turns out it’s actually the back bar at the end of a bike that the passenger behind the driver/rider can lean back on for balance. (I still remember it the other way; and that other bar doesn’t seem to have a name, which is weird.) I’ve been wanting to write about the early 1970’s in the Chicago suburbs for quite some time–I have an idea based on a murder that happened in our suburb when I was a freshman in high school, You’re No Good, which could be a lot of fun to work on and write–and my main character from Lake Thirteen (Scotty?) was from that same fictional suburb…which leads me back into that weird Greg Universe where all of my books are somehow connected, between New Orleans, Alabama, Chicago and it’s suburbs, California, and Kansas–which I completely forgot that I was doing. (Aside: Bury Me in Shadows is set in Corinth County; which is where the main character in Dark Tide was also from; where I set the story “Smalltown Boy”; and where Frank and Scotty’s nephew Taylor is from, making his first appearance in Baton Rouge Bingo.) But the early 1970’s was an interesting and somewhat volatile time, between Vietnam, the economic crisis, and Watergate; where television gave us stuff like The Partridge Family and Love, American Style and horrible variety shows; when the post World War II economic boom in the United States was beginning to crumble and fade away; when Top 40 radio ruled the AM channels and everything was still on vinyl or eight-track tapes, before cable television and 24 hour news and no Internet or cell phones. But… as I mentioned earlier, while I have a great premise and a terrific title, I don’t know the story or how it ends…but that won’t stop me from obsessively researching the period.

And on that note, tis time to head back into the spice mines. Have a great day Constant Reader!

Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing

I had a great workout this morning; the first time in a long time I can say that. Usually, I am so tired and brain-dead I just go through the motions, whining, but this morning, after some good sleep, I was wide awake and rarin’ to go, and also enjoyed it for the first time in a long time.  I didn’t sleep well Monday night; never fully going to sleep, spent most of the night in that horrible half-awake state, and was exhausted all day yesterday, which was a long work day for me culminating in a late night of bar testing. I also had trouble falling asleep last night, but I think I wound up with about five full hours of deep, restful sleep. I woke up before the alarm went off, but even that small amount of good sleep was what my body needed.

I don’t mind not getting eight hours, as long as I get some good sleep.

I was so tired yesterday I couldn’t focus, so of course, got nothing done that I needed to get done. That always sucks, of course, but I am hoping that with the rest, and the endorphin rush I have from working out, that I’ll be able to plough through a lot of things today. I want to finish reading Cleopatra’s Shadows, and then I am going to read Universal Harvester, by John Darnielle. I also am going to start restructuring the WIP, which is going to be probably an odious chore, but I am going to do that before I start the revision/editing process with it to get it ready. In an ideal world, it will be finished by the end of this month; in a realistic world more like the end of June. I also want to get the next draft of “Quiet Desperation” finished. (I have an idea for another story I’d like to get started, “In Lieu of Flowers”, so the sooner I can get the one finished, the sooner I can start working on the new one.)

I’m also thinking about the next book I want to write. I know, it’s crazy to start thinking about the next book I want to write while I am still working on the current WIP, but there are two I am toying with in my head–one would be called Girl X, the other You’re No Good–and I’ve had these ideas floating around in my head for quite some time now. (There are always lots of ideas percolating in my head at any time, in case you haven’t noticed by now.) So I am just going to brainstorm those whenever I get stuck on something else I am writing; both are, ironically, stories about the relationships between mothers and daughters–which is odd, since I am neither. But hey, what can I say?

Well, here’s a hump day hunk for you.

hump day hunk