Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 151

A week gone by before it's come...

I'm headed to Miami for 3 days then San Francisco for 2 days, then Chicago for 2 days, the following week, so I stayed late to make sure all my paperwork was in order and everything prepped that could be. It's not going to be the easiest set of jobs; the one in Miami has already changed shape half a dozen times, most of which was completely unnecessary...but when you're dealing with people who like to see the worst possible scenario, there's not much you can do but ride the wave they send your way.

I think it's all settled now and everyone has calmed down, but you never know until the job is done. And I can't get into detail about it due to the sensitive nature of the shipment. All I can say is, had we done what I'd initially suggested, we'd never have this problem. But such is life in the big city.

The job in San Francisco is far more fun -- a collection of Japanese books from the 17th - 19th century. I've seen the collection and it is amazing. Most of them are illustrated in either the Kyoto style or Japanese Traditional style, sort of like precursors to Manga and Yaoi, but with more detail and delicacy. I'm looking forward to working up this shipment.

I'm trying to update the electronic editions of Porno Manifesto and A65, before I go, since I found and corrected typos in them when I did their reformatting. Pretty damned embarrassing...but even JK Rowling keeps finding typos in her work after checking it 19 times, so she and I are kinsmen, in that...

Wish I had her sales...

In a mood so this fits me...

The song is my attitude, at the moment...including the goofy accent..


The dancing is amazing and all in one take...and is the actual sound, not dubbed, because it's one of the few times they're dancing on a wood floor and not tile o linoleum...you can even hear Ginger giggle halfway in.

As for the rest, everything's caught up in print...and Amazon's flipping me off on both an order I placed and updated counts of my books' sales. If I published through them, alone, I'd never know what my books have sold.

It's stupid.

Begone bitch...

I have nothing to say or add to that racist, lying, piece of shit whose show got cancelled thanks to her inability to shut her fucking mouth. I feel no loss from it; I didn't watch the first Rosanne show because, to be honest, I disliked her as a person and comedian even back then. I'm kind of sorry her fellow cast-mates and producers lost their jobs, but they're worth millions, each. They'll all be fine.

What's horrendous about this is all the crew members, who aren't rich like them and who probably needed the job. Now they're out of work in a business that's hard to deal with when things are going smoothly, and who also have to handle the stigma of having been employed by a bigoted nut job. I already see comments from people who say, "They worked for her so must have supported her."

Guilt by association is easy. I, myself, do it. I know people who are Republicans and vote the GOP line, and are decent people, but to me...what I see is they support the GOP agenda...which includes hurting gay men and women like myself. Do these people, themselves, support that? No. They "disagree with it." But they still vote for the assholes pushing it...so, I see them as guilty of it.

Same for Christians. When someone tells me they are, I back away from them. I've been at the wrong end of Christianity too damn many times to ever trust one of those people, again, yet I'm sure many of them are fine people who honestly try to uphold the teachings of Christ. BUT...the ones who use it as a cloak for their totalitarian agenda are the ones you hear about and who take all the attention because the rest "take the high road." Which means they're going to let the evil bastards win...which is, in a way, a tacit form of support. And that is glaringly obvious to me.

So I halfway expect a number of people who worked on the show will get hit with a blacklist because they, in effect, helped to support a vile excuse for a human being's ludicrous rantings...and never mind they had mortgages and car payments and kids in school and stuff, things that were more important to them. They helped that show look good and run well...and that's a tacit form of support for Rosanne's hate.

I hope it doesn't go that way, for their sakes...and yet...I do wonder about them...

All done with reformatting...

Okay...all my dark books are now formatted in the same basic style, just with slight differences appropriate to the story...and with typos and errors corrected. I like how they look a lot more, now...less amateurish. All are told in first person and have some very intense scenes of non-consensual sex (or near rape) in them. In order of writing, they're...

AKA: HTRASG. It's a rough, brutal book told by an ex-con who's never had a break, filled with anger and pain and yet hopeful.


AKA: PM. A much sneakier book about a techie who's gay bashed and forms a vicious sort of revenge, in answer. This has my first really good cover. 
AKA: RIHC6. This was 2 books, initially, but I combined them and used this story as the prelude to a murder mystery. It gets very rough...but manages an HEA at the end...sort of.

AKA: BC. My Russian novel, a tragedy of three people colliding and sending each other on a path to destruction. Only one come out of it, but that's the way of the world.

AKA: LD. A farce of a situation told by a fictional character in the story that has dark undertones but also a chaotic mix of humor and ludicrousness.

AKA: OT. A full-fledged murder mystery with political and sociological overtones, where family, friends, cops, the system of justice and the church cannot be trusted.

All of them criticize today's legal profession as well as the church, politicians, the gay community, and society as a whole.

I left David Martin and The Alice '65 out because they are the complete opposite of these books, and because their formatting was already set up right. Besides, their covers are sunshine and light in comparison, and I didn't like the juxtaposition...
I'm funny, that way...

Another one bites the dust as the last one bites back...

HTRASG is now reformatted to look nicer, inside, and it was work. This was my first book and, while it's also my shortest, it had a lot of things that needed updating. But it's all done, now, and Porno Manifesto is the last one to do...but it's being difficult, at best. For some idiot reason, I made the margins wider in my reboot, a few years back, and didn't notice a lot of the quotation marks were wrong. I feel like a complete idiot.

So I have to go through the whole book to make sure they're set up right, since I'm using Times New Roman as the font. I like how it looks and it's easy to read, but it is finicky. If you have a space before a quotation mark, like this -- ", it thinks you're starting a new sentence instead of ending one, so they face the wrong way. It's not obvious in the font I have on this blog (I don't have TNR Font available), but it looks goofy as you read.

Anyway, by the time I got done with settling the layout for the reformat, I had an additional 10 pages left to fill in order to keep the book at 176...so I added the first chapter from RIHC6. What the heck; it's the followup book. Now it's at the length I want. Tomorrow, I'm going through it and correcting the friggin' quotation marks. That'll be an all-day job. Cool.

I watched the first 2018 episode of Midsommer Murders on Britbox, as a way to relax, and found I really didn't like it. It felt a bit loose and some of the explanations as to what was happening were...convenient. With Vera, I believed these were cops on the job, even if I didn't think the mysteries were always top-drawer. This one...nowhere near as sharp in the dialogue and attitudes. And while the mystery's resolution wasn't as bad as In The Dark, it was still unimpressive.

Dammit...Prime Suspect and Vera spoiled me.

BC is done...

I've uploaded the new formatted version and have started on HTRASG. It's a short book so is going a lot easier. then comes PM and I'm set for the rest of the year.

Just to pat myself on the back, here's another section of BC I'm proud of. It's after Bobby's suicide, and Eric's been shocked into realizing he helped bring it about. He's been sitting in his apartment for a week and is horrified at how the media and people who also pushed Bobby to his death are distancing themselves from it...and he has reached the point where he needs to either rebuild his life or follow Bobby into death.

---------------

The simple act of picking up trash helped me shift my focus back to reality. What I was doing wasn’t being trendily weary, nor was I happily drifting on a cloud of incoherence for all that time, gallantly allowing my mind a chance to heal in preparation for the rest of my life. The fact is, while watching the news I kept reliving everything that had happened over and over and over in a crazy hope that if I did it often enough, the outcome would change. If not for real, at least in my own head. I understand that’s a sign of insanity. That may well be true, but the fact was I could not honestly (and coherently) face the honest to God truth as regards my part in this disaster. Not just yet.

I finished filling my second Hefty bag and went to a window to see how the garbage looked, like I’d done so many times in the last couple of months for no particular reason. Funny thing is, for the first time the bin was empty. Nothing but leftover smudge to see. I carried both bags down the stairs and dumped them in then looked up just in time to make the trip worthwhile.

It was overcast and cool. A hint of winter rain was in the air. An almost breeze was tickling the tree just to my right. And a hummingbird danced past to play in the flowers on the bush to my left. I watched as he whirred and darted and checked out the buds and dipped in for a sip (at least, I think it was a he). His wings were almost invisible, they moved so fast, and he was a lovely combination of dark neon green and bright neon red, with hints of purple, blue and gold glimmering through and eyes like little black pearls. So tiny. So fragile. So busy with his life. So heartbreakingly beautiful. Then he stopped. He perched on a branch, breathing heavily, and looked back at me as if to ask, “What you lookin’ at, bub?” I grinned, still without thinking, and went back to my apartment.

I peeled off my shirt and jeans and everything and set the shower to going as hot as I could stand it. I let the water roll over my face and ‘cross my shoulders and down my back and stomach and legs. Then I leaned back against the side of the stall and let the steam rise and fill my lungs and heart and soul. I didn’t zone in there, though; deep down I knew the hot water would soon end and I’d have to finish in cold if I took too long. I absently began to lather up. Slowly, almost carefully, I cleaned every part of my body I could get to. I flashed back to the day after my encounter with Allen and the shower I never took after Doctor Finnerman and the SANE and nurse Pavel and Grant and Iglesias and my deep desperate need for the oblivion of sleep and everything else were done with me. I vaguely recognized the sense of non-urgent-urgency I’d had since that day was gone. I could simply luxuriate in the cleanliness of the soap. The beauty of the shimmer it left on my skin. The scent of it taking me back to a day before I’d been tainted. I shampooed, rinsed, repeated the actions, all by rote. And yet, not. This wasn’t like the time when Moritz had told me to bathe. This was just...well, it just felt nice. Wonderful. I finished the moment the water turned tepid. Perfect timing, for once.

I stepped out and wiped the condensation from the glass and looked at myself through the pattern of streaks and drops left behind. And I flashed back to that hotel room only two (three? four?) months prior and realized that was the last time I had seen myself in a mirror. Comparatively speaking, I looked neither better nor worse. It was like I’d gone into a holding pattern, waiting for clearance to continue my slide into hell or whatever fate I would allow for myself. But this time I could see more than just the deep disgusting differences in my psyche. My eyes were still hollow instead of bright, but they were also cold. My skin was pasty instead of rose hued, despite the hot shower, and it too was cold. I’d lost a few more pounds and it showed in how much deeper my cheeks sank. It was me at fifty before I was half that age. It was pathetic.

I ran some lukewarm water into the sink and shaved, something I’d never done naked before. I know it’s an odd thing to think about, but the thought simply came as a “never did that before” jog from my memory. I gently dried off with my one semi-clean towel, rolled some deodorant under my arms and strolled over to the closet.

I didn’t own a chest of drawers; all my underwear and socks and sweaters and foldable items of clothing were laid on a shelving unit shoved into one corner. I picked out a pair of briefs, a white t-shirt and pair of black socks and pulled them on, right there...something else I never did. Then I took the only clothes I had left on hangers — a white cotton shirt and that long forgotten pair of torn black Dockers — and slipped into those. The pants were loose, so I cinched the belt a notch tighter. Two notches. Doing that helped hide the damage to the material enough to where if you weren’t looking for it, you’d never see it. I found my black shoes (the ones that were always tied) and shoved my feet into them, then I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. I still had not one bit of thought or emotion at seeing this “crystal-chic” type freak staring back.

I got my wallet, got my car keys, gave Jag a pat on the head and left.

My Volvo started up on the first try and I pulled away. I still had zero idea of where I was going or what I was doing. I just drove. East down Pico. Under the 405. Past Westside Pavilion. Over the tiny hill by Beverly Glen. Straight to Fairfax. Left toward the Hills. Passing Ethiopian and Jewish shops and restaurants, then passing the museums and Farmer’s Market and the humongous Grove shopping center and CBS and Canter’s up to Melrose. Then right to head down the strip.

The high school was busy. Traffic had yet to be jammed with the lunchtime crush. Meters were open everywhere. I stopped at one, plunked in a quarter and walked along. There were a few tourists looking around with disappointment at how sedate Melrose seemed, even with its wall murals and occasional head shops. “It just ain’t like Haight-Ashbury, Oliver, that’s fer dang sure.”

I turned down a side street and turned, again, to head down the alley. And two doors down stood Rene’s thirty year-old Mercedes carefully parked in one of the two parking slots. The aroma of his lunch preparation danced up to greet me like it was overjoyed to see the prodigal son.

“So this is where I’m going,” I thought as I wandered up to the door.

I looked in...and there was Rene, unchanged, dipping his finger into a pot to test the sauce. Steam swirled around him and tickled through the silver hair that still flew out from under his chef’s cap. He wasn’t happy with what he found, so he grabbed a pinch of this and a dab of that to fling into the pot. Then he stirred the sauce. And saw me. His expression did not change, nor did he hesitate in his stirring; he just glanced me over.

I gulped, my mind a blank, my mouth dry. But then words began popping out, soft, croaking, whispers of, “I’m sorry. I left you in a bad spot. No excuse. I’m so sorry.”

He checked another pot, still casting little glances at me. It needed a dash more salt.

I kept babbling. “I’m going out to get another job. If I can. I think I’m pretty good at waiting tables. I — I was hoping I could — well, could I give you as a reference? I know it’s asking a lot — but I need to — to...”

Rene motioned me in; I entered. He pointed me to his ratty little table covered with paperwork and such; I sat in the one chair. He pulled down a plate, put some Ravioli Caruso on it and set it before me; I stared at it. Silverware wrapped in a tacky red napkin appeared by my right hand; I looked up at him.

“Rene...”

“Eat,” was all he said, then he turned back to his pots.

I ate. Slowly. Tasting every bite. Loving it. No, luxuriating in it. The warmth of it drifted into my stomach and gently spread into my heart then through my whole body. Oh, sweet Jesus, it was Heaven, purest Heaven. I licked the plate clean, and I mean that literally.

When I was done, Rene appeared by my side, again. “I can use you Tuesday, Thursday lunch, Friday, Sunday night.”

I felt like I’d been slapped with cold water. Did he say what I thought he said? “Here? But I — I — didn’t...”

“Can you work lunch, today?”

“Yes.”

“I need a host. We have a big party coming. You park on the street?”

“Meter.”

“Put it by my car. This time only. Then prep the tables. Laila is alone until noon. Again.”

He turned back to his pots. I couldn’t move. I was afraid that if I did, I’d see nothing but my dreary four walls instead of these happy steaming pots and hear my pissy neighbors instead of the plinks and plops of Rene’s cuisine nearing perfection and smell the cabbage crap Mrs. Vanden was cooking instead of the insanely gorgeous aromas combining in this tiny kitchen. Then Rene looked at me and gave me an irritated flip of his hand to tell me to go.
I went.

Okay...BC is done reformatting...

I'm making one last pass through the book in pdf form to make sure it's in order, but overall it seems to be. 490 page -- about 450 of them the actual novel; the rest are title pages and a sample of The Lyons' Den at the end, to be goofy. What's fun is, it's the same number of pages as the previous one. It had to be to work with the cover.

It certainly looks better than it did, especially the page headers. I had one hell of a time getting them to work well enough in the previous version...and they never did look completely right...but now it's nice and neat, with the page numbers at the bottom of the page. Helps to know what you're doing, even if you don't know all the tricks on how to control Word's quirks.

It's a long book and pretty tough to read, at times, but I did some writing in it I'm proud of...like when Eric's sitting on a front porch in a house near Dallas, sipping icy lemonade on a warm summer night with Samuel, a man who went through the same thing as him years ago at the hands of the same man...and who's reading Allen's version of what happened --

I let my mind drift...wander through the night, through air that still pressed against you like a blanket, both warming and cooling at the same time. I listened to sleepy brush critters mingle their chittering with bleating frogs in the brush and owls calling in the trees. I caught a whiff of honeysuckle on a soft breeze, sweet and thick with bloom. It added to the tang of the lemonade. I thought about nothing.

I grew so still, I could hear the blood swishing through my veins, slow and rhythmic, almost like it was scraping the walls of my vessels. I could feel the bones and tendons move in my elbow as I raised my glass, drawing against each other in vague protest. It was like I’d stepped out of my body to take inventory of every sensation I could think of and thought it was some brilliant achievement. I could easily have drifted off into the night, leaving behind all coherent thought and pain, but then I noticed Samuel had stopped reading.

I looked at him...and in the shadows and soft porch light I lost the soft creases and lines that hinted at age taking hold of his face, lost the loosening feel of his cheeks, lost the hint of a second chin, saw him probably as he looked twenty years ago — young, innocent and almost beautiful, seeming more like a brother of mine than Bobby could ever have. In a cold moment of clarity, I understood why Allen would choose him to further his story; he was the bastard’s ideal.

He finally looked at me and shook his head. “Man...that Allen is really somethin’.” I let him take his time to continue. “This thing he wrote...that’s not me.”
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Bobby Carapisi redone...partially...

I've been working on reformatting BC, this evening, and Word is not being nice. I'm not sure what the deal is, but it seems if I don't do the changes in a certain way, it wipes them out. For example, I'm breaking each section apart so I can better manipulate the header; I don't want it on the first page of a chapter. So I spent an hour setting up a new header for each page, with the footer for page numbering. To do this, I have to go through a massive process of opening up the header/footer at the beginning of each section and telling each one for 6 pages that they should not link to the previous. If I don't do it that many times, it ignores me. Then I go in, add the text and numbering, make sure they're in the font I want...and after that, all pages in the full section should take them in a uniform fashion until I hit the next break.

Except...when I start doing this on the next section...all my even number page headers and footers vanish. I have to break the sections completely apart...like a section with no header/footer between the sections that have them...before I add text to the headers and footers or it thinks I want to go back to default and I have to start all over, again. Then that time, since I've separated the next section from the next section...it sticks. Drives me nuts.

But...the book is already looking a lot better. If all goes well, I should have BC, HTRASG and PM done by Monday, since it's a 3-day weekend. And I may make some typo corrections to A65, to help it be neater. It's about time to consider working up the paperback, so it'd be a good idea to solidify it as I have a hardcover copy on display at a book convention in NYC, next week. I'd go down for it, but the books from the London Book Fair at Battersea Park's Evolution will be returning to the US and I'll be prepping for my trip to Miami, the following week.

Gotta pay for my writing habit in some way, since the books ain't pullin' their weight.

RIHC6 is reformatted...

I just uploaded the file to Ingram Spark and it's been accepted, at no charge, so we shall see how it looks when I get the PDF proof. But I do like how it looks, now, in my own PDF version...very clean and neat. Almost professional. It would be completely professional if I could work out how to make words automatically hyphenate when I justify the text instead of just adding spaces between the words to fit the justification.

What's nice is, if I do decide to put it into a box set with OT, the paperbacks are already the same size -- 5.5x8.5 inches. Worked out well. Not sure how to do that, but it's something I can look into later.

With BC, HTRASG and PM, I'm going to try a simpler route. I want them to just look good, not amateurish, like they do now...though BC might take some work. It's a big book. Nearly 200,000 words. I can't take as long as I did with RIHC6 because I only have the free option till next Thursday. But I'm getting on it, tomorrow.

There's a possibility I might be able to make a short trip to Belfast, the end of next month, and visit the prison museum on Crumlin Road. I can't afford to go all that way on my own, but one job I definitely have in the UK has segued into another potential one...and if that one comes through I'll have 3 days between jobs. So...I can't talk myself out of it. Brendan's also pushing.

I also want to see if I can scope out the Castleragh police station area. So it'd be a 2-night stay...and I'm shaking my head at my financial irresponsibility...but it's important for PS so it's happening...if everything comes together.

That's still a big IF.

4-Star Review of OT on Smashwords...

This is from Dvahood posted on both Smashwords and GoodReads. WooHoo!

This was a very intense and at times complicated story. Jake is a man with a complicated past and messed up family trying to find out what has happened to his Uncle. Tone, is his lover. I didn't really get Tone, maybe if there had been a bit more of his backstory I would have understood their story-line a bit better. The main story-line was The Vanishing of Owen Taylor. It was intriguing, twisty, and fast-paced. It flowed well and the imagery was well done. Most of the secondary characters were well fleshed out and interesting in their own right. The character interactions and dialogue made sense and were realistic. At times I found it was challenging to follow how Jake reached the conclusions that he did, but everything came together in the end. I really loved how the little guy 'put the screws' to 'the man', but hated how the little guy 'put the screws' to the little guy.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a complicated murder mystery and doesn't mind it served up with a strong and angry gay man willing to fight back.

For those readers who may have triggers, there are two off-page rapes, an on-page attempted rape and a couple of violent gay bashing(s)...

This is what I'm looking for...and I can see what she means with her complaints. I'm realizing RIHC6 and OT are really too closely aligned for OT to stand completely alone...but it's out there now. Maybe I will do them as a set, some day...

...And let the freak-outs begin...