Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 108

Are biorhythms still a thing?

I remember back many...many...years ago, Biorhythms was the big explanation for a lot of emotional issues and swings. It seemed to work well when I paid attention to it, but it sort of petered out, after a while. But sometimes I still think about it...and wonder if my general emotional status fluctuates according to that. Because right now I'm low on the scale, both realistically and according to their chart.

I got a filling replaced, this morning, at nearly double the cost of a cleaning visit, and it knocked me into self-recrimination mode. I've never been very good when it came to finances, and I've gotten myself into debt, like crazy. For a while, I was paying it down really well, but then Covid hit and my income dropped by 25%. Now I'm at a stage where my income is half what it was, pre-Covid, and crap expenses like this are making things worse.

Which cuts into my ability to focus on writing. I'm already very easily distracted, which is one reason I think I may be undiagnosed ADD (isn't that a 21st Century way of looking at things?), but I honestly cannot shift my concentration to where I can sit down and write, when I'm like this. I'll step up and mean to start...then get distracted by something dumb. And hours later, nothing's been done. And I feel worse.

None of which helps my negative mood from yesterday, which I why I'm wondering if maybe my emotional state was on a downswing and the dental costs just kicked that negativity into full control. I don't know. I just know it's stupid to get in twitter fights with people who don't matter to you, and spend hours trolling facebook pages for something to pay attention to.

What's sad is, I really want to finish CK. Get it done and out the door.. Problem is, the damn thing won't write or edit itself. And sadder? I really want to have Carli messing with Zeke. Have it as sexy as anything.

But there's a whole section of pretty guys on Tumblr that are way more important to look at than this...   

Love is love...

 

This image makes me happy, even though I've never had it for myself. My books are therapy meant to handle this lack. The reasons for it. The wish it had been a part of me. Joining with someone to face the world together instead of alone. The understanding that this was never possible in my life.
I have been unto myself it seems like forever...and sometimes it just makes me so tired. Weary. I think half the reason I'm writing Carli's Kills, right now, is to try and find that fuck you attitude of Carli's is somewhere within me, and it's not proving easy. I find myself continuing to drift back to the slow shift to decency and humanity, and that is not right for this story.
I'm so done with fighting for an HEA in a world that is nothing but fiction. Filled with people who really, honestly do not give a shit. And so...I'm going back through what I've written and digging to bring that attitude forth in the full story. And my biggest enemy to this is myself.
This is an issue I was having with A Place of Safety. Brendan is fighting to have a life unto himself and not be caught in the hate swirling around him...and finds that it's just not possible. There is no such thing as a safe place for humanity. Never was. It always will be a struggle.

And the older you get, the more it will affect you.

Carli's truth...

 Had a doctor's appointment, this morning, and en route realized why I was having trouble with CK. Carli's attitude slowly vanishes, and that can't happen. She starts off with a fuck you outlook, one she's had most of her life, but by the end she's like a romance novel heroine. Uh, no. No way. No how!

So I'm going through the story and bringing back her take no prisoners way of seeing things. Blunt and brutal and honest and dangerous. No second-guessing, anymore. No deep contemplations. She's already thought this all through and she's now in a battle...one she does not want to lose. 

She's still going to fall into a relationship with Zeke, and she does wind up loving him, but he's her trophy boy. She loves his lips and nips and hips...and that male appendage usually referred to as a dick. His tatts are nice, too. And all she wants from him is to stay with her, like he's her concu-boy. Alex Minsky is perfect for that.

I'm also thinking of working up a calendar of drawings for 2023. One for each of my books. Preliminary order:

January -- The Lyons' Den
February -- Porno Manifesto
March -- Perfection (a novella, but still worthy of a month)
April -- The Alice '65
May -- The Beast in the Nothing Room
June -- Underground Guy
July -- How to Rape a Straight Guy
August -- Hunter
September -- Rape in Holding Cell 6
October -- Bobby Carapisi
November -- The Vanishing of Owen Taylor
December -- Carli's Kills

Something evocative of each story, in line drawings like a coloring book. With a basic block form for the monthly calendar below them. Might prove interesting to do...

And time-consuming.

Dreams never die

I spent 30 years trying to kick-start a career as a screenwriter, getting nowhere. Some of my scripts won awards or placed high in screenplay competitions. I got requested by production companies. Even had an agent, for a while. And came to within a single decision as to whether or not a script of mine would get sold...and nothing ever did.

Seriously. I had a horror story set in Ireland, dealing with an ancient tale about harpies and human sacrifice, and had a director and a producer on board to shoot it in Ireland and Canada. It was one of my award-winners. But then it got to the guy who actually authorizes the projects' budgets, and despite having solid support, he tossed it aside. His reason? "We already got one movie to be shot in Ireland; I don't want another one."

That's the been the story throughout my screenwriting career. Close...but no cookie. I mean, I've made a little money writing scripts, but I've made a lot more with my self-published books. None of them are huge sellers; I'm too niche for that. But looking back at the last eight years of my book sales, all of them through my own imprint (KMSCB), this seems to be the direction I should always have gone.

Still, that hope...that dream of selling a script and getting it made is worked into my DNA. And while I wrote Porno Manifesto as my fuck you script, behind it was also the hope that it might break through. And once again, it was close but no cookie. I got it into Border2Border Productions, which focuses on gay material, and they said no thanks. I sent it into a few competitions and wound up a finalist in one; others are still pending.

Which kept the spark alive. The embers of hope glowing deep inside. I guess working in film is like a drug to an addict. You can quit but you will still always have the urge to return to it. And. it hurts me to admit that still is in me, even though I know it's impossible.

But the heart wants what it wants.

Nothing more to say, tonight...

 

Stepping back...

Sometimes you just need to let the world go and relax. After all I've done today, that is what I'm doing, tomorrow. I spent 4 hours prep costs for a potential pickup of archives to transfer to an institution, which included working out how best to prepare the boxes so they wouldn't be damaged in transit. Seems all the long-haul carriers have decimated their staffs and replaced them with cheaper labor that doesn't know how to work a forklift. Too many times they've arrived with tears in their sides from the prongs ripping across the boxes.

In the last year, I've had to take special care with transporting shipments by freight, packing them into containers, so even if a forklift does dig into it, the shipment is safe. I've also tried to set it up, as often as I can, where I just go pick the shipment up, myself and take it. But I can't do that with any that are over 40 bankers boxes, 30 18x14x12 boxes, or traveling over 450 miles. This one's out of that range, so...

I'm talking with the client, tomorrow, about some options and timing, then will need to complete a costing spreadsheet...after which I am done for the day. I will go outside in the snow and wander around, a bit. Maybe get a hoagie from a sandwich across the street. We'll see what happens.

I'm already getting ideas on how to make CK better in the rewrite. And I'm also thinking of doing a coloring book for each of my novels, where the images reflect a moment in the story. I've now got 12 novels...no...13, with APoS, since it's in 3rd draft. 15 if I count parts 2 and 3 as separate from it, since they're in 2nd draft. And am close to 16, with Dair's Window.

Looks like my aspirations are outrunning my abilities, at the moment.

Carli's Kills is done in first draft

The last act is still a mess, mainly because the ending was not what I expected, but it's completed. For now. Just under 74,000 words. A bit all over the place in tone and structure. But Carli remains a kick-ass, straight through. Does not back down. And Zeke stays the designated innocent who's also a sex object.

I celebrated by watching No Time to Die. As I ironed. I bought the DVD to add to the 4 previous Daniel Craig Bonds, and because it's nearly 3 hours long so I can't watch it in the theater. Even without drinking anything, my need to pee will come screaming at me at the 2-2 1/2 hour mark, and I hate leaving movies in the middle, for that.

It wasn't the best of the Bonds. Not the best of villains, either. Almost a rehash of Dr. No. A few times things happened because they had to happen to keep things moving, not because they worked in the story or even the story's reality. And I always thought it took more than just a strand of hair to replicate someone's DNA, that you needed the root.

However, Daniel Craig has made an excellent Bond. Not just from a physical level, but also emotional. He's still got some quips, but he's also scarred, within...and he's got the chops to carry it off.

One fun aspect? One of the villains looked a lot like Madison Cawthorn. I doubt it was deliberate since so much of this was shot before that psychotic little twerp was even elected, but it's a smile.

I'm taking a beak from writing, tomorrow, to start prepping a job in Newport, RI and maybe one in Nyack, NY...which apparently is the home of Edward hopper. They have a little museum there. If I get a chance, I'd like to swing by...but it all depends; that one may not even happen.

And now, for a while, it's nothing but reading up on A Place of Safety.

2022

Not an auspicious beginning to the new year. Carli's Kills is still in progress towards a first draft, but I'm at a point where I have absolutely no idea how this will turn out. My original screenplay is barely visible in the book adaptation. Except for Zeke and Carli. The others keep shifting shapes and positions and I just know I'm going to turn out a piece of shit. Meaningless twaddle that thinks it's earth-shattering. Gag.

My initial intention was to write a book with a strong female character who uses men for sex and relies on herself for everything else...something fun for a read by the pool or on the beach. But it's turning into a story about abandonment, both physical and emotional, and the weight of it is growing in my limited brain. Why? WHY?!?!?!

A Place of Safety is waiting for me to get over myself with CK and get the damn thing done so I can return to it. At the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky if I get this book written by the time I reach Betty White's age. If. No guarantees on that.

A dozen other stories are standing in line waiting their turn to make my life miserable and magnificent. I suppose that's the lot of a writer. Unfortunately, I have very little self-discipline. Maybe I'll try drinking to see if that gives me focus enough.

I do wonder, sometimes, if I'm dyslexic or have ADD. Looking back, I can see a decades long path of projects started and never finished because I lost all interest in them or felt like I couldn't do them perfectly, so why bother kind of crap. It's not something new, at least. It's just more obvious, now that I'm older.

And more than a little paranoid, what with my body out of warranty and beginning to be problematic.

No writing talk...

I'm trying to figure out a plan for the coming year, and not doing too well. I don't want to keep doing what I've been doing...writing in fits and starts while sitting around at home fucking around on the internet...but I'm sort of caught in this stasis where I just can't decide what to do or, if I do think I've decided, get myself to do it. I'm about as weird as it can get, sometimes.

It's become a chore for me to leave the apartment unless I have to, like for a job or doctor's appointment or to get my car looked at, even though I barely drive it now. I even have to talk myself into grocery shopping. Okay, I'm out of DDP and low on milk...so I have to hit the store. Dammit. I guess I should get some food to fix, too...

Can one develop agoraphobia out of habit? I've always been prone to anti-social behavior, which was excused as me being shy...but in focusing on trying to get past it I've found myself locking down when I go too far. And I'm remembering times in the past when I've flat out frozen in place when faced with something I wasn't prepped for.

Like this one occasion when I was in Grad School at UT-Austin...40 years ago. I was taking classes with Edward Dmytryk. He'd directed a host of Hollywood films and was one of the Hollywood 10 who were jailed by HUAC for not naming names. He was taking us through the process of directing a film...a short one, with him at the helm...and I was art director. I got everything together that he wanted and was all set, but one of the characters in the film needed to have tattoos. And since I was the artist of the group, it was up to me to do.

I was all set. Had the designs prepped. I did one tattoo on a female actor's shoulder, another on a guy's bicep. But this one male actor pulled his pants leg up for me to do one on his calf...and I froze. BAM. Couldn't do it. At all. And I have no idea why. Another crew member had to.

There have been other occasions when this has happened, and I cannot find a consistency to them. But they do seem to be more frequent now. Sometimes I can't even get myself to go for a simple walk without a long battle within myself. It's like I get writer's block in my own life.

So I'd like for that to end, in 2022. How? I have no idea, short of getting psychiatric help or a lobotomy. But even that's not promising. I'm just an old man caught in his habits and uncertainty...and sometimes that messes with my writing.

Hard to stop what you know is happening when you don't know why.

Introducing Zeke...

Building Zeke for the story after Carli kills Grady...this is Chapter 5 AKA: "Word Spreads Like Buttah"

Cantina Madriza opened for business at 6pm. The first hour was usually fairy quiet, so Rhonda would make sure all the tables and booths were clean and the pool equipment in place while Zeke checked stock and went online to put in orders for whatever was getting low. Big, bad, boss Dax was insistent about maintaining a certain level of stock, especially in beer. Hell, they had almost enough for a brewery, even though the only place they had to store it was in a cave directly under the bar. Of course, that was accessible by a trap door and a very steep ladder...unless one chose to take a half-mile trek to a very narrow passageway that led from the cave to between the rocks. While climbing with one leg wasn't exactly his strong suit, neither was walking long distances, so as much of a pain as it was, Zeke always used the ladder.

When he first started working there, he'd asked about putting a cooler behind the bar, but Dax wasn't in the mood.

"Damn joint barely breaks even," he'd snarled, "an' I'm gonna add cost to it? Fuck that."

Zeke had just shaken his head and backed off. It was Dax's joint, and he was living rent-free in the trailer, so complaints were not on the table. He just kept shifting the beer and wine down into the cave and used shelves under and behind the bar to hold plenty of the hard stuff. An apartment refrigerator behind the cash register held the mixers, and a small ice maker sat atop it. Fortunately, ice was not much in demand since the brews were the big draw, and it would be sacrilege to ruin even crap beer with ice. A microwave was at the other end of the bar.

The one truly modern aspect of the Cantina was...it had kick-ass WiFi thanks to a satellite dish, so when it was a dead night or he couldn't sleep, Zeke could fire up video games on his cell phone. His desktop was also connected to it, giving him access to all sorts of streaming stations. Heaving crates of beer up and down the ladder was a small price to pay for that. Dax also let kids from an Apache community down the road come in to use it for their homework. Oren, the guy who did the Monday-Tuesday cleaning, would let them in those days; Zeke did the rest of the week. Tables in the left extension were set up specifically for them. But they had to be done by seven, because that was when things would really pick up, and you didn't want kids around that.

Zeke actually enjoyed seeing them working at their tables. They ranged in age from six and sixteen, murmuring encouragement to each other, tossing suggestions about and tacking along on their laptops till suddenly they would notice the Cantina's witching hour was close at hand and have to scurry to get done and out the door. Where their parents waited, unwilling to even chance mingling with the bikers or college kids...and usually too poor to get caught up in the love of whiskey that so many had fallen prey to. All money was needed elsewhere.

He totally understood how that went.

Now, it wasn't like Zeke was born poor. That he knew of. It's just that he had been adopted by the Reverend and Mrs. Lindstrom in Chapel Hill, Minnesota when he was five months old, so had no idea who his mother or father were, or what his family line was. They had always refused to discuss it. All he knew for sure? The Lindstroms were both very blond and Nordic in their looks while he had skin that tanned even in the most overcast of winter days, thick brown hair that loved to go wild in humidity, and eyes that fluctuated between brown and hazel, depending on wardrobe and emotional state. He also knew they were of Swedish lineage, thanks to Mrs. Lindstrom's having a slight lilt to her voice.

Zeke had asked about it, at the age of seven, and in a rare moment of sharing, she had told him, "I was born in Stockholm but the mister was born in St. Paul. It was his parents born in Upsala, both."

"So where was I born?" he'd asked.

"Close here," was all she said.

Of course, he had known from an earlier age that he wasn't their biological child, but it didn't matter. By the age of eight he had decided that the Lindstroms being his legal parents made him a Viking.

Well...they had not liked that attitude and had tried for years to crush it. Vikings were heathens and vicious beasts and thieves who ransacked monasteries and poor little villages and on and on. Not only had their lectures not worked, they had made Zeke even more certain he was one of them. Finally, after the umpteenth lecture on the evil of the Vikings, he had responded with, "I gotta be something, and you won't tell me who I am so I'm them."

That had brought him a night without supper and a week of holy silence from them both, then the lectures turned to how he was an ungrateful child. How he'd been brought away from an orphanage (which one they never would say), and how they given him a warm home, food, clothing and a chance at a good life.

The thought that hit his brain was, they were actually trying to buy their way into heaven by taking care of him. Fortunately, by that point he was smart enough to keep the thought to himself.

He also understood the Lindstroms had brought him into a finer existence than he would have had, elsewhere. Granted, they were strict Lutherans well into their thirties who had been childless, and in truth they had treated him well-enough. So in response, Zeke had given them little to be angry about...aside from the Viking thing. He'd done well in school. Played on the football, basketball and baseball teams as well as ice hockey. Treated them with respect. Helped around the house. Had friends they actually approved of. Even dated girls they liked. Attended Sunday services at Mr. Lindstrom's church.

But never were they mom and dad; always Mister and Missus Lindstrom. Like they were his babysitters. The leash they kept him on was tight and the emotional support minimal. Never one word of praise or affection from them. At times he felt more like a pet dog than a child.

None of his friends were close enough to really talk to, about this, nor were any of the girls he was interested in. They all seemed to be part of some high school play he'd been cast in and liked to be done as soon as the curtain fell at the end of a game or class or date. No chat, please; we're non-Vikings. Still, a couple of them did remark that it looked as if he was being trained as some perfect manifestation of a human being. Like a robot. And it struck them as weird. Because even they could see the cold austerity of his existence, both physical and emotional, was absolute. This had built in him a cool sense of worthlessness that finally exploded when he was sixteen.

He had never been given much spending money. And he wasn't allowed to work after school, but instead had to focus on his studies when not at practice...or church. But being an observant young man, he realized one way of making money without appearing to hold a job was by having...shall we say, recreational drugs available for purchase. Pot, mainly, then some Ex and, later, GHB. He worked out, a senior linebacker was the main connection for most of the kids who were into that sort of fun. So Zeke saw to it they became buddies, which the Lindstroms approved of even though he was Catholic; after all, he was on the football team. That excused a great many sins. So when the guy graduated and went on to Notre Dame, Zeke took over his clients.

Then in his first outward sign of rebellion, he'd used his initial profits to pay for a lovely tattoo of a Viking face and helmet on his left calf. Knowing Mr. and Mrs. Lindstron had long insisted tattoos were signs of the devil, he'd worn nothing but long pants and jeans for months after.

Well, eventually Mrs. Lindstrom did catch a glimpse of it, and informed Mr. Lindstrom, and he'd demanded Zeke remove it.

Which was met with a blank refusal. Zeke had just turned eighteen and was under no legal obligation to do what the man said.

Things had deteriorated rapidly, from there. In fact, he was fairly certain Mr. Lindstrom had worked out he was selling drugs, and had narc'd on him. The cops convinced another sort-of-friend to buy some pot from him, and he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. Fortunately, the judge had given him the option to join the marines, to get out of it...and he had.

He had neither seen nor spoken with the Lindstroms, since. And he was not sorry.

But now that ink was gone, along with his lower leg. He'd been riding in a Hummer in Helmand Province when he was hit. Two other grunts had died, and they damn near lost him, twice before they got him to the medical unit. Then came waking to find he was no longer whole, after which was months and months of painful physical therapy.

Every moment of it scarred into his psyche.

If the Lindstroms had been informed of this, he never heard anything from them about it. But he was sure they would have felt more than a bit of self-satisfaction at how their claim the tattoo was the mark of Satan had been proven true.