Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 39

Shorter?

I'm getting the feeling Home Not Home is going to be the shortest of the volumes. I just cannot see it reaching even 120,000 words, let alone 140K. Right now I'm working on the story Brendan's father is recorded telling. I'm using the old legend of harpies that live in the Cliffs of Moher, which was the basis for two of my horror screenplays, Darian's Point and Return to Darian's Point.

Both had done well in competitions, but the closest I ever came to selling a script was with the first one...and I'm glad it didn't go through. I might well have gone crazy if they'd changed it or ruined it, in any way...and the more I see of Hollywood, the more I'm sorry I wasted so much time there. I would never have fit in.

It was my first real screenplay, and is still very close to me. I've begun writing the beginning of the myth about the Dagda, the father of the ancient Celtic Gods, who'd washed away his sins in the waves that crashed into the base of the Cliffs. But there's a lot left to do on it.

DP and RDP are fully fleshed out as scripts, so I could shift them into novel form. It's on my list of stories to write. So many stories to write, and me such a slow writer.

Okay, we're backing away from that thought, right now. I do not need to trigger my self-flagellation, again.

Gary Meikle...

I did something I haven't done since I first moved to LA -- I went to see a comedian, live. In a venue that claimed to be a comedy club but was really not all that great. Helium Comedy Club. I was looking for dinner and a show...and couldn't get in.

Which made no sense to me. On their website, you can make dinner reservations for 5:30, 5:45 and 6 pm. I made mine for 6. Got there at 5:55 because in the stadium next door to the place was a high school graduation so travel was shit.

But I got a spot right across from the main door and hopped on over...and everything was locked and no lights on. I tried calling and only got voicemail. At 6:01, someone opened the door and let me in...and they weren't completely done setting up. They do not open till 6. Irritating.

I sat down and had a decent burger and fries, and a Heineken 0.0 non alcoholic beer, which is damn good. And my waiter was adorable in a slim, quiet way.

Finally, the box office opened and I got my ticket, then at 7:35 I was let into the auditorium and taken to my table right next to stage right and almost behind the comedian. There was an opening act that was not ready for primetime, then on came Gary. 

I started following him when I saw this video online. He's Glaswegian, aggressively heterosexual, a single father at 17, a grandfather at 40, and he can get very raw. But he's fun to watch and my bet is many in the audience didn't get half of what he was saying, much of the time.

There were only about 40 of us in the crowd, but we enjoyed it. He tried out some new material on us for about an hour. Then I came home because I wasn't feeling well. Old man issues and a bit of depression. The job in San Jose just expanded by a day and I'm not looking forward to it.

I just wish I didn't need the money so damn much...he says after spending $80 for the night. Gag.

More typos done...

It never ceases to amaze me how many times I can go over my work, trying to eliminate typos, yet the moment someone else reads it they find several. And rather obvious ones. Words missing a letter. Hell, sentences missing a word. I discount the occasional lack of punctuation because that can be hard to see.

To my credit, so far my editor has only found 16 total mistakes in the first 100 pages of NWFO. A couple of them...I'm kicking myself over. Doubling up on a word in a sentence? That should have been caught by me. Can't figure out why it wasn't.

The beginning two chapters of Home Not Home are coming together, but they're still a bit too...I dunno...cerebral in how they feel. Almost as if by rote. I don't like that. Making the events hit Brendan as he's experiencing them works better. It's what I tried to do in NWFO. Dunno how successful I was. But it is what I want to keep in mind as to how his story is told.

Smashwords is having another one of their sales, July 1-31. I've set up A Place of Safety-Derry up at 50% off, with a couple other titles for free. It's a bit disheartening to see how many people will download a book that's at no cost but won't even read it or review it. I've tried to get reviews in a number of other ways, as well, but there are even some friends who refuse to review my work on Amazon or Smashwords.

And that's including my non-erotica.

I'll be getting one from Kirkus for NWFO, I know that. Depends on if it's good, bad or ugly...but no. A review is a review, even if they tear your work apart. I'd like to know if what I put in the books works, or doesn't. I learn from negative comments. See mistakes I should avoid repeating.

Still...it's not like I'm going to stop writing. Yet. I've got a dozen stories that want to be told.

Returning to earth...

The Beast is done. 14,500 words in eleven chapters, and I left it slightly open-ended in case something comes together at another time. Of course, I'm at the point where I really hate that title for it. If I do post it on Smashwords as an ebook, I'm changing it.

It's a goofy story, really -- part SciFi, part horror, part erotica -- but I can now see it as a light sorbet meant to cleanse my creative palate for APoS-HNH. I'm ready to dive back in.

Today was also taken up with errands. Which I had to all but force myself to do. Needed groceries, stuff to fight bedbugs and massive loads of laundry done. I'm not 100% sure I've got bedbugs, but I have a couple of itchy bumps on my right hand that seem like they could be bites, so I bought bedbug safe covers for my box spring and mattress, and diatomaceous earth to sprinkle over the frame and around the legs.
I also bought lavender oil and put it in a spritzer to hit the walls and such. It's said the little bastards don't like that. We'll see. At least it smells nice.
Tomorrow, I'm getting back onto A Place of Safety-Home Not Home. I think the opening of it has settled in enough so I can start working with it. I know what needs to be added to the story and what I don't want in it. This is Brendan coming to terms with his place in life. His fate, even. And how he finds that everything he's been through up to this point prepared him for what happens, next.
I've gotten zero feedback from anyone yet, on New World For Old, aside from notations on typos found. I don't want to do like I did in Derry and rewrite parts after they've been proofed, considering my propensity for mistakes. But I can't force anyone to do what they aren't willing to do. It's not like I'm paying for it. Maybe I'll cast about and see through Facebook if anyone's willing to read it. I'm copyrighted so worries.
Hmph, famous last words...

Unfinished business...

I'm completing that erotic horror story I was writing, The Beast, and posted chapter 10 on GayDemon.com, tonight. So Warren has been caught and stopped, and now comes the explanation.
I haven't decided if it will all be a nightmare he had after being shot and almost dying or if he'll be treated like he's insane. I'll decide, tomorrow.

It took me a while to kick-start my brain, even to do this little bit of the story. Hell, any story. I did paperwork, Set up my portable ac units...only to find I have one plugged into the wrong wall and will have to rearrange all my plants in order to get it going properly. I tripped the breaker twice before accepting it. But it was hot, today, and that makes me sleepy. Don't want that...so tomorrow is going to be fun.

The last leg of the drive up to Buffalo went nicely enough. No cramps or aches. Only one little bit where I started feeling sleepy. I got that Chrysler Pacifica up to 30 mpg using cruise and not pushing too hard. Dumped all the packing materials into my car and returned the van by 6pm. Then came home and made myself some hot dogs.

Fun detail -- taking an Uber to the airport to pick up the van and a taxi home was $5 cheaper than leaving my car in their longterm parking lot while I was in DC, for a week. I normally rent cars from the Airport Avis because they tend to be in better condition than the little sub-locations, and their hours are better. 

Today, as noted, it took a while to get going, but I think I do have the opening for APoS-HNH now. A quieter entry into the story than I'd had, before. I even input it on the main rewrite file.

Process beginning...

I'm en route home from DC, worn out to the point I was getting cramps in my right foot and thigh as I drove. I had to stop, once, to walk one off. Then I dug out my tube of Icy Hot and slathered it on there, which helped...to an extent. God, I'm feeling more and more like the 2000 year old man.

Seriously, by the end of the work day, I was a bit shaky and brain dead. The packing site was only a mile from the hotel so I'd initially thought I'd walk it, each day. Even though it's 90+ out, in the afternoons, I know how to keep to the shade and take it easy. Instead, I wimped out and did Uber. Cost about $15 each time, but I didn't care.

I'm staying over in a Best Western outside Harrisburg, because no way I would be able to stay awake the entire drive to Buffalo. It's another 300 miles. Besides, I'd already worked it into my budget.

Something funny -- the hotel I stayed at in DC cost me an average of $340 a night, which is cheap for that town. But I couldn't make tea in my room; I had to go down to the lobby for it. No microwave. No iron or ironing board. A tiny fridge. A bed that was comfy enough but had sheets that were too small for the mattress so were just smoothed over it. A shower with minimal water pressure. And nothing available for breakfast except to sit down and dine in...at a cost.

This BW offers a coffee maker (which I used to heat water for tea), a small apartment fridge, microwave, iron and ironing board, a tub, a bed that looks like it was made instead of simply arranged, and breakfast. For 1/3 the cost.

Granted, one's in a VIP city while the other's in a state capitol, but I am so much more comfortable in this cheap hotel than that snazzy one. I wonder what that says about me.

What's funny is, the opening of APoS-HNH is beginning to work itself into the story. Turns out Brendan's actually a bit sorry to leave Houston. He's made good friends there, but he's also learned the city hides what she truly is, unlike Derry, and family cannot always be relied upon.

I have a feeling this thought process of his, as he prepares to return to Derry, is going to expand and, hopefully, deepen a great deal. But you don't know till it happens.

Old man attack...

I'm in Washington DC, checked into my hotel, and this trip was both nice and extremely difficult. I decided to go a route that avoided all toll charges and knew it would add some time...but I left at 10:35am and didn't hit the hotel till 8:15pm. And I am beat from the whole process.

Going the back roads was a nice change. I drove through towns I'd never have bothered with, before, and...to be honest...it was good for my thought process regarding APoS-HNH. I was heading along a 2-lane blacktop between cultivated fields on rolling hills...and thought of how similar it was to the fields and hills outside Derry.

Which led me to wonder if Brendan would be partially sad to leave Houston. He'd started another life there, and acknowledges he was really trying to escape from Derry due to how chaotic the place had become. And prison-like. Seeking a place that was better. But Houston proved to be too similar, in too many ways.

Well, it evolved into me making some notes while driving along at 70mph. I didn't look at the paper; I wrote it by touch, really...attempting to use my brain-hand coordination to get the notes down. You can see how well that worked.

But it's helped. If I'm up to it, tomorrow, after work, I'll begin fitting it in.

Of course, in one of my less-brilliant moves, I left my work shirt and trousers hanging in the closet at home. Told myself to remember them. Thought I should put them beside by backpack and briefcase but didn't want to wrinkle them. As I loaded everything into the van I thought, Am I missing something. Then didn't think about it, again, till I hit Corning...160 miles from Buffalo.

No fucking way was I going back for them, so I hit an Old Navy in Selinsgrove, PA and bought two pair of sale trousers, a black shirt and a belt for under $65. And I do have my Caladex bowling shirt to wear over a t-shirt, so I'm covered.

But do feel very old-man-memory-ish.

Unmotivated...except...

Going through an unmotivated stage, right now. Except for that series of erotic stories I've been posting on GayDemon . Well...I say stories but they're really just chapters of the same story, as mentioned before -- The Beast.

Which is close to being done. And may have alleviated the demon inside me that was distracting me from everything else. I'm through chapter 9, have part of 10 written, and a good idea of how 11 and 12 will be, and that'll be it. Meaning it will be a short novella...around 12-14,000 words.

Then I'm going to post parts of Blood Angel on there, as well. But each of those was twice the length of The Beast. God...I'd retitle it back to We-come, but that's the name of the motel atop the cave and it no longer plays a real role in the story.

I'm driving to Washington DC, tomorrow. 7-8 hour drive with a minivan and lots of packing materials. I'm not really looking forward to this job. It's in tight quarters that are difficult to get to, in a city that is a major challenge to drive in. I was smart enough to get a hotel that's only a mile from the site...if I walk; it's 1.2 miles to get to by car, thanks to how the streets are laid out. That may help.

I also officially passed on traveling to Hong Kong. I just plain do not want to spend 15-16 hours on a plane, each way, and I've been to that city so many times. I could handle flying to Dublin or London since that's only 7 hours, but I don't see that happening, again.

I'm halfway afraid I'm burned out on APoS-HNH and hope that giving myself this space from it will help me refocus. Because so far nothing I did with it satisfies me. And I mean in my gut. Intellectually, that new opening works well...but I can't get past the notion that it's only well enough...and that's not what I want.

Maybe I can come up with something on the drive down or back or something.

First notes back on APoS-NWFO

 It is amazing. All the times I went over APoS-NWFO looking to make corrections...and in the first 50 pages there are 4 glaring typos. There are also 4 occasions where a comma I'd left off was suggested...and I could see where it might be warranted...or I'd gotten lost in Brendan's speech pattern and what he said was not as clear as I'd intended. So overall this is good. 

I feel that I'm more and more prone to typos as I get older and the story becomes more involved. Even as I initially write a sentence, I'll find an error in it that needs to be corrected. I also have to really proofread my texts and online postings because I'll leave out words or letters if I don't take extra care.

Like just now. I found I'd left a period off the end of a sentence...but when I told my hand to add the period, it added a comma. Maybe my synapses aren't synapping like they should.

I don't know if this is a natural part of aging or I'm just more hyper-vigilant about them. Probably a combination of the two. My only saving grace is, it's not unusual for typos to be missed, even by the proofing departments in major publishers. As was used in two classic scenes in The Big Sleep...

FWIW, Ben Hur wasn't published until 1880, which I already knew before I saw the film, the first time.

I'm so easily distracted...

Today I had to leave my apartment because I was getting a special bedbug barrier put in. Seems someone who recently moved onto my floor had a nice little nest of them. The building called in professionals, hence the barrier. If I'd seen any in my place, it would have been full scale extermination, and I'd be spending the night in a hotel and tomorrow washing everything I own that's cloth.

Of course, now I'm paranoid, thanks to my previous apartment getting them from a downstairs infestation. I've never had bedbugs before. Not once in my life, until I came here...and even then, not till recently. Ugh, irritating.

So I popped over to Wegman's to have lunch (I like their pizza) and worked on The Beast, my gay sci-fi horror story. The dining area of a busy supermarket is not the ideal place to dig into APoS-HNH. Especially since the man at the table next to mine was fucking gorgeous. So much so I actually used him in part of the story as a potential victim...who may wind up a hero. And almost talked myself into striking up a conversation.

FWIW, sneaking a photo does not do anyone justice.

Of course, I said nothing. Did nothing. I cannot just talk to someone I don't know in a way that will mean anything. It's windy today. Supposed to be in the 80's, next week. Bullshit like that, where I shrug and stutter like a teenage boy trying to pick up the school's hot jock. And I've always been this way. It's pathetic.

So I get home with a few groceries...and find out a job outside San Jose is on for the week after July 4th and need to set that up. I'd done an initial pricing of this job a month ago; Southwest has jumped up $100 for the roundtrip. But it's set. Plane, car, hotel...

And next week I'm in DC.

Time management is not my strong suite....