Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 59

Starting at the beginning

I jumped back to the beginning of APoS-NWFO to redo what I'd already redone 47 times because I finally connected with what's happening at the beginning of this part of the story. Brendan is like that tom cat that escaped the dogs and is now hiding and licking its wounds, giving them a chance to heal. I had it a little bit like that but realized I was being too quick and specific with some of it, ramming too much information in, so shifted it to follow his mindset as he comes out of his catatonia.

He now feels (and tries to understand) everything as it happens. The bomb going off was like yesterday, to him, and he only has fleeting, jarring memories of anything after that. So I'm working at conveying his confusion and uncertainty as he goes along.

Like the first time he sees himself in a mirror and doesn't know who it is:

Staring back was a hollow-eyed stranger on the cusp of starvation, from the way his bones showed, with scruff as a beard. Well, scruff in the places it would grow. His hair had been all but shaved. His skin was pale and scars were on his chest and neck and left shoulder as well as noticeable in his scalp, all well-healed. He reminded me of photos I'd seen of concentration camps in Germany. Liberated men standing around, gaunt and numb and...

And...

And it was me in that mirror?

No, that wasn't right. It couldn't be right. I couldn't look like this in only a few days. It must be I'm still caught in that nightmare.

This fits what I want...what Brendan wants...a lot better. I also removed some of Aunt Mari's comments that caused him even more confusion and focused on her noting he's there because he's seeing a heart specialist. Seems they finally caught on he's got issues with his ticker.

I'm going to use that as the reason no electro-treatments were used on his catatonia, that his doctor felt it better to leave him alone and see how he does. And that it's safer for his heart condition. I've even thrown in that he unconsciously repairs a fan that was in his room, making them think he is coming out of it.

I don't know if that is medically sound, but it works dramatically. And it is 1973, when some treatments for this issue have yet to be worked up. Consider it dramatic license.

Image is everything...

I think in pictures and try to relay them in words. Looking back over the stories I've written, even in college, I would do all I could to build an image in the reader's mind rather than go on and on about what they were thinking. Even in APoS-Derry, there are occasions where I slip into detailed description of something that's happening. (BTW, watch the video without sound. It's got an insipid song laid over it.)

Like when Brendan sees a pack of dogs corner a yellow tom cat in the courtyard of the Rossville Flats, planning to tear it apart. Disgusted, Bren flicks his still lit cigarette down at them, it hits one of the dogs, causing it to yelp, confusing the other dogs, for a moment, and that gives the cat a chance to escape.

That's a movie moment, to me. Difficult to convey in words, even though I try. I know I got a good review about my prose from BookLife, but I don't know how successful it's been in instances like that.

But I've always been that way. Like with a short story I wrote in graduate school about a couple having a fight en route to a political function. I describe the man's breath as so deep and sharp, he's fogging the car's windshield faster than the defroster could stop it. It's raining, and his wife is quietly hissing her words while focusing on the raindrops as they captured the white of approaching headlights and red of brake lights, in front of them. They remind her of blood, and it comes out one of their sons shot himself and their argument is over who's to blame.

She finally gets out of the car and he drives on, and she watches his tail lights seem to shatter when reflected in the downpour. Then she walks home, soaked.

I was trying for an emotional connection, but the professor said I should have delved into each character's mind instead of what they were seeing. Yet, here I am 40 years later, still doing it. I do reveal more of Brendan's inner turmoil in that moment, but is it enough? I don't know.

I just hope I'm getting the meaning of the story across.

Still snowing...

This is the kind of day...albeit, until now it would have been during a long steady rain in San Antonio or Houston, where I would make myself pots of tea, have cookies or pastries, and curl up in a comfy chair under a lamp to read.  I've been drawn to that all day, so no writing done. I'm wimping out and just discussing another writer.

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Anne Brontë,  Born OTD 1820 in Haworth, Yorkshire,  Author and the youngest of the Brontë children.

Her second novel and the most shocking of the collective Brontë novels, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published under her nom-de-plume, Acton Bell, and sold out in six weeks. 
Anne’s depiction of alcoholism, debauchery and what May Sinclair, a member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League, described in 1913 as “the slamming of Helen Huntingdon's bedroom door against her husband” reverberated throughout Victorian England. It is considered one of the first feminist novels.
Anne lived for most of her life with her family apart from attending boarding school for two years when she was 16, and a six year spell as a governess in her early twenties. Her mother, Maria, had died when she was barely a year old and in Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte Brontë, their father remembered her as precocious.
When Anne was four, he had asked her what a child most wanted. She said, “Age and experience."
The Brontë sisters like many women writers at the time published their poems and novels under male pen names so that their work might be taken seriously in the male-dominated literary world of the 19th century: they were Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
Anne’s first novel, Agnes Grey, was published in 1847 under the pen name Acton Bell. It was based on her own experiences as a governess. Agnes Grey wants “to go out into the world; to act for myself; to exercise my unused faculties; to try my own unknown powers” but has to deal with instances of abuse of women and governesses, oppression and isolation. 
Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, published in 1848 went further. The book describes how the protagonist Helen Huntingdon left her husband to protect her son and support them both by painting. This flew in the face of all social conventions and English law.
Until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, a married woman was not legally a person in her own right; she was just an extension of her husband. She could not own property, sue for divorce or have legal custody of her own children. Mr Huntingdon had the legal right to force her to return, to have her charged with kidnapping for taking her own son, and with theft for supporting herself on her own money since all of her income legally belonged to him.
“Sick of mankind and their disgusting ways," scribbled Anne Brontë in pencil at the back of her Prayer Book.
Anne met with fierce criticism for her work despite its huge popularity. Even her sister Charlotte said the portrayal of Mr Huntingdon was overly graphic and disturbing. Anne merely remarked mildly that she "wished to tell the truth" and stuck to her guns. After Anne's death at the age of 29 of tuberculosis, Charlotte prevented further publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, writing: “It hardly appears to me desirable to preserve. The choice of subject in that work is a mistake, it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring inexperienced writer.”
The last word to goes to Anne: “When we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light is doubtless the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? O Reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts – this whispering 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.”-------I got this off an anti-trans site called Attagirl, on Xitter. I like what they wrote about her, even though I despise what they stand for. I'm not a plagiarist.

Insanity...

Tried to upload this but not having much effect. But this is today's weather...all day.
I'm getting old. Driving down and back between Buffalo and Tarrytown wore me out. The job, itself, was fairly easy. 117 volumes, in the end, and some of them really lovely. I had all the materials I needed, just. Left a little paper and a couple of unbuilt boxes with the client, at his request, so only brought back a roll of bubble wrap.

I took toll roads all the way there and back instead of hopping off at Syracuse, using the 390 and 17/86, and going through Binghamton. It's a bit longer and increases the toll cost, but it felt better, to me. The drive back was slow due to the weather that had been in Buffalo on Sunday finally making itself known along the Hudson Valley. And I mean all the way back up the 87 onto the 90 and nearly to Syracuse. Saw 2 jack-knifed rigs in the Southbound lanes of the 87, with traffic backed up for miles, so didn't hit faster than 50 all the way to Utica.

I'd thought I might break the drive up and do half of it today, but something told me just go. So I did. Left Tarrytown about 1:15 and got in about 9:30. And my video shows it was a good idea. Transferred everything from the SUV to my car, in the parking lot, and got home about 10:30.

The only truly bad point about this trip is, I lost my keys—apartment and office. I parked the SUV behind behind my car in long-term parking, dug my keys out of my backpack and put them on the dashboard. Passenger side. I’d brought my shovel on the trip, just in case, so dug my car out of the snow then went to get my keys and they weren’t on there.

I looked everywhere – in the SUV, in my bags, in the snow around the SUV, nothing. And no one had come around, at all. I was tired and cold and figured they’d fallen into one of the open bags I had on the passenger floor and I was just not seeing them in the mess. So I used a spare key I keep in my wallet to open the car up. I also stashed a set of house keys in my car, in case I ever lock myself out. For once my paranoia about myself paid off.

I was able to shift everything over to the trunk and turn the SUV in. After I looked through it, again. And still didn’t see my keys. I took the shuttle back to my car and looked around, again, but no keys. So drove home and dumped out everything...

And still no keys! Checked my trunk, today. No keys. I have no idea where they went. I drove back to the parking spot in Long-term (and yes, it was just like you see in my little video, all the way) but it was too windy and snowy for me to find anything.

I’m hoping I just missed them in that SUV. Avis had already rented it out, till Sunday, so we’re checking it in more detail when it returns. Which put me in a foul mood, the rest of today.

Nothing can be easy, can it?

I'm weird...

Brendan's arguing with me, again, and that makes me happy. Which is crazy, but...it also means he's as focused on making NWFO as solid as Derry is. And just to be an asshole, he's given me a deadline for publishing volume two of APoS -- my birthday. July 31st. Which means I'll have a whole 5.5 months to get it in order before starting the process of uploading it and getting proof copies. Shit.

I also need it to get edited. So that's even less time. But I don't want to make the same mistake as with Derry and send it out then find I needed to make more changes to make it better and on and on. But it's going to get done, come hell or high water, and I'll worry about A Place of Safety-Home Not Home after I'm done.

That part needs a lot of work so I can't see it getting done this year. I'll try...but it's only 60% of the way there while NWFO is more like 85%.

This hotel's nice, if a bit quirky. It's atop a small hill so has a driveway that snakes back and forth to get you up to the entrance. Got a refrigerator but no microwave. No dresser drawers, either. Still it's warm and fairly quiet, so long as I leave the heater off. That thing is rattling like crazy.

I took a drive by the location, just to get an idea of what I'm faced with. It's a new high-rise condo, all glass and angles, and it had several fire trucks out front, emergency lights going. Parking is a block away, and the boxes aren't getting picked up till after noon on Tuesday, so I'm breaking up the drive home, as well. Won't get in till Wednesday evening.

If I'm lucky. Travel advisory is still up on the 90.

Another road trip

Currently in New Baltimore, NY at a BW just off the 87. Got it on points, and happily so. Free breakfast till 10am and checkout at eleven. Looking forward to it.

It's good I left for this job, today, because Buffalo is now under a travel ban, probably through Sunday. It was kind of a rushed exit, on my part, since snow and wind were slamming me as I loaded the SUV. Took me 6 hours to get this far; still have another 2 hours to my hotel in Tarrytown, but I had begun to zone so this was a good stopping point.

Part of what made this trip so tiring was I didn't speed. The limit is 65 but usually I go 72, which doesn't seen like a big difference but, psychologically, it is. Albany is 290 miles from Buffalo and normally a four hour drive, for me. But the only time I usually go through there is when I'm en route to Hartford, New Haven or Boston.

Heading for NYC and area, I usually turn down the 81 at Syracuse, swing through Binghamton and Scranton to the 380 and finally the 80 into the city. It's shorter and faster. But this trip is into an area I haven't been through, before, so it just seemed to take forever.

I had a weird little time/space/continuum happen about an hour after I hit the road. I looked at my phone and it said the time was 11:54. I drove and drove then looked at my phone expecting it to be half an hour later...and it was only 5 minutes. The next time I looked, only another 5 minutes had passed. THEN...the next time I looked at the clock, it was half an hour later, but seemed like no time had passed.

Maybe it was because I didn't get ahead of the storm till after Rochester, which is usually an hour's drive but this time seemed like an hour and forty-five minutes.

Doesn't matter. I got work done on chapter one of APoS-NWFO, tonight, expanding upon Brendan's confusion as re returns to consciousness. I feel good.

Busy, busy...

The weather is looking too rough for Sunday so I'm heading out, tomorrow, and stopping south of Albany. Keeping to the toll roads all the way. They tend to be better cared for in bad weather. This way I don't need to rush, and I'll have food and drinks with me, just in case, as well as a blanket. May take my shovel, as well.

So today was spent prepping for everything to be a day earlier. Plotting out the fact that the job doubled in size. Getting additional packing materials. Refilling meds and having blood drawn. Groceries. Washing. Packing. The full deal.

I'm going back to the beginning on APoS-NWFO to zero in on issues that have come to light. Finally. I was having trouble with it...but I think I know why and hope to sort through it on the drive. One deal is making the flashbacks more centered on what Brendan's going through, at the moment. and cutting out the flashbacks I was using to fill in parts of the story.

I'm halfway wondering if I should drop the bit where he's been brought over under a fake name...but I'm getting resistance on that from Brendan. He likes the dislocation and dissociation it gives his character. He says in Derry I'll be Brendan Kinsella till I die, and now he's not. And while he feels the freedom it brings to him...he also resents it and fights to keep himself who he always was.

That's also missing from the story.

A Place of Safety-book two

The opening for New World For Old...

Chapter heading -- Woken Dreams

A thick line of swirling black crossed my eyes.Slowly....Slowly....Slowly drifting into focus.Silent. Cutting through the middle of this horrible, horrible white, white evil that was smothering me. Surrounding me. Hot and vile. Wrapping me in a world from which I could not move.Slowly.Slowly.Slowly the dark line expanded.Details emerged.My focus sharpened.Finally revealed to be the wooden sill to a pair of narrow windows. Both open. Neatly positioned before me. Light screens across them. The black line was paint. Weather-beaten. Dried. Bleached by the sun. Curled into little shreds. Creviced lines in the wood, gray and deep and dark. What used to be the grain. Bits picked away by wet and wind, making the color inconsistent in tone. Some fresher-looking; the rest dirty.Maybe helped along by someone’s careless pulling at the splinters?Maybe it was me did that?The possibility nudged my brain then softly wandered away. Not that it mattered. The wood was so lovely in its weaving grooves and interlocked patterns and the care taken in placing each line exactly right next to its brother, I felt as if I were viewing the work of an artist at his peak.The flow of it poured into my soul. A flow emphasized by a steady line of ants scurrying back and forth along a half-straight section to swirl over what was left of...of...a half-eaten sandwich? What vaguely looked like some sort of meat salad on light bread? Part of a crust next to it, neatly bitten into.Had it been mine?Possibly. I noticed there was a taste in my mouth that was rather fishy. Salmon? Tuna? All I could say for certain was, it was not haddock.I watched those swarming creatures continue their quick dismantling of it, making it live and breathe as they worked. It was on a dish. With crisps. Greedy little buggers wanted those, as well, dancing over and under and around them, making them move a bit as if a living creature trying to escape their casual destruction. I half supposed were my hearing sharper I could hear the screams of the crips as they were torn apart and...Someone whispered a chuckle.Was that me?Must have been. No one else was about.The plate was set by the center post between those two windows, and in my hand was a short bottle of Coke. Sweaty and half gone. Barely chilled. In my other hand, half a crust from a portion of that sandwich and...The tea and cakes I shared with Joanna were so gentle and tart and real, and she loved them as much as me and...and...the whiteness surrounded us and...Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.Lightning tore into my heart and I coughed and coughed.Eyes closed.Eyes closed!Breathe.Deep.Long.Slow.Long...Slow...Long and slow.Until the coughing ends.The moment passes.My heart slows its screaming.Then I can open my eyes, again.Then I can see the window sill, again.See the black and gray is still there.See the ants still swirl and race back and forth.See the sandwich and crisps are now just a living breathing mass of the busy little beasts.I coughed.Drew in a deep breath.Felt so weary.Felt the need to keep still and let my heart continue to slow its sudden racing.Let myself think of now.Right now.And of nothing things.Like being seated on a chair. Old. Wooden. With arms. Dowels in the back that ran from the seat to a curved banner. I let the fingers of my right hand explore it. Smooth. Polished. Creaking when I moved but solid enough to be my anchor. I needed it. Needed something to brace myself against.The windows were narrow and tall, the lower panes raised halfway to let in a breeze. Looking outside and I almost felt as if I was floating above the ground until I saw...No, I noticed...No, realized...I was actually on the second floor of a house, looking down at a yard that was nothing like what you would find in Derry.And which could have used some tending.Half was covered in red bricks set into the earth, with grass forcing its way between them in ragged strands. A large rectangular swimming pool held the other half, more bricks and mortar encompassing it. Clumps of leaves and twigs had scattered about. At the far end was a large hutch built of similar bricks, with French doors under a narrow porch and a slanted roof made of tin.This was curious. I'd never seen a hutch like that in Derry, before. Brick, yes. Roof, yes. But not with doors that were so large and fragile. Was this some of the new construction up Creggan? Pennyburn, maybe? Strand Road?Except...There was nothing new about it. Thick strands of ivy twisted up its corners and across the top of that porch, and also enmeshed a wire fence that ran from its back corner before mingling with deep green vines of thick, drooping, leaves and fragrant yellow and white flowers. Those vines also wandered up one of two trees that flanked the little house. Trees that offered lovely deep cool shade. A bunched-up strip of colorful cloth was strung between one of them and a post of the porch. An old Schwinn bicycle, rusted, was propped up against the other...and...Tommy rode up on a Schwinn, Shane on his Huffy and Danny greeted them and they threw stones at the Paras off William Street and the bastards started shooting and...and...Cough.Deep breaths.Let my heart stop its racing.Let the quiet and dark and stillness of that corner whisper through me. Let it settle me and bring peace and easiness. Keep me away from thinking.From feeling...Feeling what? All I knew for certain was this terrifying numbness behind my heart. And that I had to lean against the frame of the window to hold myself up.Down below, that building was quiet, dark and still. Almost like a hideaway. Like the hutch Danny and I made over for Tur and Mairead, where you could live apart from the madness and never have to think ever again...ever...No, Brendan, no, don't allow the memories in.Don't think, don't think, just look.To let memories in would only jolt and shatter you into fear or grief in the space of a second before they withdrew to their corners. To wait for the next time it was called forth to wreak havoc and damage. Each time leaving you torn to bits and lost in weariness.Fight them.Fight them.

Stephen King video on writing...

 I can't handle life, right now, so here's this...

Something to take note of, not once does he address his drug use and drinking during the time of his main creativity. It's been said the best films and books of the early 70s came out of a coke-induced haze. Maybe I should snort a couple lines...

Down, down, down...

Got my stitches out. The scar starts at that little bump and goes straight down. Can barely see where they cut into me, half because I really need to shave. I've got a crap beard that is as patchy as a mange-ridden cat's pelt but harder to see.

Still it's healing good. The NP said all I need to do is put a little Vaseline on it to protect it, now. The face is from being on this earth a whole 71 years. Vaseline won't help that.

Blew off the enchiladas and had slices of pizza, afterwards. Don't know why; just...did. Then I got to the shop and turned over my car, and as I waited I dealt with some irritating aspects of the upcoming job. Like emails responding to my questions that still don't provide definitive answers to them. At least I got photos and what I think is a complete list. 71 titles.

Turns out my car is getting old and will need about $1200 in repairs. Brake linings, new tires, shock absorbers, thermostat housing. All of which are correct; I've had those tires for years, and the last time I had the brakes handled was...when I lived in San Antonio with my mother? Damn, not sure, but it has been a long, long time. The rest are original equipment, so finally wearing out after 26 years.

My little Civic's been a damn good car, and I've done my best to take care of it. I can't afford a new one, especially since this bullshit will kick me even deeper into debt. I guess my hopes of paying it down were silly. I currently owe more than I make in a year from SSI and Caladex.

I was getting it down until Covid hit and I went onto unemployment. I've tried to keep it from spiraling up, and did manage to pay my Visa off as well as all back taxes, but it's exploded again. Mainly because I was sending money to my brother to keep him off the street. He's about to get early SSI so that will remove that expense.

I'm not sorry I helped him, but I'll never get out of debt. I guess all I can hope to do is maintain till I die. I need to keep my credit good; it comes in handy when dealing with the needs of APoS and other books, in publishing.

And when going on jobs. Can't book a flight, rent a car or get a hotel room without a Visa or Mastercard; many places will not accept debit cards, anymore. Too many issues. Something of a trap.

Too bad my books don't make a lot of money...but I've never been able to write like Stephen King. I am what I am.