Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 224

Fighting the battle of me...

Got more feedback on OT, already, and I scanned it. I don't want to...but I wind up wondering what they said and then suddenly it's done. Like my pilot is my subconscious, not my conscious mind. I made myself put it into a PDF and park it in the proper folder. And I'm going to ask more people to look at the story, as well. I want as wide-ranging an idea of how the book is working as possible.

I'm thinking more and more about reworking Carli's Kills, next. It's rather chaotic, right now, but could be done for a low-budget...and by that I mean just under $1m. That's what I need, right now -- something that would appeal to the cheapies in film production, and a simple restructuring would do a lot for it. If it's going to be exploitation, I'm going whole hog on it. Start with Grady and then focus on Carli and Zeke. I think I'll start on that this weekend...

but I'm also considering a rewrite of We-come. Make it a really horrific sci-fi piece, and trim down some of the exposition at the beginning. That seems to be my problem -- too much set-up and not enough jumping into the action. It's a bit old-fashioned of a writing style, especially for movies, today. Too novelistic...and even too much so for today's books.

I'm close to the end of This Is NOT The End of the Book; and it's giving me some interesting ideas for The Alice '65, as well. Jeez...how can I get all of this done? I guess I should be glad I'm at least thinking about my next project and not just wandering.

I need more time to myself and less for the job...which ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

What can you say after seeing this?

The United States is in the process of destroying itself from within. This man's declared bankruptcy several times, shifted tens of thousands of jobs to China, is so arrogant he can't even see how arrogant he is, and has the delusion of a mental defective. But some people will vote for him because he's The Donald.

I'm getting sick of this country and the non-stop stupid and evil in it.

Clear the brain...

I've already gotten some comments back on OT, but I've put them aside till I'm ready to dig back into the story. Each person doing feedback has their own folder, and comments will be PDF'd and put in there, for now. I know me; if I read them, I'll start rewriting, at once, and I do not want to do that. I'm still too close to the story.

So this evening I played around with covers for a reboot of The Lyons' Den. After a lot of futzing about, I got this one going. It's still busy and not really there, yet, but it's got the idea. This is about 67 layers of images, some pretty clunky, but it's just a mock. Nothing to critique, yet.

I'm almost thinking of doing the image in colored pencil. See what I can get away with. Some of my storyboards were done that way, and I liked the gentle feel of them. Plus that way I can arrange the characters like I want and add in all of them instead of a few.

I already feel the b&w image representing Ace should be larger and more on the verge of stereotype. And Daniel doesn't have a mustache. Plus, the curtain has to have goofy fish on it. Another positive is, I could make the image taller...go from waist up.

I'll think about it. Doing it right'd take a while, and I'm not all that good at graphic arts. However...it would be cheap and I could make it as goofy as I wanted.

Maybe I could use a break from writing...

Finally...finally...finally...

I've sent The Vanishing of Owen Taylor out to be read and feedbacked on...and if anybody else wants to read it and let me know what does and does not work, and if the revelation of the mystery makes sense, let me know. I'm way too close to the story, right now, to be objective in any way, form, or fashion. I just know Jake's happy with me, again.

I'm not touching the book to do another draft for 6 weeks. I want the distance and to give people time to respond to it. They'll need some time since it is long -- 541 pages and 120,000 words. But I'm at the point where everything in the story needs to be there, as best I can tell. I honestly cannot see cutting anything more, short of a complete subplot.

So now it's time to catch up on paperwork and cleaning my apartment. Start looking into ways to sell my work better. Work on some scripts. Input ideas I've had. Maybe I'll do a rewrite of Carli's Kills just to see if I can keep it low-budget and exploitative enough to get made. I already know who needs to play Zeke...and I seriously doubt he'll mind getting used by an ex-Marine female who only wants him for his body.

Hey, he's the one wants to act in movies, not me. The only difficulty I see is making him into a blond viking with an Odin obsession. I'd already put in he's got tatts all over, from when I was using Logan McCree as the model, and he's missing his right leg, which works in perfectly. Even better, the part's already written to be played half-silently through reactions, so even if he's no good, he can be made to seem good under the right director and editor.

But I've got a feeling he'd be fine.

Christopher Lee 1922-2015

I'm late to the wake on this, but rather than put up the usual assemblage of film clips from Christopher Lee's wide-ranging work, I found this great bit when he was the subject of This Is Your Life in the UK.
This is from 40 years ago. Hard to believe. Look at the sword-play at the very beginning; it's still amazing.

An elegant man who, like Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, played the devil so well in fiction while being a gentleman in reality.

RIP

Getting there, I swear...

I have 72 pages left to input, then a spell-check, then it's out for feedback. I'd thought I'd be done, tomorrow, but I won't have a chance to work on it till Sunday. Saturday, I'm heading down to Scranton to say good-bye to my aunt. She's close to the end stage of her cancer, and I wouldn't feel right if I didn't go.

It's 280 miles each way, so I'm renting a car for the trip. My Civic's making some odd growly noises, lately, which could be transmission-related. Which would cost an arm and a leg to fix, so I'm driving it as easy as I can. I have points with this one agency, so I cashed them in to get it. All I pay for is the taxes and insurance. It's covered, to an extent, by my Amex and personal insurance, but it's worth the $12 not to have to worry about filling out forms and crap. And I'm getting one that's maybe a bit better on gas, too.

This ain't gonna be a nice trip. I got the strong hint that I should call instead of come. I had to ask for the address of the hospice a couple of times. I can also just imagine getting all the way down there and her not being in a condition to see me, but I don't care. I'm doing this for me, no one else.

I've been through this so many times before. Friends dying of AIDS or cancer. And my own mother. It's always a bit surreal to me. Like it's a shadowy reality I'm not privy to...haven't the ability to accept as fact. Of course, it also reminds me that I haven't got all that much time left to me, either. My only hope is I go fast, not drift slowly into death.

But not for a few years, yet; I've still got too much left to write.

John Waters for Bernie's VP...

This man is a treasure.

I'm either brilliant or stupid...

I can't decide which best applies to me, because often the same thing I write gets comments that it's the best thing ever written or it is so bad I should never write anything ever again. And I have gotten both ends of the spectrum. When I posted Find Ray T on Triggerstreet years ago, back when it was still an interesting concept, I got lots of praise and wound up in the top five screenplays, thanks to reviewers who loved the script. I also got some people who would tear the script apart, including one guy who went through it page by page to show how bad it was.

And as I noted on here, months ago, The Lyons' Den had good reviews but then one guy so hated the book, he used one quote on a page near the end to show how bad my grasp of English grammar was. Even warned people against reading it. I'd laugh, but that's when sales dropped. So how do you know which way you're being? I like to believe I'm great and wonderful as a writer, but that could just be my arrogance or ego talking. I guess it's good that I am at least aware of that possibility.

Anyway...I've begun to think I'm caught in a series of waves that take me up to the sky in beauty and then dump on me, moments later. When I'm peaking on that wave, I write stuff that I'm still impressed with. When I'm at the bottom, nothing I do is any good. So it's better not to write in the valleys because it's just a waste of time and effort.

I've been through all of this with The Vanishing of Owen Taylor...and currently have no idea where I am in the cycle. To me, it flows and works and builds and builds. To someone else, it might come across as tedious or self-satisfied or even ignorantly confusing. It'll be interesting to find out what the consensus is.

As of now, it looks like I'll be ready to send out the "first" draft Saturday. I've input 192 pages of changes, so far, and dropped 3 pages from the total. It's going the right direction, at least, and I do think I've added a bit of clarity to the story. I've also taken out as much as I can of a quirk of mine, from writing scripts -- using dashes in place of ellipses or simple periods. Broke up some Faulkner-esque sentences by doing that, thank God. I can't stand his writing...so why should I wind up writing like him? Maybe it 's me being brilliant.

Or not.

Done...again...

Okay...the latest draft is red-penned. Now just comes inputting the changes. And fighting off the desire to do another draft to make sure I've got it right. I could keep rewriting my work till the end of time, if given half a chance. Instead, all I will do once I've got this one set is spell-check. That might catch some of the typos I've committed to bytes.
It's still going to be more than 500 pages. I'm not sure what that translates to in actual book size. 300-350? Which is a manageable length. I'll worry about that later. Right now, I just want to get this done.
God, I just hope it makes sense to someone besides me...
I did something crazy and probably pointless. I sent a copy of The Lyons' Den to Chris Salvatore, in LA. He's an out gay actor who's been in some low-budget gay-oriented movies. I have no idea what good it will do, or if his representatives will even forward it to him, but he mentioned on his facebook page my offer was sweet, and if I hadn't done it I'd be kicking myself in a few months. So off it went. Signed. Nothing more. No letter or anything. I want him to read the book. I think he'll see himself in Daniel and maybe take it to someone to get made.
Yeah, crazy idea, but I've done crazier.

Almost there...almost...

I've got 150 more pages of OT left to red-pen, then comes the inputting and sending it off to be read and critiqued. There were a lot more changes than I thought there'd be, mainly adjusting sentences so they make sense instead of ramble. Simplicity is good, at times such as this.

So is removing repetition. I found more points where I say the same thing more than once, just in slightly different ways. A bit is good, to keep the reader abreast of the story, but what I'm cutting was superfluous. I doubt I'll drop much in the way of pagination; I'm also adding in bits to help keep what's happening easy to follow.

I'm behind schedule by about a week. My freak-out kick-dropped me, good. I wound up doing a marathon viewing of the Bourne series to break away from it. The Matt Damon ones; I haven't seen the Jeremy Renner sequel, yet. Didn't even begin to look interesting. I thoroughly enjoy the first three movies, though the last one doesn't hold up as well as the first two. It still makes no sense as to who shoots Bourne at the very end, story or character wise.

I've been thinking more about having The Lyons' Den taken out of publication and re-issuing it, myself, as a second edition with a better front-cover and back-cover blurb. I found this fun little photo online that's given me some ideas. Get a shower curtain with fish on it; put a dozen characters behind it, looking out; have a head & shoulders shot of Daniel with a goofy expression. Holding a gun in one hand and wielding a pen in the other. The shower raining cash. That would fit the chaos of the story pretty well.

And only cost a thousand bucks to set up.