Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 41

Housekeeping...

I worked up a list of all my books that are available and am posting that on some sites to build sales. They've fallen off, but here's hoping this will change that direction:

General Fiction

Boys Will Be Boys-Their First Time – My novella, Perfection, when a young artist finds his muse, is included. Kindle

David Martin – A fable about a boy called to visit a heroic king, who may not be who he claims. Hardback 

Bobby Carapisi – The story of three men who are sexually assaulted, and how each is treated by the world. Paperback Ebook 

The Lyons’ Den – A writer trying to write in the midst of chaos, a snowstorm and possible new love. Paperback Ebook

The Alice ’65 – An English lad, an American lass, a lonely black panther, and a missing book that’s worth millions. Another day in LA. HardbackPaperback Ebook

Carli’s Kills – Carli’s out for a brutal revenge on the biker gang that killed her daughter. Paperback Ebook

A Place of Safety-Derry – Brendan Kinsella just wants to live his life, but history won’t let him. HardbackPaperback (coming soon) Ebook

A Place of Safety-New World For Old – Brendan tries to start over in America but finds new issues that tear open old wounds. HardbackPaperback (coming soon) Ebook

A Place of Safety-Home Not Home – Brendan returns home to find he both does and does not exist. Hardback (coming soon)Paperback (coming soon) Ebook (coming soon)

Adults only

How to Rape a Straight Guy – Curt’s found the perfect way to get even with the world, one man at a time. Paperback EbookAKA: Curt – Paperback

Porno Manifesto – When Alec was gay-bashed by a group of fraternity boys, he decided to get some revenge of his own. Paperback Ebook

Rape in Holding Cell 6 – Antony just wanted to know why his lover was arrested and killed. Paperback Ebook

The Vanishing of Owen Taylor – Did Jake’s uncle vanish to keep from being tried for statutory rape, or was he killed for opposing some powerful people? HardbackPaperback Ebook

Underground Guy – Devlin has to stop a serial killer in London before he strikes again. Paperback Ebook

The Beast in the Nothing Room – How do you stop a serial killer who kills no one and doesn’t even exist? Paperback Ebook

Hunter – There’s always a market for the sale of good-looking men, and Hunter’s one of the best at supplying it. Paperback Ebook

Blood Angel – A Blood Angel is a higher form of vampire, unaffected by daylight or anything that harms a regular vampire. Léonidès – Ebook  The Prussian – Ebook 

Feeding the Beast – A young man is murdered by a cop but brought back to life to help a stranded alien and its ship feed on young men. Ebook

Demented Dreams (of guys in trouble) An adult coloring book for that wicked someone ion us all.Paperback

Back from the dead...

That break was good. Calmed the waters. Let my thoughts sort themselves out. Got other things done. And spent several periods of time just floating along the web in utter bliss. No constant niggling thought that I ought to be working on APoS-Home Not Home in a way that was getting me nowhere.

I may have been subconsciously waiting to get a hard copy of A Place of Safety-New World For Old...which came yesterday. Looks good. Nice and consistent. Inside type is crisp and readable. And as is required by the law surrounding typos, I opened it to a section, read over a couple pages...and found one.

It was in an awkward place. The end of a bit of dialogue was missing a quotation mark, but it's followed by more dialogue from another person so could be seen as just a paragraph break in what I'd written, and not words being said by two different people. Probably something only I would notice.

What's nice is, I didn't freak out over it. I just shrugged and figured I'd fix it for the paperback edition. So pulled up the file I'd sent into Ingram, saved it as a new file for the paperback copy, and changed it, there.

In fact, once I'm done with this next draft of Home Not Home, I'm going to read the first two volumes of the trilogy in hardback and make notes of any further typos I find, in them. It seems to help when I read through my work in a completely different format. I can't rely completely on editors or proofers, and the one I saw was even missed by Words own grammar editor.

That said, I'm digging back into HNH and am pushing forward. I leave for the UK August 9th and would like to have this draft done by then. But I think I have everything sorted out and all it needs is three or four chapters added to what's already done.

Probably optimistic of me, but better that than beating myself up.

Blank.

I'm taking a week off.  

A Place of Safety-New World For Old is set

I corrected the two errors in the text of the story and also found another typo that even my proofing editor missed. I'm telling you, typos are the devil's work. Of course, it was easy to miss. I had written the word history twice in a row, and the sentence broke from one line to the next in between them.

So I took a few hours to completely go through the file using Word's editor and found another instance. Jesus...how do you get around this crap?

Anyway, it's all uploaded and I've gotten a proof back, already, and it looks good and complete, so I've authorized setting it up. And I've purchased a copy to see how it actually prints. I got the rush service because I do want to make my self-imposed deadline. Here's hoping I get it before the end of next week.

I've gone through a couple more chapters of Home Not Home, and am adding in a bit where Brendan does actually do research for the paper he's told everyone he's writing. Looking at news stories from when his father was killed and also checking into his parents' marriage. His cover story -- the Kinsellas have been through much in the last 15 years, but are also better off than most, and they'll be a good reference point for my thesis.

Which is true. Eamonn's in jail and Brendan's banished, and Da was murdered by Protestants, but they haven't lost a child to the Nationalist/Unionist violence or at the hands of the authorities like so many others have.

When I first went to Derry, I was able to get into The Derry Journal's library, where they had years and years of copies of the twice-a-week newspaper. It's been going since the end of the 18th century, but all I needed was from 1966 to 1981.

I didn't have nearly enough time to spend there; I could easily have taken up residence for a year. With this upcoming job in the UK, I'll have Friday-Monday free, so I've been thinking about possibly hopping a flight to Derry and doing some more digging for HNH. But everything pretty much shuts down over the weekend, so it would be a misuse of time.

Maybe after???

Typos are evil

Got a proof back of NWFO in hardback and looks great except for two glaring typos -- one on the table of contents and on in the first paragraph of the last chapter. It's too late for me to deal with, right now; I'll handle it in the morning.

Looks like a near 2-week trip to the UK, beginning the second week of September. Liverpool and London. Never been to Liverpool. Maybe there's a Beatles tour I can take during my down time. Some of the day was taken up with working that out, but I'm not making anything absolute before we get the final okay from the client.

FWIW, I took this photo when I was last there in 2016.

The rewrites for HNH are proving to be more demanding than I expected. I find myself double checking and researching deeper into what was going on at the time, in Derry, and the politics. Brendan's been jammed into it and he's finding the news coverage has been less than detailed about the situation with the hunger strikers.

He's also trying to avoid people who really knew him, way back when. Especially Father Jack. But step by step it's coming together.

Nowhere man...

Feeling kind of out of it, right now, so...

Someone sent me this description of anyone born in July and it's probably 90% accurate. See if you agree...

Fun to be with. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people’s feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Spazzy at times. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets. Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically and mentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats others equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying. Loves to be alone. Always broods about the past and the old friends. Waits for friends. Never looks for friends. Not aggressive unless provoked. Loves to be loved. Easily hurt but takes long to recover.

HNH continues...

My own personal dichotomy...

I have found that my writing has two completely different directions it wants to go. One is influenced by the Hollywood aspect of how a screenplay needs to move, move, move.  And follow certain structural points. And mainly be on the superficial side, where sometimes things happen because they have to happen in order for the story to continue. A skeleton, as it were.

While I read all the books on screenwriting (back when I was still writing screenplays) -- Syd Field's Screenplay, Save the Cat, Bob McKee's Story, Viki King's How to Write a Movie in 21 Days...and a dozen others -- who really influenced my screenwriting was Alfred Hitchcock in his interview with Francois Truffaut.

I found the book when it first came out. I was working at Frost Brothers in downtown San Antonio and there was a news stand across the street with a basement for books on various subjects, including film. I flipped through it, saw it had samples of Hitchcock's storyboards and bought it. I was doing some comic strip nonsense, at the time. I read it. And his attitude that dialogue was secondary to image stuck with me.

Tainted me, really, because the more I got into writing the more I wanted to deal with the characters and not just running-jumping-standing-still movies. When I finally got it through my thick skull I was never going to make it in Hollywood and started writing books, unfortunately that carried through...to an extent. And still haunts my work.

At the beginning of the process.

But I've begun to accept that half the reason I rewrite my work so much is because I want to strip that superficiality away as much as possible. Working on HNH is turning into another case study, for me. I found I was ignoring the reality of the situation in Derry, at the time Brendan returns, and having important dramatic moments filled with symbolism occurring...which were totally wrong. And now I'm dealing with that superficial nonsense as I dig in deeper and deeper to make the story as real as possible.

I know it can't be 100% right; I didn't live there, nor was I involved in anything that happened. But I can make it feel right as it's being read. That's what got me through the first two books...each of which underwent at least two dozen rewrites before I could let go. And tore me up as I went.

Yet here I go, again...already cut out more than 4200 words. Boom...boom...boom...

Typical issues...

Okay...A Place of Safety-New World For Old is now uploaded to Ingram in hardcover format. I should have a proof to look at by Tuesday of next week. If that's good, I'll order a copy to see how it looks in print. If that's acceptable, it will be available on Amazon, B&N and through independent book stores about the 20th, and I can start publicizing it.

I had the usual issue of a color profile integrated into the PDF, and Ingram telling me to take it out. I tried a dozen different ways as laid out through Google searches, none of which worked on my Mac or updated version of Word.

In the How can I not help you department, I even contacted Ingram about how to remove the profile and actually got, "Well, what you do is shift it from Word to PDF by using the PDF/X-1a:2001 setting." "How do I do it?" "We can't tell you. We don't help with editing."

Finally, I shifted the Word Doc to the company PC, which has an older version of Word, and found the tab that let me shift it into a PDF without the color profile. I uploaded that and the cover and it came back fine, according to initial scanning.

Jesus...

So this volume is 346 pages, 329 of which are text. I didn't do the timeframe separations like I did with Derry; those didn't seem right for this part. But I'm now 2/3 of the way through the trilogy. If I can get Home Not Home out and available by Christmas, I'm treating myself to a dinner at Russell's, a Ruth's Chris style steakhouse here in Buffalo.

Or...I could go to the Ruth's Chris in Toronto...

I also spent some of the day preparing a quote for a possible packing job in London, not far from the Sherlock Holmes Museum and Primrose Hill. It won't be an easy job since the books are in the top floor of a townhouse with no elevator, but it would be worth it. And I'll have help for this.

So I better get my ass in gear on HNH.

Booklife review!

Got the review today and it's good. I've completed the dust jacket and spent the day correcting a screwup that I don't understand. Word did something to where if I shifted the docx file to PDF, the page numbering was all haywire and there were blank pages. I had to completely redo the formatting.
But that's not that big a deal. This is:

Booklife 1 August 2024

Vigorous, fiercely emotional novel of an Irishman’s coming of age in Texas.

Raw, tender, lyric, uncompromising, and bursting with life, the second volume of Sullivan’s A Place of Safety series follows 17 year-old Brendan Kinsella as he faces life in the aftermath of the first book’s quite literally explosive climax. To his surprise, he awakens not in the war-torn Northern Ireland city of Derry and the life of poverty to which he had become accustomed. Instead, smuggled out by the IRA, he’s in a wealthy suburban Houston neighborhood—where Americans “lived in fine homes and drove cars as big as barges on the Foyle”—and in the care of an aunt and uncle he’s not sure he can trust. In the U.S. illegally, uncertain whether he’s guest or prisoner, Brendan must adapt to a new identity, a new nation with its own violent fissures, and the guilt he feels over what happened in Derry— and left people he loved dead.

Sullivan’s story covers just a few years of the 1970s, as Brendan begins to find his place, working at a bar and then as a mechanic, experimenting with sex, discovering love, and facing the harsh starkness of American racial and sexual binaries. Again, the narrative voice is intimately insistent, touched with music, frank about dark feelings and events. Even as Brendan finds much to love in his new home—friendships, family, romance, opportunity—the worst of his past bleeds through his consciousness, creating scenes of raw tension when offhand remarks from, say, his scene-stealing young cousins set him spiraling, fighting his own mind.

The ample dialogue and occasional sex are handled with electric vigor, as both author and narrator alike find transcendence in moments of urgent connection, as when Brendan and a girlfriend, who is Black, discuss the roots of hatred in their homelands, or when Brendan and a friend in Israel’s IDF commiserating over what it costs a person to have to kill. For all its density and heft, the novel often moves briskly, at a fierce emotional pitch.

-------

I'll upload it to Ingram tomorrow.

How far can I go?

I did not write one word on APoS-HNH, today. Didn't even open the file. I couldn't work myself up to it. I'd sit down at my laptop, tell myself I was going to get started...then find some excuse to do something else, just for a moment, and hours later I'm still not on it.

I've watched more cat and dog videos in the last seven months than through my entire life, which includes during the work I did on NWFO. But it's grown more-so in the last few weeks. I do anything I can to avoid dealing with the last volume of my trilogy.

This is going to be a rough one...as shown my this conversation between Brendan and his mother, the day after he's arrived back in Derry:

----------

The next morning, I managed to convince Maeve to enjoy a nice, long leisurely bath. She’d already handled Ma's cleaning, which I’m sure I would not have been allowed to do, and from the look of hesitant pleasure on her face when I suggested it, I’m sure the morning’s duties had been anything but pleasant.

So once I heard her slip into the tub, I knocked at Ma's door and entered with her breakfast--a boiled egg with butter, no salt or pepper, and more of that hideous lemon water."Something to eat, Ma," whispered from me. 

She glared at me, snarling, "Did I invite you in?" 

“Do you want your morning meal or not?” I managed to ask it in a very bland voice. 

She huffed and looked away, which I took for a yes. 

"I need to speak with you," I continued, my voice calmer than I felt. It helped that I was cranky from having slept on the divan, after all. Maeve's sheets were in dire need of a wash, and the hutch was even worse, I so I'd wrapped myself in a blanket and let jet lag kick me into a near death-like slumber. Then woke with my neck and back pissed as hell at me and my head pounding. 

I set the bowl on a little tray with legs and placed it across Ma's lap. Then I added a spoon and wet napkin. 

She ignored them and snapped, "You have nothing to say that I want to hear." 

I brought one of the chairs over and sat in it. 

She all but spat, "Brendan Kinsella, did I ask you to sit?" 

I sat, anyway, saying, "I'm not Brendan; not while I'm in Derry." 

"What're you on about?" 

"I'm Jeremy Landau. A friend of your sister's family, who's willing to help your daughter have a wee bit of a breather as he researches a paper he wants to write." 

That actually took her by surprise. "What? What nonsense is this? Why would you be that?" 

I sighed. "Stop it, Ma. You know as well as I, when I was taken across the water it was not by legal channels. The only way I can return is by the same method.” 

“But that was dealt with...and-and-and you were given another name and that’s what everyone expects and...” 

“No, while I'm here, my name is Jeremy. And I am Jewish, not Irish or Catholic. An extra layer of confusion. I tell you this because I think Mrs. Haggerty overhead Maeve and myself, downstairs, and she may think she knows who I really am. It's my hope you'll help cloud that in her mind." 

"Why would I need to? She's a good mate." 

"Who loves a good craic, and things will slip out. I'd like to minimize the possible damage." 

"What damage could come from--" 

"I’ve had indications that the Brits still want to talk to me about that bombing. They may even believe I was involved in staging it.” 

“But that’s ridiculous. And it’s been eight years. How could they even know you’re still about?” 

“I don't disagree, nor do I know what they think they can learn, but it's beside the point. They've been to Aunt Mari's more than once, looking for Brendan, the latest not so very long ago. Now, if I'm arrested, it will be bad for the whole family, including the Houston one, but so long as I'm able to show I'm someone else, we might be fine till I'm gone." 

"How long will you be here?" 

I let an edge come to my voice. "How long do you think?" 

She didn't flinch in the least, just leaned back and looked at the window. Her voice grew hollow. "So this is what's come back to me." 

I could not help but ask, “If you didn’t want me around anymore, then why didn’t you just let them put me in a grave?” 

That jolted her eyes back to me. “I-I don’t know what you mean.” 

“I remember some of it, Ma. Colm going to get you to protect me. The men fighting with you to just end me. You even started to smother me while threatening them. You spent so much time hating on me, why save me?” 

“I never hated you...” 

I almost laughed. “Jesus, Ma!” 

“I hated how you looked down on me. And your father. Always so superior and sneaky. Goin' your own way. Treatin’ me like anything but your mother and disparagin’ him.” 

“All the more reason—” 

“But you were still my child! My son. I should let those bastards blame you for their own incompetence? Poor Danny there, cryin', It wasn’t supposed to go, it wasn’t supposed to go. Colm frantic. And you broken and bleedin' and hysterical. And those idiot fools wantin’ someone to take it out on instead of helpin’ you lads! Bloody men, always doin’ and never acceptin’.

“Eamon De Valera would never have allowed it. Nor would your father. He was strong, once. A man, once. Eamonn...my Eamonn is like him. Like you never could be, for your sneakin’ ways. Superior and condescending.” 

“So instead you killed who I was.” 

She grew still and cold, and a bit distant. “I had a son named Brendan once. I loved him, but he never loved me. Never loved any of us. Endin’ him was needed to save him. Sendin’ him away...” She actually laughed. “Sendin’ him away when he was runnin’ away. Madness. All of it. But promises were made.” Her eyes whipped at me, sharp as knives. “Promises he’d never return.” 

It took me a moment to find my voice so I could say, "As I asked you, last night, would you rather I leave? Being here as no relation to the family and-and-and as a citizen of the United States, I can go anywhere. Do-do-do you send me off, again, or shall I stay? The choice is yours." 

She looked at me as if I truly were a stranger. "Why did you send Eamonn to Long Kesh?" 

I was so taken aback, all I could think to say was, "He's in the H-Blocks, Ma. The name was changed, years ago." 

"And they'll never let him out, thanks to you." 

"I-I-I had nothing to do with his arrest, as you damn well know. I was gone for months before they snatched him." 

"No, it was..." Her voice trailed off and she looked at nothing before softly continuing, "I remember it bein' right after they took my child away. Poor little Brendan. So simple. He’d done nothin’ wrong. Bastards wanted him dead because he’d done nothin’ wrong...” And she was close to tears. 

This was beginning to worry me. Aunt Mari had been right about Ma’s rambling, but had been wrong that it made no sense. Even lost in her mind, she was revealing everything...and it made me feel so cold. 

Finally, she looked at me, confused. “Who are you? Why are you here?” 

Without a thought, I replied in my Texas voice, "I-I-I'm Jeremy. Landau. A-a friend of the family. Come to work on my thesis about the peace movement, while livin' with those caught up in the Troubles. Discuss how hopeful and futile it is. I've also said I'd help your daughter, Maeve, in exchange for a place to sleep. I have some medical background and she's just plain stretched to her limit. Is that all right?" 

She shifted her focus to the window. "I’m an old woman, dyin’. Have I the choice?” Dear God, how pitiful she looked at that moment. “So many dead. So many dyin’. Here we have Bobby Sands, the best of our lads, the greatest in our cause, starvin’ himself in the name of Ireland and...and..." 

And that angered me and before I could stop myself I said, "And he'll die, as will more after him." 

She was silent, for a moment, then nodded and murmured, "Yes, more will follow. There's a list. And our Eamonn will be one...our Eamonn will join it." 

"I'll be damned if he does." 

That brought her cutting eyes back to me, glittering cold with hate. "You already are, Brendan." She all but spit my name out. “Comin’ back here to meddle in things you know nothin’ about, like a fool. A simple stupid fool.” 

Well, Ma was back to herself, and as harsh as ever.I made myself rise from the chair, slowly. "I’m Jeremy while I’m here, Ma. Are we agreed on my staying?" 

After a moment she whispered, "Jeremy. You should address me as Mrs. Kinsella." God, was her voice distant and kind. "Now leave me to my breakfast, before it’s cold." 

Which it already was, but I felt no need to say anything more.