And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born
Then, it’s time to go
And you find your destination with so many different places to call home
Those are lyrics from “You Are A Tourist,” a song from alternative rock band Death Cab for Cutie. It’s from their 2011 album Codes and Keys, and it’s quite possibly one of my favorite songs of this decade. Easily in the top ten.
The song has been in my head since this past weekend. My friend Stacey (featured in Greece 1 and Greece 2) was in town from Los Angeles. We spent the weekend dining, browsing (and shopping) in local spots, taking a French Quarter ghost tour, and marveling at New Orleans’ holiday decorations. That last part—the holiday part—is something I almost never do. More than anything, that might be what had me feeling like a tourist. It was fun!
Pictured at the top of this post is something that caught my eye at the Roosevelt Hotel in the French Quarter. This hotel always does an amazing holiday array, and the lights really set off this statue. It’s called the “Mystery Lady Timepiece,” and its nameplate indicates it was displayed at the Paris Exhibitions of 1867 and 1878.
Concluding with those opening lyrics, for a few days, I did feel like a tourist in the city where I was born. And at earlier times in my life, I definitely felt (and answered) the call to “go,” finding different destinations to call home. But I realize now, writing is the journey that calls to me. The different destinations exist only in my mind’s eye, and it’s up to me to bring them to fruition.
Who knows. . .the “Mystery Lady” seems like she might have an interesting story. What has she witnessed between Paris in 1867 and New Orleans in 2018? Enquiring minds want to know. . .
I have a heckuva lot to be grateful for. I try to remain mindful of that fact every day of the year, not just when I’m staring down the barrel of Thanksgiving.
Perusing my post history in this space, to see what I’ve written for the other three Thanksgiving Eves I’ve passed while writing this blog, I was a bit disappointed in myself. While I remembered my first: I’m Thankful for Godzilla, I could not recall the other two. That’s because I didn’t mark the approach of Thanksgiving in the past two years. Shame on me.
Last year, I wrote about attending the Texas Renaissance Festival; and the year before that, it was George Gershwin. Hopefully, my gratitude for spending time with family in Texas; and my appreciation of the contributions George and Ira Gershwin made to the world of music, were apparent, and sufficed as an expression of my thankfulness.
Now, into my third year of being published, and closing in on nine years since I first decided to give this fiction writing thing a go, it seems its high time to express some gratitude.
Especially for last night. I held a launch event for my second novel, The Trouble on Highway One, at the Garden District Book Shop on Prytania Street in New Orleans. I don’t think I can express sufficient appreciation—for everyone who came, for the good folks at the Garden District Book Shop, for all the kind words I received.
Becoming a published fiction writer—and the effort to reach out to new readers, in the hopes of offering something of value (entertainment, escape, anything)—has meant a personal stretch outside my comfort zone. In a big way. I am profoundly grateful for the reception I’ve received as I’ve entered this brave new world.
Funny how life follows the seasons. Right now, it feels like the harvest for me. Several seeds, some sown years ago, are coming to fruition.
First: my novel, The Trouble on Highway One, is available for pre-sale on Amazon. Release date is October 30. This is the second story in the Traiteur Trilogy, featuring the protagonist Lacey Becnel as she struggles to understand and utilize her supernatural healing powers.
This is the seed that was planted a long time ago. I began writing it after the first story, The Incident Under the Overpass, was drafted, but not yet published. So it’s been a long road. (A long highway?) I had to mention it first, lest Husband Tim accuse me of “burying the lead.” (Which he does from time to time).
Second: I have an installment in OUTSIDE IN TAKES A STAB: 139 New Perspectives on 139 Buffy Stories by 139 Writers. This is an anthology on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and my essay covers “The Dark Age” episode. My piece begins with the sentence, “I hate vampires.” I know certain members of my family will read that, and immediately follow it up with Anakin Skywalker’s whiny soliloquy on sand from Attack of the Clones. (A not-so-inside joke for anyone familiar with the “I hate sand” meme.) OUTSIDE IN TAKES A STAB is available for pre-order, currently scheduled to release November 2.
And finally: an excerpt from my short story, “Lucky Eight,” will appear in the upcoming Louisiana’s Emerging Writers publication. It’s set to publish October 23, and should be available for pre-order from Z Publishing within the next week or so.
Emerging, indeed! Feels pretty good, I have to admit. 🙂
I had the good fortune to spend this past weekend at the beach. I read, stuck my feet in the surf, explored a little bit, and otherwise contemplated some of the more lovely aspects of life on this Earth.
My first morning there, watching the sunrise, the word “inexorable” occurred to me. There was the eastern sky, growing brighter, gradually. I knew nothing was going to stop the march of lightness entering my particular part of the world. Or, if something did, it would mean bad news for more people than just me. (7.6 billion more people, really).
It seems the word is more often used to describe human actions or ideas. Dictionary.com offers this definition–unyielding; unalterable: inexorable truth; inexorable justice. Not to be persuaded, moved, or affected by prayers or entreaties: an inexorable creditor. Merriam-Webster offers a similar definition, with the example inexorable progress.
And, don’t get me wrong…I’m not praying for or entreating the sun not to rise. It’s definitely a positive, and the alternative, as I intimated above, would not be.
It has more to do with this: I’m feeling time’s inexorable march most acutely these days. And I’m not talking about my aging body, or middle age. Not first and foremost, at least. No, top of mind is my productivity, and my desire to get more done in a 24-hour-period than I seem to be able to.
I’m in the throes of final edits on my second novel, and also drafting my third novel, and neither is happening as fast as I would like. Granted, my deadlines are all self-imposed, but I imposed them for a reason. Without the threat of an inexorable deadline, I’m sure I’d find a way to drag this work out over countless more sunrises and sunsets.
Back to the inexorable sunrise: it rose through a curtain of rain on the second morning, so I opted to sleep in and stay dry. My final day, conditions were favorable for a leisurely repeat viewing. It just so happened that I snapped a photo with the same exact time stamp as forty-eight hours earlier: 6:13 am.
And it occurred to me that sometimes a little perspective is all that’s needed to lighten the crush of inexorability. Because the sun doesn’t truly rise and set. The Flaming Lips sang it best: “You realize the sun doesn’t go down / It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.”
Last weekend, I took a break from my City Park wanderings and attended “Signing in the South,” a meet-and-greet event matching up more than thirty local authors (myself included) with readers. Many, many thanks go to author Taylor Anne for launching this inaugural event. It was wonderful! I met new readers, handed out nearly all the bookmarks I had promoting my soon-to-be-relaunched novel, and met some other writers face-to-face. I definitely plan to reach out to these authors in the future.
And, not only was the weekend a nice boost to my career as a fiction writer, it also turned out to be a really fun and memorable road trip. Niece Nicole and Niece Cece accompanied me on the three-hour drive to Lake Charles, Louisiana. “Signing in the South” took place there, at the Isle of Capri Hotel and Casino. I feel really blessed to share so many interests with the younglings in my family. Not only does it make communication easier, it makes for a lot of good times. And since these two particular younglings are in their twenties, we could go about the casino at will.
A few memories from our time in Lake Charles:
This is where the gambling took place. I was the only one to partake. I lost $4.75.Nicole observed that the carpet looked like the Cephalopods’ language in the movie “Arrival.” What’s the message here?On our way home, we stopped for boudin balls in Iowa, Louisiana. Trust me, they’re delicious!
Later this afternoon, I’ll return home to New Orleans from Orlando. I’ve been here since Sunday, attending the Society for Technical Communication’s annual Summit.
I’ve traveled quite a bit in the last thirty days (Los Angeles, New York, plus a few local trips I’ll get to shortly). One remarkable thing is that only this last bit of travel, to Florida, has been for my day job. That’s certainly a departure from years past.
And in another departure, this travel hasn’t been for a trade show. Which leads me to something I’ve meant to mention in this space earlier, but I don’t think I have yet. I’ve moved out of the marketing department and onto a new challenge with the company who’s been good enough to employ me for the past eleven years. I’ve been learning the ropes of technical writing, which is a change that suits me just fine.
Communication has been the focus the past three days at this conference — the 65th version of this meet-up! It’s been eye-opening and very educational. Part of me regrets that it’s taken me so long in my career to turn in this direction; but there’s another part of me that feels like now is just the right time to get involved. There’s been so much change — just in the past few years or so — in how we communicate as a society.
I’ve been thinking of the term “the medium is the message.” When Canadian intellectual Marshall McLuhan coined that phrase back in 1964, was there any way he could have possibly envisioned the vast proliferation of mediums that exist today?
What it all seems to boil down to is this: I don’t need to craft a different message for every different form of media I use. I just need to be clear enough in what I want to say, and fluent enough in the nuances of the different media, to be able to “translate” the message into all its appropriate forms.
Therein lies the rub.
And this doesn’t seem clear at all, but I mentioned above some local trips I made recently. Far be it from me to leave that dangling. In the span of about 24 hours, I made round trips to the following southern Louisiana towns: Baton Rouge, LaPlace, and Ponchatoula. And when that was all done, I flew to Orlando.
In the interest of concise communication, I’ve edited out the reasons for those three local trips, and the incontrovertible timing each bore. If my life were a fiction, I’d try to work in some theme about how the main character (me!) likes to travel, and likes to write, and likes to think about communication. But when they all happen at once, some major conflagration happens, the m.c. overcomes the conflict, and everyone is significantly changed at the end of it all.
But thankfully, my life isn’t a fiction. So I’ll just conclude by saying that I’m very grateful for all the opportunities that have been laid before me these past thirty days, opportunities to do things I find fulfilling. But I’ll also be very glad to get home, stay in one spot, and enjoy the silence for a little while.
While the title of this post could refer to some daily happenings in my life, it doesn’t. It’s the title of a science fiction anthology, where my stories have had the privilege of appearing. The fourth issue is available now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CHCXPQQ
“The Holo-Spa,” a story I penned last year, is included in this issue. A few notable things about “The Holo-Spa”:
It’s the first piece of fiction I’ve written (in recent memory) in the first person
First “person” POV is kinda stretching it, because it’s written from the POV of a plasma-energy-type-of-being
I’d like to give a big shout-out to Michael Alter (on Twitter: @Michael_S_Alter ), the writer and editor behind Just A Minor Malfunction. This is my third time working with him, and it’s always a pleasure. His dedication and vision regarding this anthology are worthy of emulation, and his editorial feedback is always top-notch.
You know, every day of my writing life, giving up is always an option. An option that’s a little too close for comfort. It would be so easy to give in to the annoying internal voice that asks me why I’m pouring so much of myself into an effort that yields absolutely no immediate results. (That part of me always looking for the easy button). Working with other writers like Michael, and having my stories included in an anthology like JAMM, are a real power boost that help me play the long game.
After all, I never paid much attention to my “easy button” voice anyway, (even when I probably should have!)
In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
I looked up the source of this quote in the process of writing this post. Certain aspects of its context are pretty interesting. Certain things I’d forgotten, or might have not even known in the first place, like:
It’s commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, from a letter he wrote to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789
The phrase actually appeared at least twice before, earlier in the 18th century, in Daniel Defoe’s The Political History of the Devil (1726) and in The Cobbler of Preston by Christopher Bullock (1716)
Ben Franklin’s quote is in reference to the newly-minted U.S. Constitution
That last bit is particularly interesting, considering that tax issues were one of the chief reasons we wound up creating a constitution of our own in the first place. Here’s the full quote, as I found it on Google:
“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
And as an aside, I’m afraid to look up The Political History of the Devil, because I’m thinking it might be the thickest book in history.
Anyway, as much as I’d like to say I spent the better part of this past weekend writing, I can’t, because I was finishing up our 2017 U.S. income tax return (and the corresponding Louisiana state return). I have filed my own tax returns for as long as I can remember, for as long as I’ve had to file taxes, really. Back when a 1040EZ did the trick, and loooong before TurboTax or any similar tax software existed.
I feel compelled to write about taxes because, just as they are as certain as death, they place me in a certain firmament as a WRITER. This is my third year claiming “writing” as a sideline business on my return. While I know that this is more than a hobby, proclaiming it as a business with the U.S. government REALLY puts it on record.
But I don’t go through this rather laborious exercise purely out of an effort to “force” my legitimacy as a writer. That would definitely not be worth the effort. It really goes more toward intent. I intend to, one day, make some kind of living as a fiction writer. And I intend to, one day, make enough that I would have to pay taxes on the proceeds.
I’m not at that point yet.
Fiction writing has been a loss leader for these past three years I’ve claimed it on my return. And I fully expect it will continue that way for at least a few more years. It’s one of those things I remember from getting my Minor (in Marketing) from Arizona’s school of business. To expect a new business to operate at a loss for at least five years. At least, I hope I’m remembering that correctly.
I’m more than halfway through that five-year period, and I’m starting to get a little nervous. What if it takes more than five years to show some decent proceeds? Who keeps track of these things? Will the IRS send me a letter, telling me to “get on the stick” and get after this writing thing? (Although it’s more likely they’ll send me a letter with something like a-u-d-i-t in there somewhere).
I know I can’t be the only person to face this quandary. Writing as a profession—and taxes—have been around a very long time. So the bigger question is: what did Ben Franklin do? Or Daniel Defoe or Christopher Bullock, for that matter? And the biggest question of all: how the heck did they do it without TurboTax?
So, I’ll be making some changes to this website over the coming months. . .nothing major, essentially, just getting it ready for the launch of my second novel by late summer/early fall. Well, I don’t think it will look like anything major to visitors, but it’s minorly major to me. I’m trying to put some thought into the changes, improve the site’s searchability, and give the folks who’ve never heard of me (so, read: most folks, everywhere) some idea of what I’m about.
This website will turn three years old this summer. It’s no longer a start-up. And marketing habits die hard. While my day job is no longer in the day-to-day business of marketing, it’s still heavy in the communications arena. And I feel like some of the communicative elements here are getting stale.
What I’m getting at is, in marketing parlance, I’m saying it’s high time for this website to undergo a “branding refresh.”
For all things branding, once again, I turned to Sally Hogshead, creator of the “Fascination Advantage.” This is a personality assessment that’s supposed to help you figure out how everyone sees you (or your “brand”) when you’re at your best. I signed up for her “One Hour Personal Brand” workshop. (The fee was very reasonable. I’ve certainly spent a lot stupider money on less productive exercises trying to help me figure out what the world thinks of me.)
So far, the workshop is telling me I need to come up with an “anthem.” Her definition of anthem is “a tagline to describe myself,” or “my personal brand.” You can see the tagline I’ve been using these past three years, right at the top of this page. “Fiction writer. Yippee ki yay.”
I’m not so sure I’m ready to lose the “Yippee ki yay” part. Jury’s still out on that, even though the people who performed the search optimization audit on the site (a different company, in no way affiliated with Sally Hogshead) said something about how “it doesn’t add anything to search.” I wanted to respond back “oh yeah, but it says a lot about me, mutha somethin,” but I didn’t. ‘Cause, yeah, as an aside, I paid this company more than twice what I paid for the One Hour Personal Brand, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to deliver the audit. About two months later than they promised.
Anyway, I’m very ready to refine the “Fiction writer” part. I’d like to replace it with “Unexpected stories.” I could make that my anthem: “I write unexpected stories.” But there’s something holding me back from using that phrase, which I’ll get to in a bit.
This is how I came up with “Unexpected stories:” the One Hour Personal Brand workshop told me to come up with an adjective from my Fascination profile, and pair it with a noun. The noun I’d really like to use is “stories.” Stories feels like the most appropriate word tying my long and short form works together. (Another aside, I have a short story that should publish later this month, in the sci-fi anthology Just A Minor Malfunction #4.)
Here’s why I like “unexpected” best: not only does it seem like a good descriptor for the paranormal and sci-fi themes in what I write, it also feels right for my fiction writing career. I think I always expected I would be doing this some day. . .but the rest of the folks in my world? Not so much.
But finally, here’s why I’m reluctant to forge ahead with a brand new “unexpected stories” tagline: it’s also the title of a collection of Octavia Butler’s short stories, published posthumously just a few years ago. Would using it usurp any of the rightful praise due this Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author? The first speculative fiction writer to win a MacArthur “genius grant?” Or would using it honor her?
On Monday, I had the amazing opportunity to attend presentations at the FBI field office in New Orleans. Many thanks to the New Orleans chapter of Sisters in Crime for arranging this outing for its members. Sisters in Crime is a national organization offering networking, advice and support to mystery authors. (While I wouldn’t qualify myself as a “mystery author,” I certainly seek to incorporate elements of mystery into my stories. My membership in this group has proven very worthwhile).
Having never been in any real trouble with the law, my impression of the FBI is mostly formed from movies. So, of course I’ve had Hans Gruber’s aforementioned quote from Die Hard going through my head as I attempt to write this piece. And then there’s also Agent Kay from Men in Black, when he’s posing as an FBI agent: “We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we’re aware of.”
Entering the FBI field office was certainly serious business. We had to pass a limited background check in order to access the facility. And as the picture above shows, you can’t just waltz through the front door once you’ve been approved. We had to sign in at a guard gate, and then we were escorted by private security to the front door, where “Federal Bureau of Investigation” appears etched in invisible ink around the arch. You can barely make it out in the picture—which is, by the way, the only one I have, because we were not allowed to bring cell phones or any electronics into the field office.
Once inside, we were escorted by the community liaison to the “Old Case Files” room, where we were greeted by the Special Agent in Charge, Eric Rommal. He explained a little bit of how the FBI is organized around the country. The largest offices are in New York and Washington, D.C.; but they each cover a relatively small geographic area. New York covers the five boroughs, and Washington the D.C. metro area. By comparison, the New Orleans office covers the entire state of Louisiana.
After the SAC’s introduction, the newly-appointed Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) from the local Cyber division presented a case study on the investigation into some criminals, who stole about $100,000 by hacking into and assuming someone’s personal email address.
Later, when it was time for a bathroom break, I got a glimpse into why there was so much pre-screening before the FBI just let anyone into their facility. We had to be escorted to the toilets, too—right past an open door with “Gun Vault” marked alongside the door frame. I could see a line of rifles—I think they were rifles, I’m no gun expert—secured against the wall inside.
Our final presentation in the “Old Case Files” room was from the SSA of New Orleans’s Counterintelligence division. He played a lead role in the investigation of Tai Shen Kuo, a New Orleans resident who was convicted of spying for China. The case has been declassified, so SSA Bob Thibault was able to present a fascinating, first-hand account of all the cool, espionage-y details. My imagination was definitely sparked.
Finally, before we left, we received a quick demonstration of FATS, a firearms training simulator. It was a sobering look into the use of deadly force, and how every single time it boils down to a judgement call on the part of law enforcement.
It was pretty phenomenal to get a look inside an institution as public, in-the-glaring-spotlight/news-every-day-kinda-public, as the FBI. They’ve been at this for over a century! In the few hours I spent in the New Orleans office, I got a sense of earnest people, just trying to do their jobs, protecting honest folks from bad actors. Sorry, Hans, that may not be miraculous, but I’m grateful people remain willing to do the job, just the same.
Anne McClane 