Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 170

WTF Did I Do?

I've lost half the changes I made for The Alice '65. I cannot find them anywhere on either laptop or thumb drives. Apparently, the draft I worked on all weekend was an earlier draft of the story. I remember making a draft titled October 5th then, on Saturday, saved that draft as October 7th to differentiate between them...and I cannot find the October 5th one, anywhere. I've searched my thumb drives and both laptops, and it's nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, I'd printed out the first 92 pages of that draft, on Friday, but it means I have to go back through and re-input everything I did. So I'm now way behind schedule. I thought I'd completed this draft, but no such luck.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I positively despise computers, at the moment.

The Alice '65 is done, again...

I just finished the latest draft. 301 double-spaced pages, 64,950 words. Tighter. More precise. Ready for more proofing. I'll think about doing that, tomorrow; right now, I'm brain dead.

The work today was mainly taken up with making the fight in the jet read more clearly. I don't know if a large passenger jet can even do what I have this one doing, but right now I don't care. It works for the story.

The nice thing about focusing on writing is, I can ignore the crap that Czar Snowflake keeps spitting out. A hurricane's hitting New Orleans, but the SOB's off golfing, again. Let the rabble take care of themselves and take credit for anything that goes right while blaming Obama for anything that goes wrong.

I wasn't crazy about Obama. He was not a real progressive. He did some great things -- the ACA, and saving GM and Chrysler, and bringing a lot of respect back to the US after Bush's disasters -- but he also increased the drone attacks that killed civilians and his plan to help homeowners wrecked by the financial collapse did next to nothing, almost deliberately, and he did not go after the scum on Wall Street and in the banks who caused the collapse. But this knee-jerk reaction by the right wing to lay everything bad at his doorstep is beyond ludicrous into diseased.

Considering the chaos exploding in the world and the vile actions by the GOP and its vermin followers, I'm beginning to think it may be a good thing for Mother Nature to make mankind extinct. Or at least cut us back to a manageable level. Right now, we're fouling our nest and turning on each other like rats trapped in a cage. It's truly frightening, and having a maniac with his finger on the nuclear button is terrifying.

I keep telling myself things have been worse in the past, which they have. Germany's 30 year war in the 17th Century killed off 2/3 of its population. The Black Plague wiped out half of Europe. Aztecs and Incas practiced human sacrifice. Tribes in Africa ate their enemies. Not so much of that, now. Just maniacs mowing down people in movie theaters or concerts or as they go to school.

What a world I'm bringing my tender little book into.

I'm close to hating my new laptop...

When I'm working on it, things seem to go bad far more often. I have to make corrections in every sentence, no matter how hard I try, because if I even brush against a letter next to the one I want, it inputs it. Or it pops up with a window that offers either an explanation of what a word means or access to some other window. And when I want to click and drag, I have to try to do it 3-4 times before it stops just opening the damned file and agrees to let me do what I want to do. Other times, even if I hit a key, it doesn't take.

I'm not the world's greatest typist, but in the previous paragraph, I had to make 14 corrections. Those slow me down immeasurably. That's half the reason I shifted back to my old MacBook to work on A65. I don't have anywhere near this much trouble on it. And it has a separate click pad from the track pad, making it a lot easier to do click and drag and highlighting and locating.

If this is the direction Macs are going, I have to rethink them. Because the reason I liked Mac was its ease of use and helpfulness. Now it's so tight and sophisticated, it's beyond my ability to use. And that pisses me off. If I have to have an artistic hand to fucking word process, that defeats the purpose.

I didn't do any work on A65, this evening; it was time to handle bills and my schedule and catch up on emails. I haven't heard from Zan Varin about my art for the book cover, yet, so sent him a message. I will finish inputting the book this weekend; I don't need to leave my apartment so can concentrate on it. Then Monday I'm printing it out, double-sided, to go over again.

It's a never ending process...at least, the way I do it, it is...

One of those moods...

I honestly do not know what it is, but nothing was making me happy, the last couple days. I'm tired, sure, from this whirlwind trip...getting up at 4am to catch a plane so I don't have to pay for another hotel night, not eating well the whole trip because I'm in a part of the country that believes in salting everything a dozen times and slathering it with butter -- even a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Greenville's airport was a disaster; what they call a Margherita pizza was more like soggy toast with tomato paste, Cheez-whiz and six (6) nickel-sized leafs of basil.

So I get in after midnight, sleep till 10, don't go into work till noon, work like crazy to catch up on all the changes to my schedule, next week, and grumble and mutter, then after I leave can't figure out what I want for dinner because I've got nothing at home figure, "Y'know, I like Indian and this one place has really good curry." But then I think, "I want a real meal and that's only almost one."

Still I talk myself into it, only to have the waiter hover over me and try 5 times to fill my glass with water, even though I've told him not to. Then the Samosas are fried to a crisp and the beer is middling and it takes forever for my lamb curry to arrive, and I just want to leave.

So I come home with leftovers and somehow talk myself into working on A65...and that made me happy. I feel like Adam and Casey are my children, and they've grown into lovely adults right before my eyes. I'm at the next morning, after the chaos of Lando's party, and Adam's being tender and caring about Casey, understanding why she did what she did, and she's enjoying being with him and it all looks good for them...until a brutal crisis in the next chapter. Then it's all roller-coaster time.

When I finished for the night, I checked on BookDaily's promo to find 354 people checked out OT, which was good, I guess. Amazon did the business of getting it known, too, with an additional 200 "clicks" on the offering. Whether that will turn into reviews is still up in the air; I don't even know if any of these "clicks" wound up with people actually downloading the book; that info's not offered. But I've done what I can, for now. The next couple months will let me know if it's worth the money.

Hope it is.

Spending the night in Dillard, Georgia...

Man, some of the places I go to. This is in the northern part of the state, where the Smokey Mountains begin. Some lovely scenery and that's about it. Next week I do another round of trips to Chicago, LA and Seattle, then after that is Key West. I keep thinking there's something in the background I'm forgetting at the very end of the month, before China in Print in Hong Kong...meaning I gotta get my butt in gear if I want this book done by Thanksgiving.

I'm trying an experiment with OT, right now -- giving away free ebooks for 5 days, through Kindle and BookLife. It started Sunday, and so far nearly 500 copies have been downloaded, making it a number 1 in gay mysteries; I took a screenshot as proof.

So that part of the experiment was good. Next comes seeing if I get any reviews out of it and then whether or not it makes people open to paying the whole $1.95 for it in ebook.

But if this does work, I'm using it for A65. I got another chapter done, even though I'm exhausted. I was up at 4am to catch my plane down here, so for much of the morning I was Mr. Grouch. Good thing is, I scored empty rows on my flight to Atlanta and then to Greenville. Better for all concerned.

Now I'm fading and that's enough for the night.

And a bit more of A65...

Continues from yesterday's to the end of Chapter 1 --

-----

"So what about that bloody Erasmus? Been on the shelf a week and you're expert on it and — "

“It's set to photograph,” Adam said.

That is when Hakim, their unctuous, fastidious, self-proclaimed office manager, popped in to snap, “The provenance better be right, this time.”

Adam huffed. Once, when researching a manuscript copy of Richard Wagner's Die Nibelungen for The Arts Council, he'd neglected to put an umlaut over a "U" in his transcription from the German. Never mind it was he who realized it and informed Hakim before the provenance was sent over, the man now acted as if Adam's work was constantly riddled with errors.

Adam meant to respond with an off-hand, “Of course,” but instead shot Hakim a glare and noticed Elizabeth was about to pass with a thick volume bound in vellum. He bolted over.

“Wait, is this Die Schedelsche Weltchronik?” he asked, in German. “The one found in Romania?”

The book had caused quite a stir around the department — an original Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel, created at the end of the Fifteenth Century and considered the first and most exquisite example of illustrations being integrated into printed books. This one had been discovered in some attic in Bucharest and was being offered to Merryton, for sale. Photos had been sent and most of the staff thought it was a legitimate copy, as did Vincent.

And Sir Robert. Butterworth. The most recent addition to the governors. He was the one pushing the expansion of the rare book collection, and he was more than a little perturbed when Adam insisted the binding did not look original and the photographs were of pages too easily reproduced. He had overruled Adam and now the book was here for consideration.

"This arrived quickly," Adam continued, still in German.

Elizabeth sighed and snapped, "Adam, English."

He was so used to being reminded he was speaking another language, he merely asked, "Why're you taking it? It’s outside your area of expertise while mine is perfectly suited — "

“Vincent asked me to,” she snapped.

“Why would he do that?”

Hakim snorted. “You argued with him."

To which Elizabeth added, with acidic sweetness, "And Sir Robert, neither of whom likes being contradicted."

Adam huffed. Sir Robert had also put down a substantial deposit to guarantee the purchase because he felt it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He would not like being made to look foolish, but if the book did turn out to be a facsimile and not a first printing, it would be worth a fraction of the owner's asking price.

“Elizabeth,” Adam said, taking the book from her, “you must already see the binding is not contemporary to the book. More like Eighteenth-Century, at earliest, and — ”

He looked inside and huffed, again.

Elizabeth had put her initials on the first endpaper, in soft graphite. It was to show Jeremy by whom the book was catalogued so he could note it in his log, then it was to be carefully erased once photographed. But it was not supposed to be done until the book HAD been catalogued, something she had yet to begin.

Adam cast a glance of reproach at her then tenderly shifted to the title page — and saw that he was right; it had been slipped into the volume with such expert care, only one tiny crinkle showed in the paper. “Here you go; her title page is affixed — ”

Elizabeth cut him off with, “Adam, it's not a person; it's a thing.”

He cradled the book in one arm and carefully held the page up for her to see what was blatantly obvious. To him. “But look at the — ”

She snapped the book closed, clipping his nose with a corner of the front board and making him yelp, then she yanked it away.

“Give it here!” she snarled. “Hakim's right. Half the time you've got no idea what you're talking about.” And she stormed off.

Adam noticed Jeremy was snickering, and Hakim was glaring at him as if he were fully incompetent. This was not to be borne. When he was right about a book, he was right, and he knew he was right. But if he had to prove it, he knew exactly how.

He strode back into The Dark Chamber, aiming for a tiny lift situated in a back corner while rubbing his nose to keep from sneezing. The lift was the main way down to the basement, which held row after row of sturdy shelves packed with books on collectors and collecting, bibliographies, biographies, annual sales records, auction and dealer catalogues, correspondences, encyclopedias — over ten thousand volumes the department had gathered over centuries, for research purposes. Adam considered it a treasure trove.

The basement's one drawback was how dark and dreary it was. Electric lighting had been added a hundred years ago, when the shelves were much fewer, but had not been expanded. That left large sections in shadows so deep, Adam had to use the light on his phone to see or read the books’ labels.

Elizabeth had nicknamed it The Dungeon and hated to go down there for fear of rats or mice. Adam thought she was being too dramatic, for they had Henry the Fourteenth to handle vermin. He was a ginger cat named after the thirteen preceding him, and who was always happy to greet one as the lift door opened then wander off to be content in some dry corner till it was time to hunt for supper — which, considering his hefty weight, he was not wanting for. So perhaps Elizabeth had a point.

The lift was sitting in its place, ready to be used. It had been added at the same time as the lighting, and was barely large enough for one man and a book cart. Plus one had to take extra care when getting in and out as its door and gate were manual and loved to catch your fingers.

Adam sneezed then opened the door and the gate to step in and heard —

“Now, Jere, one of those is mine.”

He turned to look past the shelving and saw Jeremy framed in the doorway with both cups of tea in hand. His expression was as innocent as that of the angels on high as he said, “Sorry, duchess, but last I heard, no means no.”

“And I'm sure you heard it just last night,” Elizabeth snapped, appearing in the doorway with him. “Hand it over. It's my cup.”

“Come and take it,” he cooed, as he backed to his room.

Elizabeth followed him.

Adam sighed and absently closed the elevator door. He was not surprised she liked Jeremy. She could look him straight in the eye, when in heels, and you never knew what he might do from one moment to the next, while the track of Adam's future was straight and obvious till the age of death. Deviation not allowed.

Adam shook his head and absently closed the gate — and it pinched his left thumb. He yelped. It had cut his skin. He pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket to wrap around it, then set the lever to Basement and started down. He had clean bandages in his rucksack so would get one when he came back up. Oh well, at least the day couldn’t get any worse.

Or so he thought.

Worked through A65's chapter 7, so...

Here's a continuation of chapter 1,  from yesterday:

----

He decided to make a note for Vincent to suggest as much, but Elizabeth, the lovely young woman in cubicle number four, whirled in to remove her coat and sling it over the top of her half-wall, every movement brisk, controlled and beautiful in a slim, blonde, London sort of way. She removed her high heels, which brought her down to Adam’s height, and slipped into a pair of slippers as she asked, "Has Vincent been in, yet?" Then she pulled her hair into a ponytail.

Adam took a deep breath, catching the hint of a garden from her perfume, and shook his head. "You're safe. It's just gone nine."

"Thanks." Then she vanished behind her wall, and he heard her cry, "Bloody hell, my computer won't wake up."

That is when Adam's computer flashed that it would now allow him access to the database.

"Mine just now has," he said. "Took its time."

"But you shut yours down; I let mine sleep."

"Best do a restart, then."

"Well, Vincent can't say anything if I don't have access to the server." Then she got up and headed for the kitchenette.

Adam smiled, shook his head and turned to his computer to complete the provenance on the Orlando, then he dove into a copy of Erasmus' Morais Enkomion, which had been sitting on the incoming shelf for several days. He broke for tea at 10:55, had lunch at one, and finished the provenance by three, just as his mobile phone chirped a thirty-minute warning of a meeting Vincent had scheduled with him.

He stood and stretched, still a bit sore from Saturday’s scrums, neatened his tie, and carried the Erasmus to a short side hall while singing it a soft little song. In Greek.

"I see a book that's going to be took for Jeremy to photograph and put with all the rest. She's a lovely little book which soon will find her nook, and she will be considered to be one of our best."
He had sung the same song to the Orlando, albeit in Latin. It helped make the book feel welcome to her new home.

He took the Erasmus into a room they called The Dark Chamber — a smallish square with thick, solid shelves on the walls and two freestanding units. Its bare illumination came from sconces fixed high above and a single oval window of cut leaded glass up near the ceiling. Here, newly arrived books waited to be archived or photographed, after which they were set on the center shelves for their journey to a climate-controlled vault.

The photography room was just down a short hall from The Dark Chamber and was jealously guarded by a half-Scally, half-punk, half-Eastenders lad named Jeremy. He had jammed his computer, table, camera, tripod and light kit into a space little larger than Adam's cubicle and consistently whined about being cramped, which was no surprise, him being at least four inches taller than Adam. More than once he'd suggested swapping his space for The Dark Chamber, but Vincent consistently refused. Which made Adam very happy. He loved the room's tender play of dust and light and darkness, like it was wrapping the antiquarian volumes in the safety of shadows and silence.

He set the Erasmus on the to-be-photographed shelf, nice and gentle, then checked his phone to make sure his alarm was still set to remind him of his appointment. He had done it wrong more than once, but it looked all right. He figured he had time for an early cup of tea so popped into a kitchenette just across the hall.

He set the kettle to going and pulled down his cup — a black one with A room without books is like a body without a soul (Cicero) wrapped around it in white lettering. As he filled it, he caught a glimpse of Elizabeth slipping into The Dark Chamber with a drop-back box that contained a set of handwritten letters from Henry James to someone in the south of France. He thought it funny she was archiving them, since she had read none of his books.

"I tried Washington Square," she had told him, "but his style is so arch. I prefer Virginia Woolf."

Adam was shocked. "But how could you not have?"

"Have you read every book in German?" she had snapped. "Or Greek? Or Latin? Or made prior to 1501?"

"That's not the point, Elizabeth."

"Don't patronize me, Adam. I know Henry James well enough to make even you sound idiotic." Then she had worked on the letters all day, without a word to him.

He let it pass because it was now obvious that, while her specialty might be Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century literature, she was not a book person. He doubted she ever would be, though he was open to helping her learn, if she wanted.

He pulled down her cup, and plopped a bag into it, calling, "Cup of tea, Elizabeth?"

"Tea?" she called back.

"Water's hot. Be set in a flash," he said as he poured hot water into it.

"Quarter milk, no sugar?”

"Just the way you like it," he said, dolloping milk into both cups.

“No, thanks,” she called back.

Adam froze. He now had two cups of tea and only time enough to finish one. And they had to be drunk in the kitchenette; to take any sort of food or liquid back to your cubicle raised too great a risk of an irreplaceable book being damaged.

That is when Jeremy popped his head through the door and growled in his happy-puppy way, "Tea? You never make me any."

Adam had no idea how to respond except to say, “Didn't know you drank it.”

Just to show you how A65 has changed...

Here's some of the re-re-re-re-re-re-re-written opening.

------

When Adam Verlain left for work at 7:35 am, he expected it to be a typical day. He wore his usual suit and tie, with his Oxfords polished and his Macintosh over one arm. His russet hair had been neatened by the monthly visit to his barber. His pleasant face was well shaved and his glasses freshly washed. A gray rucksack slung over his right shoulder held a notebook, a sandwich, an apple, a bottle of water and a new copy of Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter to read on the underground, and he strode down the walk with an openness that made him look more like he was fresh from university and not someone approaching the age of thirty.

He caught the 7:46 at Epping Station, changed for St. Pancras at Liverpool Street and entered his cubicle at 8:54 to start up his computer. As usual, he was the first to arrive.

Adam was an archivist of antiquarian books for Merryton College in London. This was neither the oldest nor best known university in England but it had a good reputation in the liberal arts and sciences, and while their library of rare volumes was hardly the largest, it was more than respectable. His focus was incunabula and manuscripts, in German, Latin, or Greek — though he could handle French, if need be — and he loved his job. Loved investigating when a particular book was printed or written, by whom or for whom, who had first owned it, who its binder was, who its later owners were, when and how often it sold at auction — everything one could imagine.

The one drawback was that he could become so engrossed in his research, were someone to ask him a question ... well, first, they would have to ask it twice, then he would take a moment, look at them with the expression of a curious kitten, remove his glasses, look at them a moment longer and then say, "Sorry? What was that?" As if he had been in a separate world and had to go through a twelve-step process to rejoin this one.

His desk was situated in what was once the school’s old chapel, a shadow-riven room whose flagstone floor was partially covered by a well-worn Persian carpet, and whose wooden ceiling was held in place by four-hundred year-old beams and braces. A wrought iron candelabra hung from the center beam, its electric bulbs twisted into the shapes of little flames that offered a bare minimum of illumination while, along two walls, tall slim windows of leaded glass allowed a fraction of light to pass through. Not that Adam minded; he felt it bestowed upon the room a gentle aura of mystery. Unfortunately, that feeling was marred by the set of four bland chrome and grey cubicles in the center of it all.

Adam's was number three.

This particular Monday, he was set to finish the provenance on a fine copy of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, an edition in Latin that had been presented to King Victor Emmanuel in 1866. There were indications it might have first belonged to Pope Pius IX which, if true, would greatly enhance its historical value despite the last quire missing a page.

Vincent, the library's curator, a man with the age and appearance of a Victorian ghost, had dismissed the story as nonsense, but Adam had become so focused on trying to confirm the events, he had worked on nothing else for three days. When Vincent found out, he'd stormed up to Adam and towered over him, his face almost filled with color.

"We've dozens of books to archive," the old man had snapped in his 1950s BBC radio announcer tone, "yet you're still working on this one inconsequential volume?"

Adam had huffed. Granted, the book's binding was rather pedestrian, but the possibility of a pope having presented it to a king at a time of major political upheaval was more than worth the effort. So he had responded with a simple, "Sir, I have never believed any book to be inconsequential."

Causing Vincent to jolt ramrod straight and snarl in his worst headmaster attitude, "Nor is this one more consequential than any others in our collection! Be done with it!" Then he had stormed off.

That was at the end of the previous Friday.

Fortunately, Adam had already intended to complete the provenance, first thing, after which he would take another book from the incoming shelf to investigate. If Vincent thought this was due to his order, that was of no consequence.

Still, Adam felt he had let the book down, in some way. As his computer continued to contemplate the possibility of making itself available, he picked it up, with a sigh.

"You'd be just the right item for a pope to give a king before a war, so don't think I'm giving up on you. I'll unlock the last of your mysteries, eventually."

He set the book back on his desk, saw his computer was still in contemplation mode, so swiveled in his chair to look around and rub a scrape on his chin, evidence of a rough rugby match with his mates, on Saturday. The opposing team had been quite emphatic about winning, but Adam was happy to say they had not.

He stopped his chair moving when he noticed a beam of light illuminating some soft sparkling dust, close by ... and he smiled. This was such a gentle, elegant room. So filled with history and wonder. It should have tables and cases of books and manuscripts to boast of, not four hideous blocks of walls in its center. Removing them and putting in a simple row of desks would provide it far more respect.

The changes grow and grow...

Today en route home from work I realized my descriptions of Casey's and Lando's home need to be exchanged. What I have her living in is more his style of house, and his is more hers. So this is no longer a polish but a complete rewrite. I've even gone back to square one and started from the beginning...and found more ways to not only condense but clarify the action in the first two chapters.

Once I saw how much work needed to be done, I told the last 6 people I was hoping to get feedback from to forget it. By the time I got anything from them the story would be completely rewritten. I got what I needed -- a jolt to get me out of my love for my words and into the reality that I have to make the thing readable and interesting. Still got a ways to go on that.

On a positive note, the story's down below 65K in wordage and slimming down even more. 60K wold be a good size for a book like this. Lean and clean and a nice Summer read...if I can get people to notice it. Won't that be a trick?

I'm still aiming for a Thanksgiving release, but that may mean not doing National Novel Writing Month, this year. I won't have time to develop the cover and rewrites and polishes and everything. Oh well, such is life in the big city.

I've begun writing standing up, again. I sit so damn much during the day, my butt and back were beginning to irritate me, so I made a space on a shelving unit that comes up to about the middle of my stomach and use on that. My legs aren't completely happy, but I hear it's healthier.

Plus, I'm back to using my old laptop. It's nowhere near as irritating as that friggin' trackpad on the MacBook Pro. I'm beginning to see what happens with it depends on where on the trackpad I click. If I do it at the area closest to me, it highlights and opens what the cursor is on. If I want to click and drag, I have to do it from the upper part of the pad. I don't know if others are like this, but if this thing was deliberately developed this way, the fucking engineer ought to be shot.

And for a while, yesterday, I'd have been happy to pull the trigger.

Slow going on "The Alice '65"...

I'm finding this rewrite to be more focused on details than I expected, so I've only gotten through another 2 chapters. I'm checking my grammar and sentence structure for clarity and removing the ellipses with abandon but still having to make certain the paragraph makes sense, and it's proving to be demanding. My hope is it proves to be an even better, easier read...but I doubt I'll be able to start on the dust jacket for the hardcover edition, this weekend.

I usually go into projects with too optimistic an idea of what I can and can't do and how quickly it can be done. I've been trying to temper that with a bit more reality, but I don't always succeed. Looks like this was one of those times.

I think I'm going back to using my MacBook to finish this rewrite for A65. I'm finding my new MacBook Pro is a pain in the ass when writing. I need to relearn how to use it so I can stop messing up my work. This evening, I brushed over the trackpad in some way that caused it to highlight a couple of sentences in a paragraph then, when I went to get out of it, wound up shifting those sentences to a different part of the paragraph. I was able to correct it, easily enough, but only because I noticed it. And this is with me trying to minimize the sensitivity of the trackpad. So that's also slowing me down.

Of course, I rarely take into account the distractions of life -- like needing to iron or clean my apartment or deal with bills or certain stupid moments in interactions with people or companies online. I wish I had an assistant to just take care of all that. A nice little intern who looks like Chris Evans and thinks I'm brilliant.

Yeah, then I'd talk to him all the time and never get any work done...