Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 210

Mark Twain on critics and criticism...

I believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real value--certainly no large value...However, let it go. It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden.

I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage.

One mustn't criticize other people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself.

Experience has not taught me very much; still it has taught me that it is not wise to criticise a piece of literature, except to an enemy of the person who wrote it; then, if you praise it, that enemy admires you for your honest manliness, & if you dispraise it he admires you for your sound judgment.

A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another man's cross-eyed aunt.

I have nothing to add to the words of the master when it comes to pure snark...

Jackson deux

Not used to an airport that doesn't open till an hour before your flight. But...that made me first in line for Security. Zip. Zoom. I took these en route to the airport, using my cell phone. Not as crisp as my Nikon, but serviceable.
Looking at Jackson, WY across Flat Creek.
Flat Creek in the other direction. Miles and miles of nothing, and I did not see one moose, deer, bear or wolf. Dammit.
The official Grand Tetons. I thought there'd be more of them.
I'm now en route home, a day early. No time to hit Yellowstone or do any more exploring. Nor did I get any writing done. I got a blistering critique of Return To Darian's Point from a reader that even went so far as to criticize my grammar. That was a first, and shook me up, because I was being deliberate in ignoring the rules as regards ellipses and dashes in order to give hints to the actors. Obviously, this person did not like that.
Well, to be crude, fuck 'em. Granted, it took me till 4am to get past my hurt...but reality is, this is an award-winning script. More than once, so we're not talking fluke, here. So if some idiot somewhere (I am deliberately not naming who it is or where this obnoxious twat works) wants to diss my work, fine. I know its quality, and they are the one screwing up.
I've been through worse; I just had to remind myself of it. I had someone refuse to read The Lyons' Den, once, because she didn't like how I described snow. And when Wide New World won an award, I had a production house contact me and ask that it be sent to them, then after they read it told me they didn't understand why I sent then such a piece of shit. On that one, I got angry and used a few choice words as I pointed out they had contacted me. By all rights, I burned a bridge by doing that.
But you can't burn a bridge that hasn't been built, can you?

Jackson, Wyoming

One of those places I never would have come to on my own.

The town is typical, albeit with faux-rustic buildings in the place of honest old ones, and it has a lot more in the way of shopping than a town of less than 10,000 normally would...but then, it also has an office of Sotheby's Real Estate and a modern terminal at the Jackson Hole airport.

Hard to reconcile that with an Alberston's offering Bear Spray.

A nice-enough town center done up for Christmas, but I didn't have much chance to look around.
At least it's near the beginning of the Grand Tetons.

However, it is cold as hell. This morning, the temperature was 5 degrees fahrenheit. Tonight, it's getting down to -6. Great for skiing if there's decent snow on the ground.

But I could never live here, unless I was a bear and willing to hibernate...

Momentary sidestep...

I posted information about Carli's Kills on Amazon Studios to see what will happen. It's a rather involved process that involves a logline, long-form synopsis, image to go with the submission, biography, PDF copy of the script, and they also seem to want you to use their cork-board to put up scene summaries, though I haven't really dug into that yet. It took longer than I expected; next time I post a script to them, I'll be better prepared.

That said, I now have an okay one-sheet style image for the script. Legally licensed and everything. The only thing missing is a gun or knife in Carli's hand, but this will do for now.

It's a very violent script, told more like a horror story with Carli the monster than a simple thriller. I think she winds up sympathetic, mainly because of Zeke...but you never know.

What's best is, it could be shot for very little. It's set around a biker cantina in the desert that has Zeke's shack behind it, an apartment in town, and the place where Carli's staying. Oh, and at the very beginning, a high-rise on LA's Wilshire Corridor that could easily be shot anywhere and green-screened in. Everything else is exteriors around the desert.

I may also post it on InkTip. That costs money, but has a greater reach.

Back to UG, now, and the wild world of Devlin the devil...

Ruh-roh...

A meeting between Dev and his sister-in-law, Diana, changed directions, today. Initially, I was going to have it all happen in his hotel room, but then she took a walk before they got to the meat of the moment and that part now occurs in a pub near Piccadilly Circus. But by doing that, she showed Dev she thinks...or knows...his room is bugged by the cops and she doesn't want them to hear anything she has to say. So now he's aware of their surveillance and his paranoia is making itself known...including realizing Tawfi may be the real target of their investigation.

I'm in that lovely space where I have no idea how this will pan out. Which direction it will go. Anything. This moment wasn't part of the outline, meaning the characters are taking over and interacting with each other like they damn well want to. Which makes me so happy. That's when the story really comes alive for me.

And I have fallen in love with my characters. I honestly do not know if other people will feel the same way about them. The story takes a while to get going, something I cover up with Dev's kidnapping and rape of Reg and the following interrogation. Those take up over 100 pages of the 241 I have so far. It's not until page 145 that Dev begins to take matters into his own hands, and then only haltingly.

At the rate this is going, I'll wind up with 750 pages of story. The Steven King of gay-sex-murder-suspense-mysteries. But without his ability to wring terror from anything. I've read his book on writing and it has influenced my style. I'm trying like crazy to cut down on the use of adjectives, but sometimes I just have to have them. They're like an addiction that I can't completely free myself from.

Maybe that's the problem my first reader had with OT -- not enough adjectives...

Re-boot...

I've gone back through the first 105 pages of UG to make sure I'm headed in the right direction, and then I wrote another bit between Devlin and Tawfi that sort of hints at Tawfi being the killer. Not sure what that's all about, yet...unless it's to involve Devlin even more in the investigation. Guess we'll see where it winds up fitting.

This pass-through cut about 5 pages from the total, mainly because of repetition. Devlin overly explains what's going on with his brother, Colin, and refers to the same story about Colin's wife a couple of times when once is sufficient. But I also added something...later in the story, after Devlin and Tawfi have connected for the second time...

---------

Tawfi lay his head in the small of my back and ran his tender fingers across my skin. He stopped, a couple of times, then moved on. Finally, he said, "You have some curious scarring."

I closed my eyes and just nodded.

He shifted to look closer at them. "There's an odd consistency to them. May I ask, what happened?"

His fingers whispered over them, gentle. I kicked myself for removing my shirt. I said nothing.

"Devlin, you're not sleeping. If you do not wish to answer, merely say so."

Not wish to answer? God, there was nothing more I wanted to do...but the words clawed at my throat, refusing to let go.

Until...

"My father," whispered from me.

Tawfi drifted down to lie beside me, his eyes locked onto my face. "He beat you?"

I could not keep his gaze...had to look away. Give the vaguest of nods. "And my brother. And mother."

He let his fingers glide up to mingle in my hair. So soft. So tender. More words released themselves.

"He had a belt. With this buckle. And if I was being a brat, he...he could have it off and whipping at me in two seconds. Then Colin would get between us and it'd catch him. This was after mom was gone. It kept up till I...I took it away from him. And beat him with it. And threw it in the East River. After that he...he focused more on Colin. And I let him. I went off to college and left Colin with him. After I'd let him protect me. After I'd let him get hurt for me. I left him with the son-of-a-bitch. The only thing that saved him was...our father died. Eleven years ago. Almost twelve. And I still don't believe it."

Tawfi put his fingers to my lips. I looked at him. Realized I was weeping. Could just barely make out his eyes were hurt.

"Now you know what I am," I said. "An animal that only cares about itself. You'd be smart to keep away from me."

His fingers drifted over to caress my eyebrows as he whispered, "It may not be appropriate to reveal this so quickly, but I would hate my life, if I did."

I shifted to kiss the palm of his hand, then said, "So would I."

Met the challenge...

But nowhere near the end of the book. 56,726 words written. Maybe 50% done...maybe 60%. Looking over my outline, I'm hovering right around the halfway point, but this part of that is pretty detailed so I can't really say. Whatever; it'll be what it'll be and I'll deal with it once I'm done.

I'm not completely happy about Devlin having a reason for going after Reg. Makes him a bit more reactive than I wanted -- or he wanted -- yet it makes sense for the story. And since Reg became ex-Army and was wounded in Afghanistan, that keeps Devlin's actions more on the animalistic side and helps to jolt him out of his brutal intentions. Without him realizing, of course, until he's well on his way to redemption.

It was nice not having to deal with anything during Thanksgiving except my writing. I'm off till Monday, when I go to Wyoming. Have to change planes twice and I'm staying in a Motel 6, but it will be interesting. Maybe. Dick Cheney land, so I dunno...

I read a book a long time ago, by Sinclair Lewis -- It Can't Happen Here -- about the rise of fascism in America. A U S Senator named Buzz Windrip leads his mob-like followers into forcing his election to the White House and immediately sets about destroying everything the Constitution stands for while claiming to protect it and promising instant prosperity. It's supposed to be something of a satire, but there are parts of the book that are absolutely chilling. Like one point where a doctor who says something wrong is immediately dragged into a courtyard and shot.

Donald Trump's push for the White House reminds me so damn much of this book, it scares me. It seems no matter how badly he behaves -- like making fun of a reporter's physical deformity or flat out lying about thousands of Muslims dancing in the streets for joy, in Paterson, NJ at the fall of the Twin Towers (something that did NOT happen) -- his poll numbers keep going up. People defend him. Say he tells the truth, even when faced of proof of the bastard's lies. It's insane.

Sinclair Lewis was right -- it CAN happen here.

Tomorrow's the big day for numbers...

I'll hit 50,000 words, and still have another ⅓ to ½ of the book to finish writing. So I'll keep going on it till Monday; that's when I fly to Jackson, Wyoming. All while I'm still coming down off jet lag and trying to realign my body clock. I guess maintaining the same schedule in Hong Kong that you have in New York makes things worse for you. I've been starving all day and can't keep my eyes open.

Since I'm not an automaton, the shredding of OT affected me...and what I'm doing with UG. These are two completely different types of stories so to hold them up to each other for evaluation by the same criteria is absurd. UG is a sex-charged murder mystery built on suspense and some character development. OT is a character-driven story that unfolds in its own natural way. UG starts off running at 90; OT starts from ten mph and works its way up to 120...then gears down.

What I'm trying to do with OT is make Jake and his world as real as I can while slowly upping the drama he's faced with -- Palm Springs under attack by homophobes out to take their city back. It's got a lot more going on, and I'm trying to show how insidiously that insulates itself into the town's society. It's a dark story but with some humor...I thought...so I guess if you don't buy into Jake as someone you want to follow, you aren't going to buy the book.

Thinking about it, I had a vaguely similar complaint lodged against Bobby Carapisi, a few years back -- that the story didn't get started until it reached Allen's letter detailing how he raped men. I guess I need to make it clear that, even though there is sex in the books, it's not the raison d'etre for the books. That never has been the case in my writing, though the sex does get pretty damned intense, at times.

I dunno...maybe I'm just writing a Russian novel, with hundreds of characters and each playing his or her own small part in the full story...and fancy myself the gay Tolstoy...

Okay...am I a baby or a big boy?

Got my first response to my latest draft of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor, today, and it was pretty much a complete rejection. Boiled down to it needs to be cut in half and has too many characters. So...what does that mean? Well...nothing, just yet. I do have a previous response that isn't supposed to count; the reader wants to go back through to be able to give me better notes because he got lost in it...i.e. loved it. I'm waiting to hear from a couple of others, as well, before I make any decisions about what to do next. But it cuts you.

Doesn't help that I'm also still kind of off-kilter from the trip. The flight back from Hong Kong got off late, arrived late, and felt really, really long. And my brain was not doing well in the focusing department, so I watched their entertainment selections. First up was the first season of Prime Suspect...and damn it's still good. Better than 99% of the police programs on TV even now, and that's with it being 25 years old.

Another offering was SPY, with Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Jude Law and Rose Byrne -- and it was a hoot, to my surprise. It got a little silly in parts, when Melissa was being bad-ass, but overall? I'd watch it, again. I actually got startled into a snorting laugh in the middle of this deathly quiet airplane. I think I woke up a couple of people. Very embarrassing.

One major disappointment about Hong Kong this year, aside from the heat index being 9000? The lack of good-looking men to glance at. The best one was a book dealer from the UK, whom I've known for a while and sighed over for just as long, and whose name shall remain unknown...and who was smart enough to have his pretty wife with him. Dammit.

But outside the venue? Nothin'. I remember the first year I went to this fair, I practically stalked this gorgeous Frenchman up to The Peak. The weather was cool so I had on a pullover, and he was wearing a neat leather jacket. I got some decent photos of him...somewhere. I'll have to see if I can find them. Of course, he noticed me doing it and cast me a Get the F away glare. Not that it mattered; once on The Peak, half a dozen caught my eye...including a couple who were coupled.

Still...some spy I'll never be...

And More of Hong Kong...

This is during a lull at the China in Print Book Fair.
An exhibit of Hong Kong boats at the Maritime Museum.
Another exhibit...
Real life on Hong Kong harbor.
The book fair is over and it was successful. Most everyone wants to come back, next year. I wouldn't be unhappy to do the same, now that I know someone here.