Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 10

It's a Universal Law...

My writing is a pier jutting out into the ocean, and typos are the fucking fish beneath it, there but unseen...until they're caught...

I uploaded the text and cover for A Place of Safety (vol. 3) Home Not Home, and all went fine. The only hiccup was I had to do a reload when Ingram's site went a bit wonky, but that took care of the issue.

Then I went onto Bowker to update the assignment of the paperbacks' ISBNs so they can go into Books in Print...and started thinking I might have misspelled McGabbhinn in the text of the book. So I went back in and did a Find, to check...and sure enough, I did. Twice.

Shit.

Now that it's uploaded, I can't change it until I get the e-proof. Then I'll have to reject it and upload the corrected pdf. Which puts me behind, a bit...but better to notice now than if it's already been printed.

Now, of course, I'm wondering if I did the same thing in the hardback text and the ebook. Both of which are on an external drive that I have to dig up and plug in and deal with. TBH, I'm nervous about checking that because it will cost me more money if I correct the hardback text. So still thinking.

It's really not all that big a deal, I guess. If I did go in and update them, I'd need to do all the typos and I didn't keep track of them. So I'd have to go through the books, again. Which makes me feel like an uptight freak. It doesn't matter in the telling of the story. Or does it...?

God, I don't know! I feel like such an idiot...because I'm pretty damned sure these typos were made after I'd had the book proofed and I made some changes.

My first protest...

I went to a No Kings protest in Tonawanda, a suburb of Buffalo, and stood on a sidewalk holding a sign that said No King in America that I'd made myself. It was a busy intersection by Boulevard Mall, and cars were whipping past, most honking for us, some drivers flipping us off.

There were a few pro-Felon47 cretins across the street from us, but we outnumbered them at about 100 to 1. It was a lovely day, still I should have brought an umbrella for shade. I positioned my sign in such a way as to provide cover for my head, which grew tiring holding it up that high.

The crowd was very joyous and unwilling to be brought down in any way. And I managed to make it through without needing to pee till after it was done. What's nice is, my car was two blocks away and a Wegman's was close by so I could have something to eat and relax.

I'm now back to going through APoS-HNH and will upload it to Ingram, tomorrow. I hope to get an online proof by Tuesday, since I'll be off to Seattle early Wednesday morning. But once this is done...once I have a physical copy of the book in hand...it will be completed and all that comes now is getting it read.

I whine about the money I've put into it, and having APoS be a best-seller would be nice, but what matters most is people read the books. That's what will make it worthwhile.

Shift focus...

I got the file for the cover of A Place of Safety-Home Not Home and it looks great. So I went into the Word doc of the text to make sure everything was set...and found a fucking typo. Those things are out to get me.

A bit of dialogue did not have a quotation mark at the end of it. So being paranoid me, I'm reading the book at 200% size and verifying nothing more is there...and did find a word that should have been deleted. That, however, was in a bit of dialogue by Brendan's mother so almost seemed to be deliberate, to emphasize the confusion in her drug-addled mind. Except it wasn't. So it's out.

So...I'm through page 130 of the book and so far that's it. Still I'm not uploading it until I've rechecked every page that I've rechecked and had proofed. Then the fucking typos will have to really be sneaky.

Which I'm sure they will be. It's a law that when I get the physical copy of the book I find at least one typo still in it.

I'll be back on it a bit late, tomorrow. I'm attending a demonstration for No Kings over by Boulevard Mall for a couple hours. It's not enough just to fight the growing fascism in this country online; sometimes you have to show up in person.

I'm not changing the text in the hardcover or ebook. I'm already thousands of dollars into publishing and promoting this novel...and I just can't afford it. I can barely handle the coming costs of two packing jobs in the second half of this month...not to mention two specialist doctor visits. 

June's turned into a work of madness...

My usual thing...

I'm rewriting and rewriting the first section of this new book. Current title still being Dyarvos and the Cannibal Queer. I'm acting as if it's on the level of Les Miserables or A Tale of Two Cities.
I'm clarifying how Dirc gets started in his escapades and setting up what's to come in the later parts. Very, very important.

I may offer it up like I was doing with Blood Angel, in short bits on Smashwords...which is now D2D. But there's no guarantee they will accept it. I've already had one run-in with them when I tried to set up Carli's Kills as a paperback through their system...and they turned it down.

Can't say they were being homophobic; it's very heterosexual...but also very violent. Which surprised me. Straight people love the ultra-violence. I guess they didn't like a woman in control of the death and destruction instead of a man...or maybe they were upset she castrated some of them. You never know.

Of course, I actually have two women doing the violence thing, one being Carli, the other being the Sheriff. The bitch who initiates the situation that brings about so much death dies in the first chapter.

Maybe that's what upset them. She's just finished fucking her married boyfriend when she gets pushed off of a 25th story balcony, naked, and crashes to the pool area. I wonder if the nude death offended their delicate sensibilities?

Kirkus Review for APoS-Home Not Home

APoS-HNH preview of coverI'm not displeased or unhappy with this review. Overall, it's very positive and has some quotable statements to use.

In Sullivan’s historical novel, a young Irishman flees the violence of his native land for America but returns years later tosee his dying mother on a trip fraught with danger.

Brendan Kinsella grows up in Derry, Ireland, during the tumultuous years of the Troubles and does his best to avoid theacrimonious partisanship despite his mother’s rabid nationalism and his father’s likely ties to the IRA. Nevertheless, he isdrawn into the fray, and after he is involved in a bombing gone wrong that nearly kills him, he escapes to Houston, Texas,to begin a new life under the assumed name Brennan McGabbhinn.

When he discovers that his mother is soon to die fromcancer, he comes home to see her, traveling under yet another alias borrowed from a friend—Jeremy Landau, a JewishAmerican conducting academic research. Brendan, who was 16 years old when he left, now returns to a “city of ghosts”eight years later—“eight bloody fucking years of death and destruction”—in a grim homecoming powerfully described bythe author in this emotionally piercing novel. Brendan’s siblings don’t even know he’s alive (his bother Eamonn is in prisonfor his work against the British), and his mother receives him with an icy coldness, still embittered because he neverwholeheartedly joined the cause (a reluctance she interprets as “superior and condescendin’”).

Sullivan poignantly depictsBrennan’s immense psychic struggle—he is torn apart by the discovery that his murdered father might not have been whohe believed him to be, and that the girl he loved and presumed dead might still be alive. Moreover, he is still a hunted manin Derry, by both the Irish and the British.

The author brings the crackling volatility of the times to vivid life, especially theinfamous hunger strikes. Unfortunately, Sullivan’s prose can lose its luster when he turns, somewhat ponderously,philosophical: “We are born. We live an existence of meaning to ourselves, alone. We die. All else is illusion.” Still, this is amoving portrait of a tragic cycle of violence and the lives it consumes.

A historically exacting and dramatically arresting novel.

I do have to admit I'm a bit taken aback, because it's the first time I've ever had some of my writing referred to as ponderous. And he used something Brendan says in the last paragraph to make that comment.

I'm almost...damn, I am...I'm actually finding it charming.

Officially changed...

Draft2Digital, which owns Smashwords, has migrated all my ebooks to their new platform. I'm still navigating it because not one part of it is similar to what I had. So this will be fun.

I also am getting a new FB page, KMS Writes, going, through someone who knows how to do this, and this is my new banner. Which she came up with and I really like.

So here are the new e-book links for my mainstream books. The gay erotica I'll deal with, tomorrow.

A Place of Safety-vol 1-Derry

A Place of Safety-vol 2-New World For Old

A Place of Safety-vol 3-Home Not Home

Bobby Carapisi

The Alice '65

The Lyons' Den

The Vanishing of Owen Taylor

Carli's Kills

New title?

As I'm reworking this massive book about a man helping aliens set up an outer space restaurant where they can eat people, a possible new title popped up. Dyarvos and the Queer Cannibal. It's a bit goofy, and Dirc never actually dines on any man, but I can't say he doesn't eat guys because that would be a lie.

This book, as depraved as it is, gives me a respite from the chaos building in this country. Felon47 called out 2000 of the national guard to take over LA, bypassing Governor Newsom, even though it was unnecessary. Then Pretty Pete of the racist tatts, who heads defense, called in 500 marines from Camp Pendelton. So Felon47, not to be outdone, called in 2000 more national guard.

What's insane is, those two assholes aren't even providing supplies to the national guardsmen. No funding for food or shelter. They're sleeping on floors. It's completely unacceptable.

All this to take over a city that is resisting the Gestapo tactics of ICE. This is a deliberate escalation of violence meant to instill fear and uncertainty in the US population, and it's cheered on by the MAGAt Class. I don't see how it cannot lead to death and destruction.

Democrats are talking a lot about how wrong it is, and Newsom's filed a lawsuit against TACO to stop him, but that's been it in the way of political pushback. There is no more GOP, it's all MAGAt, so nothing to be expected from that group of cowards and whores.

All I can do is post about it, attend a demonstration on the 14th against this, hope that doesn't go wild, and focus on a book that not only talks casually about killing men for food but also rips into the government for its cruelty, corruption and collusion. There's violent non-con m/m sex in this, but also anger at how fucked up our system of justice is.

Which there is in all my gay books. Nothing new about that.

The Dyarvos Bones

I'm liking the new title and the story is coming together in a much smoother way than what I'd posted on GayDemon. Dirc is a bit snarkier but I need to punch that up. I'm not good with humor, but I'm trying...

I like this illustration by Moebius, who did some elegant work for Heavy Metal Magazine, back in the 70s and 80s. Sort of has the feel of Dyarvos' travels.

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It's funny. I called it the alien for lack of a better name...till we settled on calling it Dyarvos. Which I think sort of compares to U N Owen in its manner of communication.

Meaning, if you haven't figured it out by now, it was an ET, not some being from Satan's domain. Though it never did tell me where it’s from. Hell, it never actually told me anything. The way we communicated was, one of its whips would circle my head and tingle against my right temple, and then I knew whatever Dyarvos did, almost like I was remembering it as it remembered it.

While it had been on earth. More than that was blocked from my brain. The only other thing I knew was, it was neither male nor female; they didn't have that designation in their world.

It had developed some kind of trouble, I'm still not clear what. Earth was seen by its kind as sort of a pit-stop to go to if you needed food or fuel, both of which humans could provide. Like a 7/11. The problem was, it had crash-landed into the cave under the motel before it could send out an SOS for help, and it needed sustenance to begin rebuilding itself.

It had been lucky and caught a couple of hikers who were following the Manasseret Trail up into the hills. A trail that wasn't really popular because it was just rocks and desert. Not even pretty vistas as you went higher.

Those two were male, in their twenties, both indigenous. One with longish black hair, piercing eyes, golden skin and a fine physique. The other was more basic but still attractive, his hair longer, his face not as finely etched, and his body more average. He also had more hair on his chest, arms and legs than his compatriot.

They had camped on the hill above the cave, overlooking the old motel. No tent. Sleeping under the stars, fully clothed. Backpacks as pillows and no blanket. Really roughing it like real guys do.

Dyarvos had slipped up and wrapped its tentacles around them both. The pretty one had managed to get a knife out and cut a tentacle off, but the whips took full control of him.Both guys had been carried down to the entrance, but were struggling so hard they almost got free before they were in the ship. At first I thought Dyarvos hadn't worked out how to fully control them, yet, but then I realized it had simply been weakened by the wreck.

Long book...new title...

I've gone through 50 pages of what I've begun to call The Dyarvos Bones, up to the point where the alien and its ship abandon Dirc to the police. They leave behind a huge pile of bones that used to be human beings, stripped of all meat.

This flummoxes the legal system because they can't figure out how Dirc could do that. Instead, they decide to just ignore anything that doesn't fit with their narrative that he's a queer serial killer.

Dirc tells them about Dyarvos and is declared incompetent for trial...for now. Part Two picks up after he's been found guilty of multiple murders and sentenced to death. But he knows Dyarvos is returning with a business proposition so he's not too worried.

There's a total of 310 pages in this book. Works out to around 102,000 words. That's a bit long for a book of erotica; I may want to split it up. I'll think about that.

This may all be moot. I might not be able to publish it. It's far more sexually violent than any other book I've written, and a couple of them are not available through Amazon and Barns & Noble due to that. Even my heterosexual one, Carli's Kills has had issues.

The MAGAt Class is in the process of taking the country over, and Democrats are doing little more than protesting. Which Felon47 is calling rioting and all that bullshit. His coup on January 6th didn't succeed, but this one might.

Because LA had lots of protests, so he now has his excuse to call out the National guard, bypassing Gavin Newsom, and use them against demonstrators who were cursing the gestapo goons of ICE.

Someone's going to get killed in this deliberate chaos, but it won't be the fascists. They have military hardware and protection. All we have is our voices and ineffective leaders.

The Battle for Bogside was pretty chaotic, at the beginning. Residents just wanted to keep the Constabulary out of the area, and were doing it with rocks and petrol bombs. It wasn't till people like Bernadette Devlin came in and started organizing things that they proved to the Protestants they would not be taken down. Westminster had to send in the British Army to separate the sides.

Catholics won, for the moment, but then came thirty years of death and destruction. We may be aiming for that, here.

Dyarvos comes...

Worked out a name for the beast/creature/alien, finally, and kind of like it. As Dirc puts it...

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I was referring to it as the alien for lack of a better name. It never told me who or what it is, or where it’s from...though we did settle on calling it Dyarvos. Which I think sort of compares to Unknown in its manner of communication.

Meaning, if you haven't figured it out by now...it was an ET, not some being from hell.

Oh, and it wasn't possible for me to talk to it, nor it to me. The way we communicated was, one of its whips would circle my head and tingle against my right temple, and then I knew everything Dyarvos did. Almost like I was remembering it as it remembered it.While it had been on earth. More than that was blocked.

The only other thing I knew was, it was neither male nor female; they didn't have that designation in their world. So it wasn't interested in sex, except as a way of prepping its meal.

It had developed some kind of trouble, I'm still not clear what, and had crash-landed into the cave under the motel. Earth was seen by its kind as sort of a pit-stop to go to if you needed sustenance or fuel, both of which humans could provide.

The problem was, it hadn’t had the chance to grab anybody before it went down, and there were very few humans around in is area.It had been lucky and caught a couple of hikers who were following the Manasset Trail up into the hills. A trail that wasn't really popular because it was just rocks and desert. But that was nearly a year ago...and it had been hungry when it grabbed me and my pack.

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Dirc continues telling about how Dyarvos managed to survive and wasn't happy about the meals Dirc's friends made. It wanted to turn one of them into a familiar to provide it with more men but that wasn't working, either...until it happened to think about bringing Dead Dirc back to life. That made all the difference and turned him into an amoral monster.