Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 32

Reading can be good...

Reading other people's writing can be very illuminating, and assist in your own. I finished Madison Square Murders on the flight home, last night, and while I enjoyed it well enough, I noticed how reticent C S Poe was with his information and storytelling.

I liked how he set up Everett Larkin, the lead detective in the cold case squad, as someone barely in control of himself due to a traumatic even nearly 20 years earlier. It gave him a Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, which is both a blessing and a curse in his profession...and was new to me.

Apparently, individuals with it can remember the day of a week a date fell on as well as details of that happened on hat day, for every day of their life from childhood. But they might also have no short-term memory.

Because of it, he fights to maintain a sharp control of himself and uses tricks to maintain the ability to work with others, to the extent his nickname around the station is Grim.

Of course, slapped up against him is Ira Doyle, a forensic artist for the PD who's as loose and easy as possible in opposition to Larkin, but who's sensitive enough to now how to deal with him and his quirks...almost to the point of saintliness. It's a commonplace arrangement in fiction.

Well, a storm uprooted a tree in Madison Square Park, in mid-town Manhattan, revealing a skeleton wearing a death mask.They pair investigate, find the body was put there 18 years ago, and soon come to suspect they're dealing with a serial killer.

The mystery is laid out neatly. Larkin's issues with his husband's selfish demands seems a bit much but doesn't really detract. I'd have had an easier time believing Larking was on his own, thanks to his mental state. This just seemed like loading on the problems for him to make him more sympathetic. But no big was.

What was a significant issue was how sparse the revelation about the event that brought on the man's HSAM was so minimal as to almost not be there. Even though it's an important part of his makeup. It was tossed aside in just a couple of sentences.

I guess Poe wanted to hold it back for book 2 in the series, but that's a cheat. Spending the whole book building up interest in this aspect of a very damaged man who's just managing to cope, and then not honoring that interest with a full and complete explanation as to what happened, was just plain wrong.

But...it reiterated a problem I'd had in a book or two, myself, and reminded me to take care. You aren't just honoring the characters in your stories, you're acknowledging the needs of your readers.

Change of plans, again...

Packing job got canceled after I arrived out here. For stupid reasons too -- who's providing insurance coverage for the shipment. When no decision could be made, the job was scrapped and I took the packing materials back to a warehouse to prep for returning them.

What that did was leave me with 12 hours till my flight to return to Buffalo. I spent a couple hours at an In-n-Out by LAX watching the jets land and take off. It's amazing how much fun that can be. And their #2 combo, animal style, it just plain lovely.

I also managed to have a couple of Jack in the Box tacos. What I did NOT get to do was figure out where to recharge the electric vehicle Avis gave me. It was a good little SUV, but I was down to 62 miles in range and Google maps kept taking me to private recharging stations that I could not access. So I turned it in, early, and have been at the airport since 3pm for an 11:30pm flight.

BUT...they got good wifi. And I was actually able to find an outlet that I was able to get to work, so I could recharge my phone. For some amazingly stupid reason, I'd left the cable for recharging my phone at home so had to buy a new one. Which I got at Target for $7. But it got a bit scary how low I got before I could juice up.

One big positive about this is I didn't work myself into a sweaty mess, packing those books and then shifting them into a container. That would have been awkward on an overnight flight.

I'm currently reading a book I'd downloaded...Madison Square Murders, a murder mystery with a couple of gay cop detectives set in NYC that's interesting. Sometimes the writer gets a bit too carried away in the telling of it, but so far it's interesting. I may well finish it before the flight boards. no telling.

But right now I need to pee and in this piss-ant terminal 5 at LAX the men's room is in a gully in between four overpriced restaurants.

Dair's Window - chapter one

I read through this on the plane. It's the opening chapter to Dair's Window...and I rather like it.

------

My last morning with Dair was the first day of spring as warm comforters lay over us and snow drifted soft against the French doors of our bedroom, caught in the barest of early light. I woke first, as always, and breathed him in deep to hold him even closer as I gently sang... 

"Dair it's Adam. Dair it's Adam.

Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

If you were awake, now. We could have some fun, now.

Foolin' 'round. Foolin' 'round." 

Touched with the lightest of laughter. 

He sighed and shifted, like a sleepy kitten, and his oh-so elegant hands grasped mine to pull me closer to him. His lovely body adjusted to my form, and his deep, dark, elegant eyes squinted a bit tighter as he drew in his first waking breath. With the hint of a purr, he rubbed his morning whiskers against my forearms and murmured, “Snuggle.”

I chuckled and shifted under the comforter to let my nose nuzzle his ear. Mornings like this were always so perfect.Ooh-la, how I loved the feel of his body. Strong. Well-fitted. Touched with hair in just the right places. His form was not as carefully crafted as mine, nor even as solid. Merely human and real, with a soft layer of perfection to cover him. Someone to hold you and be held. 

To trace my fingers down his elegant back always brought a surprising joy. To draw my hands through the dark hair cropped close to his head was the embodiment of fulfillment. To feel him breathe under his sleeping shirt was intoxication. Even the light scruff around a chin so neat and strong, for it to rub against mine as his lips touched mine was to know heaven.How I loved to caress the lines in his face, soft creases brought about by joyous smiles. So many times I had told him they made him better looking than I, and on each occasion he would laugh and call me liar and draw me into his embrace...and peace would surround me.He was the very meaning of comfort. 

Of home. 

How could that have been possible? For one such as me to find a man so wonderful? What had I done right for this reward? Nothing in my life had prepared me for it.Nothing.Nor had anything prepared me for the fear that I might lose him. 

But at that moment, on that last morning, I was his and he was mine. My only world. And to love him was to love life in all its beauty.And cruelty. 

His full name? Adair Carwyn Llewellyn.“Welsh,” he had told me, though I had not asked. “Dad was a freak about that. That's why he named my brother Gareth, which is almost normal. I got the brunt of it. Not as sexy as the French, or even French Canadienne, but...” 

“Québécois, mon ange,” I had replied, smiling. 

“C’est vrai,” was his reply, but he pronounced it, “Say veray.” 

I had to laugh. His French...ooh-la... 

He was four months short of his thirtieth birthday, that morning. Born and raised in Fairview, a small town in the mountains east of Seattle, his world had been one of comfort for much of his life. Safety. Protection. Parents who loved him, even if they did not love each other. An older brother who would leave him to himself. People who liked him. Cared for him. His fortress against the few who did not, reinforced by a rambling home halfway up a foothill. 

He was one of those rare few who, from an early age, knew what they would become. And he did so well, with it. So happy and alive with it. That he let my world join with his? That he let me taste of the joy that had seemed to surrounded him? The support? Sometimes at night I would hide and weep in the shadows, I could not believe how much joy surrounded me. 

My name? Adam Henrí Lécuyer, once of Terrebonne, by Montreal. I was three years his junior, in age only. In my life? Well, in my heart and spirit I often felt I was ten years older than he. And in my own reality, twice that. Suffice it to say, while he have been nurtured in a world of safety and care, I had not.But that may be discussed later. At this moment, my focus must remain on that last day. 

As reference, I worked as a ski instructor at his mother’s lodge, during the winter. Sophisticated and cool, was I, to the primitive minds of those who saw me only as an example of easy, masculine sexuality. Were any to mention this to me, I would shrug and reply they should see me in the off-season, when I would do occasional work as a handyman, gardener, and carpenter, with all of the dirt and sweat they entailed. And that would be the end of that. 

But it mattered not to Dair, for he was an artist of the honest ethereal world, where filth and grime were acceptable. And it is with no hesitation that I name him as an artist. He took the purest pleasure in building them from exquisite colors blended in ways I had never seen before. Not only flowers and landscapes and elegant vistas to hang prettily in windows, but portraits and sculptures and items of exquisite grace created in ways that never ceased to amaze me. An existence caught in the midst of glass stained in a thousand colors built to make objects of heavenly beauty. 

Now you know why his body was strong. His art required strength, agility and control, for these were neither indelicate materials nor lightweight. They demanded a care and focus unlike any other form of creation. He once told me he could not set the glass into its frame -- no, into her frame; I should use his references -- until she was ready. In this, he was never quick. Always patient. Listening. Watching. Waiting. Even with his portraits. While he may have worked from photographs or sketches, still he would sit for hours to merely gaze between the simple images on flat paper and shattered pieces of colored glass to determine which was right and which was not. 

"Each fragment has a soul," he once told me, "and she'll reveal herself if you let her. Give her time." 

It is funny to remember, but when first I met him, this struck me as the epitome of childish self-indulgence, his actions and attitudes shallow, confusing. Do not mistake me; even then I knew his work was excellent, but I thought his reasoning merely the sensibility of an artiste who was oh-so full of himself and trying to prove his sensitivity, and I had no tolerance for such foolishness. 

Until one day, I caught him in his studio seated on this old lounging chair, looking as if he was doing nothing. It was in his lodge's old garage -- a structure of wood slat walls and semi-shingled roof, neither of which were completely solid; the thing really should have been torn down. I had done what I could to make it work, but it was not optimal. Then with winter fast approaching, it would be far worse of a work space. 

We had just begun to discuss alternatives, which is why I had come up the drive...to ask if he had decided on what he wanted done, yet.I do not know why, but the way he sat on the lounger, a bit hunched over, deep in concentration, his body loose in feel, his hands open before him, his legs crossed and his head cocked to the angle of a wondering puppy...despite the number of times I had seen him like this before, I stopped. For something about it was...I cannot think of another way to describe it except somehow...something in the way he sat...in the soft quiet of late afternoon...with even the forest sounds grown gentle...it was almost religious. 

His fingers held two pieces of glass. In his left, one that was a red as deep as blood, gleaming like the finest ruby; in his right, one clear and pale with the cleanliness of a freshly cut diamond. Both were caught by the last rays of sun drifting between the slats to dance over him, casting reflections of both on the wall and against the rough plywood floor, the beams boiling with dust from the late hour. An elegant image of him, yes... 

But it was his face that jolted me to stillness. There was a vague frown in his eyes as they shifted from one piece to the other, moving each at a slightly different angle so their colors would change with the light, making their reflections dance around him. 

At that moment, his entire existence was nothing but those two simple slivers of glass.He positioned them side by side, then one atop the other, then switched them around with a focus that reminded me of the youngest children in my skiing classes. So intent on doing everything just right. Turning their feet just so. Holding their poles and skis at the proper angle while drifting down the beginner slope. Even on snowboards they maintained this ability to block out the world and all its distractions. A focus only someone innocent can manage. 

Only a child. 

Oh, dear God, I cannot begin to describe how beautiful he had suddenly become. Shadows around him. A touch of the sunbeam glancing off his hair and his black shirt. His strong chin jutting out just a little, in supple concentration. His dark eyes caught by those two simple little bits of colored glass. Searching. Searching. Searching for...I had no idea what. 

Inspiration? 

Agreement? 

Acknowledgement? 

Understanding? 

Acceptance? 

I wanted to know but dared not break the spell. I actually held my breath for fear I would startle him.It was then I could see his world was nothing like ours. He was one who could touch the unknown and draw beauty from it and for him...for him...this form of grace was his very meaning. 

I had gained hints of this other world when reading my books of poetry. Most would be lovely and touch your heart and soul, but sometimes...sometimes a verse or even a line would transport you to another sphere of existence, and you would sense the purest truth imaginable. 

This is when he sensed my presence and slowly looked around to me, moving as if drunk, and he saw me and his magnificent smile slowly filled his face and what I saw in my Dair was joy and beauty and wonder and peace, and my heart filled near to bursting. 

From that moment, he was My Dair. I did not understand the depth of my feeling, at the time, but after watching him delve into that other world, I knew...I knew from that point forward we would be mine until death parted us. 

I had no idea how true that would be. 

Or how soon.

Postponement...

I'd forgotten about this quote from Rilke. Sort of fits my madness from the last couple days...

So...I'm aligned with a plan to set APoS aside till the end of the year. I'm kind of burnt out on it from having pushed through Derry and NWFO. My aim was pretty ambitious...getting it all done in one year after decades of dealing with it...and my ending has shifted in a way I'm unclear about. So I want to take some time and consider all the angles and intentions before I dig back in.

A possible job came up that might mean me driving down to Philadelphia. If I do then I'm coming back through Corning and going to the Museum of Glass, again. Staying the night, close by. See if I can reconnect with Dair's Window. That was another story that kept expanding and expanding till I didn't know what it was, anymore. I set it aside a couple years ago but now wonder if I might be able to figure it out.

It's a romance, is the thing. And it's told by a dead gay man who used to be a porn actor in Toronto but was too smart to keep going with that. However, its focus is the stained glass artist he connects with who helps him believe in people, again...until he dies and his family, who'd rejected him, sues the artist. Claims the dead man made him lots of money and they want part of it.

It's a simple story being told in a complex way, and I wonder if that's the correct path to take with it. I've got a lot written, but it's not in real order, yet. So it may require a lot more work than I can give it, right now. But we'll see. That job wouldn't be till the end of the month, anyway.

I'm a lot calmer, now. I stayed off social media, pretty much, and am ignoring the VP debate. I have to get up at 6am to catch a plane, which I am NOT happy about, and the LA job just got more complex. I may not be coming home till Friday, instead of Thursday. Won't know till I get there.

Oh well...at least the income keeps me solvent.

Could it be...?

I'm just too fucking old? I've been on this planet so long, I can no longer ignore the massive amount of stupidity and hatefulness social media has revealed to me, and it's fucking me up? Is that why writers finally give up on writing? They've realized the reality of the world is far too insane, and trying to make sense of it is a task for raving fools?

Reading the ludicrous comments from people intent on turning the catastrophe of Hurricane Helene into a political criticism of Democrats and liberals is a lesson in how up becomes down and wrong becomes right. Where's FEMA? It's on-site, with food and water. Democrats sending $$ to Ukraine is why we have this flooding. Completely nonsensical. Biden and Harris are the reason for this catastrophe. Um, since when can any human being control the weather?

My blood pressure was up to near red zone, when I checked it. And I got to thinking; when I checked it while in the UK, it was down to just a bit elevated. Mainly because I didn't go online and deal with the claptrap being spit out by MAGAts, self-serving politicians and Russian bots. Maybe half the reason I'm so morose, right now, is because I'm caught up in that sewerage.

When I was in Derry, once, I used the library to read some letters to the editor of the Belfast Telegraph, from the 60s and early 70s...and they curled my hair with their hate for Catholics. Seriously blamed them for all the troubles in the world. And meant it. I thought that was just a localized thing in the middle of sectarian violence...but the same shit is happening here. The same level of hatred and blame and anger and self-proclamations of victimhood without the two sides killing each other, like there.

One example that stuck with me was a flier that was passed around after a Protestant pub had been bombed by PIRA and 12 people killed. It showed a charred body and screamed about the murder of this person...even though a Protestant paramilitary group had done the exact same thing to a Catholic pub not that long before. It was an obvious case of, How dare you do to me what I did to you!

Now I'm not the brightest guy in the room. It takes me forever to understand things. Hell, I still don't get Algebra, and I honestly think it's only the French I took in 3rd grade that I can reference now, not my two years of it in college. I halfway wonder I was ADHD or slightly dyslexic, though those were not diagnoses we had, back when I was growing up. I was just considered weird. And I knew other kids who were weird, too.

I didn't make friends except by chance. And the one time I tried to force myself to be more social, it was a catastrophe. I still love being alone and hate having to deal with crowds or parties. I can do it, but not happily. I wonder if my brain is just finally letting me catch up to what the world is all about and that's got me all messed up?

There have always been stupid, hateful people in this country, but that convicted felon has shown us how many of them there are...not just in this country but around the world...and I just can't handle it. 

Is it gone?

I'm having something of an issue, here. I cannot find the impetus...need...ability...want...anything...to write. I feel like I've lost the spark. The desire to share the stories in my head. I shut down the moment I open my laptop and try to start in on one.

Home Not Home? My brain scatters into a dozen hiding holes and I cannot think. There is no passion for it, right now. No demand within me to get it done. It's just all over the place.

I tried shifting to another work -- Book 3 of Blood Angel, where Léonidès finds a man he wants as his mate but needs the okay from the Oiym to transition him into another Blood Angel vampire...and I feel nothing for it. It sits there, blank. Even considering adding an erotic dream to show what Léon wants from Franz, his chosen one, doesn't even pique my own prurient needs...if I still have any.

On top of it all, I'm heading to LA for a whirlwind packing job and fear it's going to be a mess. Fly in Wednesday, pack, transport to the warehouse and prep the shipment on Thursday then fly home on a redeye. It feels rushed and unnecessary. Same for Seattle at the end of the month.

I'm feeling very old. And tired. And more than a little hopeless. Like I haven't achieved anything. None of my books sell well. I've lost money on 3/4 of them. I'm sinking deeper and deeper into debt. The political future is looking very grim, no matter who's elected in November.

Harris would be the better choice for President, by a long shot, but the MAGAt crowd won't vanish if that convicted felon is beat, again. They will only get worse, like rabid dogs. And if he wins, it's death everywhere.

Maybe I'm just in a low phase of my biorhythms. I dunno. It's just hard as hell for me to get worked up into doing anything, right now. That I did my laundry is a big deal. 

Oh...and I also made my bed with clean sheets. Woohoo!

Dithery day...

I'm going to LA on Wednesday to pack some books on Thursday and, currently, am slated to fly home on JertBlue's redeye, that night. This was finalized after a lot of bouncing around as regards what to do about a book that needed to go to New York instead of London, with the others.

I already had a ticket for Friday night's redeye to get back to Buffalo, so changed that to go through JFK. But once the changes had been made, it turned out the client already had a plan for the book and I didn't need to be involved. Which was good. Except, having changed my flight once, online, I couldn't change it, again, online. I had to call in to make another change, and I won't get a seat assignment till I get to the airport. That's not comforting.

It set the tone for the day, however. I'd do some of what I needed then shift to something else that needed to be done then forget what I was doing and start yet another project...and now I've got a pile of paperwork that needs sorting through. And I'm still reminding myself I need to get some groceries so have to work up a list.

On top of it, Ingram Spark sent me the wrong quantities of the first two volumes of A Place of Safety, and one even had the wrong cover on it. I'd ordered 4 copies of Derry but got 6, and ordered 6 copies of New World For Old but got 4, one of which had the dust jacket of Derry on it. I filed a report (with pictures) but God knows how long it will take them to correct it.

The positive thing is, I balanced my checkbook, got some bills paid, and sorted out when I'm going where, this month. Three trips -- LAX, San Antonio, and Seattle. And then a possible shipment from Buffalo, the first week of November. With a short bit of time in-between them. That is why I gave up on getting HNH in order, soon. I'd have turned out a piece of shit.

Hopefully, these trips will all go well. But I'm not going to think they will till after I'm done.

Especially since I'm flying Southwest, for the majority of it.

Accepting reality...

Okay...I am not going to get Home Not Home done this year. What I have written so far will need at least two more drafts before I can even think of showing it to my editor. And between work popping up, new directions the story is going, and my normal inability to stop procrastinating, I'm way behind.

I had stupidly been hoping to have it ready enough to submit to the Pulitzer committee for consideration. Talk about hubris...I have the barest command of English grammar and composition and I'm arrogant enough to try for the preeminent prize in American Literature.

It was an artificial deadline I was hoping to meet...but it's not going to happen. Their drop-dead date is in three weeks, and I would be doing Brendan's story a huge disservice if I pushed it through, that soon. It's just not going to be ready.

I go on flights of fantasy, like that. Dancing along in my dreams of being told I'm on the same level as Hemingway and Cheever and Faulkner and such. But that sort of nonsense damages my focus on the story. I add moments in to be noticed and applauded, and not because they belong.

Like that primal scream I'd so eloquently added for Brendan, at the end of this volume. It was an actor's moment, not a real, honest character's. I've seen so many films and plays where that happens and it always puts me off. I think I'm probably the one person in the world who was not affected by Meryl Streep's scream near the end of Sophie's Choice. So why was I doing it here?

I think that's what I lost sight of in A Place of Safety. It tends towards silence, and I keep trying to pump up the drama. There are explosive moments, sure...like when Brendan is bound to a tree and whipped for dating a Cajun girl...but even that ends quietly with him having a near heart attack and scaring them into stopping.

So I guess half my procrastination issue was coming from that idiotic deadline, and I'm removing it. This section will be done when it's done. When it's together in the way it wants to be.

I just hope I can keep enough control of myself to allow that.

91,600 words...

Lots of changes and additions to the story, so far. No telling how long the book will be, now, but it's moving forward so I can't say much. I can do editing later.

Even though I have a timeline worked out for Brendan, it's still shifting. I added in this long bit where Ma is listening to the results of Bobby Sands being elected to Parliament, and the demonstrations and riots the followed. People are getting hurt and even killed by rubber bullets fired too close.

But then Ma drifted off into memories that Brendan knows nothing about. It sounds like his parents lived in Belfast till after Mairead's birth and there was some kind of confrontation...maybe with a priest or a Unionist poll worker...that made them run to Derry and find a place to hide. And that's why Da's past is shrouded in mystery.

I'll need to be careful, here. I want everything to work out properly. Clearly. I'd thought for a while about having Brendan's father having been molested by a priest while in a boys' home, but that felt too obvious and symmetrical. It's bad enough the priests would seriously beat the boys in their care. That's how they instilled good Christian values in them. Which was a completely bullshit way of treating kids, but that's how the church worked.

The story seems to be aiming for another reason behind Brendan's father's alcoholism. Da starts out when first married as a fine storyteller, in demand at fetes and such. Not a lucrative career so he also worked a steady job on the Belfast docks.

But still so much of his life is a mystery to Brendan...hell, to the whole family. And it seems to be part of what the story's really about, now.

Or not. Won't know till I'm done.

Progress...

I've been trying to find out more about this image, hoping to use it for the cover of Home Not Home. Well, Derry of the Past posted it on their FB page and the location has been narrowed down. It's on Spencer Road, just before the street curves around to lead onto the Craigavon Bridge.

Now people are trying to identify the young man in the photo or who might have been taking pictures in the area at the time. It's almost like a scavenger hunt with the people on that site, and it's fun.

I have an alternative idea for the cover, just in case, but this is the one that haunts me most...and has from the moment I saw it.

I'm now caught in one of the laws of writing -- the moment you seem to be getting somewhere, major distractions will come your way. I might have three more packing or pickup jobs to handle in DC, LA and here in Buffalo within the next month.

I was in at the office for a bit, after my podiatrist appointment, and we discussed it. Nothing absolute, yet, but a couple are rush jobs, so... As for my feet, they're wearing out and all I can do is what I'm already doing, so that is that. But I do have good circulation in them.

I dropped off paperwork and my invoices, and may manage to be solvent, next month, without dipping into my savings. That'll be nice.

Is anyone open to starting up a GoFundMe to pay off my credit card debt? I only need $35,000. It's for a good cause...letting me laze around my apartment and write. That's good use, isn't it?

I made a chicken-fried steak for dinner...and it was goood. But it's also reminding me of how good it was, several hours later.