Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 54

Confrontation-part 1

This is part of what I came up with during the confrontation between Brendan and his Uncle Sean. He vanished from the house a year ago after being beaten so severely, his heart almost gave out. It's now July 4th weekend, 1976, and his sister, Mairead, is down from Toronto with Tur and her kids. He was talked into staying the night to be with them all...and now everyone's asleep...except for him. He thought.

-----

The stairs creaked, jolting me. I wasn't asleep but only in that near state close to it. I looked at the stairs to see-- 

Uncle Sean coming down. 

I bolted to my feet to face him. The kitchen light was behind him and the moon barely shone through the bay window, so while he could see me, well enough, I could make out little more than the shape of him in the shadows about us. 

"You ain't told us where you been," he growled. 

I shrugged. 

"Stayin' with that queer friend of yours?" 

"I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue about Rett. He's been more decent to me than you could even think of being." 

"After all I done for you?" 

"What you've done for me still shows! Care for a look?" 

"Keep your voice down!" He then gave a long sigh. "You really think I had somethin' to do with it?" 

So Aunt Mari had told him of my suspicions. Of course, there are no secrets between her and her husband, but I still felt a sting of betrayal. 

"I think you were there," I said, "and stopped it when I collapsed. Do you want special thanks for saving my life, after putting it in jeopardy?" 

He sat on the arm of the couch. A bit more of the kitchen light shone past while still sheltering him from my view."When you left, I was glad," he finally said, his voice cool and matter-of-fact. "My wife wasn't, but ain't much to be done about it. Police report? Missin' persons?" He snorted a laugh. "She just had to let it go. 

"Till I got a call from the local FBI office. Lookin' for a kid named Brendan Kinsella. Knew I had an Irish boy stayin' with me. Had me come in. To talk. I told 'em I didn't know where that Brendan was, but I'm pretty damn sure they didn't believe me. Showed up at the house a couple weeks later, wantin' to talk with this Brennan McGabbhinn. A British spook was with 'em. Still didn't believe me when I told 'em you'd gone home." 

"Home?" 

"Back to Ireland. Dunno why. They said they'd check into it. Get back to me." 

It seemed he wanted me to say something more, but I only glared at him. I felt no need for this conversation. 

He finally nodded. "Sure enough, they come back a couple months later. No record of a Brennan McGabbhinn leavin' the country. Askin' if this might've been an Irish boy who'd worked at The Colonel's. I told 'em it was part of his therapy; get him used to dealin' with people, again." 

That actually made me laugh. 

He nodded. "Again, they didn't believe me. It's lucky I'm the only one saw 'em. Your aunt don't know 'bout it." 

"You don't give her much credit, do you?" 

He stiffened with self-righteousness, obvious even in the dimness of the room, and his voice grew cold and hard. "Y'know, Trujillo's got raided by immigration. Two of the guys deported." 

That jolted me. "Which two?" 

"You really care?" I said nothing. He finally continued with, "Hugo and Tomas. Rene thinks you turned them in." 

"He's a fucking idiot. Anyone who knows me knows I'd never do that." 

"Yeah, I know. They were really lookin' for you. Those two were just luck o' the draw. Good thing is, that helped me work out who was behind all that shit." 

"A cop?" I asked, oh, so sweetly. "One who brought me here in his station wagon?" 

He almost smiled as he nodded. "Stupid Bastard shot himself in the foot, with this stunt. Hurt the whole goddamn department. I used to give a nice donation to 'em. Pension fund. Help out wounded officers. Orphans and widows. All that shit. Thought it could help me. Instead, he set the ABC breathin' down my neck, makin' sure everything in my bars is a hundred percent perfect. Cost me shitloads of money. So...the last time they come lookin' for a donation, I told 'em why they ain't gettin' another." 

Again, it's like he wanted me to speak and was irritated by my silence. 

"Told Rene, too. Dunno what all happened, but he quit and moved back to New Orleans, soon after. As for that daughter of his--" 

"Evangelyne." 

He eyed me. "She's off to Washington. State Department, Jeremy said, real happy for her. He thought we were hidin' you; thought I'd pass it onto you. I didn't know she knew him, too." 

"Would it have mattered? You achieved your goal." 

"I didn't want anybody hurt." 

I had to fight a laugh. 

He still noticed and took in a deep breath, saying, "All right, all right. You, a little. Put you in your place. Just didn't expect as much as they did." 

I could barely keep my voice level when I spit, "What'd you do, barter with them? Pay them? Lay down guidelines? You ask for some of your money back after seeing the damage they did me?" 

He rose and growled, "Keep your voice down!" 

"I didn't ask you to come talk to me." 

"Goddammit, Bren, I gotta live and work in this town. It took a lot for me to let you come here, 'cause it broke all kinds of laws, but--" 

"Did I ask you to?" 

"Your mother did, you ungrateful little shit. She got hold of Mairead, who called my wife and we agreed to get you out of the country; to help hide you." 

"Hide me?!" 

"Not just from the army! There's people on your own side pissed as hell. Believe you me, if we'd left you with them, you'd be six feet under. We kept you alive and cared for you, and then to have you trash everything and endanger us? Threaten my family's livelihood? It was worse than ungrateful. It was destructive." 

"You told me none of this," I growled. "How was I supposed to know--?" 

"You got told more'n you should've. Thanks to my wife. You had more'n enough information to understand!" 

"No, no, no, no, no, you don't put this back on me. Giving me half-truths and semi-lies. Telling me nothing I could hold onto in order to make plans." 

"What plans did you need to make? You weren't supposed to be here; you weren't even well. Still aren't." 

"As your friends proved." And I fucking coughed.

Breakthrough, maybe...

Chapter 28 of NWFO is the one kicking me in the head. I've just rewritten it, twice, to both simplify and deepen the reasoning for Brendan to return to live in Aunt Mari's home. There are legal issues that need to be cleared up, and Uncle Sean wants Brendan there to be interviewed by the Feds to settle them. But not as himself.

He was brought over under the name Brennan McGabbhinn as a charity case in need of specialized medical treatment. False papers and all. British Intelligence wants to speak to Brendan about the bombing and thinks he's being hidden in Houston (which he is) but they've been told they're wrong. 

So they've sent people to Uncle Sean twice to see about talking to Brennan, in the last year. Only he's been secretly living elsewhere. This has also caused issues with Immigration, and a couple of guys Brendan worked with were undocumented, caught, and deported. The IRS is also digging into Uncle Sean's business, and the Texas ABC is questioning giving him another liquor license, something he's never had trouble with before.

So, Brendan has to agree to help clear up the mess by convincing them he's Brennan, or Uncle Sean will let the Protestant UDA know his brother, Rhuari, is living and working in Belfast...and that Brendan was connected to the bombing that killed a UDA leader. That would be like signing the boy's death warrant.

Brendan and his uncle have a cold, quiet, vicious argument over this in the middle of the night on the Fourth of July Weekend, 1976. But if Brendan tells anyone, Uncle Sean will deny ever threatening anything and use his recent illness to back him up.

I'm still not 100% on it, but this gets me over the hump.

I'm going nuts, again...

I'm still lost regarding this moment in NWFO. I get so close to thinking I know a way around this fucking brick wall...and then swoosh, change of direction. And this starling swarm is probably the purest reflection of my mental process that's possible, right now.

I know it's writer's block and I've tried a number of ways to break through, but all it's gotten me, so far, is a headache. And nails chewed down to nothing, along with cuticles. And too damn much crap eaten. Tonight, I was so mad about the whole process, I wolfed down two oversized cinnamon rolls and now want a tumbler of milk to chase them.

I'm not ready to let go of this book, yet, and work on something else. Maybe after the weekend. But right now, I want to maintain a clear line of communication with it and hope that something pops up before I surrender to my other main method of breaking writer's block -- writing another story, altogether.

I hesitate on that because then I lose focus and the main line of the book and would have to rebuild it. But maybe that's what's needed.

Circling...

I may be honing in on a possible solution to my dilemma with New World For Old. There's a moment during Brendan's confrontation with his uncle that the man mentions the FBI and someone from the British service (unnamed) came looking for him. They suspect Brennan is really him and have dropped by, twice, asking to talk with him. I'm thinking Uncle Sean wants Brendan back in case those guys return so he can settle everything.

He's got a lawyer with connections in both Austin and Washington, DC. Jeremy's uncle. And Jeremy's father is an oncologist at a place like MD Anderson and they're neighbors and friends of the family. Plus Bren and Jeremy get along well. So they might help.

That would feed into volume three, when he's found out and arrested. But it still seems a bit...I dunno...tenuous. Weak. I want something really strong and maybe even surprising. Not sure what. Right now, it's still on the back burner as a possibility. I know better than to rush things.

But I do hate it when crap like this happens, because I never know how long it will take for me to work the problem out. Normally it's not too bad. A couple days. But there have been occasions where resettling the story in my head has taken weeks...months, even. I am at the point where I trust the process, even if I do get impatient with it. I know it will come out better.

But will it mess up the rest of the story in any way? No telling.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit...

I've slammed into a brick wall. Brendan's Uncle Sean is forcing him into returning to live in the pool house behind their home--and suddenly I can't figure out why. There was some bullshit about being able to keep an eye on him and get papers together to make him legal in the US and the republic of Ireland and keep an eye on him...but why does he need to be there for that to work?

He still has his motorbike so can run around. He'd be working back at the bar he was banned from. The Feds have come looking for him at his Aunt's home, so if he's there when they come, again, it could all explode. He's already had a fight with his uncle over threats to send him back to the North to be killed. Why would this be necessary?

I know why he agrees to it; Uncle Sean threatens to target Rhuari for the UDA by letting them know his brother may have helped in that bombing. That is really harsh and I need a good reason for him to be that demanding. He's involved with NORAID and collects donations at his bars for them. If he helps Protestants kill a Catholic, that would make him a pariah. Which Brendan knows. So there has to be a good reason for this...and I'm lost.

It can't just be to make his aunt happy. It can't just happen because it needs to happen for the story to continue. And I can't keep ignoring how I've all but ignored this part of the story and just let it remain as is. Like a rickety bridge. I need a reason.

What's funny is, even Brendan is blank as to why.

Shit.

BritBox v. Acorn

I subscribe to both BritBox and Acorn, online, to watch British murder mysteries. Cozy little mysteries, like Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, Misomer Murders, Agatha Raisin, My Life is Murder and even Vera (now that Joe is back). Unfortunately, the two are not alike in ability.

BritBox runs fine with good images and flash, almost like Netflix. Acorn has trouble with its streaming. Shows freeze then start up, again, and the image quality doesn't seem to be as good. But they are the only ones who have a full selection of the Midsomer Murders series and some of the Christies. So I either tolerate it or do without.

It's not like I need them. I've got a couple hundred DVDs I have yet to view, mainly of films I've only seen on TV in the past. It Happened One Night. Roman Holiday. Soylent Green. Laura. I just don't want to bother with connecting my DVD player to my laptop. I don't have a TV.

I only watch shows to wind down from writing. I got another chapter done for APoS-NWFO. Brendan sneaking away from his aunt's house to be off to himself. Like he's escaping a prison. He stays in Houston but cuts off contact with his entire family...except his younger brother, Rhuari. But even that is second hand. He's still keeping a low-profile.

There was a part in volume one where Brendan saw a pack of dogs corner a cat and threaten to tear it apart, but the cat wound up spinning into a furious ball of fangs and claws and got away. Went someplace to tend to its injuries. That's what Brendan's doing after being attacked over dating a Cajun girl. He'll be gone for a year before learning his sister, Mairead, has come down from Toronto with her husband and kids. Then he gets trapped into returning to live with his aunt and uncle, again, as they straighten out his existence.

I don't know if that works...so we'll see what happens, next.

LA Times Festival of Books

Okay...A Place of Safety-Derry is going to be exhibited at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books , April 20-21. I don't have a booth number, yet, but it'll be with The Reading Glass Books . So that makes two major book festivals APoS-Derry is in, so far. I'm hoping this will get it plenty of notice.

I also worked up an online ad to use in a couple of places -- Twitter, Facebook and such. I don't seem able to format this properly for Instagram; too much gets cut off. It's a simple ad, but will do for the moment. Once I'm done with New World For Old, I'll see about working up something more.

I'm through the rewrite to page 480 out of 635, so I'm on the downhill slide. Brendan's been attacked for dating a Cajun girl and all hell has broken loose because he thinks his uncle was behind it. He's finally seeing that the intolerance in Houston is just as severe as it was in Derry, and is torn up about it. But it leads him to a respite, of sorts.

I have to keep reminding myself that it's still 1975 when this happens. He was brought over in October 1972 but wasn't cognizant till April 1973, so it's only been two years that he's been healing and having to deal with Texas' way of handling things. Just when he thinks he's back on top of his life, something knocks him off center.

Sort of like how life does, in general, doesn't it?

Development?

Seems I like to have one character who's an artist in my stories. Not all of them, but several. And I have one in APoS-NWFO. Everett does commercial art but wants to do better works, and it seems Brendan has become his muse. He does an oil portrait of him, not long after meeting him, and presents it on his 18th birthday. But it turns out he doesn't think it's any good while Aunt Mari and the B-girls love it and want him to do one of their family.

This parallels me, to an extent. For years until I started college I wanted to be a fine artist. Portraits. Faces. I loved doing them of guys, almost always. Got a couple of commissions, even, though I worked in acrylics instead of oils. I like those as well as colored pencils. But I had zero self-confidence.

Even when I shifted to film at Trinity University, the class I most enjoyed was a life drawing class where I did works off real models. But I got drawn more and more into the demands of film and sort of lost my way. It seems I'm using my writing to reimagine that part of my history.

I develop very slowly. Learn at a snail's pace. Always have. I was always standoffish and weird to people, something I've let become part of Brendan. Losing interest quickly. Having to fight with myself to finish scripts or books unless they caught me in som deeper way. Looking back, I wonder if I might have been diagnosed as Autistic or having ADHD or something like that.

Maybe that's why I started writing MM Erotica with a vicious bent. To keep up my interest in the story I'm working on. I dunno. Right now I'm just amazed I'm this close to finally finishing A Place of Safety, which it straight and regular fiction. Still, having an artist in this part of the book is helping me keep going. Having a gay man infatuated with a young man who's not interested in him that way keeps me interested.

It's weird, but as noted...I always have been.

2/3 done with this rewrite

So far, I've trimmed just over 1000 words from A Place of Safety-New World For Old. Brendan's being a bit of a rebellious teenager due to his uncle's anger over some of the things he's done. They have a massive argument and Brendan reveals he's a lot stronger than others think. He can't do much, just now, because he's still unsure as to what his situation is in the US, but he won't be bullied.

What's more, he's moved out of his shell and made friends with people he normally would never have known. Jeremy, a Jewish lad who's a year older and understands what Brendan's been through in Derry because he was caught in fighting during the Yom Kippur War. Everett, a gay man who's ten years older and sees Brendan's situation with a clear eye. Hugo, who's easy going and opens Brendan up to the freedom of riding a motorcycle. Evangelyne, a Creole lass learning Russian so she can join the State Department, who takes Brendan to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Uncle Sean disapproves of all of them. Which makes Brendan even more determined to keep them as friends.

This is a big deal for him. His buddies in Derry--Colm, Danny, Paidrig and wee Eammon--were almost foisted upon Brendan by his brother, Eamonn, as a way to get him out of the house. Their friendship developed over years...until Colm and Danny parked a car bomb in front of Joanna's father's shop. That not only nearly killed him, it shattered his trust, and he still carries anger over it, and pain.

So the fact he's willing to let these Americans get close to him is a big deal. I think. I may need to do a bit more with that, but it's coming along. Maybe I'll only need 26 more drafts to make it readable.

I got a copy of the Publishers Weekly that will be handed out at the London Book Fair , at the Reading Glass Books stand #2A114, and on page 78 APoS-Derry is posted as a Must Read. Makes me feel really good. Still waiting on the Kirkus Review and various other reviews promised. Hoping they're as good as the BookLife one.

Segue...

Gonna do a little tooting of my own horn, here. I found that I got another 5-star review on one of my MM books -- The Beast in the Nothing Room .

Well, that was seriously dark, twisted and futuristic. Finn is a cop in England who is on his way for a date when he gets called to check out some strange lights. He is then abducted and taken to the “nothing room”, where is raped. He then embarks on a journey to figure out what is going on as he finds several more victims, several that wind up dead exactly 24 hours later. There is a lot of rape and brutality in this book but it is so good. It is convulsed in the best way. The mystery that surrounds these abductions and rapes? Man it is very creative and cruel and wonderful. The writing is phenomenal and just a wonderfully dark, taboo, sci-fi read.
This is the fourth 5-star review it's gotten on Smashwords, with two 3-star reviews. On Goodreads , it's got a rating average of 4-stars, and on Amazon the written reviews are really great.
The concept of this book is...well, I don't know where it came from. But this is the tag line:
How can you stop a serial killer who kills no one and doesn't even exist?
This was a story that came together almost in order, like it was already written in my head and I was just spitting it out. One part of the inspiration was Nick Hendrix, on Midsomer Murders.
I don't know why, but this is the image that got me started on building Finn. Then a really bad murder mystery called In The Dark gave me another character, Rob (personified by an actor named Ben Batt). And I just started writing. 
There was still a lot of back and forth on what's happening, not to mention how and why, but it danced in my head in so many ways and with a lot less angst than usual.
I did make one mistake in not developing one relationship quite well enough, so I've worked to make sure that doesn't happen, again. But overall, it's my most inventive book. I don't know of anything else like it.
I'd love to see it made into a movie...but the sexual aspect probably kills that. A MM Sci-Fi/Horror film with male rape as an important aspect of it? Hell, it'd be hard to pull off even as MF.
Still...I can look at this and say, "I wrote that." And be proud.