Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 211

The ideas keep coming...

I did a bit more adjusting and adding and rearranging on OT, though nothing massive or even expansive. Mainly details here and there and removal of a few more soft words and phrases. Now since I'm off on a 6 day trip, tomorrow, I won't have time to work on it and that will be good. I can finally let it sit.

Maybe I can get back to having something of a somewhat normal life. Read more. Watch a couple of movies. I'll be in San Mateo, not San Francisco, till Saturday night and will have a full day, Friday, to do whatever. No idea, yet, as to what that whatever will be. I've seen everything I want to in SF so don't feel the need to go into town...though I may. I might take my sketchbook with me and do some pen and ink stuff.

I'll have a car. Maybe I'll hop over to Carmel or Monterrey. I haven't been there since I was in college. Move-in's Thursday morning; the fair goes Friday and Saturday and I'm not needed back till 2pm on Saturday. Then once everything's loaded out and headed for the California Book Fair in Pasadena, I hop a redeye to Miami to handle load-out of the Miami Map Fair.

Then Monday next week it's back up to Buffalo...and after that I'm office-bound till some packing job comes up. A couple are hinting at needing me, but nothing concrete in any way, form, or fashion.

Let's see if I can keep from gaining weight this trip.

Another draft bites the dust...

I finished the latest pass on The Vanishing of Owen Taylor this evening. It's 507 pages long, at the moment, but hasn't been reformatted to fit into a book so will probably wind up about 300-325 pages spread over 4 parts.

I'm a lot happier with it. Jake's voice has become more forceful, more direct. I'm getting rid of about half the softening words I'd used...like then and well and sort of. And I did cut back on a lot of Jake telling what he or someone else is feeling and tried to make it clear through description of their actions.

It does keep getting tighter and faster as the story goes, so I may try to speed up the action in the beginning...but I can't go too far on that. As of now, everything in the book is there for a purpose and ties in later.

When I get back from the book fairs, I'll give it one quick pass then see if anyone is willing to give me feedback on it. Someone who hasn't read it, yet. If that comes together without major issues, I think I'll be ready to start setting it up for publishing.

I want an image for the back of the book, so may look into working up a version of Owen's painting of Jake and Dion. I photoshopped a photograph into a rendition of it, but I don't have the rights to it and have no idea whom to contact to license it for this. I'll have to think on that.

This has not been an easy process, I know...but it's been rewarding...finally. Working through it has sharpened my writing skills. I can tell the difference from just when I wrote Bobby Carapisi.

I almost feel like I'm training for the marathon of writing Place of Safety.

Taste the closeness...

I'm down to the last 85 pages of this rewrite of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor. I may actually get this done before making my run to San Francisco and Miami, especially since I'm up to the part that doesn't really need a lot of reworking. Everything's set; now come the confrontations and explanations.

In this draft I found an interesting thread already sort of running through the story -- that Jake must get to where he trusts himself. Once I'm done, I'm going to let this draft sit for a while then make another pass through it to see if that's really part of the story's theme -- trust. Jake's actions seem to indicate that while he has the ability to trust others...or tries to...he never trusts his own abilities, except when he's angry. Which is not the way it should be.

That plays a little off me -- I have major trust issues. Not just with others but with myself. Looking back I can see that I've always had them, but I never really thought about it until the last few years. Now I can see I've never truly believed in my own opinions and abilities. People praise me and I shrug it off as nice but not really meaningful...which is silly. People criticize me and I take it to heart, no matter how vicious and stupid it is. Nowhere near as much as I used to...but still somewhat.

Thing is, in the entertainment business you have to not only be able to do the job, but know you can -- be it writer, director, actor. Otherwise, you will crash and burn. Because no matter how well you do, how perfect you are in every way, there will always be those who criticize you and tear you down.

What's crazy is, 25 years ago, I had the chance to prove myself as someone capable of making a movie and I failed, miserably. I got involved in a film project with a man who had plenty of ego and no talent, and just before production began I had the feeling I should cancel it for the good of everybody or at least take it over...but I didn't. I stupidly thought I could make it work, as it was.

I was wrong, and my gut was right. And I've been in several other situations where it told me to stop and back away, and every time I paid attention it turned out right. It's when I didn't that I fucked up.

I don't learn easy. My lessons are usually brutal, and they have to slam me more than once. I don't know why I am that way...I just am. And it looks like I always will be, to an extent.

And I don't know if that's psychosis, stupidity or just plain stubbornness.

Looks like I'm getting better...

Haven't had a wild idea all day. Been too busy getting ready for the California Book Fair in Pasadena, The San Francisco Print & Paper Fair in San Mateo, and the Miami Map Fair in...Miami. I'm handling the last two, both of which are on Super Bowl weekend. And San Mateo is only a few miles from where the football game will happen...so that show is only running Friday and Saturday.

I head out Wednesday, then I'm back to the office the following Tuesday, and will stay there for Pasadena. Dammit. It's been a year since I've been to LA and I'm going through withdrawal. Another sign I'm feeling better.

I'm at page 278 of the latest rewrite of OT and finding more things to shift to make the story better. Like when Jake goes to an abandoned dealership and finds it's being used as a porn studio that's connected to his uncle. I was missing ways to make this moment more intense and add to Jake's growing belief his uncle was killed.

I may actually get this book done...

Another crazy-assed idea...

I used to do storyboards for movies. What if I was to storyboard out one of my scripts, all the way, then get local actors to read the dialogue, then shift the sketches into a video with the actors' voices over and post that in 3 minute bits? That would only take forever...but it'd be something...

I also found a publisher looking for some nice horror, vampire, SF and fantasy stories to publish -- maximum word count...35,000. Hell, that's just a chapter for me. But I could shift Blood Angel over to that, from screenplay format. Make it nice and erotic, and it's already very heterosexual. I tried for the style of The Hunger; the innocence of Fright Night; the viciousness of Interview With The Vampire; the togetherness of Being Human.

Initially, I used Jonathan Togo and Christina Ricci as images in my head for Tristan and Gabrielle. I like the haunted look in his eyes, because Tristan's had too much hurt in his life. And she looks like someone who is always in control and cares for nothing but that which will make her happy, which is Gabrielle to the nth degree. They'd have been a great pair, onscreen. I might still use them as models, if I do the storyboards.
Hmm...only thing is, I'd need music for it, because Tristan's life is about a song his mother wrote for him and how he plays his trumpet in the devastation left behind by Katrina as a elegy to not only her but his city...and himself. Dunno any good trumpet players, and licensing music is a pain in the ass...and never really right.

I used Jan Garbarek's "Pace mihi domine" as my template music for Tristan's elegy. It's haunting and elegant in a way that is both beautiful and heartbreaking. Back when I had cashed out my 401K and was living off that while I tried to get something going for BA, I had it workshopped and paid an associate to develop a $5m budget for it (which would probably be $15m, now). Developed a prototype of the poster. Even hit the Austin Film Festival to try and garner interest; it had reached the semi-finals in their screenplay competition. This was 9 years ago. Obviously none of it worked.

I guess in the space of the next 9 years, I could work up enough sketches to almost make it animated.

Colds make me crazy...

I rarely get colds, but when I do I go nuts. I get depressed. I don't like anything. I just want to be left alone but don't want to stay home. I should never go shopping or reading or do any writing when I'm hacking and rubbing myself with Vicks and downing OJ like it's water. Right now I feel like I slosh as I walk from all the fluids in me, and I know it made a merely bad meal into the worst of my life. Now my pants fit tighter around the waist, I have to pee like every five minutes, and I will never go back to PF Chang's.

Something else it does is bring me crazy ideas and contemplations mixed with a touch of anger and a lot of attitude. Like...what if I worked How To Rape A Straight Guy into a screenplay? And took it to a porn house for funding? Someplace like Cocky Boys or Sean Cody or HotHouse or Bondage Gods? It only has a few locations -- a bar, a condo & garage in WeHo, city streets, Curt's apartment, and a jail. It could done cheap. Keep in the graphic sex for the producers, but make it a serious movie about a man destroying himself, even as he's sure he's doing the opposite.

It would mean using porn actors, for most of the male roles...but there are some who can act. Colby Keller (the guy in the photo), for instance. Connor Habib. Paul Wagner. Kyle King. Question is, would Colby shave off his beard?

Make 2 editions -- one for an R rating; one for the XXX crowd. It would be a giant F You to the cowardice and amazing stupidity of the film industry, in general.

I think this came on strong because I read Joseph Fiennes was cast to play Michael Jackson in the British road film about a trip he, Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor supposedly took after 9/11 in an attempt to get to LA from NY. That bit of absurdity smacked me into WTF land, totally.

Seriously, if a middle-aged Welshman who obviously does have a set of balls can play a younger African-American singer who was probably gelded as a child, and who desperately was trying to be white, why can't I make a literary porn movie?

Back on track, finally...

Got a splitting headache that took a double-dose of Advil to get rid of...but I have the first half of OT where it needs to be. Where it should have been, all along. 23 chapters in 2 parts spread over 221 pages. Consistent with the first book while still giving enough information about why Jake and Tone are stuck in Texas, so they don't have to read RIHC6 to understand everything.

And yet...I'm finding that Jake doesn't part with information easily. He's revealing bits of his past when he faces something similar in the current story, and keeping that up has been a challenge, while using his reticence has helped streamline the story somewhat.

Now I can get back to a slightly more normal life...and I rewarded myself by re-watching Vertigo. Apparently it has taken over in critic's polls as the greatest movie ever made...something I do not agree with. I like it, but I think Notorious is Hitchcock's best film. It's damn near perfect, while Vertigo has too many contrivances for me to accept it as a masterpiece.

Except...when Madeline returns to Scotty in the hotel, drifting out of a green haze and surrounded by Bernard Herman's elegant score...that did get me. And I do think it was a travesty that Jimmy Stewart was not even nominated for an Oscar for his work. As for Kim Novak, I cannot imagine anyone else in the role; she had the beauty and mystery and sophistication of Madeline down pat as well as Judy's backwoods Kansas behavior and attitude.

It wasn't their fault this movie didn't hit with the public; it was how ludicrous the basis for the story was. I really wanted to read the original book, D'entre les Morts, to find out how Boileau and Narcejac handled it, but I could only find it in French. That was half the reason I took the language in college. Only it was written in a vernacular they don't teach in class. Lots of slang.

Then I learned it had been translated but the man who did the original translation was not know for his fidelity to the books he worked on. So...I got through 2 pages of trying to translate it before I gave up and decided to leave it. Maybe some things are better left undone.

Now comes the speedier second half of OT...

Back to first position...

I got so busy finding ways to cut and consolidate and streamline OT, I made a huge mistake -- I lost track of how RIHC6 ended. Tone is on probation with an ankle monitor to keep track of him, but I'd shifted that to him and Jake still fighting the Texas Attorney General over the crimes he committed, with him on bail and no ankle monitor. NOT acceptable.

Granted, it cut a good 7 pages, but that can't be. This story follows that one, so they have to match up, and the fact that I so casually dropped the line is troubling to me...and may be the reason I was having such difficulty with writing it. Subconsciously I knew it was wrong.

Which makes me wonder why I couldn't see that until I finally went back to the first book and read the ending chapter, again...and saw what I'd done. Makes me feel very obtuse, and more than a little stupid.

It also made for a hell of a lot more work, because I had to add it back in. Meaning beginning from page one to make it consistent. Dammit, sometimes I really out-clever myself. At least I caught it now and not after the book was published.

I have a question as regards what the hell people are looking for in a screenplay -- here is a lead I got from one of the sites I belong to --

Seeking Contained Action Scripts
We are looking for completed, feature-length contained action scripts. Submissions should NOT require a large amount of FX or set-building. Budget will not exceed $1million, WGA and non-WG

How does that work? To me an action script has a lot of running and gunfights and battles and stunts and sets all over the place. Does anyone have an example of a project like this that was actually made? Would Carli's Kills count, even though it's only got a little real action-oriented stuff in it? Am I being too literal?
Or am I being too literal a Hitchcock freak?

Fast rewriting

I used to think of myself as a fast writer. Not super speedy, but quick and fairly well locked down once the first draft was done. But looking back, I can see I was fooling myself. I'm more of a fast rewriter...and even that isn't exactly right...because I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite until the story gets as close to set as possible.

Friends used to accuse me of making minimal changes between drafts of screenplays...and sometimes they were right. But it was always geared to making the story viable and solid and as exact as it can be, even though in film a writer's work gets very little respect. Actors won't say the lines you need to be said, or they say them wrong. Directors cut. Editors cut. Producers cut. Distributors cut. And no one pays any real attention to what the writer wants.

In my books, however, it's all on me. I'm the one who has to make it work, and I can't blame actors for saying lines wrong or the director for being blind to the best way to put the film on celluloid. And reality is, it's always taken me much longer to do a book than a script, even relatively speaking.

HTRASG actually took 4 years to write. PM was faster; a year and reads like it. RIHC6 was 2 years. And BC was a good 5 years to get it done. LD really took a total of 15 years, because it began as a screenplay then shifted to a play then became a book. Same for NYPD Blood/French Connection Blues, my straight cop yarn; it started off as a script and went through several drafts before becoming a book that became another book.

Now comes OT, which is going through years of work, on and off, while settling itself into whatever pace it wants. And it's getting close, finally. I went back through the last two chapters I'd written and did a bit more rearranging...moving some of Jake's interior dialogue from him lying in bed to him running through Palm Springs early in the morning...and it feels even better. Tighter. Smoother. Who knows -- I may actually get this book finished...

Which makes me wonder how long my rewriting will take on Place of Safety...

Satiated...

I've got the first half of OT pretty much where I want it, but my brain was overloaded so I took the evening off and watched Sense and Sensibility, again, for Alan Rickman's performance as Col. Brandon. And to enjoy a script that does not require stupid lines and emphatic directing to be funny. It's one where the performances turn quiet moments into laughs and chuckles.

I used Emma Thompson's elegant script as a partial template when I wrote The Lavender Curse, a story that starts with a ridiculous premise but which I tried to ground in honest human behavior. After all, a butch cop exchanging minds with his less-than-beloved mother-in-law just as he's about to make a huge arrest and she's about to be in a Senior Lady Pageant is not exactly the stuff of realistic drama.

I carried it as far as I could without it being ludicrous, and the main comment I got back was -- it's not funny enough. And what was suggested to make it funnier? Every cliche in the book. For example -- the Cop's mind is the MIL's body but no one knows and he has to take care of his obnoxious twin girls, but can't and finds it's exhausting. That was old when Dustin Hoffman did it in Tootsie.

I don't own the script so can't do anything more with it. I was removed as the writer...and it hurt because I had some very funny moments in it. But they were moments that would build from the performance. Like when the MIL's estranged husband shows up and wants to spend the night with his wife...and it's the Cop's mind in her body, and he's freaking out.

Another is when the Cop has to meet with an informant and is dragged to it by his partner, but it's the MIL's mind in his body and she sees some white go-go boots in a store window and goes nuts over them because of the memories they bring, all to the partner's consternation. Then it turns out the informant is out to kill them both and she has to protect the partner even though she doesn't know how.

Okay...I'm whining. I know. Not cool. Back to OT.

I've cut about 15 pages, so far, mainly by removing repetition and Jake's tendency to state the obvious. I've also cut a bit of his commentary, when it goes on a bit long. One mistake I almost made was correcting his grammar as he tells the story. I was cutting back on the conjugations, but it felt wrong...so I went back in and returned most of them. Now Jake tells the story like Jake and not like a grammar nazi.

But don't call him stupid...