Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 129

En route home

I blew off JetBlue and grabbed a train back to Buffalo; no real cash loss, just points. I'm in what's called a roomette that's like a little office, with comfy seats, a table, a private toilet, pillows, power, and wifi. I even got a decent meal with it. Worth the $170. It's a nice ride, scenery wise, if a bit jumpy while traveling at high speeds...but it's very relaxing, with a 45 minute layover in Albany to stretch your legs.

I did office work on this leg of the journey -- naming photos I'd taken of the collection I packed and sorting out paperwork. I did a bit of web-surfing and back and fort on twitter, but that's about it. I may have another job in NYC but won't know about that for a while. I used some of today to go check it out.

This weekend is Oakland...and the client wanted the packing done on a weekend. So I'm flying in on Friday and returning on Monday. Nothing else lined up, after that, so I can finish shifting PM into a script and get it off. Then comes the sketches for the reading of A65. 

I'm going back and forth on the sketches...whether to do them in soft graphite or colored pencil. I'm also still shifting the images I've roughed out around, and I added another one, today. I may take out a couple that are just too quick to matter, as well. I'd do markers but I am so completely out of practice on that, I think it'd be a waste of time, and I don't want to mess with acrylics, right now.

BTW, this is the building I was working in, yesterday...on an upper floor with a great view of Central Park. It's a spooky building; the wind moans and calls like howling creatures of the night, thanks to the service elevator. The basement's entry stays open so every breeze zips in and up the shaft. I can't imagine living there with that sort of noise all the time.

But it's very high-end. I think the condo's been sold (probably for 8 figures) and that's why the valuable books had to be gotten out before the movers came to get the furniture. You don't dump a first edition of Gulliver's Travels in the same box with novels by Leon Uris or Tom Clancy.

It's just not right...

Imagine...

I worked nearly across the street from Strawberry Fields in Central Park, so once I was finished I strolled over and saw John Lennon's memorial -- Imagine. I took a few shots but like this one the most, with his home, The Dakota, in the background caught behind the trees. A man in a guitar was singing Imagine and people were taking selfies and photos of themselves by the circle. I didn't like like being that close to it; no context aside from the historical and emotional...

It's a funny thing, saying that. History and emotion are contextual things...but they rely so much on individual perceptions of what is and isn't important to what is being seen.  I didn't go to the archway where he was killed, either. I feel to do that would be, I dunno, ghoulish? To me, a photo of where he lived without the lovely mosaic in the pavement close by leaves open reminders of a movie -- Rosemary's Baby...which had devil worshipers in the building.

Supposedly, the building is cursed, with its first victim possibly being Peter Tchaikovsky, the very first resident to move in. He supposedly died of cholera but there are rumors of suicide. Maybe he set the stage for the building's life. Who knows? What I do know is those old buildings had a life of their own. I was working on the 21st floor of the San Remo, two blocks down, where the service elevator whistled and whined in the wind. Very creepy...

Other famous people have lived there -- Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney, Boris Karloff, Rudolph Nureyev -- and it's been a landmark since 1969, but it's John Lennon's murder that's solidified it in people's minds. And mine, truth be told. But I figure since I passed it by en route to this latest packing job, I'm meant to pay at least some homage to keep the fates happy.

So I did.

NYC after a 9 hour train ride...

I hopped Amtrak to hit the Big Apple and it was on time all the way, Can't quite believe it. But it was a well-spent 9 hours. I can't work on PM's script because my Final Draft only works on my Mac Mini, so I used the time to work out what I'd need in the way of imagery to accompany a reading of the first bit of The Alice '65.

I'm at 40, right now, and could easily double it...but I need to go through and see how it feels. Again. I've only done this twice, already, and changed a couple bits around and added others. These are just preliminary sketches done on half-sheets of used typing paper I've folded over...though done in a bit of detail so I don't get lost. Just like storyboards.

I may still cut some of them out. I'm a bit image-heavy at the beginning. Still, it's a fairly solid start. Adam gets ready for work, rides the underground, goes to Meryton, remembers an argument with Vincent, his box, Chats with Elizabeth, finishes a book and makes a cup of tea after recalling a small argument with Elizabeth.
I'm using this guy as the model for Adam; he's the one on the cover and pretty much fits him. When I do the final images, I'll be making each one more precise than I usually do., so I've got lots of shots of him.

That's the first 6.5 pages of the book so are meant to compliment what's being read aloud. I'll probably play around with it a lot more till I'm happy enough, and a lot depends on how long the reading takes. That awful one was 12 minutes long...and is still up. They're still ignoring me.

Not happy about that...

Tomorrow is packing up a high-end library of about 99 books. I'm not slated to return to Buffalo till Tuesday night on the late flight, just to be safe. Then next weekend is in Oakland.

Downhill slide on PM

I'm into the third act of my screenplay for Porno Manifesto...and I think it works well as a film project. It won't hit the cineplex, but for cable? Gay cable? Logo or Here? I seriously doubt Netflix will go for this. The sex is on about the same level as True Blood, but since it's gay it's considered more risqué. Sort of like how black men are considered more dangerous than white men, even though the opposite is true...as recent events have shown.

I'm making the script more relevant to today's political climate. It was pretty much on target 10 years ago, and a lot of what it's saying hasn't changed a bit, but I've included MAGAts and the other bullshit that makes the world such a dangerous place, now. It's like we're close to shifting into a new Dark Ages, like what happened after the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476. Not a great way to see the future.

So...PM is not going to be a sweet script in any way, form, or fashion. I thought about adding some comic relief by keeping in a couple of geeks who're having Alec, the protagonist, write a video game for them, one that puts Resident Evil to shame. He has fun with it even as he's putting his plot against his gay-bashers into play...but what worked in the book messes with the flow of the story, now.

I think the script is more suspenseful than the book, too. We don't have Alec's interior monologue to distract from what he's doing, and some of the moments are pretty intense...like when he gets into the frat house when everyone is off on Spring Break and learns even more about his attackers. And the way he spies on them in their most intimate, vulnerable moments.

The book, itself, has always been problematic for me. I like it, like how it works, but think I could have done better by it if I'd given it one more pass. Maybe two. This is almost like I'm making it up to the story for being so cavalier and letting it turn out like a typical sophomore effort. I did right by my other books...

Well, except for French Connection Blues. That one was never anything more than a work for hire, and I couldn't get really connected with it. Plus it's changed names so many times...from Inherent Flaws to NYPD Blood to something else...so I'm no longer part of that process.

At least it taught me not to take on a project I couldn't commit fully to.

Christchurch..."Slaughter by appointment..."

I have no words...so here is this...

Slaughter by appointment.

I'm doing my own damn reading of A65...

The people at Wildsound and the Novel Writing Festival are ignoring me, regarding taking down that awful video, so I'm doing my own reading of The Alice '65. A friend who's a good actor has said she'd read it for me, and I can work up a slideshow to go with it. Maybe 12 minutes long, depending on how she does it, but she's well-trained in acting and can give it the feel it needs.

I'm headed down to NYC so can work out what I'll need for the slideshow on the train. And I'll need to figure out what I need in the way of a program to work it. I have Garage Band and iMovie, so maybe I can work up a video using those. Dunno yet. This is going to be a learning process. And if she winds up unable to do it, shit...I'll read it aloud, myself. I couldn't do any worse, and at least I know how to pronounce Kristin Lavransdatter.

I'm also about halfway done with the script for Porno Manifesto. I've toned down the sex scenes to where they're on the level of cable...which isn't by much...and taking out all the internal contemplations of Alec is making the story not only cleaner but is showing me it's pretty well-structured. Now instead of Alec signaling what he's planning to do, he just does it and the viewer follows.

I've also added a couple of complications. Like when he sneaks into the frat house to scope it out before hiding cameras in his attackers' rooms. It's supposed to be deserted during Spring Break, but he's almost caught by some of the guys coming back to get some things.

I think it'll wind up between 115 and 120 pages long...and maybe once it's done I'll see if I can sell it. I can just see that happening -- all my work on straight Hollywood scripts and the first one I sell is a gay-revenge-rape fantasy...

That would be hysterical...

Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, I'll be a bitch...

Man...you'd think I would learn not to expect anything from anyone after they screw me around, but I still fall flat-faced into crap of my own making. This time it's from the National Novel Writing Festival, about whom I've already complained. I thought they were doing something honest...and boy did I get fooled.

These are the guys who had a "professional editor" read my novel, The Alice '65, and tear it apart. Used bad grammar to complain about my grammar. Had typos and missing words...and misused words. Ignored how the story was told in third person but with a first person viewpoint. It hurt...then it angered me, once I got past that. Then it confused me, because they said I'd gotten a really good score and won an audio reading of the first 2000 words of the book.

My gut instinct was to say no...but I talked myself into it. The other videos they had posted were workmanlike enough to be used as a sales tool. Well...yesterday they posted the video they did for me, on their site and on YouTube. It's of a man sitting in a cubicle in an office, a camera trained on him as he reads my book off a tablet and stumbles over it like he's never seen it before. He's trying -- I can't fault the reader -- but you can hear office noises in the background and it's obvious this is the first time he's set eyes on the story. It's so cheap-assed and amateurish, it's a detriment to the book.

I was livid. But I held back and asked some friends what they thought, just to make certain I wasn't over-reacting. Consensus is...it's like a first cold read-through in preparation to do a better job. To my mind, there is nothing in it to help the book except my words...many of which he cannot pronounce. Granted, Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso doesn't roll off the tongue...but that's why a reader should familiarize himself with the work.

I used to belong to the Playwright's Kitchen Ensemble in LA, and every week we'd have actors do cold readings from scripts. Granted, the majority of them were trained in speaking and had a focus few people have, but they also spent every moment they could prior to the read getting familiar with the work. A cold reading isn't really cold, it's just a first-time being read aloud. Some of those people, after five minutes with my pages, found aspects of my scripts I didn't know were there...and which I made damn sure got added in. It was amazing to watch and to hear. These people did nothing even remotely like that.

Now here's the capper -- what that festival did for my reading was nothing like they've done for anyone else, and I'm damn close to feeling insulted by it. I asked them to take it off their site and off YouTube. I want nothing to do with it. It's an embarrassment.

Moral of the story -- listen to your gut.

Porno Manifesto wins...

I'm working along to shift the book into screenplay format, and it's coming together very neatly. Alec is working his plan out in plain view, like an obsessive maniac...and the fact he's stalking a group of guys who tried to kill him makes it very conflicting.

I'm at the point where he prevents them from carrying out another gay-bashing and now knows he's got the right group of MAGAts. What happens from this point is going to be morally awkward to any and all, because he's going outside the law to exact revenge on a group of stupid college brats who haven't really thought about the consequences of their actions...and I'm lovin' it.

This has altered my game-plan a bit, regarding the Nicholl and Austin FF. Doing HTRASG is definitely a Fuck you to them...so it could be simply dismissed. But Porno Manifesto isn't...or could be seen as a deliberate attempt to write a gay-revenge movie...so it can't be as easily shrugged off. And when it is, I can legally scream HOMOPHOBIA!!! That'll be the most fun.

And the truth is, I really don't think it will go anywhere with either of them. My work has never done well in the upper-echelon competitions. I don't know why, but no matter what I tried or sent in, I only did okay in the lesser contests. So...there's something about how I write scripts that doesn't work for those who claim to be the real deal in competitions.

And still doesn't, really. I didn't even get a "No thank you" response from the Universal Writers Fellowship, and producers I've been referred to by friends who know them won't even respond to me. So screenwriting was never going to be my method. What a thing to realize after nearly 40 years of trying.

Therefore, I'm writing PM to have fun and be a dick instead of a guy trying to please. It's rather liberating. Maybe it's how I should have been from the outset, instead of just aimless and scared and inconsistent. I've known a number of talentless dicks who've gotten ahead in the business. Naw...I like being merely psychotic touched with a layer of schizophrenia...

...it's the freak in me...

I'm being an asshole...

Brendan and I are head-butting, again, and I don't feel like dealing with it. So I'm not. I got a notice from the Austin Film Festival in yesterday's mail about the next screenplay competition and it put me into a truly pissy mood. I tried for years to work within their system and got nowhere. They all but laughed at me.

So I decided to shift How To Rape A Straight Guy and Porno Manifest into screenplays and send them in. Just to be a dick. Same for the Nicholl Fellowship, who never liked anything I sent them. I pulled up the Word docs of each book and saved them as RTFs then transferred them into Final Draft on my old Mac Mini; it's got a version of the program that works well enough.

However, I'm already seeing HTRASG is going to be more work than PM because so much of it is internal, so I focused on PM. It's coming together a lot better and easier than I expected. I've got almost all of the first act set. It's going to be a chore to get both of them done in time to submit, but even if all that's done is PM, it'll be something they've never seen before, that's for damn sure.

It's a pretty well-constructed story, starting out with the gay-bashing and having Alec shift into a jungle creature when hunting down the boys who did it. I've added in MAGAt hats and am making it more relevant to today's political climate, especially after the Tiki-torch bearing Nazi-boys in Charlotte. Alec still works as a quiet guy made raging beast by the unprovoked attack and how the cops and the judicial system closed ranks to protect the brats who hurt him because one's the son of a judge.

The disparity between what Paul Manafort pulled and got imprisoned for and how people of color are treated by our judicial system is really being brought home, lately. When I first wrote the story, Obama was running for president and Bush was crashing the economy. The BLM and Me,too movements hadn't even been thought of, yet, and people were just beginning to realize they could videotape cops doing their dirty work as they did it and post that on Facebook.

Now? the whole thing's exploded into near chaos. Twitter and Instagram help keep the reich wing from taking control of the narrative, like they used to do with the mainstream media, and the powers that be are still trying to figure out how to take those venues away from us. The owners of those three are working with them, but it's not doing much good; they're too massive to really control, anymore, unless you shut them down completely...and that ain't gonna happen.

The revolution has begun, and it IS being televised...just not on TV.

An off-beat path...

I came up with an idea that I thought Brendan was pushing, to give more of a reason for him to end like he does...and it worked well until he pointed out it undercut the ending. I spent hours on it...and now am thinking I may cut it because he's right. Dammit. I hate it when this happens.

I really did think this path was Brendan's idea, but now I'm not so sure. And yet...it could be turned into something that works...hell, I don't know. I wrote it and now I'm trying to find ways to minimize or reverse the meaning of what I wrote. Drives me nuts.

I'm deliberately avoiding the news because it just pisses me off. I just learned Paul Manafort, who committed fraud to the tune of millions and worked with foreign governments against the US, got 47 months in prison. A woman who voted in 2016, but who wasn't eligible to vote, was sent to prison for 5 years. 60 months. Over a year longer than that motherfucking traitor, and he'll be in a minimum security prison known as Club Fed while she's doing time in a hard-assed prison in Texas.

I had someone ask me, once, why I constantly criticize the American system of justice in my books, and I tell them it's because it only works for the rich. They said I was overstating the situation. I'm going to find that little shit and ask him if he still feels that way after this.

My bet is, he will...