Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 47

Rotten day...

Had a doctor's appointment and worked on prepping a potential job's costing, in Boston, so not focused on much else. At the doctor's I got a pneumonia vaccine shot...and it hurt. My whole body's aching, and I got a cramp in my left leg as I drove home. Which is not good. My car's a stick and he's a bit needy, in his old age.

How many years is car years in human years? My Civic's a '98 DX Coupe, and every time I think of getting a new one I go on a packing job, rent a car with electronic everything and remind myself why I don't want to replace him.

Everyone I know who has a car built in the last 10 years is having trouble with its electronics. Parking brake freezes in locked position. Sensors start misreading. Windows stop working. My little beast has a handbrake, no sensors and roll up windows, and still runs damn good. I don't want to lose that.

Anyway, I've been achy all day and unfocused. Near headache. Cranky. I hate it when I'm like that. Nice to stay in since I got home just before the rain came pelting down.

At least I'm getting good response to the latest cover workup for APoS-NWFO. It fits, more and more, in my view. I have another potential packing job in DC so once I get done with that, tomorrow, I'll start working up the full dust jacket.

Just learned Rian Johnson is coming out with a new Knives Out movie -- Wake up Dead Man. Kind of a clunky title, but Daniel Craig is back as Benoit Blanc, and that makes me giddy. Andrew Scott's signed on, too...so this should be fun. Hopefully, Hugh Grant will also be there...baking...

I wish Netflix would release their videos in DVD format...the bastards.

Finally, I think I got it.

I tried several different layouts with different images to work up the cover of APoS-NWFO...and didn't like any of them. Making Brendan the centerpiece, in his Houston phase or look...it kept coming across as a young adult novel. Something about a troubled boy (which he is, but that's beside the point) or a teen romance. Gag.

So I looked at the passport one I'd worked up...looked closer at the photo I'm using of Brendan...and went back to basics. And I think this is the strongest one. Adding in the scars and a bit of mess to his hair, surrounding him with a frame...it carries a deeper emotion than any of the others could even have possibly achieved.

I'm asking for feedback on Facebook, but I have a feeling this will be the front cover. And one of the images I worked up will do nicely on the back. Now I just need to get Publishers Weekly to agree to do a review of this volume. If they won't, I guess I'll get one through BookLife. And I'll hit Kirkus up for one, too. See how that works.

I set up an author page on Kirkus, as well, with links to some of my books. Focused on the more mainstream ones, since they get the least notice from the other sites I publicize on.

Y'know, it's amazing how tired you can get just screwing around with your laptop, all day.

Slight changes make it a lot better...

I redid the image for the cover of APoS-NWFO and it's a lot smoother. It's closely aligned with the last quarter of the story, when Brendan goes punk. But...and this is a big but...I'm not 100% on it, yet. I like it, but don't really feel it's completely right. I don't know why; I don' have any other ideas floating around. I just look at it and think it's...I dunno, too troubled-youth-ish?

I mean, reality is, that's a bit of a description of the story. Brendan is troubled, throughout, and trying to find himself...and getting smacked down everywhere he turns. So I'm not sure that this image is all that wrong. Maybe I need something simpler.

It's not like I don't know the story. But nothing is leaping out to help me along. Focus on this or that instead of the other thing you're doing. But no a word from story or character. Maybe I've done the whole story wrong.

Shit, I know what the problem is. This cover has an Ordinary People feel about it. That's not what I want. It's Brendan's story and he's got to be the one who draws a potential reader in, no fake references allowed.

But how? I'm at a loss.

Fuck, I'm gonna start whining in a minute.

Possible cover...

Spent the day digging through Shutterstock for images to fit an idea I had for the cover of APoS-NWFO and came close to giving up. That site is so poorly organized, you have to go through six different steps to get even close to what you're asking for. But this is what I came up with...and I do like it.

The image of the boy I found after asking for teen boy low angle head and shoulders and getting nothing but bland, smiling youths...but one was interesting enough, so I pulled it up and then clicked on the link to similar images. Those were better, several of which were actually Eastern European guys...but another's expression fit the mark okay enough to dig into. (I'm saving these into my catalogue as I go and have 2 dozen).

Linking to the similar models page led me to a link of brooding guys in the woods, not just of him, so I backtracked and did other images of this model to find city, country and backlighted...but a few were against a brick wall. And his expression was the most interesting. I screen-grabbed a copy of it (with the Shutterstock watermark all over it), removed the wall and cropped it to just his head and shoulders and that was working for me.

So...I went looking for a house. Seeking houses with gable windows didn't work. Seeking houses of the 70s did work. Seeking houses painted white didn't work. Then I remembered a line from Miracle on 34th Street, when John Payne talks about getting married and buying a nice Cape Cod home in the suburbs. So input Cape Cod...and there it was. Full house and in wood instead of brick, like I describe it in the book, but workable.

Cropped that down, laid the boy over it, tried him looking right and left and preferred the former. Tried changing the direction his eyes were looking but a friend told me that makes him look like a serial killer...which it did. So now it's back to the original, and I added a couple of lines as potential scars. I also added a bit of emotion to it.

This sloppy cover is strictly a mockup. I think I need to work on the layout and maybe increase the size of his head in the frame as well as deal with the positioning of the title. If I go with this, I'm licensing the images to get them in much higher resolution, so it will look clean.

Let's see how I feel, tomorrow.

Head somewhat cleared...

It took me hours to convince myself to go, but I finally got in my car and drove to Niagara Falls, along the 324 and not the 190. The bridges charge tolls and I'm not set up for those to be charged to a credit card so they're a higher cost and I'm not paying that. Besides, River Road is more interesting.

(check my Facebook page for the video version)
The day was quite pleasant. 75 degrees with a nice breeze. Of course, there just had to be an event happening near the Rainbow Bridge to the Canadian side, meaning no parking available that wasn't $25 and up. So I drove onto Goat Island and went to that lot and visited the Canadian Falls.

I toyed with the idea of driving across to Canada for dinner, but then remembered it's a holiday weekend and a look at the bridge told me that would take forever, both ways. So I walked around. Looked at all the Indian and Chinese tourists and managed to clear my head, some.

I think I know what the cover's going to be, now. I need to play with it some, to make sure, but a house I saw on the drive that's for sale made the suggestion -- a low angle on Brendan, head and shoulders, the three levels of Aunt Mari's house behind him in a vaguely threatening manner. Dunno if I can pull that off, but I'll work on it, tomorrow.

All the walking and the sun wore me out, but it was good to do.

Need a new dust jacket cover...

I finished the ebook copy of APoS-NWFO and sent it off to Publishers Weekly, requesting a review. I've also started working on the dust jacket for the hardback. Got the template and set up the background...and find I'm no longer all that thrilled with the passport images I'm using. It feels too oblique. Almost coy.

I'm wondering about having a vintage UK passport and one from Ireland, pre-EU, lying on a table with a copy of his photo partially on them...but that seems just as artsy-fartsy. I don't like the idea of the portrait, anymore. It doesn't really speak to the story. So I'm at a loss.

I'm almost thinking of an image of Brendan standing outside Aunt Mari's home...framed like the picture of him in volume one...but I don't know how I'd set that up. Maybe something kind of like this. Maybe...bigger house or something...aw, I can't think.

I may go out and about, tomorrow...like over to Niagara Falls and just walk around. Haven't been there since before Covid. I've stayed home so damn much working on this, maybe seeing the Falls will clear my head. I dunno.

I also set up a trip to San Antonio for my nephew's wedding, mid-October. Had enough points on Southwest for free fare; all I had to pay for was the EarlyBird. Got three free nights in two different hotels, and paying partial for one. Rental car's at full price, but still...this'll work for me.

Okay...I'm doing my usual crash and burn after finishing writing a story. I'm signing off.

I may make my July 31st publication date...

I submitted APoS-NWFO to the LOC for copyrighting...and also submitted to get an LCCN for the card catalogue listing. Then I set up a page on BookLife for this volume and began reformatting it into an ebook to send into Publishers Weekly to (hopefully) get a review. That is up to them, and they rejected the first volume. But you never know.

The rest of the day's been taken up working on linking the Table of Contents to each chapter. That. Is. TEDIOUS!!!! It's a three-step process, in Word. Bookmark each chapter title. Hyperlink from each listing in the ToC to its corresponding chapter. Then hyperlink back to the ToC. And it not only has to be done right, but there's crap that comes with it that must be deleted.

So I'm about halfway done, but the good thing about this is it's also a way of verifying everything is in order...and lo and behold, I found a fuckup in the Table of Contents. I'd left out a chapter heading and mis-aligned the page numbers, after it. It's wrong on the copyright submission, but that's not important. The text is what counts, there. And that isn't changing...

Unless, of course, the person doing the proofing finds another fuckup. Which is not unimaginable.

Once all this is done, I'll be ready to set the book up with Smashwords and then, having the book jacket set, Ingram. And I can get onto volume three.

I'm going to do something rather arrogant. I was in contact with the Pulitzer Committee and learned I have until October 15th to submit APoS, if i want to. The two published volumes and a pdf of what I've got done on Home Not Home. And I'm going to do it. I know I have no chance against the big-boy books that get submitted, but just taking the chance is important to me, and to Brendan.

So I need to get my ass in gear and do better than my best...as if I haven't already.

APos-NWFO closes in on done...

Completely formatted for Copyrighting and the Library of Congress steps needed. And I am beat. 
Here's the full ToC--trust me, they're perfectly straight in Word...but I'm double-checking everything in a pdf before I send it off, tomorrow.

Table of Contents
Rebirthing                         1 
Breaking the Surface       13 
Moving On                      26 
Reclamation                    40 
Reconciliating                 49 
Little Bomber Boy          55 
Ground Rebuilt               75 
Adjustments                    84 
Celebration                      91 
The B-Girls                     98 
Horror Stories                108 
Everett                           118 
Consistency                   127 
Holidays                        137 
Crash and Burn              149 
Intervention                    161 
Compatriot                     175 
Life and Evangelyne      188 
N’Awlins                         201 
Prisoner                           213 
Connection                      224 
Blunt Reality                   233 
Schooled                          247 
Exposure                          258 
Self-care                          269 
Understandings Made      282 
Stasis-not                         298 
Unbound                          310 
The Devil’s Haze             321 
Recall                               333 
About the Author 
Other Books by This Author

Synopsis...#1...

This is my first pass on working up a synopsis for A Place of Safety-New World For Old:

Continued from Volume One -- Derry.

Seriously injured and having collapsed into Akinetic Catatonia, thanks to being caught in a horrific bombing, Brendan slowly rejoins reality to find six months have passed. While his severe physical injuries from the bombing have healed, he is now torn by sudden flashes of memories of that day, as well as arguments between his mother and PIRA over what to do about him. There were some who wanted to let him die, or be killed.

He learns he was taken to his Aunt Mari's home, in Houston. The story in Derry is that Brendan Kinsella left town before the explosion. They have the note he left his mother, the fact he got a UK passport and a job offer on a ship in Cork, and had bought a train ticket to Dublin. That he cannot now be located is of no concern; some day he may turn up, again. 

In reality, he was snuck through immigration as a young Irish boy named Brennan McGabbhinn, using forged papers and a medical visa. His story is, he'd witnessed his father dying in an accident, which brought on heart trouble so got a medical visa in order to be treated by a specialist. It was his Uncle Sean, who owns a couple of bars in Houston, who used his connections in NORAID to engineer this. Reluctantly, it turns out. 

So all this time, he has been kept in an attic room under another name...tended to by his aunt and unable to communicate with anyone. His cousins -- Scott, who's 18 and without a care in the world; Brandi, who's 11 and sees Bren as her possession; and Bernadette, who's 10 and tags along, mainly to annoy her sister -- know nothing of his past and treat him as if he's just a sick relative there for their amusement. 

In steps and stages, Brendan...know known only as Bren...comes to realize all ties to his past have been severed and he has the opportunity to start life anew. Which both excites him and brings on guilt that the rest of his family is still trapped in the horror of The Troubles. But he cannot contact them or return without bringing trouble to everyone. 

He starts to navigate between these issues as he tries rebuild his world, initially thinking he will remain in Houston, with his Aunt's family's support. He gets back to repairing things for the neighborhood maids and grounds keepers; finds a compatriot in Jeremy Landau, Scott's best friend whom he meets by accident and whose family lives just down the street; learns how to deal with the extreme heat and humidity of a Houston summer; and grows to believe he has found a place of safety in a city that is as wealthy and modern and alive, as Houston. 

But slowly he comes to see that appearances can be deceiving.

Copyright and submission copies

I'm working up a copy of APoS-NWFO to send into the Library of Congress for copyright and catalogue number, and maybe into Publisher's Weekly to see if they will review the book. They turned down Derry, but still gonna try. And I'm using this as the avatar for it. I'm liking it, more and more.

This version is 354 pages long, including the table of contents, title page, acknowledgements and bio, with 339 of it text. That's only 8 more pages of text than Derry. Pretty good. I'm going to hold off on submitting for reviews from BookLife and Kirkus until it's been proofed...maybe. Depends.

I'm asking friends to do the proofing because I cannot afford to pay a professional editor to do it. I was in contact with one who offered me a good deal, but it was still way out of my range. I spent so much trying to get Derry going, I don't know what I can afford for NWFO.

This is why I wanted an official publisher to handle it instead of me. But ain't gonna happen. So what matters is, the story will be out there, and once it's all up and running, I can work out how to focus interest on it. I guess.

Maybe I'll take a class in selling your work.