Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 150

A65 Paperback is uploaded...

I just sent the paperback edition of The Alice '65 off to Ingram Spark and now await a PDF proof to see how it's going to look. Hopefully, there will be no issues...but the way things have gone, this month, I ain't holdin' my breath. I can easily see this becoming another ordeal...this time over the cover. They're whining about that having ICC color profiles, but when I got the details, they were all in the trim area, so if there is an issue, they'll be cut off.

I didn't do a lot to the cover. I really like how it turned out so just subtle changes, adding a frame for emphasis, and a couple more reviews on the back...and a little tag line on top. Kind of cutesy but I needed something to fill in a bit of the yellow and it worked. Now it's a 5x8 book, 246 pages, $11.95.

That was my evening, though -- finishing this up. Something I tried to do was take the header off the first page of each chapter be breaking them into their own sections, but in order to achieve the blank header I had to use the "different first page" option and that killed the page number, at the bottom.

I considered making each chapter's first page its own section, but that messed with the header and footer even more, so I let it be. Big publishers use off-set printing for their books, and that's a lot better for this. It also enables them to use word breaks instead of "justify text" and "no widow/orphan control." POD self-publishing is limited unless you have a major program to do all of this, but I'm not getting into that. To me, it's more important the stories get read, not that they're pretty.

So maybe now I can return to the center of my universe and begin the agony, again...Brendan...

Got jinxed...

I currently have 2 packing jobs in Chicago, starting a week from Friday, then a straight shot to the UK where I have 2 packing jobs spread over 3 parts of the country -- Sussex, York and London. What's more, I had to turn down a job packing a lovely library in NYC because they needed it done now, now, now and I couldn't figure out how to do it short of working 21 days straight since we've also got a major fair going in London for which I have to work up some export licenses before I leave. And to think I was told it should be a quiet summer...

Frazzled is now my middle name. My car's in the shop for transmission repair. My credit cards are close to their limits, thanks to the travel expenses I've already racked up and am in the process of racking up. A book I ordered in the middle of April from Amazon still hasn't shown up, and they're being completely uncaring about it. I'm trying to get A65 set up as a paperback, but the cover's going to be more difficult than I thought. And that's on top of being at work and having to do 47 things at one time, something I've never been good at.

I envy people who can multi-task and keep track of themselves. I've always been very chaotic in my filing and cleaning and arrangements, in general. Right now my desk has headphones I haven't used in weeks, on it, along with a piece of string, an old handkerchief, an external hard drive and cable, a half-used dispenser of Scotch tape, my checkbook, three paper clips, a calculator, a stack of scratch paper, a container of thumb drives, a small ruler atop them, some business cards, a white out strip dispenser, a couple of coupons to CVS, a nearly empty box of toothpicks, Strunk & White's "Elements of Style", a black bandana, a back scratcher, a nearly empty jar of alcohol, a stapler, three pens of varying shapes and colors, a tube of Ben Gay, tweezers, an upright row of file folders holding my life over the last year, a flat file holder with copyright docs in it along with my bills and budget and stamps and such, and a red ribbon curled in a corner by my desk lamp.

Does this make me a packrat?

Odd review for "The Alice '65"

Someone read the story and posted this review on Amazon -- I found this to be a strange story--essentially protagonist finds he's been used as a puppet, but it seemed to have gotten him out of his rut and comfy, foibled existence and broadened his horizons, ending up in a much better situation. That's it, and I don't know what to make of it. Positive? Negative? Big shrug? I mean, they gave it 4 stars so I guess that's good...but the words chosen are...well...less than cheerful, to me.

It's wild what some people read into your work. I wrote a teen romance based on Beauty and the Beast, some years back, where the girl (Charl) is motherless and the boy (Mitch) is severely deaf with a protective mother. Charl's brother and sister are selfish and spoiled and her father is overwhelmed by the failure of his business, so she takes on the role of mom.

Mitch's mom is wary of her, at first, knowing about said brother and sister, but warms to her and gives her some motherly advice -- that it's okay to let yourself be in love. A simple conversation in the kitchen as they're making hot cocoa.

Some woman read it and accused me of having Mitch's mom pimping Charl for him, thanks to that scene. Her comment made absolutely no sense to me, so I went back over the dialogue to see if I'd screwed up in some way, and I couldn't even begin to see what would give anyone that idea...but it's how she saw it.

That was the beginning of me deciding I'm not going to tell anyone how they should view my work. They see in it what they see. And sometimes I've been ripped...especially over HTRASG...though usually by people who obviously have not read the book but only been offended by the title. I've also had silly negative reviews -- like the guy who hated LD because I had a character use the wrong conjugation for to lay -- as well as silly positive ones -- like the one referring to BC as a great love story. Um...thanks, but...really?

Of course, if someone likes my work, I thank them...and I do try to thank those who dump all over it, just because they read it...and because sometimes the non-stop negative comments pop up with an honest critique that helps make you more aware and improves your writing, even if only a little.

Negatives still hurt, but at least they aren't devastating like they used to be, for me...and that's a major improvement.

Chili dogs...

When I was in San Francisco, I got an urge for a chili dog but couldn't find a place that looked good. I had my traditional In-N-Out burger and fries. I had a decent fish dinner. I even tried some California Mexican food before catching my flight home (which was good, because it was heavy and my flight out of SFO was delayed so long...AFTER we boarded...that I barely had time to make my connection to Buffalo, let alone grab anything to eat for dinner). So today I had one and ate it with a knife and fork and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There's a place in Buffalo called Louie's Texas Red Hots (why, I have no idea, because there's nothing spicy about any of it) but they have decent chili. I've tried a couple of places in town and I'm kind of picky about it. No beans. An interesting sauce. Not thick and no Chipotle crap, which everyone seems to love in just about everything, these days (you listening Ted's Hot Dogs?). So I went there before running about town on errands. Cost me $5 and held me till din-din.

The best chili dogs, however, were Tommy's in LA, at their place on Beverly at Rampart. Pinks was OK, and I preferred the Chicagoan hot dog at Carneys up on Sunset, but when my mother lived with me we'd hit Tommy's about once a week. Stand around outside and make a huge mess. Cheese and onions on 'em (one of the rare times I like raw onions)...but they didn't have relish, and I find it makes the meal a bit better. Still...slop mustard and ketchup on, and you're well on your way to pure enjoyment.

Their fries were average (unless you put chili and cheese on them; then they were heaven), and they only sold sodas in cans, but it was cheap and filling and damn good. I halfway hope to have a job in LA so I can hop back by there for dinner, sometime.

But...my next jobs are in Chicago (which is a possibility for a good chili dog) and London (I cannot think of anyplace in the UK that would do a decent dog), so...so yeah, maybe they are a heart attack waiting to happen, but damn they're good. And filling.

I think half the reason my mother died when she did was because this uptight absolutist of a nutritionist cut out 90% of the food she loved in favor of a healthier but very bland diet. She was 83, for cryin' out loud. By that age, you should be allowed to eat anything you damn well want...in measure. I mean, if she'd been fat, like me, I'd have understood that attitude...but I think she weighed just over 100 lbs when I moved to Buffalo.

Sometimes it's better to relax and just enjoy yourself...and let others do the same...

New ideas for PS

Today's pickup of books went so smoothly and quickly, I had a couple hours to kill before going to the warehouse to finalize the shipment...so I hit a Starbucks, nearby, and got to thinking about Place of Safety. There's one character who seems to be shaping up as a true villain, in the story...and while I didn't have any trouble with him causing trouble, he now is getting people killed. Why? I don't know, yet...but I do think another character decides to fake his own death in order to get away from him.

I managed to finish the basic outline for the full book...so I think that's why this background story came up. I was looking for ways to flesh out the spine and realized I'd lost track of this one bad boy...which made sense, in a way; a lot of his crap comes out second and third hand because Brendan's in Houston and, effectively, banned from the Derry family. Only his sisters keep in contact and bring him up to date on what's happening.

It's going to be fun still giving a sense of the chaos and horror of that time while the character telling the story is living a new life in a new country...and finding it's not really so very different from his old one. He even winds up in a relationship with an older woman...just like his brother, Eamonn, did...with tragic consequences.

This one odd little bit popped up. Brendan's working at his uncle's bar in The Heights section of Houston. So one night he's on his way back to his room when he's offered a ride to a party by a couple of guys he barely knows...who turn out to be Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks. They hunted for boys to take to Dean Corll, to be raped and murdered...all for money. There was a huge uproar when it was found out, the summer of '73...and it's become important to the story. I know why but still...the importance of it took me by surprise.

And yet, that's what I like -- surprises...so long as they're good for the tale being told...

The joys of travel...

A five hour flight was made to seem like ten hours thanks to a squalling baby in the row of seats behind me, who would not be silenced. And she had one of those piercing cries that cuts right through earbuds. I may invest in a pair of sound-muffling headphones, because this is the second time it's happened, this month. Fortunately, they got off in Vegas.

Can't blame the parents, for this; they looked shell-shocked, they were so tired. Some babies are just screamers. My grandmother could have shut the kid up, I'm almost certain. She was a nurse in the newborn wing of Nix Hospital in San Antonio for 30 years and learned all kinds of tricks on how to settle a cranky infant.

She would go home with new mothers, on her days off or vacation, to make extra money...and it seemed all the kids she took care of that way turned out fine and easy to handle. I told her on many occasions she ought to write a book about it, but she shrugged me off. I thought for a while she was making up how good she was, but when she died over a hundred people she'd taken care of showed up to pay respects at her memorial...and some were actually in mourning. They'd been maintaining light contact with her, for years. It was the loveliest tribute she could have had.

She didn't have a funeral; she donated her body to science as a way to cheat the undertaker, and her ashes were given to us once they were done. She's buried near her sister by the San Antonio River on the south side of town. We were able to get a plot not far from her for my mother's burial spot...27 years later.

Me, when I die I want my ashes mixed into a cement block and put in the ocean for coral to grow on. That way I'll feel like I finally did a good deed for the planet.

If there still is one when I hit that point.

Miami is weird...

It's not my favorite city, and even though parts of it are amazing lovely...with Florida Oaks twisting their branches out and moss dripping from the trees as you drive past...it's difficult to deal with. Traffic either goes 90 or nothing. I've actually seen cars stay in place while waiting for a light, even though the cars ahead of them have moved up and there's space for 3 vehicles between them. But when they're moving, stay the hell out of the way.

It's hot and humid and has so many micro climates, it's hard to figure out what to expect, weather-wise. In my hotel room, I was able to see the downtown skyline, and the other evening I watched a massive storm roll in off the Atlantic and completely envelop the high-rises. I figured it would swoop all the way up to my hotel...only 4 miles inland...but no. Didn't even try. Instead, it spit out a weak rainbow then vanished.

I'm up by Ft. Lauderdale, right now, and when I went to grab a bite to eat I got rained on even though there were no rain clouds around me. Big drops, too. Just enough to dampen the asphalt and make the grass smell clean, and drop the temperature by a few degrees. Ten minutes later, it's back to how it was...and there are clouds filling the sky.

The people tend to be very casual about everything and yet pissy. You can call a company and arrange to drop by to talk about a future job for them, but you get there no one will let you into the office because they think you're a salesman...and tell you to go make an appointment...until someone remembers and runs up to say it's okay, that you can come in. And then they do nothing to show they want the business.

No matter where you go in the city, you find heavy emphasis on Cuban and Latin cultures. I don't mind that -- San Antonio was so focused on Mexico it was like Texas was an afterthought that was never really thought about -- but at the same time, you see bumper stickers everywhere in cars being driven by people who are obviously Latino praising that idiot in the White House, who wants to run them all out. And Fox News plays everywhere. The dichotomy is not dichotomizing...if that's a word...

So you can keep Miami...hell, all of Florida; I'm still a California boy...

Pleasant day...if hot...

One of the joys of packing books is seeing and handling some that are just plain lovely to look at. I did that a lot, today, with an elegant collection of books illustrated by Arthur Rackham. He's England's version of N.C. Wyeth, who followed him only by a few years and who worked up images for some American classics.

Rackham's work is amazing and so detailed and yet picaresque in feel, even when painting Brunhilde kissing Siegfried's ring -- romantic and yet a bit quirky. His trees were never simply there; they drew attention to themselves in how they twisted about, adding to the raw melancholy of the image.
Wyeth's work is more romanticized and active in a classic, sweeping sort of way. Almost tender, even in a horrific situation. It also feels a bit posed. I like it, but it doesn't involve me so much as inspire appreciation of his use of color, setting, intent and shadow.
I think my favorite Rackham is of Titania, Queen of the Fairies, from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Simple. Elegant and sweeping, but still picaresque in the little characters attending her.

I like.

Getting old...

I got to the airport with time to spare, today, patted myself on the back and was about to pull out my laptop to answer some emails...when I found I'd left it at home. Sitting on my desk. Waiting to be packed. I'd looked around and not noticed it before I left. So I ran back outside, grabbed a cab and did a round trip back to my apartment in 45 minutes flat. Cost me $110...but I got my laptop. Which I need. And I'm pissed as hell at myself for letting it happen.

But I do that, now and then -- just don't notice things until they're pointed out to me. I can look at a section of soup for 10 minutes trying to find one particular brand and not see it till I ask a grocery store clerk and they hand it over to me. Same for typos in one of my books -- I'll look and check and inspect and get anal...and I'll still find them, after everything is done.

At least the flight down was easy and on time. Took forever to get my bag, and Avis' Ft. Lauderdale people were not pleasant to deal with. I wanted a different car (I don't like Nissans) and, since I'm a Preferred Customer, I'm supposed to be able to just grab another one and have it changed at the exit booth. Nope. "That ain't the you're supposed to get. Wanna change it? Go to the desk." Where there's a line 10 people long. I wound up taking the Nissan just so I could get out and grab a bite to eat.

I found a McDonald's close by...but it's one that uses those damned kiosks to order and it took 5 minutes for me to find what I wanted on it because apparently you're supposed to already know how things are labeled on the menu. Then its chip reader malfunctioned and I had to start over. After I was done, I went to the restroom to clean up and prep for the drive to Miami...and it was disgusting. Made me very unhappy I'd eaten there. I should have just crossed the lot and gone to Taco Bell.

Now I'm in a Best Western in Miami in a room that has a loud AC and charges for parking. And tomorrow is the beginning of a tough job. But...the initial plan was for me to get up at 3:30 am, Monday, to get to the airport by 4:30 (since I'm checking a bag) and come down on a 5:30 flight, arriving at 8:30, then drive down to Miami in morning traffic and hope to reach the location by 10 am when the packing materials might be delivered. I'd have been a nervous wreck. So I made the decision to do it this way and handle the trip separately from the packing.

I'm glad I did; imagine if I'd left my laptop at home, tomorrow morning...

All reformatting done...

I uploaded new ebook editions of The Alice '65 and Porno Manifesto to Smashwords, with A65 also going to Kindle -- typos corrected and all that. It's funny, but I can see this being my version of what happened with the first printing of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. There are about 25 copies of the A65 hardcover with the mistakes in them, and from now on the copies sold will be good. Same for the paperback, which is next on the agenda.

Hmph, I just remembered a bit from The Big Sleep, where Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe goes into a book shop (that's a front for pornography) asking about books that don't exist.

Ben Hur wasn't published until 1880 and the Chevalier Audubon set wasn't completed till 1844.

As for me...well, I may still correct all the ebooks, but I want to get A65's paperback done, next. It's time for it to be available and that will clear everything out of my way for Place of Safety. The other e-books...all I'd do is clean up the grammar and spell check them, so that can wait.

A job in the UK might come through, to go along with the one I'm already set for. If it does...and if it happens after the already-booked job, I'll have a couple of days to make it over to Belfast and visit the prison museum on Crumlin Road as well as the Castleragh neighborhood. And what's great is, I'd be hopping over from London instead of the northern wilds of England. Nice and easy, relatively speaking, and cheaper.

In fact...there's a service out of City Airport the other side of Canary Wharf, a tiny prop plane, I think. But if I can work the scheduling right, I might be able to make it a day trip. Just have to see. It's for a university so nothing's definite...hell, that might take forever to finally be approved.

Anyway...life just keeps on moving forward...