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

Doing the tourist thing...sort of...

Down day so went to Stanley to get a chop made and then changed buses to go up to the Peak, but I've done all these things before so didn't spend much time there. Just gonna share some of the photos I shot:

 This is a shot of Pier 9 from the Maritime Museum; I only shot it because of the old man using a fishing line to try and catch a fish...


These two shots above are Refuse Bay en route to Stanley, while the one to the right is one the road to there...
Stanley is an ugly little town so I focused on its bay...
These two shots are of Happy Valley, a suburb of Hong Kong...if the city has suburbs...

From the Peak...very gloomy and completely repetitive...
A couple of skinny high-rises by Stubbs Road coming down from The Peak..
And a pagoda-style Chinese house nestled on the road back to Central Hong Kong...
If I'm here next year, I think I'll just take a tour bus to see what I'm missing.

Upside down..

I've been totally out of whack since I got to Hong Kong. The flight left at 1:20am and arrived at 5:30 am local time. I did a fair amount of writing, but after a while I zoned so dozed, a bit. I cannot sleep on an airplane. Hell, I can't even sleep with someone else in the room; I'll doze and wake up and doze and wake up all night. But that little bit kept me going till 1 pm, so I could get everything done that needed to be. Then I crashed until almost 9 and had to eat in the hotel because everything else around me was closed.

I stayed up to work on UG some more...like till 3am...then took a nap before heading over to the book fair venue for the move-in. I really like this venue -- the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. It overlooks the harbor, is a nice open space, and since the restrooms are downstairs I caught a glimpse of the exhibit on Chinese junks...and want to see the rest. But I was beat so came back to the hotel to nap, some.

Letting Dev be his own little devil has made the story more dynamic...at least, to me. He now bounces between regret at what he did to Reg, to anger at being treated like scum for doing it, to confusion as to why he cares about what he's done since he never did before.

At first, he thought Reg was like a vice decoy out to mess with someone over what Dev considers nothing, but then he learns Reg was trying to help catch a serial killer by putting himself in danger...and it messes Dev up. He hated cops thanks to how they brushed off his father's physical abuse of his mother as well as himself and Colin, his brother, but Reg's action have jolted him out of that...as regards him; Dev still has a visceral dislike of the Chief Constable trying to question him. I'm still playing it cagey by having his earlier assaults be against men who've wronged him or his brother in some way...so all kinds of roller-coastering here.

Officially, I'm up to 46,000 words and maybe halfway done, but I'm still in the process of shifting Dev's attitudes over what I've written so I'm only just over 40K. I'll make the challenge number, but I don't think I'll have the book done by the end of the month.

Last night I had a nice meeting with a friend of my buddy, Brad Rushing -- Scott Hessels, who is an artist living in Hong Kong and commissioned by Hong Kong to make conceptual kinetic sculptures. He used to work in film but, like many independent filmmakers, was barely etching out a living. Then he shifted to sculpting moving image and programming works of art...and now he's being exhibited all over the world. Fascinating man.

We went to a bar called 208 on Hollywood Street, -- an Italian pizzeria with 2 for 1 Peronis -- and sat and talked. I had more beer in those 2 hours than I've had in the previous month, but it was fascinating. He's led a much-more out-there life than I have.

Unless you consider the books I've written...

En route to another adventure...

I'm currently in Toronto's Pearson Airport waiting for my 15 hour flight to Hong Kong. I took a bus up so did some work on UG as we drove...well, tried to. It was a small bus and really needed new shocks. There were parts of the freeway undergoing resurfacing and you could feel every bump. I still managed to shift Dev even closer into being an asshole, and that's making him happy.

The plane is supposed to have power outlets on board, so I'll be able to get more done. I'm still at about 30,000 words in good condition...which will be in better condition once I'm done with Dev. And probably shorter. Some parts are unnecessary and others are redundant. Plus Dev's confrontation with Sir Monte would be better served by being more focused on his being willing to fight back and less on his being upset by what happened with Reg.

I'm still not clear about a couple of things -- like why the cops release Dev, after he's arrested, instead of holding him for as long as they damn well want. I need a reason for that, in order for Sir Monte not to come across as a fool...and to avoid just letting it happen so the story can move forward.

I once started a script where I didn't have a similar situation worked out, and it stopped cold at that point. Everything leading up to it was going great...then I had to get the lead out of jail and could not make anything I came up with work. So I put it aside. I knew the ending, but every bridge I tried to build to it came crashing down.

That happens, once in a while, and I learned a long time ago if I just slap something on thinking it won't matter, I'll turn out crap and people will think I cannot write. Why churn out shit if it's going to hurt you more than help you?

I have some friends who I think would agree.

UG Moves Forward...

I finally found Dev's spirit animal -- a black panther on the prowl. Looks beautiful but you don't want to pet it...not till it says it's okay. And even then, be very, very careful.

Changing the collision between Devlin and Reg from chance to something Dev deliberate seeks out is a hell of a lot better for him and the story. It also makes it a hell of a lot more complicated and tosses out half of what I wrote in the confrontation between Dev and Reg's boss, Chief Inspector Sir Montague St. James...AKA: Sir Monte.

Dev's become more insolent. His killer instinct makes him a good salesman, and he's able to schmooze with the best of them, but like any cat, once it's tired of you, leave it alone or it will tear you up.

Talk about the epitome of an anti-hero...

Tomorrow I'm off to Hong Kong so no telling how often I'll be posting...or when. I'm meeting up with a friend of a friend for a drink, Friday evening, and may be connecting with another business acquaintance on Saturday. It's looking like a full trip. Busy...

At least I'll be able to get my hair cut, tomorrow, and not have to deal with it flopping in my face.

Je suis francais...mort aux cons Daesh...

Nothing much to say after the slaughter in Paris, Beirut, Iraq, Syria, and Russia. Religion may be the excuse animals like this use for their atrocities, but truth is they are just animals, not human beings. They have regressed into savagery for the fun of it.
Something similar began to happen in the IRA, when bombs would be set around Northern Ireland and the UK, and the warning call would be deliberately garbled so the authorities couldn't get there to evacuate people, bringing about death and destruction. Difference is, the IRA saw it as a public relations disaster and made damn sure it was stopped.
Some people get off on causing that sort of horror. It gives them an almost orgasmic thrill. Serial killers, for example. I've read where some psychologists think creatures like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Andrei Chikatilo (in Russia) got more pleasure from the terror their victims suffered than the actual rapes. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng even videotaped what they did to their female victims, so they could watch it after the women were dead.
Makes you wonder if ISIS...or Daesh, as the Muslims refer to it...is attracting serial killers who get off on the slaughter, even as they die.

Okay...here we go, again...

Looks like UG will wind up being 80-90,000 words, at the rate it's going. I'll have 50K done by the end of the month, for sure, but the way the story's twisting and turning is bringing in more detail about Dev's life and his manner of handling his inner anger. But that's what I like -- building people in the story instead of mere characters to carry the plot. Then I let them do things that are really not good for garnering sympathy but make them even more human, in my eyes.

Devlin is proving to be a real problem to understand. Jake was a pain, but I knew basically where he was coming from. He'd drive me nuts with it, but he was never anything but a good guy...even when he's doing something questionable, in a moral or legal sense. As for Tone, he always had this laser-like focus going that could both help him and get him into trouble. He's complicated but not that complex.

Devlin, however...I don't want to say he's mentally unstable or brain-damaged from his father's physical abuse because those are easy outs. And he wants nothing to be simple or simply decent about him. He's close to being like Curt, with the animal in him, but he's a hundred times smarter and more self-aware...so I can't use Curt's limitations with him.

I'm toying with the idea that Devlin senses Reg is a cop and deliberately targets him, just for the fun of it. And that's what gets him into so much trouble. He notices Reg paying surreptitious attention to another man on the tube...and sees Reg do something deliberate to draw attention to himself...and Dev hates cops because they refused to help his mother...

Loki...that's Dev...the trickster...never sure which side he's on. He helps the Norse gods, and hinders them. Causes the death of one...that's why he's bound to the rocks, with a serpent dripping a painful poison onto him. Sigyn is the woman catching the poison in a bowl, but when she shifts to empty the bowl, the poison strikes Loki and his agony causes earthquakes.

I need to re-read the Poetic Edda...

Took a while...

I ran headlong into wondering why everything starts happening with Devlin now, in Underground Guy, while he's on a trip to London instead of at home in NYC. Why is he suddenly jolted out of his normal pattern so he can careen into what turns out to be chaos? And the reason was already indicated in the outline; it just took a bit to remind myself of it.

Devlin's father is an abusive drunk with his mother, his brother, and him...so much so, Colin was permanently damaged by it. He's functional, but has difficulty remembering things and dealing with their clients. Their mother disappeared when Devlin was eight, and everyone thinks she walked out on the family. But even at that early an age, Dev wonders if his father killed her.

So he's at the tail end of a successful business trip for his company when he gets a call that a body's been found and linked to the missing persons report filed when his mother vanished. He's supposed to meet with officials to provide DNA to compare against...but before he can return home, he jumps out of his safety zone and goes after a guy he sees on the Piccadilly Line of the Underground, and winds up stuck in the UK for god knows how long.

This is kind of a Hail Mary jump for me, in order to keep the story going...but so far it works. Dev thinks he's on top of things, but his actions jolt him into realizing he's got major issues he's been ignoring and are being forced into the open by his illegal actions. It's almost like him jumping Reg is a form of avoidance...and self-punishment.

A bit Freudian, but...

Too much to do...

UG just fell apart on me so I'm rethinking it...dammit.
If only I was this cute while doing it.
I'm done with job two and waiting for a plane at el Paso's airport after a great bit of BBQ at Rudy's. Nice spicy sauce...spelled sause...and brisket so tender it nearly melts in your mouth. I'm bringing two bottle of their sause with me, and bottles of their turkey and beef rubs.

It they make it through the airline's baggage claim...

Some of Cape Cod area...

Changing planes in Austin and trying to catch up on UG since the flight was so damned noisy with kids, so no time to think out a full post. Instead, here are some photos I took around Hyannis and Cape Cod.

 This was en route to Chatham. There are little lakes like this all over the place.

Chatham Beach at the "elbow" of Cape Cod...

 ...and looking the other direction. That water is rushing by at about 50 in a channel about 30 feet from shore.

Chatham Light...nice but not sure it was worth the trip.

I thought about going up to Provincetown or maybe over to see Plymouth Rock, but those would have taken hours more and I wanted to get to the Gorey House and back to the motel to write.

Not the best flight from Boston. The plane was packed, as is becoming routine with Southwest, and there were 7 toddlers on the plane in various stages of meltdown. Plus I was sitting on the aisle next to a couple of women who make me look like a twig. This is what I get for trying my trick of getting to the back of the plane in hopes of having an empty seat next to me.

Austin's airport is nice, but they wanted $15 for a piddly plate of brisket with a watery sauce, here. I got a grilled cheese, instead.

Just 2 more hours to go till I head to El Paso, my least-favorite city in the world.

UG worked on and worked on...

Devlin's taking his time getting going. I have to wonder what he's up to. He's spent more time reminiscing about his past exploits than actually doing anything...and considering he's thought to have helped a serial killer commit another murder, you'd think he'd be out to make things happen.

Of course, part of the problem is, he's a fish out of water, being an American in the UK with not much idea how the system of justice works there. US law may be somewhat based on British jurisprudence, but it ain't all that close. So can he help in the investigation in any way? Except as a bumbler. I may have painted myself into a corner, here, with no door or window to sneak out of or even make, like Harold and his purple crayon did.

The ideas I have for the story are so damn coincidental, they bother me. I need something more as a reason for it to be. I've got Devlin's evolution from an animal to a human being plotted out, but that's not really jibing with the sex-murders aspect of it...though I do toss in a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy. Thinking about it, that movie had a protagonist who wasn't very nice and didn't do anything for himself till after he was convicted of murder, ¾ of the way into the film.

I wonder if I've been influenced by that movie?