Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 249

29,000 Plus...

Only 21,000 words left to do to make it. I've hit what is probably the mid-point of the story...maybe a little after...where Alex learns his father is the one pushing the moves, not his brother's asthma. It's all quite by accident, and he also learns his mother is just as pissed off about it as he is. I didn't expect that to pop up, but that's one of the fun aspects of writing.

The main thing is, if that is the mid-point, I've really got more like 25-28,000 words to go. Which is good...except I can't see the rest of the story taking that many. I mean, I still need to work in Drew and have some more moments with him. He wound up with one of the Bagh-star, not knowing it, which should add a nice complication.

And the Chesters have become interesting complications, unto themselves. They're interacting with Mrs. Rutledge, Ms. Chris, the police, and Alex, all without saying a word. I also need to expand on the idea that C-1, their leader, realizes they should not all look like the same guy, but it's too late to reclone into anybody else. Or they can't do that. Or their ship is too weak or underpowered. I dunno, yet.

Guess I won't know the length of the story or what it's all about till it's done.

Got cat lovin'...and that is all...

We have 2 office cats where I work -- one doesn't like being brushed but loves to ride on your shoulders and flick her tail in your face; the other hates being held in any way, but loves to be brushed long and hard. Makes the job easier, at times. Especially when I have no earthly clue as to what I'm doing. I'd have a cat, but I travel so much, I don't even have plants.

Nothing more, today; last night, I wound up working on Underground Guy for about an hour instead of meeting my goal for NaNoWriMo...so I'm marathoning Bugzters to see how far I can get...and doubt I will still be intelligible enough to post, in a few hours.

If I ever am...

To hell with "young adult"

Screw it -- I'm letting Bugzters be whatever the hell it wants to be, and if some of that is dark and some is funky and some is filled with sexual innuendo, so be it. The story's gonna run wild, for now, and then I'll see what needs to be done.

I feel this way because the whole deal with the Beige Pair from MESCIS is they're like clones of each other, one male and one female, but with her doing the male-style sexual harassment of a Chief Petty Officer who's been assigned to them, and him focused on the minutia of what's going on, even as they keep telling each other they know everything they need to know and what they don't know doesn't need knowing.

As for Mrs. Rutledge...she's become like a commando out to protect her kids from what she thinks is one creepy Chester clone, not realizing there are four of them...each with his own bit of Chester's personality. One's the observer, one's adventurer, one's the happy-critter no matter what, and one's got sense enough to just get it done. It's going to be fun having them interact with Mrs. Rutledge.

Dunno if this will be funny, yet; I thought The Lyons' Den counted as farce, but I've heard otherwise from a few readers, so...my streak of lacking humor continues.  Of course, considering the world is more interested in Kim Kardashian's ass than the fact that humans have landed a rover on an asteroid, being out of step with that may not be a bad thing.

Hmm...wasn't the first set of Dark Ages preceded by this sort of stupidity?

Bad meat v. good meat....

I don't normally eat Chinese. I'm not that fond of the ingredients used, and invariably the restaurants use the crappiest meat possible. The one Chinese meal I like, incessantly, is the Beijing Beef at Panda Express. A bowl of that over steamed rice and a couple of Spring Rolls, and I'm a happy puppy. Don't even care that it's got garlic. But every now and then I forget how consistent the bad food is at other places and I order something that looks or sounds good.

Did that today. Didn't want a sandwich or pizza and couldn't find a decent salad place, so I tried out the Teriyaki Beef dish at a Chinese joint. I mean, it's Teriyaki, my favorite seasoning after ketchup; how bad could that be? I was able the eat the rice and green beans. The meat was so chewy, it's like I'd popped some Gum. Ugh. It's pretty hard to mess up anything Teriyaki, in my view, but they managed.

So be it...when in Hong Kong, dine at McDonald's.

I'm working on Bugzters, still and slowly beginning to think it will work out to 40,000 words instead of 35,000. Still not enough, but not insurmountable. And I'm going hog-wild with the Chesters. That's 4 aliens slops of goo that form themselves into the exact replica of a fisherman named Chester Harry. He's a schlubby kind of guy, with a hat full of fishing flies, who inadvertently provides the link to Alex's home when the Beige Pair interrogate him.

I moved the Beige Pair from MESCIS to after the cloning, and added in a bit with a driver and his pickup truck running the 4 Chesters down as they jaunt their way towards Alex's home. Then comes the fun of him realizing what they are and helping the Bagh-star fight back. That's going to be tricky, since he's not even there, really.

But that's the kind of story this is - wild and crazy, I hope.

Talk about a needle in a haystack...

Apparently, the European Space Agency did it; the Philae and Rosetta Mission landed on a comet hundreds of millions of miles from earth.

So much for American dominance in space.

UPDATE: Photo from the surface of an asteroid...

Nice trip down...

I took an earlier train than usual -- meaning I had to get up at 6:30 am, which does not please me -- but the trip was actually pleasant and I was able to use the WiFi to handle some problems at work. And prep for other jobs. Looks like I may be in Chicago the Second week of December then go from there to LA for part of the third week. It's still not set...but it's getting there.

I also got some more done on Bugzters. I'm finding aspects of the story that I'd missed in the screenplay, and developing them is adding to the possible length. I'm still going to wind up nowhere near 50,000 without a lot more filling in.

But the story's starting to come together in my mind -- what it's about, I mean. I can't quite articulate it, yet, but it is taking shape. Maybe on my trip to Hong Kong I'll be able to flesh it out, more. It's 15 hours each way on a plane...if I've got power. The great thing about Amtrak is, every seat's got 2 plugs.

Woo-hoo...

It's a neverending political parade

We're 7 days past the election, and already I'm being hit by the DNC for money. I made the mistake of donating some cash to a couple of candidates I liked, progressives who might actually try to do some good. One made it; the other proved herself to be as two-faced and craven as anyone else.

Well...it turned out my name was turned over to the DCCC and DNC and Ready for Hillary people, and the like, and suddenly I was getting dozens of e-mails a day begging me for money. I started noticing the majority of Democrats were running their usual campaigns of timidity, so I started responding to the e-mails, yelling at them to stop being such cowards and run on a progressive platform. Pleading with them to stand for something other than just getting elected.

In answer, the amount of begging and pleading and demands that I sign their pledges and petitions and piss-ant nonsense just increased. Petitions, for God's sake, as if people like Boehner and McConnell gave a damn about what the people wanted. Talk about a waste of effort. I didn't give them another penny.

Now I'm being told I'm ready for Hillary because she is our only hope. Two years from the fucking election, and already the electioneering has begun. What bullshit. So now they go straight to junk and from there, straight to trash; I don't even open them.

I will not vote for Hillary Clinton. I do not trust her. If the Green Party runs a candidate for president, I'll vote for them. If they don't, I'll write in a candidate. And if that means a back-stabbing Republican gains the White House, so be it. Maybe then people will wake up to the fact that the GOP does not give one damn about them.

But knowing my fellow Americans, I doubt it.

Regrouping...

Today I went back over what I've written for Bugzters, so far, and made some shifts that may help the story, later. May add some to it. It's still reading too flat, but now I think I can make it better and more detailed once I get into the serious rewriting stage.

For example, I added some of Mr. Smith's background in, and made it seem like he might retire and move to be near a son in Florida. That added to Taylor's dilemma; she's all too aware that Alex and Mr. Smith are her only two friends, so if they leave she'll have none. She's also coming up with off-beat phrases and ways of looking at the world, using Kant to determine what is and is not right and proper. She even references Machiavelli, once.

That helped me add another thousand words to what I've got, so far, but it's still probably going to come up short. I won't know till I'm done. Oh well, I'm not going to let myself obsess over it. The story will be what it is, and if I don't make it to 50,000 words, I don't. Won't be the first time I crapped out in this challenge.

I think part of my problem is that I've been writing for so long and gotten nowhere with it. Not really. That makes it hard to keep going. I've made a little money off my books, but not enough to mean anything. I've made mistakes and missed opportunities, true, but I only saw them as such once they'd already happened or passed me by. Twenty-twenty hindsight is worse than useless in cases like this. It winds up hurting you and making you doubt every decision you make. How you should have gone left instead of right. How you should have done things differently when you had the chance instead of making a choice which, only later, turned out to be wrong.

I've got so many signposts like this in my rearview mirror. Funny how you can't think of the correct turns you took or the decisions you made, to counter them. I've grown to believe that people are all secretly masochists at heart. Maybe that's why the heroes in my books turn out to be more like sadists; who wants to read about a loser wimp?

Damn, I should charge myself a hundred bucks for venting moments like this.

Crash and burn...

Got nothing to say except I slept till nearly 1pm and couldn't get going on BZ until a little while ago. Just really down all day. I finally watched Topsy-Turvy on my laptop and that broke my mood enough for me to work at least a little on the story. But I'm more sure than ever I'm not going to make 50K with it. I may only hit 35K. How to you pad that out?

No idea, yet.

Needed a break from writing...

I was brain dead, so I piddled up a possible cover for Bugzters, using an old photo of me and some other images. I didn't like changing Alex's name to Lindstrom; that's why I changed my pen name to Michael Hansen. It's the maiden name of my great grandmother, Marie, in Minnesota, on my grandfather's side. She lived to be 95 and was active till she slipped on some ice and broke her hip. She died within a year.

Seems keeping active and working your brain is the way to stay alert and able. If that's the case, I'm in deep shit...except this job I have is forcing me to exercise my mind in ways I'm not used to. So...that part should keep working as I drift into nothingness.

A lot of me is going into Alex, more than I thought I'd do. I won't say I hated moving as much as he does, but there were two instances where I wanted to stay where I was and got taken away because of my parents. One was London, when I was very young. The other, oddly enough, was Grand Forks, ND.

In Grand Forks, we lived on base. It was in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. Nothing but flat plains in every direction, so anything that was happening was happening on base.

Like an amateur theater group. I was planning to be part of it. Had already been to two meetings to discuss plays they wanted to put on. That was the first time I heard of "The Man Who Came To Dinner", a farce about a nasty celebrity who trips on some ice while at a family's home and has to stay, and turns their lives upside down. I was hoping to play the son who wants to be a photographer.

But...my mother had one of her breakdowns (it was either #3 or 4), so we moved back to Texas. Where they don't know nothin' 'bout no theater. I started 8th grade late and never really caught up. Had to deal with the fact that I still sounded British while surrounded by rednecks and their twangs. Never did fit in. And that's coloring Alex's story.

This isn't a great cover, but it's a beginning.